Gaming Nexus:Not much press seems to go into the audio, server, and workstation products. Can you talk a little bit about those and what ABIT has to offer and some products you'd like to bring some attention to?
Lester Lau:We've backed off from the audio products as of late, and instead have diverted our efforts to our core offerings of motherboards and graphic cards. The server and workstation products don't get a lot of press simply because they are offered to businesses and OEMs. ABIT's core audience has always been with end users. In fact, over 85% of our business is through the retail channel, which explains why in the end, ABIT products tend to be more focused on the end user.
Gaming Nexus:What products have been your best sellers so far?
Lester Lau:Motherboards by far make up the bulk of our business, but VGA cards have been ramping up over the past 18 months as well. I don't think that they will overtake motherboards in sheer volume, but their growth has been astounding. Making high quality, innovative VGA products will continue to be a focus for ABIT. On the mobo side, the
IC7-MAX3 has been the biggest selling Intel 875P-based motherboard since it became available last August. It still remains the fastest, most stable board available for gamers. On the AMD side, our
NF7 Series has been the first choice of gamers for more than a year now and does not look like that will change anytime soon.
Gaming Nexus:Of all the products that ABIT has to offer, what are some of your favorites and why?
Lester Lau:One of my favorites has to be
GF3 Ti200 card we made that was one of the very first to feature our
OTES cooling technology. When I saw that bad boy in the lab, I was like, "Holy, what the heck is that?" The engineers just grinned at me. It was a great moment.
When I first got into PCs, my board was the
ABIT BH6, so that has to be one of my favorites as well. Right now, my personal gaming rig is the
IC7-MAX3 with an
ABIT ATI 9800XT card. I also chose
Kingston HyperX DDR, Western Digital Raptor HDs, and a
Lian Li mid-tower.
Gaming Nexus:Where do you see the future of your industry heading to? What are some new technologies you are excited about?
Lester Lau:The future of the motherboard industry looks bright with the boatload of brand new technologies just on the horizon. I'm excited to see what things like
PCI-Express and DDR2 will do for gamers. With hardware-intensive games like
Half-Life 2 and
Doom 3 coming up, it's good to see ABIT delivering the goods to power the next generation of games.
A lot of people are questioning the new technology coming out and asking if it really brings that much improved performance to your system. The answer is a definite Yes. This is an exciting time for PCs and gaming. We are going to see gaming get only better.
Far Cry has given us a look at where gaming is going and
HL2 and
Doom 3 will continue that.
I'd like to thank Lester Lau for taking time to do our interview.
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