EVGA Says Goodbye to Driver DVDs

[Chino]

Jacob Freeman, Global Product Management Director at EVGA, has confirmed via a Tweet that future EVGA motherboards (H370 Stinger included) will no longer come with a driver DVD. Instead, the consumer will receive a sleek 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drive with all the necessary drivers and software. While some users might argue that it's good practice to get the latest drivers from the motherboard support page, you still need to install the network driver to access the internet after a fresh Windows installation. EVGA's decision is a well thought-out one as not all system builders include an optical drive in their builds or want to spend $15 on one just to install a driver. The included flash drive is re-writeable, so users can store other things on it if desired. Jacob commented that the cost of including a standard 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drive is about twenty times that of an old-school DVD. Nevertheless, EVGA motherboard prices will not increase to cover the cost.


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[FreedomEclipse]

It probably costs half a peanut to make, saving the other half for your snickers bar.

Other manufacturers should honestly follow suite. even just a crappy 2-4GB one, so long as you can run a linux distro off it after you've copied all the mobo software off it, it'll be put to good use.

 

[RejZoR]

Not to mention ecology aspect. Sure, USB drive requires more resources to make, but you don't toss it in the bin the moment you buy a graphic card or whatever. I always download drivers directly, because those on CD/DVD are always old. But USB, if you don't need the drivers, you can use it as Windows install boot drive or to store latest drivers if needed that you downloaded. I'm sure they could get smaller ones from some Chinese maker, like 2GB or 4GB, still plenty big for all software for the product and still big enough to carry around new drivers or personal documents of needed.

 

[Flanker]

Optical drives are falling deeper into my memory. I need to start thinking really hard on remembering what it was like when everyone use them.

And I love what EVGA is doing.

 

[dj-electric]

Cool stuff, and yeah, even a 2GB one could do just fine if it means cutting costs

 

[xkm1948]

Still have and love my BD-ROM. All my new builds still have optical drive.

Spoiler

Why? Because I have over 400 blank DVD-RW/DL I need to use!

 

[silentbogo]

Jacob commented that the cost of including a standard 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drive is about twenty times that of an old-school DVD. Nevertheless, EVGA motherboard prices will not increase to cover the cost.

That's either a number from 10 years ago, or an overstatement.
The cheapest blank DVD on Newegg costs $1.49, while the cheapest flashdrive costs around $3.35 (2GB). $5 can actually be enough to get a decent brand-name drive 8GB stick in retail.
Also add a cost of keeping the old, loud, expensive and power-hungry DVD cloning rig and spending lots of time on writing data comparing to USB, printing company's logo on an envelope, and you've already passed the break-even point.

I'm pretty sure that an OEM bulk of 2GB drives w/ read-only lock capability can be bought for less than a buck in bulk from China, so I really like this move.

 

[RejZoR]

Optical drives are falling deeper into my memory. I need to start thinking really hard on remembering what it was like when everyone use them.

And I love what EVGA is doing.

I still have my Samsung DVD-RW writer. Like 12 years old or so. Only time I still use it is for really old retail games that I fancy playing again here and there. I've been doing USB installs of Windows because I owned ACER Aspire One which had no optical drive. That was back in 2009 I think? It was ZG5 that I upgraded with 1GB RAM and Intel 80GB SSD... And since USB was so much more convenient, I just sticked with it on all systems, even if they had optical drive. I mean, installation was WAY faster using USB over optical drives so that was one of more important reasons.

 

[natr0n]

Never can have enough flash drives.

 

[Vario]

I still have an optical drive and consider it a must on my PC but I barely ever use it. Switching to USB for drivers seems reasonable to me.

 

[Fx]

This is a sound decision. I haven't installed a DVD drive in any of my new rigs in about a decade.

 

[silentbogo]

This is a sound decision. I haven't installed a DVD drive in any of my new rigs in about a decade.

Same here. Haven't used one, or put a DVD/BD drive in my systems since 2009.
Last week I even gave away the last remnants of laptop DVD drives from my office parts pile to an old guy across the street. He's a 70-something electronics enthusiast, so he's gonna use those for parts for a DIY home security system and cheap stepper motors.

5.25" bay has some other useful things to put into it, like a cheap chinese card reader with extra 4 usb ports, eSATA and volume control for FP_AUDIO.

 

[Assimilator]

This is awesome. Kudos EVGA! Time for optical disks to die the death they finally need to.

 

[Fx]

5.25" bay has some other useful things to put into it, like a cheap chinese card reader with extra 4 usb ports, eSATA and volume control for FP_AUDIO.

You can also buy adapters to house drives. Two 5.25" bays can hold three 3.5" drives and many SSDs. ICY DOCK specializes in this very well.

 

[newtekie1]

I don't remember which manufacturer it was, maybe AsRock, but one of them for a while had driver discs that if possible would go out and download the latest drivers from the internet and install those instead of using the outdated ones on the disc. Now they just need to make the driver installation software on this USB stick just as smart. When you go to use it to install drivers, it should give you the option to install all the drivers from the USB stick, or just install the network drivers from the USB stick then download all the updated drivers automatically, as well as update itself replacing the old drivers with the latest.

