FPSLabs : CES Coverage: ASUS

A perennial favorite of FPSLabs readers, the ASUS booth at the 2008 International CES was full of some quite interesting things.

Now that we’ve all got a few events under our belts, we have the hindsight to realize that there are certain companies that come to every show with guns blazing. More often than not, however, whatever projectiles are being fired from these guns miss the mark. Then there are the companies that are very straightforward in their presentation, show exactly what they have with no strings attached and very mild if any showmanship. The booths occupied by these companies usually provide a very personal experience and a wealth of information. Interestingly enough, this year we had such an experience with two very large companies in attendance: ASUS and Microsoft.

Probably evidenced by the fact that they chose –for the second year in a row- to remove their display a fair distance from the noisy show floor in the CES meeting area, the ASUS booth featured a very solid lineup of new products and technology demos that seemed to encourage visitors to ask questions and do some actual learning. In recent years ASUS has expanded well beyond the video card and motherboard markets that lifted it to prominence. As such, they had a healthy amount of stuff to show from just about every product category in their lineup.

The thing that first caught our eye was the ASUS G70 gaming notebook. Touting support for the upcoming Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 mobile processor and tolerance of overclocking, the G70 is not your typical 17” notebook. The G70 is actually branded as a Republic of Gamers product, a label once exclusive to top-tier ASUS motherboards. Speaking with ASUS representatives revealed that the ROG moniker is being expanded company-wide to absorb any and all gaming-related or gaming-targeted products. So beyond notebooks and motherboards, we should start seeing CPU coolers, video cards, and even monitors carrying the Republic of Gamers badge. Also, there is a hidden nugget in the spec list on the G70 which we find extremely interesting. We are unsure if this is a typo or some sort of slip-up or what have you, but the video card support on the G70 seems impressive to say the least (X2?).

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The next thing we oogled at was a brand new LCD monitor called the PG221U. This gaming display features a 2ms response time, the full gamut of connectivity options (sans HDMI), a built-in 1.3MP swiveling webcam and, most interestingly, full 2.1-channel audio complete with 15W subwoofer. The mounting arm extending from the base to the display doubles as housing for the woofer and looks nice to boot. The sound quality is not astonishing but certainly far superior to any other built-in monitor speakers we’ve come across. The control panel for the monitor is very intuitive, with dedicated, illuminated buttons for each function including volume. The monitor is quite attractive and the 22” size seems to be the sweet spot for gamers at this moment, though the weight of the entire thing might be enough to dissuade some potential buyers.
{mospagebreak heading=G70, PG221U&title=Graphics, Motherboards}

After the PG221U, a circular gold object mounted on the wall caught our attention. ASUS is getting ready to release a new cooling solution for G92 (D8P)-based graphics cards that are said to provide a 7 degree temperature drop from the reference design. While re-worked fansinks are nothing new, ASUS’s implementation might be particularly attractive for gamers concerned with noise. ASUS was showing their new cooler on both the 8800GT 512MB overclocked edition and the brand-new 8800GT 1GB.

Beyond the always-cool Eee PC’s on display at ASUS, the last things that really demanded our attention were a couple of the newest additions to their already-strong motherboard lineup. ASUS had 2 X48-based motherboards on display, one being the lifestyle-directed P5E3 Premium, the other being the Rampage Formula, Republic of Gamers’ representation in the X48 world. We applaud the continuously splendid layout of high-end boards from ASUS, particularly the extra slot added between the two PCI-Express x16 slots that will inevitably be occupied by hot-running AMD video cards in CrossFire. More astute readers will note that the P5E3 Deluxe motherboard looks very similar to this new “Premium” model, and in fact the only thing that differentiates the two is the chipset on which they are based (X48 vs. X38, and the color). The flagship Republic of Gamers Striker II Formula board based on the 780i chipset from NVIDIA was also being displayed. Legions of ASUS supporters have been waiting for this product for quite a long time.

ASUS also had their new NVIDIA nForce 780a-based M3N-HT motherboard on display and it features some fairly interesting things. The 780a platform brings 3-way SLI support to the AM2+ socket, relieving AMD’s 790 series from its duty as the only Phenom-ready boards in existence. Obviously the most interesting feature on the M3N-HT is the built-in ramsinks that integrate DIMM support directly into the motherboard’s cooling system. Installing your memory in these ramsinks is quite easy, and we are told that memory with heatspreaders (not those of Corsair’s Dominator and OCZ’s Reaper or XLC) will fit just fine in these slots. The supposed temperature drop is as much as 10 degrees Celsius, which is quite impressive. Finally, we gathered that the premium you pay for this feature is only about $10-15, which is very reasonable if the performance figures are to be believed.