The on-board HD 5770 GPU, which ASUS says could be replaced with a lower end chip or even an NVIDIA option if they wanted, enables the motherboard to operate as an integrated graphics board even though it is using the X58 chipset.  You could plop in a CPU and memory and be off and running using the integrated HDMI port for display output.  I do hope they opt for DisplayPort or DVI in a future revision though.

Also, with the inclusion of the HYDRA chip a user could plug in any other discrete graphics cards, another HD 5770, an HD 5870 or even an NVIDIA card, and see performance scaling utilizing the integrated HD 5770.  While we still think there are issues to debate about the validity of the HYDRA technology on the software side, it is implementations like this that we have always THOUGHT would be available in the market.

ASUS also showed off the Crosshair IV Extreme AMD 890FX motherboard with HYDRA support and a rather interesting riser card that adds a pair of nForce 200 chips for true 4-Way SLI support that can install on an existing motherboard.  You'll have to watch the video to see it.

More from Computex soon!