ASUS is taking the legal battle against GIGABYTE's false statements to the next step, informing today that it has officially filed a lawsuit against GIGABYTE for defamatory acts. Yesterday (May 22nd 2008), ASUS has also reported GIGABYTE to the Fair Trade Commission of Taiwan.

Gigabyte, without a full understanding of ASUS' engineering design and methods, has made false accusations against ASUS motherboards' EPU features and the quality of ASUS' motherboards' components.

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The GIGABYTE versus ASUS saga continues with a new statement issued by GIGABYTE today:

GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards would like to respond to recent statements by our competitor alleging GIGABYTE has made false claims against them. These statements were made in response to a report GIGABYTE detailed for the media which compared GIGABYTE's 4-Gear and 6-Gear Dynamic Energy Saver technology to our competitor's non-phase change and 2-Gear Phase changing energy saving technology. In addition, direct comparisons and testing results were reported between the GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L motherboard and our competitor's P5K-SE EPU.

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ASUS today issued a statement in regard to the GIGABYTE claims posted here.

It has come to our attention that a certain Taiwanese Motherboard Manufacturer has made false claims against ASUS motherboards. These claims have given rise to false information being communicated in both the mainstream media and technology channels. ASUS wishes to clarify the issues and so avoid any further confusion. After investigation, it is clear that this company in question made use of a sponsored gathering of local and international media to deliberately spread information that we consider both untrue and without credible verification. This "disinformation" is not only extremely damaging to ASUS but also completely misleading to the consumers.

ASUS reserves the right to take legal action against any individual, organization or corporation which creates or spreads such rumors.

I will finish my day reporting a story published by Tom's Hardware that involves two big motherboard manufacturers - GIGABYTE and ASUS. According to GIGABYTE's technical team, ASUS is lying about its EPU (Energy Processing Unit) energy efficiency performance figures and is playing tricks with its users. ASUS claims that EPU outfitted motherboards can deliver up to 80.23% "power savings" from motherboards without EPU components. Yea, but that's not what GIGABYTE thinks. Test results from GIGABYTE's lab show that the claimed 80% energy efficiency is around 58.6% in reality, and ASUS is "playing numbers marketing" and "cheating end users." GIGABYTE engineers continued: "We found that [Asus'] EPU in 4 phase mode CAN NOT act PWM phase changing while Asus still claims EPU is a hardware based energy saving chip. Don't get fooled. The EPU (AIGear3+) is pure software based, not hardware!" "How can you believe it? Everything [Asus] say are lies," they added. GIGABYTE even pointed out that ASUS motherboards use poor quality non-Japanese solid capacitors. Read the full story here.

Intel P45 motherboard from GIGABYTE is also joining on our front page today with the EP45 Extreme model. The board comes with some new cooling that GIGABYTE calls Hybrid Silent Pipe. It expeditiously removes the heat from the PWM, northbridge and southbridge area and also allows for optional watercooling to be installed. The rest of the fancy stuff involve Dynamic Power LED indicator with dynamic 6-Gear switching, diagnostic DEBUG LEDs, on-board power,reset,clear CMOS buttons, and something new called ACPI LED. It helps monitor the different system states S0, S1, S3, S4/S5 with leds on board. I almost forget to notice that this is a DDR2 motherboard.

GIGABYTE today answered to the Foxconn BLACKOPS board, with what they call the EP45 Extreme motherboard for overclockers. It may not offer you 4-in-1 cooling like the BLACKOPS does, but as you can see from the pictures there's plenty of copper all over the board's two main chips and the 12-phase PWM area, so this will do the work quite well too. The final board will also have onboard power and reset switches, but they are missing from this early sample. The Post 80 debug LED is also a new feature for this GIGABYTE board. Additionally GIGABYTE is planning to supply later a LN2 duct for the CPU and a watercooling module for the chipset. Finally the board has six SATA ports, single IDE port, dual Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel HD audio, three PCI slots, three x16 PCIe slots, GIGABYTE's Dual BIOS and a new revision of DES.

