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Enermax and LEPA
Besides grabbing myself a sample of one of their units (thanks!), Enermax showed me some new things as well. I checked out the new Revolution X’t II unit which was just launched before the show. It indeed seemed to have only quality capacitors so it’s definitely an upgrade over the first version. We discussed the pricing and warranty policy a bit, and I suggested a price reduction and/or increasing the warranty period, specifically pointing out to them the new Corsair units just over the corridor from the Enermax booth. So hopefully my seeds will find some ground to root in. Especially considering that at least in Germany, the first X’t also dropped in price significantly from the original RSP, and only then did they get some interesting sales figures. We’ll see.
Next we discussed the other units which were shown last year, especially the DigiTytan and Platimax DS. I learned from them that the DigiTytan will most likely be scrapped for the time being, however, the Platimax DS should be launched. It should be an evolution of the original Platimax, taking along some things from the Digifanless, but not being directly based on the Digifanless platform. It will use a new, more advanced version of the ZDPMS software. Also a new version was shown, the Platimax D.F. (Dust Free), incorporating the new D.F. fans.
These 500W and 600W models should offer this new technology of the fan rotating in the opposite direction for first ten seconds of the units operation, in order to release some accumulated dust. It should work in principle, as long as it’s not dust from smoker or some slick grease (from kitchens or machine work-shops). Otherwise it has individually sleeved cables just like the Digifanless, 14cm Twister-bearing fan etc. I only hope they will actually combine D.F. and DS into a single unit, or offer the DS with this Dust Free technology as well, plus the connectivity. It will definitely make no sense to create both the DS units with ZDPMS but without the Dust Free technology and D.F. units without ZDPMS.
There were also the D.F. fans themselves and some new ETC-T50 AXE CPU coolers based on them. Plus some LEPA watercooling of course, as everybody must have watercooling these days! I’ve asked them for some new power supplies instead, only to learn that they have no plans in the near future for any new releases. I guess the LEPA brand is not as ground-breaking anymore as it once was, especially considering that the cryptomining era is almost over for PSU manufacturers. So almost half of the LEPA line has already been EoL’d (or not, but you cannot buy them), but I’d still imagine that they’d probably release at least something in the future in terms of a new design.
EVGA
EVGA was not actually showing that many units at CeBIT 2016 as they simply didn’t have any. I confronted them about this availability situation, and the “public secret” has been confirmed: EVGA is already making use of the entire Super Flower manufacturing capacity, which is not able to keep up with the demand. Therefore Super Flower is currently manufacturing only a little of their own branded units as everything else goes to EVGA. That is why the availability of some of the Leadex units is so scarce in Europe. So almost no Super Flower-made EVGA samples are available either. Though I learned that the problem with noisy units should have already been fixed some time ago when Super Flower switched from ball-bearing to FDB fans. This also applies to their own Leadex units as I was told from different source. With such a high demand for EVGA units, there is a little chance to still run into these older units with BB fan today.
The unit pictured is the SuperNova GQ, made by FSP Group. It is based on much improved Aurum platform which may not be as competitive as the G2/Corsair RMx, but to their credit, and after a long while, it really is finally competitive enough I suppose. If things go well, I may obtain a sample of this platform in the future. Afterwards, EVGA showed me a TORQ mouse, some cables, and then their main product – graphics cards.
As EVGA is also targeting the enthusiast market, there is a need for high-performance cooling so they also have some water systems. One of these actually shows an interesting improvement over all the generic systems everybody is using: a hosing joint system which, with a powerful enough water pump, may relegate all the competing products to the status of children’s toys. A new level of a semi-modular system, a step towards real water cooling, but still prefabricated, making it easier to operate. EVGA showed a complete Quad-SLI system with just such blocks at CeBIT 2016.
The final piece of gadgetry was the Oculus kit. While this thing is getting some strong attention, my personal experience leads me to conclude that this is greatly overhyped. It may be interesting technology overall, I am not saying otherwise, but I don’t think it will really change much. If I had a couple of bucks for each time I heard some technology is revolutionary and it will soon replace anything that preceded it, my living standards would be much higher at the very least 
Do you even remember the OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator? That was sold away with all the other pieces of OCZ after it went bankrupt and Toshiba came to pick up their SSD business. Where is the Google Spyglass? Where are all the other revolutionary peripherals which will replace a mouse&keyboard in a few years?
Where is the 3D-will-be-mainstream-next-year? Where is the 2K-will be mainstream, then 4K-will-be-mainstream, when we know the actual film producers just only recently switched to FullHD…ordinary TV programs haven’t yet, not all of them anyway. Where are all the AMD/Nvidia Sync thingies? They all told you it’s going to be mainstream…I guess not. I have never ever seen it in actual real use in my life and I personally know of nobody that uses it. Most people have never even really heard about it still. So from my experience, this is just another piece of technology to help sales of overpriced niche products, until people realize it isn’t ready for prime time, and perhaps even not for another decade, and ultimately some new technology is only put forward the moment that sales begin to drop. I guess am one of those “conserves”, no early adopter for sure, so I still even use former high-end CRT displays…and why the hell not?
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