After evaluating the balance between benefits and costs, chipset makers VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated System (SiS) have decided not to participate in Computex 2008, according to sources at the two makers. The two makers will, however, still rent rooms at nearby hotels and the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) in order to meet with visitors.

In addition to previously reported personnel adjustments, SiS has started to cut its marketing expenses in 2008, and will focus on stabilizing its current customers. VIA is also being impacted by limited personnel and material resources, and foresees limited benefit from participating in the trade show. Additionally, the company will postpone organizing its own VIA Technology Forum (VTF) event to a later time.

abit just hours ago announced their latest AMD platform motherboard, the A-S78H, supporting ATI Hybrid CrossFireX Technology for advanced 3D graphics performance. The ATI Hybrid CrossFireX Technology offers multi-GPU performance capabilities by enabling the integrated graphics processor and a discrete graphics processor to operate simultaneously with combined output to a single display for blisteringly-fast frame rates. Enabled hybrid graphics cards models so far include ATI HD2400XT, HD2400Pro, HD3470 and HD3450 based VGA cards, providing the ultimate visual experience. Check out the picture of it below.

The A-S78H is based on the AMD 780G chipset with ATI Radeon HD3200 Graphics and the SB700. It supports AMD AM2+/AM2 processors running HT3.0 up to 5200MT/s. Four 240-pin DIMM sockets offer a maximum of 8GB memory capacity for Dual Channel DDR2 1066 modules. 1 x PCI-E X16, 1 x PCI-E X1, and 2 x PCI slots hold enough potential for further expansion and system upgrades with different add-on cards.

The Thermaltake DuOrb CPU cooler is by far one of the most interesting looking CPU coolers on the market today. With a true Dual-Flow design it uses the system air flow to cool down surrounding temperatures and helps dissipate the heat of CPU, RAM, VRM, North Bridge, and the back of VGA card. The Thermaltake DuOrb CPU cooler gets testing on an Intel Core 2 Quad today, so read on to see if this new offering from Thermaltake can live up to its heritage.

We just got our hands on some very cool images from Edifer that we thought you’d all like to see.  If you’re unfamiliar with Edifer, they’re a long time manufacturer of specialized speaker systems, based in China with a North American office in Vancouver, Canada.  They actually won an honoree award at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show for their Rainbow wireless speaker system.  But the company also produces some wild multimedia speaker systems designed for PC enthusiasts…    

According to a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission Intel CEO Pault Otellini’s overall compensation packaged more than doubled from $5.9 million to $12.1 million last year. A 104% increase sounds good to us, and Intel’s stock ‘leaping ahead’ 33.6% probably sounded good to investors.”Otellini’s pay hike was the result of trying to bring his compensation package in line with those at peer companies, Intel said in the SEC filing. The bulk of the 2007 increase came from giving his total cash compensation

There once was this little company, formed by these two geeks named Paul Allen and Bill Gates …Bill Gates and Paul Allen create a partnership called Micro-soft. It will grow into one of the largest U.S. corporations and place them among the world’s richest people.Gates and Allen had been buddies and fellow Basic programmers at Lakeside School in Seattle. Allen graduated before Gates and enrolled at Washington State University. They built a computer based on an Intel 8008 chip and used it to analyze traffic

Multi-socket Nehalems paired with MetaRAM could provide some jaw-dropping numbers.  Here’s a look at what dual-CPU boards might be able to accomplish:“Up to 16GB DDR3-1333 modules can be created, allowing up to 96GB RAM per CPU, or 192GB per dual-CPU board. If you go for slower DDR3-1066 and boards with three DIMMs per channel,- nine DIMMs per CPU – we have 144GB per CPU, or 288GB memory per mobo!”We’re certainly impressed by numbers like those, but we’ll wait until we can actually benchmark such a system’s

The rumored release date of the successor to Vista, dubbed Windows 7, has typically bounced between 2010 and 2011 until Bill Gates let the following slip:In response to a question about Windows Vista, Gates, speaking before the Inter-American Development Bank here, said: “Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version.” Referring to Windows 7, the code name for the next full release of Windows client software, Gates said: “I’m super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways.”Mr. Gates was not

Saturday Microsoft send a letter to the Yahoo! Board of Directors, setting a deadline of three weeks, or April 26th for an agreement to be made. If an agreement has not been reached by then, Microsoft indicated it would be forced to take the matter directly to the shareholders.The software giant threatened to launch a proxy fight to unseat Yahoo’s board of directors, as well as take its case straight to Yahoo investors should no deal be reached in that period.And as a further cattle prod in getting a deal consummated,

Chris Clark became a multi-millionaire just for forking over $20 a year to keep the pizza.com domain name he registered in 1994. The 43 year old resident of North Potomac, MA, bought the domain name with the goal of getting consulting contracts, but he also made money with the site via advertising.In January, Mr Clark decided to sell it after hearing that another domain – Vodka.com – was sold for $3m in 2006.”I thought, ‘Why don’t I just try to see what the level of interest is?’Mr Clark said.”If someone’s willing