Or even let you plug the drive into another internet connected computer, and run an update program to update the flash drive automatically.

Now that is something I'd like to see.

That's either a number from 10 years ago, or an overstatement.
The cheapest blank DVD on Newegg costs $1.49, while the cheapest flashdrive costs around $3.35 (2GB). $5 can actually be enough to get a decent brand-name drive 8GB stick in retail.
Also add a cost of keeping the old, loud, expensive and power-hungry DVD cloning rig and spending lots of time on writing data comparing to USB, printing company's logo on an envelope, and you've already passed the break-even point.

I'm pretty sure that an OEM bulk of 2GB drives w/ read-only lock capability can be bought for less than a buck in bulk from China, so I really like this move.

I'd believe that number is close to accurate actualy. My mother-in-law worked for Sony DADC in the disc factory up until about a year ago. The manufactured discs for all types of clients, and I believe the going rate for a manufactured DVD in a paper sleeve was something like $0.12-0.15 a piece depending on the number of colors in the label. I can also believe that a custom printed 8GB flash drive with data pre-loaded on it could cost in the neighborhood of $3 a piece.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

The cheapest blank DVD on Newegg costs $1.49

DVD's can be had on the retail market for $0.19 each. https://www.supermediastore.com/products/linkyo-ly-cdmrsimhp52-100-cd-r

I don't remember which manufacturer it was, maybe AsRock, but one of them for a while had driver discs that if possible would go out and download the latest drivers from the internet and install those instead of using the outdated ones on the disc. Now they just need to make the driver installation software on this USB stick just as smart. When you go to use it to install drivers, it should give you the option to install all the drivers from the USB stick, or just install the network drivers from the USB stick then download all the updated drivers automatically, as well as update itself replacing the old drivers with the latest.

Or even let you plug the drive into another internet connected computer, and run an update program to update the flash drive automatically.

Now that is something I'd like to see.

We can dream.

 

[Deleted member 178884]

Great, fed up of dvd drives anyway.

 

[Upgrayedd]

DVD's can be had on the retail market for $0.19 each.

Yeah no clue who would buy a single blank DVD for $1. Stopped shopping Newegg quite a while ago.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Still have and love my BD-ROM. All my new builds still have optical drive.

Spoiler

Why? Because I have over 400 blank DVD-RW/DL I need to use!

Yep, got a CD/DVD burner and a BD-ROM on my computer. The other two 5.25" bays house two HDDs. I've been putting 6-12 movies a day on my Plex server for the past couple of months so both the CD/DVD and BD-ROMs are getting heavy use right now. I think I'm down to a few TV series and I'll be done with my current collection.

Also, I've got probably a good 100+ blank DVDs I tend to make use of from time to time to back up data - so I'll probably forever have a DVD burner on my computer.

 

[yotano211]

I was using a laptop with a optical drive space for about 4 months now but I turned it into a HD space with a HD caddy. Last time I used the optical drive was over 5 years ago.

 

[silentbogo]

Yeah no clue who would buy a single blank DVD for $1. Stopped shopping Newegg quite a while ago.

That's just an example of a retail price. In bulk DVDs can go as low as $0.4-0.5 in large spindles (100ct), while blank unbranded 2GB-8GB USB sticks can be purchased for around $150-200 per x100 pack.

DVD's can be had on the retail market for $0.19 each. https://www.supermediastore.com/products/linkyo-ly-cdmrsimhp52-100-cd-r

Those are CD-R disks, and they are indeed cheaper. But in modern days it's not enough to contain a bulk of NVidia drivers (at least 32 and 64 bit versions for W7/8/10 totaling four installers with combined ~1.5GB), EVGA Precision software and other stuff.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

This is awesome. Kudos EVGA! Time for optical disks to die the death they finally need to.

OD's are still the only option for long term storage. Storage on a mechanical HDD can fail due to a mechanical or electrical failure. SSD's can fail and there is no recovery. Online or cloud storage is only good if the company stays in business and you make those regular payments. And tape, well...

Those are CD-R disks

Oops. Still, the blank DVD-R's are $0.24 each. Sleeves are another $0.03.

 

[ironwolf]

Yay, one could use it for a install flash drive for your favorite OS flavor.

 

[Casecutter]

Heck I just found an AMD marked one of those, I believe I receive back in 2006-2007 when AMD/Microsoft use to throw their "Tech Tours" or whatever they called them. I think it's like 512Kb one, they were call "Chiclets" back in the day.

I'd call "bunk"... that EVGA is saying the CD/write/artwork/envelope is that much less. There all kinds of promotional things like these or credit cards type that are super cheap even when printed with a Logo and loaded with a say companies catalog. I've seen such promotional Chiclets be like 3 cents apiece at like 1k volumes. Heck here the best part they buy them "unloaded" and during production flash the particular files instead of buy tons of CD then have to inventory control the stocking levels, or have to throw a bunch in the trash when they EOL the motherboard.

 

[Tartaros]

OD's are still the only option for long term storage. Storage on a mechanical HDD can fail due to a mechanical or electrical failure. SSD's can fail and there is no recovery. Online or cloud storage is only good if the company stays in business and you make those regular payments. And tape, well...

BD's are actually quite nice and I would use them for backup but they are still very expensive.