Corsair Talks Memory

Corsair talked a lot about its Vengeance memory and elaborated on some of the newer markets the company is expanding into. Everyone knows Corsair makes RAM, but did you know that Corsair has also released its own series of computer cases, power supplies, head phones, heat sinks, USB thumb drives and Sold State Drives? Corsair also hinted at new SATA III SSD units being unveiled at CeBit this week in Germany and took a few moments to talk about OCZ's SSDs.

Reps from Corsair Memory mostly discussed the products that went into building the Gigaybte G1.Assassin gaming systems for this Lan Party event. Each Intel Core i7 950 processor was cooled by a Corsair H70 watercooling system while memory slots were filled by a triplet of Corsair Vengeance DDR3 RAM. Audio quality from the G1.Assassin's embedded Creative X-Fi hardware sound card was sampled on Corsair HS1 headphones.

The current set of Corsair Hydro H50 (full Frostytech review here) and Hydro H70 watercooling systems are designed and made by Asetek in Denmark, but Corsair recently signed an agreement for liquid cooling solutions from Coolit Systems, based out of chilly Calgary, Canada. The details were announced at CES 2011.

Gigabyte Demo's its Gaming Motherboards

Gigabyte showcased its three new gaming motherboards, the G1 Assassin, the G1.Sniper and G1.Guerrilla. These gaming oriented boards start at $400 for the G1.Guerrilla and work their way up. The performance tuned G1.Sniper goes for about $500 , the flagship extra large-ATX sized G1.Assassin motherboard runs about $600.

Top the stack is the Gigabyte G1.Assassin motherboard, a board so big it conforms to the XL-ATX standard and requires a very large case like the Thermaltake Element V nVidia Edition, Antec LanBoy Air or Antec DF-35 chassis.

Gigabyte G1.Assassin motherboard. This is Gigabyte's top end gaming motherboard with all the features. Notice the heatsink shaped like a magazine clip?

Gigabyte G1.Sniper motherboard. This is a bit more economical gaming motherboard, but with almost all the features of the Assassin. The MOSFET heatsink look like the barrel of a gun.

Last but not least, the Gigabyte G1.Guerrilla motherboard. This is mainstream gaming motherboard of the triplet. It doesn't have the fancy onboard Creative sound card, nor a fourth PCI Express slot, but you save ~$200 off the price of the G1.Assassin motherboard.

Antec and Thermaltake Chassis

Antec and Thermaltake were on hand with the only cases large enough to fit the dimensions of the XL-ATX Gigabyte G1.Assassin motherboard.

Standard ATX motherboards are about 300mm x 245mm in size, the G1.Sniper and G1.Guerrilla fall into this category. To accommodate the extra space of a fourth PCI Express x16 slot, Gigabyte busted the size of the G1.Assassin motherboard out significantly - to 345mm x 262mm. There are only a few gaming cases on the market from Antec, Thermaltake and Coolermaster large enough to support the G1.Assassin motherboard as a result.

Intel Core i7 and Core i5 Processors

Intel had a small demo system set up and in spite of the recent Intel P67 chipset recall it seems Intel's plans are still on track for a couple new chipsets to drop at Computex 2011. A few details have begun to leak about the upcoming Intel Z68 and Intel X68 chipsets, so here's what we can disclose.

The Intel Z68 chipset is expect in April or May and built for socket LGA1155 SandyBridge processors. It supports CPU/memory/graphics overclocking, one PCI Express 2.0 x16 (or x8/x8) for discrete graphics, Intel Rapid Storage Technology for SSD caching, hard drives larger than 2.2TB and SATA III. Like the current Intel P67 implementation, the Z68 chipset is expected to lack native USB 3.0 and offer no support for PCI.

The Intel X68 chipset is whole new beast, designed for as yet unreleased LGA2011 socket processors that may be introduced as early as June. These processors are geared towards high-end enthusiast applications and will feature up to 12-cores and a quad-channel DDR3 memory controller. Like SandyBridge, the northbridge is being moved onto the CPU die.

On P67 related news, the B3-stepping P67 chipsets have begun shipping and motherboard manufacturers are sending out B3-stepping boards to customers who returned the recalled B2-stepping chipset for replacement.

Supercom - one of Canada's Largest Computer Distributors

Supercom hosted this event in partnership with Canadian retail giant CanadaComputers.com . Supercom is one of the larger distributors in the country and has been working with Gigabyte to get its products in more stores. Five years ago Gigabyte motherboards were hard to find in Canadian computer stores, ASUS was everywhere..... The tables are turning and ASUS, while still Tier One by all accounts is seeing its market share slashed in Canada.

Nvidia Talks 3D Gaming

Nvidia rep Steve Sung was on hand to demo 3D gaming with nvidia graphics cards. Throughout the entire Lan Party a crowd of gamers huddled around the nVidia table for a closer look at the demo reel. Clearly, gamers are looking toward 3D visual elements to enhance their experience. Every computer at the event was also outfitted with a Gigabyte Geforce GTX570 graphics card.

Creative X-Fi Sound Card and Wireless Headphones

Creative's Soundblaster X-Fi Digital Audio Processor (20K2) is embedded on the two top-end models of Gigabyte's G1.series motherboards.

The hardware soundcard uses Nichicon capacitors because the all solid, aluminum polymer type (below, by the PCI-E slots) aren't needed for driving an audio circuit. The Creative sound card features X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity, X-Fi Crystalizer, X-Fi CMSS 3D headphone/surround/virtual and EAX AHD 5.0. Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect are also incorporated so audio can be seemlessly streamed to compliant home theatre systems at up to 7.1 channels.

A look at some of the swag that was given away at this Lan Party is next, but first a close look at all three Gigabyte G1-Killer series motherboards....