The hot items rumoured for this week's show, including nVidia's 9800 GX2 and a new ASUS EeePC.
Rumours are buzzing about some big announcements at this week's CeBIT show in Hannover this week - billed as the "world’s largest trade fair for digital solutions".
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has already kicked off the show, but it's the following hardware snippets which have grabbed our attention. Here are the highlights:
The new improved EeePC
It sold out when the EeePC appeared in Australia last year, now ASUS is about to unleash a slightly bigger 8.9inch model. ASUS says the new model will come with 1GB RAM, up to 12GB storage, and the large screen size. The new machines will also have higher resolution screens(1024x600) according to this report). The other big news is the arrival in Australia of EeePCs sold with Windows XP - though we'll be interested to see what it does to battery life and performance.
nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2
If the rumours are true, this card will be a monster performer when it appears. The 9800 GX2 is nVidia's entrant in the dual-GPU race - already being pushed by ATI with its 3870X2. Judging by the Hexus pics, you'll be wacking an extra few fans in your rig with this baby.
AMD goes 45nm
Today we sat down with AMD's country manager Caleb Laung, who told us this is the day AMD will unveil its 45nm processor technology. Whether this will turnaround AMD's desktop fortunes remains to be seen. Performance has been satisfactory in benchmark testing, but not stellar. If 45nm can improve things in the value-department, maybe AMD can swing the pendulum back a fraction.
AMD Phenom 9700
There are some high hopes resting on the 9700 and 9900 versionsof AMD's quad core chip. AMD's first quad core cpu, the 9500, left us underwhelmed, with performance just about matched by Intel's Q6600 in our application benchmarks. Add the fact that Intel has moved to 45nm, and you can safely place AMD's upcoming 9700 in the underdog category. No official word yet on whether the CPU will appear at CeBIT, but we'll keep you posted.
Wireless that makes 3G look like dial-up
From Sprint's WiMAX projects in the US, to local 3G expansions plans by Optus and co., 2008 looks like the year wireless broadband comes of age. In Australia, we're largely talking about a maximum 3.6Mbps, eventually to increase to more than 7Mbps, but it's not going to end there. Vodafone will be demoing 28.8Mbps HSPA wireless data at CeBIT - enough to make ADSL2+ users green with envy.