The title says it all, what's included in this post are pictures of the first Intel P45 powered GIGABYTE motherboards, the GA-P45-DS5 and GA-EP45-DS3P. Intel P45 promises better support for quad-core and 45nm processors and is also built on a 65nm process instead of the 90nm used in previous Intel chipsets. Although these motherboards look identical to their Intel P35/X38 predecessors and does not boast any radical changes in the PCB design and heat-pipe cooling, there're several new features that need to be mentioned. Both motherboards now support on-board power, reset and clear CMOS buttons that are almost identical to those used on the ASUS R.O.G. series motherboards. The GA-P45-DS5 also features ten SATA ports - four of which are from a Silicon Image chip.bit-tech.net, XFastest Forum

Well-known motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte looks set to diversify into the high end PC accessories market later this month, starting with the introduction of its new GK-K800 keyboard. The company will be targeting its products at gamers, and the initial focus will be on strengthening brand awareness. The GK-K8000 should be priced at around $113, and is likely to compete with similar offerings from companies such as Razer and Logitech.

There's something cool from GIGABYTE, too. Captured at CeBIT this is their new memory cooling solution. Featuring a self-contained water cooling system the unit is powered by a single fan header on the motherboard and features a pair of fans cooling a small radiator situated above the DIMMs. The system features two heat spreader units which allow the liquid inside the system to move the heat away as quickly as possible. There's also a pump underside the radiator. The only downside is that only 2 memory modules can be cooled.

GIGABYTE has stealthy released two new G92 cards. The fresh GeForce 8800 GT cards all have a blue PCB, a new dual-slot cooler and a few other software and hardware updates, that distinguish them from the competitiors. The 256MB GV-NX88T256H and 512MB GV-NX88T512HP are both "Gamer HUD" cards. Gamer HUD is GIGABYTE's latest video card technology which consists of a power control VGO chip built into the graphics card and Windows software that allows you to adjust the GPU voltage for 3D gaming or 2D environment. Changing the core voltage will also allow you to find your optimal clock frequencies.

GIGABYTE Technology has joined the growing list of companies to jump on the low-cost PC bandwagon with plans to launch its contender for the market in June, company vice president Richard Ma, has revealed. The low-cost PC will support Intel's Shelton'08 low-cost notebook platform (Basic Platform). The platform consists of a 945GSE chipset with built-in DirectX 9 graphics / single channel DDR2 memory support, and single-core Diamondville processor working at 1.6GHz (533MHz FSB, 3.5W TDP). The low-cost PC will also feature a panel size of 7- to 9-inch, Ma detailed. He also noted that GIGABYTE will design and manufacture the low-cost PC itself.

GIGABYTE UNITED INC., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to announce the launch of their full range of Dynamic Energy Saver motherboards, including X48, X38 and P35-based motherboards, delivering unparalleled power savings of up to 70% and up to 20% improved power efficiency with the simple click of a button.

GIGABYTE today announced its commitment to greener motherboards and VGA cards as part of the hardware giant's 2008 New Year's resolution. The move follows a remarkable turnaround for GIGABYTE who has led the trend towards better quality PC components ever since the adoption of ROHS manufacturing practices in 2005. The rest of the industry has been following GIGABYTE's example ever since, and the company is hoping that this will continue to be the case with its latest green computing initiative - 20% better power efficiency across all new motherboard product lines in 2008.

GIGABYTE has launched an overclocking contest open to anyone in the US or Canada with a GIGABYTE Intel X38 or P35 series motherboard. There is a grand prize of $2,500 for the winner, along with a GIGABYTE X48 motherboard, with the runners-up getting cash prizes ranging from $200 to $2,000 as well as goodies such as laptop bags. The contest involves overclocking your processor and uploading your 3Dmark06 score to GIGABYTE, before going head-to-head against other users, with the overclock receiving the most votes becoming the winner. The contest will run until 20th January next year - for more details, check out this page.

VR-Zone reports that GIGABYTE branded 8800GTS 512MB G92 GV-NX88S512H-B video cards are now available for purchase in Singapore, Sim Lim Square, at a suggested retail price of SGD$549 (USD$370).

GIGABYTE UNITED INC. today is pleased to unveil their latest AMD 790FX Series motherboards including the GA-MA790FX-DQ6 and GA-MA790FX-DS5, featuring the AMD 790FX high performance chipset and support for the next generation AMD Phenom quad-core processors, providing overclockers and extreme power users the ultimate high-end power system.

GIGABYTE's Eagles series barebone is specially designed for the professional gaming players. It is constructed from a GIGABYTE GA-TX38DUXH-GB1 motherboard (Intel X38 + ICH9R) with combo DDR2/DDR3 memory support, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX video card, WD 1500 ADFD Raptor hard drive and an 800W PSU (probably GIGABYTE branded). The system also offers integrated water cooling, Intel 10/100/1000Mbps LAN, 12x USB 2.0 and a DVD burner. Pricing and availability details are unknown.

This gauge connects to your computer to reveal critical information about your PC's current operating conditions. Rather than modern digital readouts, the Gigabyte Visual USB Gauge (GZ-PGAPB-01R) uses a good, old fashioned analog gauge to relay the current state of your power supply. Designed specifically for use with Odin GT series of PSUs, the gauge plugs into your computer through a USB port and can tell you about the power supply's current operating temperature, wattage consumption and fan speed. The three LED illuminated buttons in front of the device are used to quickly switch between the three measurement types.

Motherboard maker Gigabyte unveiled the specifications of three new motherboards with the AMD 790FX chipset. The GA-MA790X-DS4, GA-MA790X-DS5 and GA-MA790X-DQ6 all have support for AMD's upcoming AM2+ Phenom processors, 1066MHz DDR2 memory and PCI Express 2.0. The GA-MA790FX-DQ6 is the most advanced version. This motherboard uses a special cooling system with two heatpipes and features support for CrossFireX. The other two motherboards only support regular CrossFire. The boards will be available later this month.

Less than two weeks from now NVIDIA will be releasing its nForce 780i chipset marked to bring tri-SLI support for all hardcore users. GIGABYTE is going to be among the first motherboard manufacturers to introduce nForce 780i powered board. The GA-780SLi-DS5 has now been pictured and can be viewed just below. The board comes with two heatpipes cooling system, six SATA ports, three PCIe x16 slots that are tri-SLI ready and four DDR2 memory slots supporting DDR2-1066. The GA780SLI-DS5 will be released next month and is likely to have a bigger brother (DS/Q6).

Taiwan-based Gigabyte is set to soon introduce a new computer case dubbed Poseidon 310. The case is made out of steel and features an aluminum front panel as well as interchangeable side panels (vented steel mesh or transparent acrylic). It also includes modularized hard drive housing and is claimed to have tool-free design. The aluminum Poseidon 310 weights 9.8kg and has five external 5.25" bays, 2 external 3.5" bays, 3 intrenal 3.5" bays, seven expansion slots, and room for two 120mm fans, one in front where a washable dust filter can be found and one in the back. The Poseidon 310 is set to be released next month in two color schemes - silver and black.

This is rather unfortunate, considering that the majority of our motherboards are made in Taiwan. DailyTech did some true journalism, and looked into the famed Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3. It seems that after a few months, the DS3's have their fair share of electronic noise, and some issues with reliability/interference. And so, an independent firm sent some DS3 samples to FCC labs to confirm that they indeed did comply with FCC regulations for Electro-Magnetic Interference. Electro-Magnetic Interference does a lot of things to our beloved technology, such as disrupt, obstruct or simply degrade them. Two out of three samples failed terribly. When the same samples were sent to a European lab to test for CE compliance, all of the boards failed. This means that the tens of thousands of motherboards currently in systems world-wide do not comply with FCC/CE regulations for EMI.

AnandTech published today an early performance preview of the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 Intel X38 based motherboard.

Our testing today is centered on a select group of synthetic and application benchmarks that will provide a general indication of how the X38 currently performs with beta hardware. We will follow up shortly with results from a retail board/BIOS combination that will focus on CrossFire (sorry, as of now there's no official SLI support), overclocking, power consumption, and additional application benchmarks.

The last version of the Gigabyte RAM-disk was a clever invention that allowed it's user to treat up to 4GB of RAM as a hard disk. When people installed Windows XP to this RAM-disk, the result was an extraordinarily fast boot/shutdown time, very nice system response, and speedy file access. Gigabyte has taken to heart the motto of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The GO-RAMDISK by Gigabyte takes the old RAM-disk, which could hold 4GB of RAM and interfaced with a local SATA port, and put it in a 5.25" drive bay. Gigabyte also added status LED's and a battery check button.

There's no word as to when we can start seeing this, but here's a picture of it at Computex 2007.

GIGABYTE today announced its new Odin line of power supply units will ship soon. Two versions will be available: Odin Pro and Odin GT, ranging from 550W to 800W - across each model. All PSUs are equipped with Active PFC, over-voltage, over-current, under-voltage and short - circuit protection. Odin GT, the flagship model covers the Intel 12V V2.2 specification and has four +12V rails (2x18A, 2x25A). One of the most special features of the Odin GT power supplies is their software control. In brief, it manages the following: output voltages and load on each rail, power fan speed tweak, localized or preset temperature monitors, power supply lighting control, proximity warning bells and even present user modes for performance, normal use or silent operation. Other features include +80% efficiency, a silent 140mm fan, high-quality Japanese capacitors, SLI ready and modular cable management.