Part 1

Taiwan is the world's third largest source of computer products and also accounted for no less than 50% of the world's IT products that were sold last year- clearly the industry is buzzing in this part of the world. Whilst economic crisis set in last year in the rest of Asia, Taiwan instead enjoyed an annual growth rate of over 20%. That's the economics out of the way… and in layman's terms, a large proportion of your home/work PC was probably manufactured in Taiwan (motherboard, graphics card, CDROM etc.). The same can be said if you're thinking of buying a new PC this year. Computex traditionally attracts over 10,000 overseas (make that 10,002 with two SE representatives over here) visitors, with a primary focus of catering to overseas volume buyers. It's also a great event to pick up loose ends and tidbits of information regarding Intel (with the Taiwanese motherboard industry being so dominant right now).

Let's start with the 3D Accelerator stuff…

Part 2

The last place we thought we'd find information on NV10, NVIDIA's next generation chip set, was in Taiwan. Sure, we knew that TNT2 chipsets are currently selling like hot cakes but NV10? So here's the scoop- we were told be several sources close to NVIDIA that the NV10 would first and foremost be manufactured on a .18micron layer process (a further die shrink down from .25). Not only will this allow for reduced heat emission but in addition, you can obviously expect higher clock speeds (we're unsure as to what sort of memory speeds will be available when the part ships). We'll try and confirm this by Friday when we are scheduled to meet with a Senior VP of the TSMC FAB, which both NVIDIA and 3dfx use for their respective chipsets...

Part 3

Busy bodies that we are, today's report from Computex kicks off with AMD, the company that delivers the goods better than an English Milk float (basically it's never on time but really does get there in the end). Yes, we managed to locate an AMD KX (X- stands for a number between six and eight) and were also able to meet with AMD behind closed doors (you know top-secret stuff etc.). While we cannot say that we saw a KX at AMD, what we can talk about is the K7 that was discussed elsewhere. Having met with key sources close to AMD, we have heard (consistently) the following items of interest. Although the CPU is already sampling (albeit in small quantities), currently only three motherboard manufacturers, including ASUS, GigaByte and FIC have been chosen as tier-one partners to manufacture slot-A based motherboards for the K7. At this time all three of the chipsets (from VIA, SiS and ALI) aren't yet stable or mature enough. Therefor, according to OEMs, the only working chipsets currently are actually made by AMD's own engineers and in-house. In fact, the first round of motherboards for the K7 will most likely harbor an AMD chipset. It would be a pity for AMD if K7 support were to be wafer thin. A working K7 in excess of 550MHz will pack quite a punch…