CeBIT 2008: Day zero

Cebit 2008 - Day Zero

The day zero of any expo has its own unique atmosphere. At that time, expo stands' assembly comes to completion, the demo systems undergo their final tuning, with press releases circulated and distributed, and final training of the staff going on. If we use a single word to describe the atmosphere, we would say it is a chaos!

In some parts, work is going on at full sway,

in other parts the assembly is already over, and company representatives are testing their demo systems. The most popular way is either playing games or watching movies.

Surprisingly, but in some places there is even no sign of an expo stand. Anyway, we won't be surprised if they are erected overnight.

Without any special preferences or plans we ran through half a hall and took pictures of what was unattended. For instance, at the expo stand of CoolerMaster we found a few rather amusing housings

One housing is styled as a Mercedes-McLaren SLR super car with a three-beam star on the front panel (at the same time, it is an air-suction hole)

and something that looks like nozzles of an exhaust system (meant to expel warmed air).

At the stand of abit, we found a lot of top-end boards for the Intel platform based on X48 and P45 chipsets

The company also presented a couple of new ready-made systems:

ASRock pleased us with a demo system with three NVIDIA video cards merged into a 3-Way SLI.

Evidently, this stand will be used for comparisons of SLI versus 3-Way SLI (the latter is referred to as SLI3X, as ASRock put it).

The expo stand of Walton Chaintech was not yet finished, and the Chinese workers were rushing around it on bicycles:

On our way, we came across the expo stand of Chicony.

The company, popular for its keyboards, is going to demonstrate various digicams and photo cameras, as well as UMPC.

DFI, like abit, is still alive and presented a number of most recent motherboards.

The LanParty series acquired the new board P45-T3R based on the P45 chipset.

The expo stand of Elitegroup was almost ready for opening.

We noticed a X38-based motherboard in the already "forgotten" BTX form factor.

Nearby, we saw regular motherboards, in particular, X48T-A based on X48.

The expo stand of Foxconn was still in the process of assembly, with a huge cryogenic plant taking the central place.

And that is not a decoration but a fully working system:

In a few minutes, a couple of overclockers started putting it into operation:

Having got the chance, we recorded a short video clip foxconn-over-process.avi (~7.8 MB).

Foxconn displayed motherboards aimed at PC enthusiasts. In particular, that is BlackOps based on Intel X48.

Note the water-block on the north bridge. On the water-block, there are mounting holes to fit air cooling.

Also, at Foxconn's stand we noticed a concept system in a huge housing styled as popular transformers.

The housing has a transparent door with a magnifying lens on. Really unusual!

Apart from the "overclocker's joys", Foxconn presented a "green" series of motherboards with power-saving technologies as the main focus. That was visually demonstrated on this system:

We also found a corner where they presented digicams and photo cameras. However, Foxconn is not yet planning their production under own trademark but prefers OEM orders (see the expo stand of Chicony).

The expo stand of Galaxy was almost empty,

and that the stand of GeCube, they were already cleaning dust from video cards.

At Gigabyte's expo stand, they were doing the same, and the stand was the only one fenced with tape.

That did not stop us, and we took a picture of quite interesting system for fluid cooling of Cool Rain memory modules.

A couple more of interesting coolers: G-Power 2 (already available for purchase), and an entirely new nameless model.

Below, there was presented a line of Gigabyte PSUs.

Among the other amusing things, we noticed a practicing DJ,

the expo stand of Matrox with its TrippleHead2Go system (I wonder what chips they use to manufacture video cards, if they do produce them)

There is a lot of other petty stuff. These are varied keyboards, mice, and mats.

At the expo stand of Patriot, we saw DDR2 memory whose maximum frequency is 800 MHz. Its operating voltage is 2.3V, and to cope with the increased heat emission they use radiators like those on Corsair Dominator modules.

That is normal, because the latency timings are really demanding: 3-4-3-8.

There are other modules offered by Patriot, e.g. DDR3-1333

DDR3-1600:

DDR3-1866:

and DDR3-2000:

Indeed, the attraction of DDR3 is getting increasingly popular, and by the end of the year its attraction should surpass that of DDR2. That is why all the manufacturers of memory presented DDR3 modules of varied makes. For instance, SuperTalent.

Solid-state storage will be as popular. Already now you can make SSD hard disks available in capacities up to 64 GB, and this year manufacturers have presented first models of 128 GB storage devices.

Running by the expo stand of Zalman, we found nothing new except the new housing with a giga-watt PSU.

All the the remaining are the already familiar models of coolers for CPUs, video cards, as well as water-powered cooling systems.

In fact, day zero is attractive in that it allows seeing behind-the-scenes life of the expo. For instance: a group training in a company.

Some companies offer various "templates" at their stands to catch the public attention. These are a couple of trucks whose body transforms into a stand:

There is also some sort of the car made of "papier-mache" with solar batteries:

Well, aren't motorists in for a gloomy future? :) Now, away we rush from the icon of "environmentalists"! Heading towards the stand with the right motor car called Lamborghini:

To be continued...