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Show Notes
Welcome to Part 2 of the Computex 2025 discussion. In this episode the duo will be talking about some of the other vendors and bringing up various highlights from their booths. It should be noted that Dennis visited with over 30 vendors. Some were friendly while others played the “I don’t want to be here anyway so, go away” tactic.
Despite this there was plenty to see and some may become subjects of future podcasts and/or articles.
There were three things that impressed Dennis at Computex 2025. First was from ASUS and their innovative approach to handling BTF graphics cards on motherboards that don’t support BTF. (you know the cables behind the motherboard type motherboards). As you may be aware, on BTF motherboards there is a power delivery slot on the PCB for the primary graphics card. This will run the card without having to plug in a cable.
Well, on motherboards that do not have this slot there is no way to install one of those graphics’ cards. Mostly because there is no power connector and the extended power fingers would contact onboard components. So, what ASUS did was create a universal PCB design with a power connector. One BTF enabled motherboards, you install the connector, on non-BTF motherboards the connector is removed
Another surprise is that MSI is brining back the MPower line of motherboards. Back in the days of overclocking MPower was the special product line dedicated to the needs of overclockers often having more robust power supplies, refined layouts and more controls added to the system BIOS. While Intel based overclocking is questionable you can still extract some performance from AMD based systems and this B850 based Micro ATX motherboard promises to deliver.
The final surprise is from SilverStone with their FLP-02 chassis design.
This retro inspired case features three external 5.25 drive bays, (four if you don’t install a proper 360mm AIO), vertical GPU support, basement panel and iconic beige color.
What is really amazing is on the front bezel. At the bottom is a fully vented intake with support for dual fans behind the panel. Above that is a dashboard complete with rocker style power switch, keylock, reset button and turbo switch that controls the onboard fans. In normal mode the fans are PWM controlled however, with turbo enabled the fans run full speed.
The dual digit display also changes to indicate the fan position.
Look for this case later this year as the duo is super exited to build their next LAN Party rigs in them.
