Computex 2003 - Day 2: Motherboard and Video Coverage

IWILL

IWILL has seemingly almost transformed their primary product focus overnight. IWILL has gone from a scrappy motherboard maker aligned with low-cost manufacturers like SiS for most of their motherboards to a driven and motivated SFF-centric company. IWILL displayed truckloads of SFFs in their Computex booth, with absolutely no desktop motherboards in sight; only dual processor Xeon and Opteron motherboards were being shown off.

One of the most interesting SFFs that IWILL had to show off was their Athlon 64 SFF.

Not only is IWILL creating an interesting compact SFF design here, but one that is much smaller than most SFFs we’ve ever seen. The two primary reasons for this is that you must install the PSU (Power Supply Unit) outside of the box and because there is no AGP slot. The lack of an AGP slot is a big minus for enthusiasts, and installing the PSU outside of the case can be an inconvenience. However, looking closely at the ZPC64, we see that it is truly unique; it is the first Athlon 64-based box we’ve seen in full operation using NVIDIA’s nForce3 150 chip. What’s really unique, and a big plus for users that don’t demand graphics power from an add-in AGP card, is the soldered on GeForce FX 5200 GPU. Even though the GeForce FX 5200’s DX9 performance is horribly slow, its DX8 and lower performance is exceptional with AA or AF turned on, and so should be especially useful for those that don’t want to pony up the cash for an AGP video card.

IWILL did say they plan on having a version of the ZPC64 that has the PSU integrated back into the case and with an AGP slot this time. To tell you the truth, we look forward to both solutions becoming available, the ZPC64 likely being on store shelves by the end of November with their improved Athlon 64 variations following soon afterwards.