Asus Debuts High-Tech Marine Cool Motherboard at CeBIT
Asus Debuts High-Tech Marine Cool Motherboard at CeBIT
Posted 03/09/2009 at 7:49am
| by Paul Lilly
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Asus has been showing off its cool and quirky Marine Cool concept motherboard at CeBIT, and it's like nothing you've ever seen before. We say 'cool' in a literal sense, as the board's underbelly comes equipped with a backplate the company says utilizes "micro-porous ceramic" technology. According to Asus, the backplate provides "aerospace-grade thermal dissipating," while also adding to the board's structural integrity. Combined with the metal heat-pipe module covering the chipset and PWM, Asus says "these revolutionary designs improve heat dissipation by up to 2 fold."
The prototype board also boasts an onboard UPS consisting of a built-in polymer battery in the gray portion of the backplate, providing backup power and preventing damage in the case of a blackout. But the quirkiness comes in the form of SO-DIMM memory slots typically found on notebooks. We suppose the space-saving slots might have made sense on paper, but that's probably where it should have stayed. However, we do dig the built-in Failover Memory, which Asus says guarantees the system will boot when using incompatible or faulty memory.
Thoughts on the Marine Cool motherboard? Hit the jump and sound off.
Image Credit: Anandtech
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MAJORzer0
March 10, 2009 at 3:54am
This set up is easy on the eyes and I bet it works in theory but how well does the "micro-porous ceramic" tech really work. It ceramic is good at disipating heat but if you don't get that pressed up to the board there will be a pocket of heat between the ceramic and mo-bo. I'm not really into the Idea of having something right up on the bottom of my board. I'll be honest though I have no idea if their matirial is conductive. I gotten word of conductive ceramic and that makes me queezy about putting that into my case. Great idea with the onboard UPS though kudos....SODIMM?!?!?! survey says *BZZZT!!* wrong answer. I'm sure it will find it's home with their $400 dollar keyboard computer thingy we read about a bit ago...
~No one said it would be easy....they just said it was worth it...~
smashingpumpin
March 09, 2009 at 8:36pm
that's one cool-lookin mofoin mobo! if you look at it for a while, it looks like a futuristic RTS base built on space (with the black background lol)
_______________________________________________
...and what does this have to do with porn?
cataha
March 09, 2009 at 7:33pm
After my last choose that i made about a mobo it didn't matter how it looked, cause most of the time it's under the table and the only time i'm looking at it, is when i have to vacuum it or upgrade something..
It's probably for Display only type of deal.
grayscare0
March 09, 2009 at 1:06pm
It looks stunning, but I wish it wouldn't use SO-DIMMs. It would have been an excellent performance board.
blueaball
March 09, 2009 at 11:43am
Ok, this board is FREAKING COOL!!! not just from a fashion sense, mind you. A HTPC would be great for this mobo, but I think they should go bigger. Make an E-ATX board, 2 CPU's, and slots for DDR3. And although it has great features in a small package, they would be much more appreciated on a bigger motherboard/skulltrail setup.
linkmaster6
March 09, 2009 at 11:17am
looked through the site... what socket is it 775? No one really offically says
erolsipar
March 09, 2009 at 12:22pm
It is a LGA 775.
It has a nothbridge and South Bridge so its not a LGA 1366.
Peanut Fox
March 09, 2009 at 10:54am
If this board (or rather it's SO-DIMM design) is popular enough, it could creat a new market for performance SO-DIMM memory moduals.
While I love the look, the cons of not being able to use performance memory mean I'd not likely use this in my main rig. The looks are also wasted in an HTPC since you normally wouldn't use a case with a clear side panel, and even if you did it would look outta place in most theater setups.
Bender2000
March 09, 2009 at 8:45am
I like the thought process of using SO-DIMMs, but not for a performance board. This board makes sense in the micro-ATX form factor. Imagine the advantages when building a LAN party box. Space freed by using SO-DIMM and SSDs make it easier to cool the CPU and GPUs. And who doesn't want that?
Hg Dragon
March 09, 2009 at 9:04am
I was thinking more along the lines of a home theater/media center rig. The reduced thermals mean reduced noise profile for a box tucked next to your nice big screen TV.
Hg Dragon
March 09, 2009 at 8:37am
Yeah, this board looks pretty damned cool (in more ways that one, apparently). The SODIMMs are iffy at best however. If you're looking for a "thermal over perfomance" solution, this would be great. And great looking.
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