# Gigabyte Has a Crippled VGA Slot: MSI



## btarunr (Jan 3, 2009)

Although presentations that are internal to companies never make it to the public scene, some of those presentations are interesting, to say the least. Computer hardware manufacturers spread around an area as saturated as Taiwan, China, Malaysia, etc., get so involved into aggressive competition that in more occassions than one they get carried away. Internal presentations are the ones manufacturers such as ASUSTek, MSI and Gigabyte share with their potential customers in channel vendors, OEMs, and the likes. One such presentation by MSI, a particular slide of which, has become an example of how far competition has taken the manufacturers.



MSI, in one of its internal presentations regarding its G45M Digital motherboards, accuses Gigabyte of misleading its consumers by selling motherboards with "crippled VGA slots". Quite simply put, the VGA slot, in this case, PCI-Express x16 slots most commonly used to install graphics cards are "crippled" by Gigabyte, by reducing its number of PCI-Express lanes. The affected Gigabyte motherboards, according to MSI are EG45M-DS2H, EG43M-SH2H, and EG41MF-S2H. So while the slots are mechanically PCI-Express x16, they are electrically PCI-Express x4 (with a bandwidth reduction of 75%). MSI backs its claims with Gigabyte's own data published on its website. 

Now comes the question of "Why?". The Intel G4x northbridge is capable of providing 16 lanes to a mechanical x16 PCI-Express slot, but it would also mean wiring the northbridge to the slot. With the way in which PCI-Express is built, the number of available lanes can be manipulated by simply not connecting the lanes to the device. In this case, not wiring all the lanes to the slot, when the northbridge is very much capable of providing the lanes. Furthermore, Gigabyte put up a "VGA compatibility list". Backed with credible evidence, MSI looks to capitalise on Gigabyte's design flaws in its own marketing campaign.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## wolf2009 (Jan 3, 2009)

wow, so GIGABYTE actaully says that on their site ? 

why are they doing that ?


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## KBD (Jan 3, 2009)

why would Gigabyte do such a thing? This company sometimes amazes me with their stupidity and shortsightedness.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jan 3, 2009)

These are all Matx boards,but even so,it does seem a bit daft,when no one will buy these for that reason.


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## allen337 (Jan 3, 2009)

It only uses ICH7 also, gigabyte is trying to save energy again I see.


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## Homeless (Jan 3, 2009)

It only affects a small number of boards, but the fact that it affects any is beyond me


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## btarunr (Jan 3, 2009)

allen337 said:


> It only uses ICH7 also, gigabyte is trying to save energy again I see.



Not energy, money. ICH7 was built on a much older fab-process while the ICH9 G45 motherboards should be using is newer, cooler and a little more expensive.


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## cdawall (Jan 3, 2009)

wow GB is doing it again....

woot for shit GB mobo's


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## Polarman (Jan 3, 2009)

Nice find from MSI.


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## WarEagleAU (Jan 3, 2009)

Kind of astonishing I really like Gigabyte and their boards. Even though its a board Id never buy it makes me question future purchases from them.


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## Doc[WSU] (Jan 3, 2009)

The logical reason is because these boards are meant primarily for OEM use only. 

It's not uncommon for major OEM's like HP and IBM to build business systems with lower end components (reduced chipsets). I've come across plenty of seemingly x16 slots in these machines only to find out up close it's marked for x4 use only. The main reason is to keep costs down while still offering some compatibility with newer hardware (i.e an PCI-E x4 slot is a wiser choice nowadays than an AGP slot). 

Gigabyte isn't alone -- most major board manufacturers produce low-end boards for OEM's. Hell, I've even seen both Asus and MSI boards without any video slot whatsoever.


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## ShadowFold (Jan 3, 2009)

Man no one likes gigabyte  First ASUS(well gigacrap attacked them first) now MSI. This is pretty funny.


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## rangerone766 (Jan 3, 2009)

i think x4 slot offers enough bandwidth to fully utilize all but the highest end gpu anyway. i dont see a problem. as long as its labeled correctly, if on the other hand giga states x16 and its not, then we have a problem.

for example, i have a asus p5n-e sli board i fold with. installed are a 8800gts 320mb(g80) card and a 9600gso. the board runs x8 on the 8800gts and x4 on the 9600gso. i get very near the same points per day per card as when i run them in single card mode at the full x16. keep in mind also this is a pci express v1 board. so the gigabytes in question are running pci express v2 which theoretically is double the bandwidth as the v1's.

as long as it is clearly stated in the tech specs, and keeps cost down. it is perfectly fine for them to do this. just my opinion though.


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## cdawall (Jan 3, 2009)

ummm look at reviews x4 does NOT offer enough bandwidth for anything higher end then an 8400GS


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## rangerone766 (Jan 3, 2009)

cdawall said:


> ummm look at reviews x4 does NOT offer enough bandwidth for anything higher end then an 8400GS



i was just going off my folding performance. i've never really tried to game off that rig. but my statement still stands. as long as the consumer knows that its a crippled pci xpress slot, thats all that matters.

i don't really care for gigabyte anyway, the only one i ever had was a socket 478 board. i never could get it to overclock as well my asus board, and it had a confusing bios.

i dont know check this out
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-9.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-10.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-11.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-11.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-13.html
seems enough to me


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## newtekie1 (Jan 3, 2009)

Really, a PCI-E 2.0 x4 slot is just on the edge of being enough for higher end graphics cards.  The only cards that would really suffer are the modern dual-GPU cards(HD4870x2, GTX295).  Other high end cards would certainly be hindered, but the effect would be so slight that most wouldn't notice unless they actually benchmark the card.

On top of that, these are relatively budget boards, I wouldn't expect people to be buying them and sticking high end graphics cards in them anyway.

I got to love MSI's marketing though.  Comparing their top of the line G45 board, which is likely to cost in the $130 range, to ASUS' bottom of the line which is in the $110 range and all they could come up with was that the ASUS board doesn't have eSATA.  A better comparison would be between G45M-Digital and the P5Q-EM, as both should be priced about the same once the G45M-Digital is released.  And the P5Q-EM is the better board as it comes with the eSATA and an HDMI port(which the G45M-Digital lacks).


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## allen337 (Jan 3, 2009)

Nothing wrong with selling a 4x pci-e motherboard, msi must be mad they didnt have the engineers to figure out how to do it. Like someone else said, At leastit has a pci-e slot. Asus and msi sale mobos with onboard video and no agp/pci-e slot. Talk about stupid?


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## WC Annihilus (Jan 3, 2009)

I actually sorta recall seeing something like this a while ago.  On another forum someone was asking for recommendations for a mATX board.  Saw a Gigabyte board with 4x slot, said, "wtf?!?!" and moved on


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## lolsop (Jan 3, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> Really, a PCI-E 2.0 x4 slot is just on the edge of being enough for higher end graphics cards.  The only cards that would really suffer are the modern dual-GPU cards(HD4870x2, GTX295).  Other high end cards would certainly be hindered, but the effect would be so slight that most wouldn't notice unless they actually benchmark the card.
> 
> On top of that, these are relatively budget boards, I wouldn't expect people to be buying them and sticking high end graphics cards in them anyway.
> 
> I got to love MSI's marketing though.  Comparing their top of the line G45 board, which is likely to cost in the $130 range, to ASUS' bottom of the line which is in the $110 range and all they could come up with was that the ASUS board doesn't have eSATA.  A better comparison would be between G45M-Digital and the P5Q-EM, as both should be priced about the same once the G45M-Digital is released.  And the P5Q-EM is the better board as it comes with the eSATA and an HDMI port(which the G45M-Digital lacks).



Hi Guys, i'm new here. I always like to check things: 
According to this Tom's Hardware PCI express analysis PCI express x4 is too less http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-10.html They say "However, the situation clearly is different today, as we found that only four PCI Express links are no longer adequate." and "If you run high performance graphics cards on inadequate interfaces such as PCI Express x8, you give away performance." So I think with intensive tasks like Cuda or decoding from HD video it will make a difference.

I also think they are comparing the right models... 

Asus P5Q-EM has no eSATA: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=761&l4=0&model=2413&modelmenu=2 

MSI G45 digital has HDMI: http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=170&prod_no=1711

Price I cannot find at this moment. But you are right... guess these are used for media centers, not with VGA card.


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## imperialreign (Jan 3, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> *I got to love MSI's marketing though.  Comparing their top of the line G45 board, which is likely to cost in the $130 range, to ASUS' bottom of the line which is in the $110 range and all they could come up with was that the ASUS board doesn't have eSATA.*  A better comparison would be between G45M-Digital and the P5Q-EM, as both should be priced about the same once the G45M-Digital is released.  And the P5Q-EM is the better board as it comes with the eSATA and an HDMI port(which the G45M-Digital lacks).



It's pretty funny when other companies try to pick on ASUS motherboards . . . ASUS has been reliable and solid for decades now in what they offer on their boards, and the board's capabilities . . .


but, damn, though . . . they'll put some bells & whistles on their setups without hesitation.  If anyone can figure out how to offer an oboard coffee-maker, toaster, and milk dispenser . . . ASUS will be the first to do so, guranteed.


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## r9 (Jan 4, 2009)

allen337 said:


> Nothing wrong with selling a 4x pci-e motherboard, msi must be mad they didnt have the engineers to figure out how to do it. Like someone else said, At leastit has a pci-e slot. Asus and msi sale mobos with onboard video and no agp/pci-e slot. Talk about stupid?



Yes you need bunch of engineers to criple a mobo. Go GIGASHIT GO


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## kid41212003 (Jan 4, 2009)

They did not mis-leading consumers, I don't see any reason why for people to get angry over this, or saying GIGABYTE is shit.

They clearly stated the board Pcie run at x4, you are the one who choose to buy it, you should do some research first.

Besides, these are low and mid range chipset (G4x). 
Reduce bandwidth going through NB on these low-end chipset could help better Overclocking.


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## Sonido (Jan 4, 2009)

KBD said:


> why would Gigabyte do such a thing? This company sometimes amazes me with their stupidity and shortsightedness.



I agree with you on that. It seems that they go from being good to nothing but a piece of crap. It's a non-changing, never ending loop with them.



kid41212003 said:


> They did not mis-leading consumers, I don't see any reason why for people to get angry over this, or saying GIGABYTE is shit.
> 
> They clearly stated the board Pcie run at x4, you are the one who choose to buy it, you should do some research first.
> 
> ...



It may say it's x4, but the fact is that it is possible to do a full x16 slot. They are purposly crippling the slot.


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## Mussels (Jan 4, 2009)

rangerone766 said:


> i think x4 slot offers enough bandwidth to fully utilize all but the highest end gpu anyway. i dont see a problem. as long as its labeled correctly, if on the other hand giga states x16 and its not, then we have a problem.
> 
> for example, i have a asus p5n-e sli board i fold with. installed are a 8800gts 320mb(g80) card and a 9600gso. the board runs x8 on the 8800gts and x4 on the 9600gso. i get very near the same points per day per card as when i run them in single card mode at the full x16. keep in mind also this is a pci express v1 board. so the gigabytes in question are running pci express v2 which theoretically is double the bandwidth as the v1's.
> 
> as long as it is clearly stated in the tech specs, and keeps cost down. it is perfectly fine for them to do this. just my opinion though.



4x definately hurts performance. i ran an 8600GT in a 4x slot and it definately took a large hit (over 20%) compared to in a 16x slot on the same board,.

the PROBLEM is that gigabyte made the slot look full 16x. They could have just left it as an open ended 4x slot (which they do on some of their crossfire boards), and it wouldnt have been misleading.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 4, 2009)

Misleading?  How is it misleading if they list it on the specs of the motherboard openly?  This is nothing new in the motherboard industry, you are acting like this is the first time this has happened.


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## Mussels (Jan 4, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> Misleading?  How is it misleading if they list it on the specs of the motherboard openly?  This is nothing new in the motherboard industry, you are acting like this is the first time this has happened.



i think you're getting the context of my message wrong. I didnt say "lying" or "hiding" i said misleading. People who look at these boards without the box (OEM systems, for example) will just assume its a 16x slot.

If they didnt want to mislead anyone, these boards would be like their other ones and use open 4x connectors.


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## 3870x2 (Jan 4, 2009)

mATX boards are commonly used for prebuilt computers bought at best buy and wal-mart, which wouldnt have much need of 4x+.  Have we even met the requirements of x4? I bet if you were to test it, you would find that there would be no performance decrease with our current available cards.  Also, mATX boards are rarely used as performance boards, rather as pre-built and HTPC only.


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## kid41212003 (Jan 4, 2009)

It is an an PCI-E 16x slot, but it's running at x4 speed.

There are many Pcie slots with different sizes...


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## Mussels (Jan 4, 2009)

3870x2 said:


> mATX boards are commonly used for prebuilt computers bought at best buy and wal-mart, which wouldnt have much need of 4x+.  Have we even met the requirements of x4? I bet if you were to test it, you would find that there would be no performance decrease with our current available cards.  Also, mATX boards are rarely used as performance boards, rather as pre-built and HTPC only.



every card from an 8600GT and up has a performance hit on 4x. people HAVE tested it.

matx boards are quite commonly used in LAN PC's, due to the compact size. I have one, my brother has one, one of my housemates have one.

we hit the requirements for 16x with the dual GPU Cards on 1.1 (8x to each GPU) so they went 2.0 -if a single high end GPU Needs 8x in 2.0, what makes you think even the mid range GPU's (which arent really that much different, in nvidia they're all G92 anyway) will require less than that?


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## kid41212003 (Jan 4, 2009)

9800GX2 Bandwidth benchmarks on x1, x4, x8, x16 speed.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-10.html

HD3850

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-2-0,1915-9.html


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 4, 2009)

imperialreign said:


> It's pretty funny when other companies try to pick on ASUS motherboards . . . ASUS has been reliable and solid for decades now in what they offer on their boards, and the board's capabilities . . .
> 
> 
> but, damn, though . . . they'll put some bells & whistles on their setups without hesitation.  If anyone can figure out how to offer an oboard coffee-maker, toaster, and milk dispenser . . . ASUS will be the first to do so, guranteed.



you should have quilifyed that, ASUS makes good *Intel* motherboards, their amd boards are, to be kind, less then steller, they have non-functional or missing features in bios such as TRFC, TRFC is IMPORTANT on amd systems, being able to properly set your slots for the ram in use can be the diffrance between being able to run you ram at 800 and 1200, my axeram kits need 105ns for 1066 and up, my wintek kits run at 127ns at anything above 830, asus trfc IF IN BIOS has NO EFFECT, asus's bios dept varifyed this and offered no solution, they said "you could try diffrent ram or only use the 2 outter slots" the outter slots where set at 127 or looser mind you, the first slot at 75, the 2nd slot at 105 and the other 2 where looser.

tested this on 5 diffrent asus nf5 boards, all of them had the same crap settings locked in bios and non-functional trfc settings......worthless!!!!

they dont fix their audio drivers for the analog devices sound chips they use, dispite ADI having patched them years back to fix the KNOWN issues in the asus 2k/xp/2k3/x64pro drivers......


i wont own another asus AMD board, just not worth the money you spend.



3870x2 said:


> mATX boards are commonly used for prebuilt computers bought at best buy and wal-mart, which wouldnt have much need of 4x+.  Have we even met the requirements of x4? I bet if you were to test it, you would find that there would be no performance decrease with our current available cards.  Also, mATX boards are rarely used as performance boards, rather as pre-built and HTPC only.




as others have said, even pci-e 4x in pci-e 2.o spec holds back anything but the lowist of addin cards, would be fine for a 1300/8400 class card but wouldnt be good enought for a true mid ragen card like the 4670.


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 4, 2009)

rangerone766 said:


> i think x4 slot offers enough bandwidth to fully utilize all but the highest end gpu anyway. i dont see a problem. as long as its labeled correctly, if on the other hand giga states x16 and its not, then we have a problem.
> 
> for example, i have a asus p5n-e sli board i fold with. installed are a 8800gts 320mb(g80) card and a 9600gso. the board runs x8 on the 8800gts and x4 on the 9600gso. i get very near the same points per day per card as when i run them in single card mode at the full x16. keep in mind also this is a pci express v1 board. so the gigabytes in question are running pci express v2 which theoretically is double the bandwidth as the v1's.
> 
> as long as it is clearly stated in the tech specs, and keeps cost down. it is perfectly fine for them to do this. just my opinion though.



the cards will only use the bandwith necessary to get the job done, so you theoretically never see the full potential of the x16 slots, thats why AMD has been running Crossfire in 8x instead of 16 because the cards dont need all that bandwidth, atleast in the past few Xfire gens.


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## grazzhoppa (Jan 4, 2009)

why is this news?

This is one slide from a presentation meant for OEM businesses with computing needs vastly different from you guys in your "OVERCLOCK TO THE MAX ONE ONEONE" clique.

"Gigabyte has a serious design issue on all their Intel G41 / G43 / G43 based mainboards. They run their primary PCI-Express x16 VGA slot at fake x4 speed..."
Out of context, this statement is a lie.
In context of a comparison of 3 models Gigabyte produces to MSI's products, it's true.

The PCI-E 16x slots are clearly specified to run at 4x.
Gigabyte offers full speed PCI-E 16x slots in its other boards besides those 3 models singled out in this slide.


Lets be on the look out for the TPU headline about Larabee that shits all over Intel for using Pentium 2 technology in a 2009 graphics card - you really missed the big picture here TPU.


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## Hayder_Master (Jan 4, 2009)

like someone confess in church , but i like this better than lies


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## NathanFake (Jan 4, 2009)

there's logical explanation for these...

if you insert a card (graphics or not) in the PCIe x16 slot (GEN2 x16), then the *onboard graphics is disabled automatically*.... this is the chipset's (G41/43/45) limitation...

GIGABYTE board does *not suffer* from this limitation because the PCIe x16 (electrically x4) is not attached to northbridge (G41/43/45)... it's attached to soughtbridge (ICH7/10(R))... and that's why it has "only" x4 bandwith...

check out GA-EG45M-DS2H block diagram for more info...

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/729/blockdiagrambyj4.png

these boards are for HTPC/office use... so haveing no full x16 slot is no real issue...



edit:
i would also like to point out that modern AMD (ATI) / NVIDIA chipsets does not suffer from such limitations... so you can plug-in full x16 discrete VGA and have you're igp working alongside it, providing additional display support or hybrid crossfire/sli graphics...


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## Mussels (Jan 4, 2009)

^ 9800GX2 with PCi-E 2.0.
It'd be worse on 1.1/1.0 boards. There are cards out there that would need more than this in todays games, for sure (GTX 280/260, 4870 etc)

as nathanfake said these boards arent for gaming use. I think the backlash is that simply, people are sick to death of these misleading motherboards. Most manufacturers have done it, even my board has 16x/4x when in crossfire, despite the second slot appearing full length (which to most people, means 16x)


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 4, 2009)

This is blown out of proportions , punny little MSI is just a bug in the face of Asus and Gigabyte.
I bought a premium MSI MB  almost 7 years ago and after 1 year of use the MB started to crash my system , they woudln't give me another saying it works for them , then i go on forums and find out most of the people are having this problem and MSI refuses to give warranty , it was some via KT600 chipset but i don't remember the MB name exactly , anyways very bad experience with MSI.
The problem was any time the system started to consume more power by proccessing something more than a movie i heard a shhhhh sound from the motherboard and the computer freezed , voltage regulators problems people where saying.
If i was to make a top of the MB company the first 2 that comes to mind are always Asus the first and gigabyte the second , but i tend to buy gigabyte because they seem more stable and better overclock on the mainstream and some cheap MB's from low end , well not so cheap but a bit cheap.
In the mainstream Asus kind of sucks with price and quality where gigabyte is top notch , gigabyte p35 DS3L and p31DS3L are some cheap and very overclockable MB's , let' see this from punny little MSI  , in my country they are expensive and badddd , bad overclock , bad quality , not very bad but bad compared to Asus and gigabyte.


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## mlee49 (Jan 4, 2009)

Gigabyte:
"Pay 100%, get 25% performance"


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## rangerone766 (Jan 4, 2009)

Mussels said:


> ^ 9800GX2 with PCi-E 2.0.
> It'd be worse on 1.1/1.0 boards. There are cards out there that would need more than this in todays games, for sure (GTX 280/260, 4870 etc)
> 
> as nathanfake said these boards arent for gaming use. I think the backlash is that simply, people are sick to death of these misleading motherboards. Most manufacturers have done it, even my board has 16x/4x when in crossfire, despite the second slot appearing full length (which to most people, means 16x)



yes it does take a hit in the x4 config. but i ask, is 89 fps enough to play that game at max settings?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 4, 2009)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> as others have said, even pci-e 4x in pci-e 2.o spec holds back anything but the lowist of addin cards, would be fine for a 1300/8400 class card but wouldnt be good enought for a true mid ragen card like the 4670.



According to the tom's review, we are barely seeing the effects on a HD3850, the only game that had any affect is FSX, but most other modern games will not even show a difference on the HD3850 or HD4670.  For most users PCI-E x4 2.0 is enough for mid-range cards, I wouldn't put a high end card in one of those slots, but most people are not going to be putting high end cards in budget motherboards.



Mussels said:


> i think you're getting the context of my message wrong. I didnt say "lying" or "hiding" i said misleading. People who look at these boards without the box (OEM systems, for example) will just assume its a 16x slot.
> 
> If they didnt want to mislead anyone, these boards would be like their other ones and use open 4x connectors.



True, but most other board manufactures do the same as Gigabyte.  Most make their PCI-E x4 slots PCI-E x16.  Look as most of the P35 boards, the first slot was x16, but the second was x4.  Both looked like x16 slots though.

It is mainly a compatibility thing, if people open the case and see a PCI-E x4 slot, it is hard to tell if it is open ended or not, most would assume that it is a regular PCI-E x4 slot, and assume they can't put a graphics card in it at all.



Mussels said:


> ^ 9800GX2 with PCi-E 2.0.
> It'd be worse on 1.1/1.0 boards. There are cards out there that would need more than this in todays games, for sure (GTX 280/260, 4870 etc)
> 
> as nathanfake said these boards arent for gaming use. I think the backlash is that simply, people are sick to death of these misleading motherboards. Most manufacturers have done it, even my board has 16x/4x when in crossfire, despite the second slot appearing full length (which to most people, means 16x)



I think the biggest backlash is that there really is no reason that this slot shouldn't be x16.  The lanes are available to use, Gigabyte just decided not to use them all.  On your board, there simply aren't enough PCI-E lanes to make the second slot anything more than x4.



mlee49 said:


> Gigabyte:
> "Pay 100%, get 25% performance"



Actually, according to the tests, it is more like 50% of the performance on a very small number of games.  It is more along the lines of 80-90% of the performance in most situations.


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## cdawall (Jan 4, 2009)

leonard_222003 said:


> This is blown out of proportions , punny little MSI is just a bug in the face of Asus and Gigabyte.
> I bought a premium MSI MB  almost 7 years ago and after 1 year of use the MB started to crash my system , they woudln't give me another saying it works for them , then i go on forums and find out most of the people are having this problem and MSI refuses to give warranty , it was some via KT600 chipset but i don't remember the MB name exactly , anyways very bad experience with MSI.
> The problem was any time the system started to consume more power by proccessing something more than a movie i heard a shhhhh sound from the motherboard and the computer freezed , voltage regulators problems people where saying.
> If i was to make a top of the MB company the first 2 that comes to mind are always Asus the first and gigabyte the second , but i tend to buy gigabyte because they seem more stable and better overclock on the mainstream and some cheap MB's from low end , well not so cheap but a bit cheap.
> In the mainstream Asus kind of sucks with price and quality where gigabyte is top notch , gigabyte p35 DS3L and p31DS3L are some cheap and very overclockable MB's , let' see this from punny little MSI  , in my country they are expensive and badddd , bad overclock , bad quality , not very bad but bad compared to Asus and gigabyte.



you know GB is known for having shit options for oc'ing in low end parts right? MSI is a good brand i have owned several of them and put them thru hell without any issues. lowend MSI>low end GB.

EVERYONE here has complained about GB. they are not they "greatest" of brands at all

oh and MSI is so not a bug compared to the other two its a huge company


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## kid41212003 (Jan 4, 2009)

NathanFake said:


> there's logical explanation for these...
> 
> if you insert a card (graphics or not) in the PCIe x16 slot (GEN2 x16), then the *onboard graphics is disabled automatically*.... this is the chipset's (G41/43/45) limitation...
> 
> ...



Just wanted to quote this guy.

If you did read the reviews about 780G chipset months ago when it just released, GIGABYTE and Asus were the only one who has 780G chipset with 4 phases power+ that could handle 125 Watt cpu (Phenom). All other branch failed.

And the 780G board that could OC its onboard vga better than the rest.

GIGABYTE > MSI in Asian markets, that's why they pulled this bullshit out. Oh! And I think in US market too, it's hard to see overclocker using MSI boards on most forum.

Asus and GIGABYTE overcrowed MSI boards.


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## kysg (Jan 4, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> Just wanted to quote this guy.
> 
> If you did read the reviews about 780G chipset months ago when it just released, GIGABYTE and Asus were the only one who has 780G chipset with 4 phases power+ that could handle 125 Watt cpu (Phenom). All other branch failed.
> 
> ...



Depends man, and it is true Asus and GB did put out first 780g boards, hell is a early adopter of the s2h, US market hmm I think Asus, leads with MSI picking up, from most of my experiences I don't see a whole lot of people using gigabyte boards in the US, I dunno maybe that depends on the region.

I wouldn't say all other branch failed, heck there was only foxconn and biostar at that point...who were only handling 780g.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 4, 2009)

kid41212003 said:


> Just wanted to quote this guy.
> 
> If you did read the reviews about 780G chipset months ago when it just released, GIGABYTE and Asus were the only one who has 780G chipset with 4 phases power+ that could handle 125 Watt cpu (Phenom). All other branch failed.
> 
> ...



Damn right man , i don't know where people on techpowerup forums live but every hardcore forum i see and every hardcore overclocker i talk too and read about they use Asus  and Gigabyte , mainly Asus but some go gigabyte.
Not heard of to many people using MSI unlles they are sponsored by them or some organized event by MSI , i guess they want a piece of that market too but they should prove they have something good.
This is not the first time people from here blame Gigabyte so much for something they didn't do , if they inform you it will work at x4 what's the problem ? you can get a better one if you want gigabyte or you can buy a MSI  .
Last time with the Asus scandal people still blamed gigabyte but from reviews and just all around knowledge everyone knew Gigabyte has the better power savings and Asus just wanted to have that extra that gigabyte had , actually there are numerous things these bugs like MSI and Asus are copying from gigabyte , they didn't used all solid capacitors on MB's until gigabyte did this , they didn't go so far with power savings until gigabyte did this.
Well this is competition , they copy every good move you make but we consumers must know who copyes everything and who is actually moving this industry forward.
I can't speak for all MSI products , they probably do a lot of good things (laptops , lcd's  , graphic cards .... etc.) but the motherboards segment are just nobodys for informed people , of course the brainwashed TV comercials and we trust in the "brand" people will buy MSI because they heard something or because of the so many stickers with features , never the informed people because in all segements of price Asus and Gigabyte always has something better , if not gigabyte because it has some x4 slot than Asus and still MSI is a nobody.


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## OnBoard (Jan 5, 2009)

I have no problems with my Gigabyte board, runs OCd 24/7 (1600Mhz) and no crashes. It would be nice if people don't generalize whole brand with 3 low end motherboards..

They say clearly on the product pages "1 x PCI Express x4 slot (Refer to the VGA device support list.)" for two of the motherboard and "1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (Refer to the graphics cards support list.)". If they didn't mention that, then the comments on this thread would be justified.


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## Snipermonkey2 (Jan 5, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> Gigabyte:
> "Pay 100%, get 25% performance"



Epic fail. They should just kick themselves in the head also.


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## Mussels (Jan 5, 2009)

people are missing a few things here.

4x PCI-E 2.0 = 8x PCI-E 1.0

however, if its on a PCI-E 1.0 or 1.1 card, the hit is going to be bigger. tests with a 7600GT, or x1800 would have a lot more performance problems.

its not as simple as it seems.


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## vega22 (Jan 5, 2009)

shock horror a mobo co that says what it is on the box 

yea it could of been better but if thats not the market its aimed at why no try to save some money/power????

iv had asus, giga and msi and had issues with all 3, and they have fixxed them too but asus was the harder to get sorted. imo the bigger they get the less they care.

if people dont do the research they will end up paying twice as much for a rebadged g92


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## newtekie1 (Jan 5, 2009)

Mussels said:


> people are missing a few things here.
> 
> 4x PCI-E 2.0 = 8x PCI-E 1.0
> 
> ...



http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html

Not really, even with PCI-E 1.1 slots with PCI-E 1.1 cards, the x1900XTX barely shows any performance loss going down to x4 in games.  so the 7600GT and x1800 wouldn't really have any performance problem.

The 8800GTS definitely takes a bigger hit though.


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## Snipermonkey2 (Jan 5, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-8.html
> 
> Not really, even with PCI-E 1.1 slots with PCI-E 1.1 cards, the x1900XTX barely shows any performance loss going down to x4 in games.  so the 7600GT and x1800 wouldn't really have any performance problem.
> 
> The 8800GTS definitely takes a bigger hit though.



Yeah so pretty much this mobo is good for basic system builds and nothing higher end. Which really isn't a big because other companies will just fill this need of higher end mobos.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 6, 2009)

It's bad to not know the truth and believe any shit MSI and various news websites serves us as good.
The reason why gigabyte crippled that slot 

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20080729234236140

from that forum 


> Hi all,
> 
> I am very keen to get this motherboard but was severely 'bitten' when I last bought a G35 ASUS board. I found that when I plugged my PCIe x4 RocketRaid controller into the x16 PCIe slot, it disabled the onboard graphics.
> 
> ...




and latter answers



> Looks like you have a Gigabyte in your future.  This is a limitation with all Intel integrated graphics chipsets.
> 
> The way that Gigabyte gets around it is by implementing a crippled PCI Express x16 slot that is actually limited to PCI Express x4 mode.  Gigabyte takes 4x PCI Express lanes routed from the ICH10 Southbridge to create this slot.  ASUS uses the full PCI Express x16 interface located in the G45 Northbridge.  This also makes the Gigabyte solution PCI Express 1.x, whereas the ASUS solution fully supports PCI Express 2.0.
> 
> However, that isn't going to matter unless you intended to use a PCI-E 2.0 graphics card at some point.  The Rocket Raid card specs exactly match the capability of the Gigabyte slot; PCI-E x4 (v1.x).


Soooo , anyone cares to add more to this ?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2009)

So the crippled the slot so people could use a second card in the PCI-E slot without disabling the onboard video?

That seems really stupid to me.


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## Mussels (Jan 6, 2009)

and thats the evidence we needed: the 4x slot is *not* 2.0, so performance WILL be lower than the benchmarks posted earlier.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 6, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> So the crippled the slot so people could use a second card in the PCI-E slot without disabling the onboard video?
> 
> That seems really stupid to me.



They did it intentional to actually help some people , not to cut costs like everyone says.
It might come as a shock to some of you but some people don't need a computer to game or they just don't game on the PC and they need it maybe as a server for something , and this is how a raid controller comes into play. 
The onboard raid controller of the G45 chipset is not very good for advance users who stackes several HDD's in raid , it's like de video card that is onboard , good for some poor graphics games but not for the latest  , it's like that with the raid wich is basic for advance users , the raid from G45 if i'm not mistaken eats CPU resources for some configurations of raid and eats it bad.
Gigabyte should be blamed for carrying to much about helping some people wich don't see a computer just a gaming machine , next time they should stick to the usual and crowd the box with tons of stickers and  "features" , seems to trick the consumer , some preety colors and a nice picture on the box.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2009)

There are just several stupid things about the "we did it so people could use RAID controllers" excuse:

1.) The number of people puting RAID controllers in these budget boards is nothing compared to the people puting graphics cards.
2.) They increase compatibility for a very small minority, and decreased compatibility and performance for a very large majority.
3.) There are very simple work arounds for the disabled onboard video. All these boards have another PCI-E x1 slot and two PCI slots, or just 3 PCI slots.  Stick a cheap video card in one o those, and the cost for it will be relatively nothing compared to the cost of a RAID controller and drives.
4.) If they were truly concerned about people using RAID controllers, why not run the for PCI-E lanes from the southbridge over to a second PCI-E slot, replacing the PCI-E x1 slot with a PCI-E x4 slot?  That would have let people use their RAID controllers with onboard video, and not given people a crippled PCI-E x16 slot.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 6, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> There are just several stupid things about the "we did it so people could use RAID controllers" excuse:
> 
> 1.) The number of people puting RAID controllers in these budget boards is nothing compared to the people puting graphics cards.
> 2.) They increase compatibility for a very small minority, and decreased compatibility and performance for a very large majority.
> ...



For the 4.) point , easy to talk , are you an engineer to know if this can be done ? i bet you are not , why didn't MSI and Asus did this ? or whatever company you defend ?
Do you made a survey of the whole world and know how many people change the onboard video card and how many needs it for a raid ? don't think so.
You talk very stupid things there , stick a cheap video card in a pci express x1 slot ? the problem for some people with this news is price and if we add a cheap video card to the price of the MB we get pretty far , who knows maybe we reach 150-160$ on newegg.
In the end it doesn't matter as long as they state it it will work at that speed and there is actually a reason for this crippled slot other than to cut costs and scam you little unknowing and poor angry consumers.
You people better welcome this because for some people comes usefull and for other don't but that's why you can choose MSI or Asus or whatever brand you want , don't you like diversity ?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2009)

As for point 4, if it is possible to run the 4 PCI-E lanes from the southbridge over to the PCI-E x16 slot, it is possible to run it over to a slot one down and run the 16 lanes down from the northbridge.  It would complicate the PCB some, but it is possible.  And yes, I don't have the experience and background to say this.  Besides the fact that many motherboards have done very similar in the past.

Yes, the motherboard is cheap, but if you are using the system for RAID, it is no longer cheap.  You are looking at a minimum of $120 for a RAID card worth using over the onboard. Then you are looking at at least another $100 for two decent moderately sized hard drives.  So just to do the RAID setup is at the very minimum $220, throwing in a $40 PCI card isn't going to break the bank.

And as for the number of people wanting to put RAID cards in vs. the number putting video cards in.  Just look at the number of people running dedicated video cards vs. dedicated RAID cards(and even then there are less running dedicated PCI-E RAID cards).  Graphics card sales are a lot higher than RAID controller sales.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 6, 2009)

Your numbers aren't backed up by anything than just assumptions , did you take into acount how many people actually buy a video card to replace the onboard ? there are a lot of people that never buy a discrete video card , they settle for what they have on the mb , did you know the actual market shares and how much intel has ? and by intel having some market share this includes the desktop MB's with onboard 
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/...ntel_Grabs_Highest_Market_Share_in_Years.html
those numbers mean only one thing , most people don't put another video card in that slot , you must feel very stupid now.
So , considering most of them never replace the onboard then sometimes it's good that slot could actually help some 1 % of people that want raid , and my personal opinion is that a diversity is good , to have more choices , if i want to put a 4870 on a g45 chipset than you rather buy an ASUS or MSI because they have a pci 2.0 x16 but if i won't ever consider changing graphics i could also consider buying a gigabyte motherboard.


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## El Fiendo (Jan 6, 2009)

Leonard, I believe you were attacking Newtekie for spewing numbers without having done any research. Its odd that a couple posts later you would be doing the same. You haven't any more right say to 'people don't buy discrete video cards' then he had to say they do. The numbers you posted, if you had done any sort of research, are widely credited to the fact that most every motherboard has an IGP. Even the ones that get a discrete graphics card. Most prebuilt systems use both an IGP and a discrete solution. Most netbooks are a simple intel IGP, though less and less are now. This means Intel is not only getting their own market, the people who stay with IGP, but they are also getting counts for nVidia and ATI.

Also, please refrain from attacking him personally. He hasn't done any of that that I've seen and it doesn't count as a point in your favor in your discussion.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2009)

The graphics card market share means nothing to this discussion.  Are you really assuming that every person that doesn't use a descrete graphics card is using a RAID card in the slot instead?  Please...

Show me some numbers on descrete graphics cards vs. RAID controller cards and then we can talk.  Simply showing that more people use integrated cards than descrete cards(duh) doesn't say anything about the number of descerte cards vs. RAID controllers.  It is pretty common sense that more people have descrete graphics cards than descrete RAID controllers.


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## Thermopylae_480 (Jan 6, 2009)

Arguments work better when you don't insult the other person; so don't do it.  I think you would prefer that I don't get involved.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 6, 2009)

newtekie i'll just ask one question , is it bad to have more to choose from ? is it bad if gigabyte can help some people with their crippled solutions and unthinkable by many people who game on powerfull video cards ? if it's bad then we don't need 100 varietes of cheese or chocolate , we just need what most people want and forget the minority.
I'll refrain from offending people Thermopylae.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2009)

Yes, it is bad when Gigabyte makes the slot look like an x16 so people think they can put a good graphics card in it, only to find out the slot being crippled means their new graphics card is still going to perform like crap.

Gigabyte is only trying to cover their ass by making up the RAID controller excuse.  If that was their true reasoning, we would have seen them making a big deal about it.  It would be part of the advertising on the box.  It would be listed as a feature on the product's webpage.  None of that is true though.

And like I have already pointed out, if that was their true goal, they certainly could have gone about it in a much better way, and still given the use of a full PCI-E x16 slot.


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## erocker (Jan 6, 2009)

Arguing in news posts isn't really acceptable either.  State your case/opinion/whatever and move along.


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## Mussels (Jan 7, 2009)

Video card users who are not techies see a full length slot and assume it works at full speeds.

this is a 4x 1.0 or 1.1 slot (unspecified) which is definately NOT good for gaming, or 3D rendering using a dedicated card.

The amount of users who add RAID cards is low to begin with, let alone people who do so on budget microATX boards.

