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CPU3D Exclusive: Gigabyte Spring Break Plug-Fest 2008

CPU3D is proud to present an exclusive coverage of Gigabyte's Spring Break Plug-Fest 2008. This year Gigabyte have gone out of their way, to really promote their up-and-coming motherboards based on Intel's lastest P45 chipset, which is still under NDA. We were invited to attend their exclusive, invitation-only event at their head quarters in Taipei, Taiwan.  

The main purpose of the event was to allow the press and media organisations from around the world, to have an exclusive first look at Gigabyte's new range of up-and-coming P45 based motherboards, which will be released later in June.  The whole day was quite quite erratic, with over 22 media representitives from around the world registering at the main reception in Gigabyte's head quarters. The atmosphere was amazing, and the place was buzzing with TV crews, photographers and local press ... all wanting a slice of the action.

After registration, we were guided to a large conference room with several rows of tables lined across (rather like a class room). Each of us had a desk to ourselves, which was prepared ready with a monitor, CPU cooler, power supply, keyboard and mouse. After the inital product introduction from Gigabyte, Intel, Infineon and Realtek, we were randomly given a box containing a P45 motherboard, 2 modules of DDR2 ram and a graphics card.  

Gigabyte had four models of their P45 motherboard series available for testing ... GA-EP45 DS3R, GA-EP45 DS4, GA-EP45 DS5 and GA-EP45 DQ6. The latter two models includes the new TPM feature for added security, the new SATA Raid from Silicon Image, and the new Realtek 4Gbit LAN feature!!

Gigabyte HQ in Taipei	Yes, it~s the entire building
The 3rd Floor is where you will find all the sales and marketing reps	As you enter the lobby, there is a huge display showing off their DES
Inside the lobby are display cabinets for their latest motherboards	The lobby is large and spacious - an ideal place to meet up

We are then allowed to perform benchmarks, test, tweak and overclock as we like ... with no limitation. In fact, Gigabyte allow us to bring our own equipment if we wanted for testing. So I took the opportunity to call a good friend of mine from Coolermaster in Taiwan ... and asked him to drop a power supply and the recently released Hyper Z600 passive CPU Cooler to me. Thanks :) 

Let the FUN begin !!! ....