CES 2006 Main Show Floor

Articles: Event Coverage

CES 2006 | CES 2005 | CES 2004 | QuakeCon 2005 | CES 2007

CES 2006 Main Show Floor - Part I

Author:
Editor:
Sponsor:
Published:

Bradford Day
Kurtis

Jan. 12, 2006

Specifications

<< Previous

Home >>

Netgear

With home wireless networks becoming the norm, Netgear is developing a faster router that is supposed to surpass the transfer speeds of standard wired Ethernet. The Rangemax 240 wireless router will reach transfer rates of 240 Mbps when paired with a Rangemax wireless adapter, or so claims Netgear. We've never been able to get any of the proprietary speed-boosted wireless products to perform anywhere near their stated speeds. We asked a Netgear rep what the real world numbers would most likely be and he admitted they would hover around 50% of the 240Mbps, which is still slightly faster than wired non-Gigabit Ethernet rates. Maybe they'll send us one and we can see for ourselves!hint, hint.

MSI

If anyone branched out this year, it was MSI. None of us could really remember what their booth looked like last year, but this year it was full of video cards, power supplies, motherboards, portable multimedia devices and laptops. Plus, they had a sort of anime warrior theme going on, that's definitely memorable.

Of particular note in the video-processing realm was their upgradeable video card prototype that incorporates two removable PCB modules containing memory and GPUs. The idea is that you just slip in an extra module when you want to upgrade, but it seems like it has no real benefit compared with SLI or Crossfire, because the price will be the same because you still have the cost of two GPUs each with separate RAM modules. Additionally, while you only have one PCI-E slot taken up, the card is extremely long so you would absolutely need a huge case.

We also fiddled with a number of their handheld media players. A couple of them had clumsy interface thumbpads, but the displays were large and well lit and each had a nice array of features.

MSI's laptop line has expanded greatly and, according to the rep, they are the first to feature a Dolby certified 5.1 laptop audio system with their S425 Megabook. Using a composite audio out cable, users should be able to play 5.1 movies and music directly into their home sound system amplifier. The iBook white color scheme (also available in red and 2 shades of black) is flattering as well and even with integrated 802.11b/g , 4-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth, and 6 cell Li-ion battery the whole package weighs in at just around 4.5 lbs.

Another interesting prototype at the MSI booth was their solar-powered Megabook. The concept is that there are 10 solar panels on the top of the notebook's lid. The idea is interesting, though I doubt it will see the light of day any time soon.

And finally, here's some more miscellaneous stuff. Hetis and Midas barebone systems, a "living room PC," a MegaPC (mPC51PV), and a couple cool looking case mods.

Patriot Memory

The new-to-us company Patriot Memory is trying to carve out a notch for themselves in the performance memory market. Clearly they are off to a good start by pairing with the likes of Alienware. Patriot had an Alienware system up for grabs in a raffle and was giving away t-shirts to winners of their mini Quake 4 LAN party. Newly unveiled at CES were their 1,000 MHz DDR2 RAM sticks. While the RAM timings on these sticks were fairly high at 5-5-5-15, the rep assured me that over-clocking was stable past the 1 GHz mark, making them one of the only memory companies able to make that claim at this time. Unfortunately I didn't snap a pic of them, but we may be getting our hands on some of these hot sticks in the near future.

<< Previous

Page 4 of 4

Home >>

Page 1: Creative / Sennheiser / Klipsch
Page 2: iRiver / Altec Lansing / Skullcandy
Page 3: AMD / Intel / Samsung
Page 4: Netgear / MSI / Patriot Memory

Subscribe to CES 2006 [more info]

Add Comment

1 User Comment

1 - Posted by HVyIlTYDWxVzwVXKguD on March 18, 2008 - 1:33 pm

Nice site!

Add Comment

To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields.