GIGABYTE: ASUS Lied and Fooled Customers

[Mussels]

the problem with this, is that asus claimed it was a HARDWARE solution, when its not. The gains come from using speedstep and C1E - which are intels solution and NOTHING to do with the 'EPU' chip asus claimed to have.

Also check out the dead caps thread here on TPU, and those blue caps shown in the pics have been seen exploding a few times on some OC forums.

 

[imperialreign]

just as a common question i thought that solid caps were not supposed to blow?

they still can, it takes a lot more though, and they tend to be a bit more destructive than electrolyc caps when they go . . .

funny thing, though, that image isn't a high-end ASUS board, so it wouldn't have EPU - all high end ASUS boards are black PCB (as far as I know).

Didn't GIGABYTE and ASUS have some kind of an agreement to join forces? I guess there handshake has turned to a fist fight .

Both the GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver and the ASUS EPU options sound like a gimmick. What we need is a review of these two competing options.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1348/gigabyte_des_and_asus_epu_tested/

there were a couple other reviews, but it'll take some time to find them now, as one will have to sort through all the forum posts and tech sites now listing this article.

*a review on ASUS EPU: http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Dwelling_into_the_ASUS_Energy_Processing_Unit/5744.html


Anyhow, I've never had any major issues with ASUS boards, and have found them to be solid contenders and capable of withstanding some stoopid levels of abuse as well. I'm not saying GIGA builds bad boards, but I'll stick with ASUS. They might charge more for their hardware, but considering the amount of goodies they cram on a board, their detailed BIOSes, and my peace of mind, I'll pay the extra premium.

Never had an issue with their tech support, either - although they can be a little slow responding to you. But if you come across as being "tech aware" they'll communicate with you on your level, and their RMA service has been quick whenever needed.


But, just like everyone else, their boards do have flaws now and then.











-edit-


after doing some more digging, I think these articles here reflect what GIGA is screaming about from ASUS:

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5490&Itemid=37
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6482&Itemid=37


I don't think it resolves around ASUS EPU being solely hardware, as even the onwers manuals of the boards state that AiGear3+ software must be installed for it EPU to work properly . . . it appears more that ASUS changed their "claimed" power saving numbers, and then started harping on GIGA's solution as being sub-par in comparison to theirs.

The big picture is starting to make a bit more sense, now; I hadn't realized ASUS had made any changes to their EPU claims prior to this point . . .

bad move, ASUS.

 

[jbunch07]

ive always used gigabyte boards...ive never had a problem with them...cant really say much a bout asus or anything about these claims because ive never used an asus board...sounds like gigabyte might just be a taking these claims a little to far though...

 

[tkpenalty]

just as a common question i thought that solid caps were not supposed to blow?

They can blow, and a lot of OCing attemps have shown this will occur...its a very dangerous explosion compared to the normal capacitors with the vents.

Not to mention on their lower boards they use some of the cheaper ICs which are loaded with problems that most end consumers won't see.

Its not really propaganda but its taken a bit too far in some aspects. If you are constructing server platforms on consumer motherboards, it would be logical to avoid ASUS's low end-mid end boards for several big reasons.

Mainly the fact ASUS uses low end Marvell yukon gigabit NICs, even on the P5K-E WiFi! That stuff in a server situation will be a PIA. Gigabyte, on all their boards afaik these days chuck on realtek NICs, which don't suffer from as many problems.

ASUS's EPU chip looks like a rebadged voltage controller IC.

 

[SiXx`]

Ugh, manufactures in glasshouses shouldn't talk about other manufactures.

I guess Gigabyte doesn't remember their GA-N680SLI-DQ6 mess when they falsely advertised the boards would support newer 1333FSB quad core processors... when they didn't and the result was a lot of bad flak about their boards. Of course they did eventually issue somewhat of a fix to users with these problematic boards by giving them 790i chipset boards.

Gary Key @ Anandtech had an article page about this not too long ago.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3279&p=5

At least asus marketing department can play their cards right to get more customers without having to cost them profits.

 

[csendesmark]

LOL
if you wannt to get max performace, you have to overclock your PC
and if you overclock you will "waste" more energy...
...this energy saving methods are totally useless... ...and the cake is a LIE!

 

[HTC]

they still can, it takes a lot more though, and they tend to be a bit more destructive than electrolyc caps when they go . . .

funny thing, though, that image isn't a high-end ASUS board, so it wouldn't have EPU - all high end ASUS boards are black PCB (as far as I know).




http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1348/gigabyte_des_and_asus_epu_tested/

there were a couple other reviews, but it'll take some time to find them now, as one will have to sort through all the forum posts and tech sites now listing this article.

*a review on ASUS EPU: http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Dwelling_into_the_ASUS_Energy_Processing_Unit/5744.html


Anyhow, I've never had any major issues with ASUS boards, and have found them to be solid contenders and capable of withstanding some stoopid levels of abuse as well. I'm not saying GIGA builds bad boards, but I'll stick with ASUS. They might charge more for their hardware, but considering the amount of goodies they cram on a board, their detailed BIOSes, and my peace of mind, I'll pay the extra premium.

Never had an issue with their tech support, either - although they can be a little slow responding to you. But if you come across as being "tech aware" they'll communicate with you on your level, and their RMA service has been quick whenever needed.


But, just like everyone else, their boards do have flaws now and then.











-edit-


after doing some more digging, I think these articles here reflect what GIGA is screaming about from ASUS:

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5490&Itemid=37
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6482&Itemid=37


I don't think it resolves around ASUS EPU being solely hardware, as even the onwers manuals of the boards state that AiGear3+ software must be installed for it EPU to work properly . . . it appears more that ASUS changed their "claimed" power saving numbers, and then started harping on GIGA's solution as being sub-par in comparison to theirs.

The big picture is starting to make a bit more sense, now; I hadn't realized ASUS had made any changes to their EPU claims prior to this point . . .

bad move, ASUS.

Very interesting read, dude: GREAT post!

 

[Bytor]

I will ignore, as I do not like propaganda.

I have to agree....

 

[Nitro-Max]

4.3ghz from a q6600 on a gigabyte ga-965p-dq6 is not crap lol the high end boards are amazing and stable i just like the preformance tweaks with the rampage bios i get more gains out of my memory.

 

[Mussels]

i've had problems with asus and gigabyte boards. both companies have great models (asus P5K-E) and failures (striker extreme... ugghhhh).

More or less, it all comes down to research before buying - thats NOT what this article is about. Its about asus bagging out gigabyte saying asus have a real EPU, a physical hardware chip that saves power by altering various things - which in reality, does nothing. Intel speedstep is what controls the feature, in its entirety. They have simply wrote their own SOFTWARE to control speedstep. Gigabyte did the same thing, but they're open about it - theres is a gradual stepdown process more similar to AMD's cool and quiet (gradual clock/voltage drops, not min/max only)

 

[Grings]

Prior to mobo manufacturers advertising that they use jap capacitors, gigabyte boards had an awful failiure rate due to bad capacitors, i had 2 gigabyte nforce 2's last less than 6 months before blowing their caps (as well as 2 abits and a leadtek one), while i still have an asus nf2 running today

Also i think this smear campaign by gigabyte is a little too soon after the failed merger between these two companies to be taken at face value

 

[msgclb]

As far as I can tell there have been two reviews that compared the GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver to the ASUS EPU. The first one is the GIGABYTE DES and ASUS EPU Tested review by Tweaktown that imperialreign identified above. The other one is a little out of focus at times but it's YouTube - Battle of Energy Saving. Both give GIGABYTE the win.

 

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

I raise my hat to Gigabyte on this one.

 

[VIPER]

I am not sure if it's the right place to write (of course I am), but I want to "leak" to you some info about the forthcoming P45 series (it's somehow related to the topic here):

 

[niko084]

Solid caps blow... It happens, I have seen in my life 1 board with a blown solid cap, it was an Intel.... I have though seen many video cards with blown solid caps.

 

[VIPER]

Of course they blow. This is why some solid capacitors are better than others. Is like in tyres in cars: they serve the same purpose, but Pirelli (just a random name from the top vendors) will always be better than Uniroyal (just a random name from other vendors).

 

[niko084]

MMM... Pirelli, my new P-Zero Nero's that just came for one of my cars..... Now I just need to buy my wheels... lol

Ya qualtiy does play, but a lot of people seem to think solid caps are blow proof for some reason.... Now the funny thing here is whoever said if a cap doesn't come from Japan its crap?
Thats a little funny to hear... Now I know Japan puts out a lot of very high end electronics equipment and parts but, doesn't always mean its the best.

 

[VIPER]

Well, in the electronics world there are 2 companies from Japan that produces the best capacitors. It's not marketing, it's reality. But in the IT world is hard to explain this or hard to make people understand.

 

[imperialreign]

MMM... Pirelli, my new P-Zero Nero's that just came for one of my cars..... Now I just need to buy my wheels... lol

Ya qualtiy does play, but a lot of people seem to think solid caps are blow proof for some reason.... Now the funny thing here is whoever said if a cap doesn't come from Japan its crap?
Thats a little funny to hear... Now I know Japan puts out a lot of very high end electronics equipment and parts but, doesn't always mean its the best.

true . . . although, IMO, the failure rate of parts from China and Taiwan are higher than that from Japan


and, then, there are those rare parts from Mexico . . .

 

[niko084]

true . . . although, IMO, the failure rate of parts from China and Taiwan are higher than that from Japan


and, then, there are those rare parts from Mexico . . .

My point was all they said was they couldn't find out where the caps were made, so as far as they can say, they could be better... Thats my only point.

 

[VIPER]

Read what I said above...

 

[imperialreign]

and like I found funny in the images from GIGA, they quote the capacitors as being non-Japanese made . . . but the images aren't from one of ASUS' high-end motherboard, based on the PCB color (to the best of my knowledge, all high-end ASUS mobos are black PCB, not cream colored) . . . I've never seen ASUS claim Japanese solid capacitors on their mid or low range boards, and the caps on their high-end boards are


funny . . . both companies are sandbagging each other right now.

kinda sad how things in the motherboard market get when competition reaches a lull

 

[niko084]

Read what I said above...

Sure, even if the "best" are "still" made in japan, it doesn't mean those are "not" japanese caps, they said "we couldn't find out who made these", therefore they don't know what they are...

Just because a while ago they said the best caps are made in Japan doesn't mean last year a company didn't start making them without a lot of knowledge that are superior... I doubt this is the case myself, but still entirly possible.

They lack a lot of information in their attack is what I'm saying.

As for the comment they don't claim japanese caps on their lower and lower-mid line boards, thats true too, I know my p5k-e has good caps

 

[VIPER]

My point is that on each capacitor of that kind you usually find something that tells you who is the manufacturer.

 

[Megasty]

Poor dumb GIGA. I had boards from both in which the caps blew. I even had a GIGA board with a SSC that the cap housing cracked at the base. I think it had to be a factory flaw though. I just don't buy into all of that mudslinging crap. Its almost counterproductive. Put that manpower into bettering your own stuff instead of trying to find flaws in others.