Computex 2007 - FiringSquad Invitational

In its fourth year at Computex Taipei, the FiringSquad Invitational brings hardware manufacturers together in a friendly game of Command & Conquer. In addition to gaming, members of the technology media help select the best systems from a bunch of categories. The competing manufacturers pull out all the stops for the Invitational by bringing the most powerful system they can create.

While this is a competition, the Invitational is also a great networking opportunity - I’m face to face with the manufacturers that I deal with on a daily basis. It’s really more of a party than any serious competition - no on really cares who win or lose. The event took place on the 33rd floor of the Taipei World Trade Center. Not only is this a great local for the event, but the building offers a great view of the city.

After the Invitational, the competing manufacturers took the attending media out for a night on the town at one of the hottest clubs in Taipei. And wouldn’t you know, it was a lady’s night. Gee, I wonder if they planned that? For those who don’t know Asian clubs, lady’s night doesn’t mean ladies only. It means the girls get in first and drinks are free for them. After 9PM, when the girls are good and drunk, they let the guys in. Pretty evil, huh?

You Think The Display Is Big Enough?

While not the most visually impressive, NVIDIA had the most powerful system at the Invitational. The center piece of the monster gaming rig is a 30″ Apple cinema display. You can literally see the entire battle field with it. Graphics is provided by two NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX in SLI mode.

NIVIDA should have walked away with the 3D Mark award but they forgot to optimize the system and lost to PowerColor’s less powerful ATI CrossFire setup. Just because you have the meanest system doesn’t mean you can win. You still need to tweak.

Playing Against The World’s Best Gamer

Ryan Peterson, President & CEO of OCZ Technology, takes on Fatal1ty in a one-one-one match of Quake 4. Ryan is great at making RAM, but his Quake skills need work. The final score was too embarrassing to print. Then again, other players who went up against Fatal1ty didn’t do any better.

Gaming On A Palm Top

Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel demos Quake 3 on a palm sized computer. He ran a timedemo on it and the little hand held put down a respectable 30 frames per second.

Winning Free Stuff

Jessica Luken looks like she just won a 4GB OCZ Rally flash drive, but she is the marketing manager for OCZ and is really giving it away. Guess who won?