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Once again, the IT Expo has been and gone from Sydney, leaving a trail of drool-soaked brochures in its wake. Wolfy and I spent a couple of hours there on Wednesday and I thought I'd share some pics and info about the event for those who couldn't make it. Like last year's coverage, this won't be a huge article brimming with journalistic merit, just some snaps of things I thought were cool as I wandered around. Last year's similarly informal coverage turned out to be pretty popular so hopefully you'll enjoy this one too.
Speaking of last year.. in the previous article I defended the event against those who said it was boring, had nothing new etc etc. This year I have to admit, the event has definitely shrunk in stature. Less days, no Linux section, less halls (of the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour) and quite frankly, less stuff. The lack of stuff can be explained, I guess, by there simply not being too many new products right now. Intel's mobile P4, the GF4 Ti range and a handful of DDR333-capable chipsets were on show, but nothing really revolutionary. Pretty much just the same stuff as last year, but faster. Hmm, I think I said that last year, too..
Speaking of faster.. KingMax had a stick of their DDR400 SDRAM on display and I had a bit of a comical time with Ken and Alex from KingMax, trying to take a photo of this stick inside the perspex cabinet that was securely glued shut around it. Finally got one:
We only reviewed their DDR333 about a week ago and already the 400MHz part is out. Actually, it looks very similar to the DDR333 stick we reviewed.. except for the last digit on the TinyBGA module code. Anyway, I imagine we'll be reviewing a stick of that soon enough and will see for ourselves what the differences are.
Also sealed away in a locked cabinet over on AMD's stand were a couple of AthlonXP 2100+ CPU's..
Is that a crack or scratch across the core in the pic on the right? Anyway, according to our Quantispeed Calculator, a 2100+ would be 1733MHz.
Next stop on our whirlwind tour was ADDA's stand. This fan manufacturer had a couple of interesting things:
Yes, that is a fan spinning in a container of water. What's the point, you ask? ADDA have designed it to be totally sealed, for reliability even in extremely moist or dusty environments. On the right are two fans with built in transformers.. feed them AC or DC power in a wide range of voltages and they'll convert it to what they need.
Accessories distributor Anyware were there again this year, showing off a heap of stuff including some new Lian-Li cases.. this hefty server case and a little tiny tower were pretty cool:
Anyware also had some new Thermaltake coolers on display, including the Volcano 7+, P4 Dragon 478 and their little fan-speed controller:
 DIY Parallel-Cable Remote LCD! |
 TwinMOS PC2700 DDR |
 MSI K7N420 Pro nForce Motherboard! |