Gigabyte also have a series of motherboards with a PCI-E 2.0 16x slot for video, and a 4x open ended slot for crossfire or RAID cards. why cant users with specialised needs buy specialised boards, instead of giga crippling them?


as Erocker has said, feel free to discuss (even heatedly) your cases, but under no circumstances are personal attacks going to be ignored.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 7, 2009)

When your boss tell you to build a system with a raid config.  in xxx$ and you can't spend more on a MB maybe a cheap gigabyte g45 is the solution.
For who doesn't read the forum posts , gigabyte didn't excused itself with this argument , it's just some guys talking on a forum and discovering a cheap MB with integrated grpahic card doesn't work with raid and only gigabyte let's them do that.
I don't know how much  a specialised MB costs but it could be more than that gigabyte mb  and not everyone wants to spend a lot of money if they want to get a game server up or a file server up.
To conclude this discution , what's the cheapest solution with integrated graphic card that allows people to add a raid controller in the pci express slot ? 16x,  8x or 4x ? 
If there is a MB that is just as good  in construction ( solid capacitors ) allows raid controllers without disabling the onboard graphic has a  pci express 16x slot that will work at that speed and is cheaper or in the same price range as the gigabyte mb than i will shut up and mind my own bussines , if there is not then some people with a low budget in mind could be helped by this solution and the existance of this MB is not so unthinkable.


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## Rebo&Zooty (Jan 7, 2009)

Mussels said:


> Video card users who are not techies see a full length slot and assume it works at full speeds.
> 
> this is a 4x 1.0 or 1.1 slot (unspecified) which is definately NOT good for gaming, or 3D rendering using a dedicated card.
> 
> ...



*Attacks Mussels with bag of stale cheesy poofs*


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## newtekie1 (Jan 7, 2009)

leonard_222003 said:


> When your boss tell you to build a system with a raid config.  in xxx$ and you can't spend more on a MB maybe a cheap gigabyte g45 is the solution.
> For who doesn't read the forum posts , gigabyte didn't excused itself with this argument , it's just some guys talking on a forum and discovering a cheap MB with integrated grpahic card doesn't work with raid and only gigabyte let's them do that.
> I don't know how much  a specialised MB costs but it could be more than that gigabyte mb  and not everyone wants to spend a lot of money if they want to get a game server up or a file server up.
> To conclude this discution , what's the cheapest solution with integrated graphic card that allows people to add a raid controller in the pci express slot ? 16x,  8x or 4x ?
> If there is a MB that is just as good  in construction ( solid capacitors ) allows raid controllers without disabling the onboard graphic has a  pci express 16x slot that will work at that speed and is cheaper or in the same price range as the gigabyte mb than i will shut up and mind my own bussines , if there is not then some people with a low budget in mind could be helped by this solution and the existance of this MB is not so unthinkable.



Cheaper than the G41 Board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500018
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186140
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500006

Cheaper than the G45 Board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500019

Going to shut up now?


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 7, 2009)

If you read my post carefully i stated as a requirement for comparison to have the same built quality and to support a raid  controller in the video card PCI express slot without disabling the onboard graphics , none of those motherboards have the build quality of gigabyte , some look like 5 years ago MB's with capacitors that begin to crash your system after 1 year and the question of it will work with a raid controller is not verrified on none of those motherboards.
Where is the proof it will work , from what i read G45 chipset motherboards don't support a raid controller in that slot with the onboard graphics still working unlles the integrator does some modifications like gigabyte did.
It was preety hard to find from the start newtekie because how are you going to prove this ? i need some prove  so google it and find it , i can give you a lot of links with MB's cheaper than gigabyte too but will they work like that guy wanted on that forum ?


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## btarunr (Jan 7, 2009)

I think you two are getting into loops with the argument. You could let go of it, but as long as you're keeping things civil, I've no complaints. If you're not, then put an end to it.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 7, 2009)

leonard_222003 said:


> If you read my post carefully i stated as a requirement for comparison to have the same built quality and to support a raid  controller in the video card PCI express slot without disabling the onboard graphics , none of those motherboards have the build quality of gigabyte , some look like 5 years ago MB's with capacitors that begin to crash your system after 1 year and the question of it will work with a raid controller is not verrified on none of those motherboards.
> Where is the proof it will work , from what i read G45 chipset motherboards don't support a raid controller in that slot with the onboard graphics still working unlles the integrator does some modifications like gigabyte did.
> It was preety hard to find from the start newtekie because how are you going to prove this ? i need some prove  so google it and find it , i can give you a lot of links with MB's cheaper than gigabyte too but will they work like that guy wanted on that forum ?



If you look carefully, they all have solid caps(with the exception of the Foxconn).  And since none of them use an Intel chipset, they all avoid the problem of disabling the onboard graphics when a card is plugged into the PCI-E slot(that was a problem solely with the G4x chipset).  Solid caps don't indicate quality.

As for build quality, that is really a subjective thing.  There are definitely some better quality boards in the list I have.  The Zotac board crushes the Gigabyte in build quality IMO, and it is ~$15 cheaper.  As do some of the very cheap(sub-$50) boards.

Solid caps is not the definitive mark for quality either, especially cheap solid caps, a board with normal caps can last just as long as a solid cap board, in fact I have several high end boards from the previous generation that are all normal caps.


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## leonard_222003 (Jan 7, 2009)

I must be blind but i don't see all solid caps on none of the MB's , anyways , even the moderators are getting tired of this disscution  , i could keep arguing with you but i'm bussy with other things and this is going nowhere anyways so what's the point of keep going.
Bye and have a good life.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 7, 2009)

I don't see all solid caps on Gigabyte boards either.  Only solid caps on the power circuits, which some of the other boards have also.


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## erocker (Jan 7, 2009)

Newtekie and Leonard walk away.  There is no point in continuing your conversation on this topic.


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## TOTO1218 (Jan 23, 2009)

wolf2009 said:


> wow, so GIGABYTE actaully says that on their site ?
> 
> why are they doing that ?



I GUESS..... for HDMI

And AS I know, EG41MF-S2H... is x16...


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## spearman914 (Jan 23, 2009)

They probably did that to be honest, because if u don't tell there gonna get a LOT of negative feedbacks and just make there reputation worse.


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