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Motherboard Makers Scramble to Avoid Component Shortage

Paul Lilly — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:00:43 -0600

Citing sources from motherboard makers, news and rumor site DigiTimes says there's a shortage of mobo components, including multilayered ceramic chips (MLCCs), solid capacitors, LAN connectors, and other odds and ends. The reason, sources say, is because of recent labor shortages.

In response to the shortages, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ECS have all begun "aggressively placing orders" in an attempt to avoid having the component shortages affect overall shipments.

The good news is that the labor situation is expected to improve after April, by which time the mobo market will have entered the slow season. The tight supply of components will also improve, but component makers fear that their performance will be affected in the second quarter as top-tier mobo makers halt any new orders to avoid a surplus in inventory.

Gigabyte Catches up to Asus in Motherboard Market

Paul Lilly — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:19:33 -0600

Look out Asus, Gigabyte isn't just nipping at your heels anymore, the top-tier motherboard maker is pretty much standing side by side, market watchers say.

According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, Gigabyte looks to have shipped anywhere from 3.1 million to 3.3 million motherboards in the first two months of 2010, putting the company on par with Asus, who is estimated to have shipped 3.2 million to 3.3 million units.

Don't expect to Asus to concede its lead so easily, however. Channel vendors say Asus, in an attempt to stay out in front, might start slashing prices. If Asus were to do so, it could lead to a price war in the mobo market that could potentially spill over to include other vendors.

Gigabyte "Aggressively Adopting USB 3.0" on Several Motherboard Models

Paul Lilly — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:59:37 -0600

Gigabyte is apparently taking this whole USB 3.0 thing pretty seriously and is stoked that two of its P55-based motherboards -- GA-P55A-UD7 and GA-P55A-UD5 -- have passed official certification by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF).

But the SuperSpeed buck doesn't stop there. Gigabyte says it is "aggressively adopting USB 3.0" on all of nearly its platforms, including the Intel X58, P55, H57, P45, and P43 chipsets, as well as AMD 790FX, 790X, 770, and 785G chipsets.

"We are investing heavily in developing the USB 3.0 ecosystem and are overjoyed to see that the majority of motherboards listed on the SuperSpeed USB Compliance Web page are from GIGABYTE," said Henry Kao, Senior Vice President, Motherboard Business Unit, GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd. "As the Windows® 7 upgrade cycle progresses, we are finding that onboard USB 3.0 is a powerful deal clincher as consumers look to future-proof their new purchases with the very latest technologies and specifications. As such, the timing for the introduction of USB 3.0 could not be better, and we are excited about working with the USB-IF to ramp up SuperSpeed adoption and explore the new possibilities that it has to offer."

Gigabyte is getting a bit of help from NEC, which is providing the uPD720200 host controller for all of the company's USB 3.0 compliant boards. In addition, a handful of models also feature 3x USB power boost, which you can read more about here.

Image Credit: Gigabyte

Gigabyte Pushes First AMD 6-Core CPU-Ready Mobo Out the Door

Paul Lilly — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:06:48 -0600

Wasting very little time, Gigabyte today announced what it claims is the first AMD 6-core CPU-ready motherboard, the socket AM3 GA-890GPA-UD3H.

This is the first board to feature AMD's 890GX chipset paried with the new SB850 southbridge, resulting in native support for SATA 6Gbps, up to six devices in all. The southbridge also allows for SATA 6Gbps RAID support, another industry first according to Gigabyte.

"Giving users power over their high definition content is really at the heart of what the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H is all about," commented Tim Handley, Deputy Director of Motherboard Marketing at GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd. "Not only does the GA-890GPA-UD3H deliver the industry’s highest performing integrated graphics solution with flawless HD video playback, but enabling SATA 6 Gbps with RAID functionality, USB 3.0 support and GIGABYTE 3x Power Boost means that users are able to spend less time waiting for their content to transfer, and more time to actually enjoy it."

Other features include USB 3.0 support, integrated ATI Radeon HD 4290 graphics with 128MB DDR3 sideport memory, two PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics slots, dual-channel DDR3-1866+ support, 3X USB power delivery, HDMI, and a few other odds and ends.

No word yet on price or availability.

Image Credit: Gigabyte

Dell Server Orders Push Gigabyte's Revenue Up

Paul Lilly — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:33:45 -0600

Dell should be on the lookout for a 'thank you' card from Gigabyte, which saw strong on-month and on-year revenue growth rates to the tune of 55.1 percent and 41.1 percent, respectively, in January 2010 mostly because of server and storage system orders placed by Dell.

The mostly short-term orders won't do much to bolster Gigabyte's long term outlook, but according to some analysts, it will help Gigabyte see better revenues performance than nearly all of its motherboard competitors.

The server and storage orders came at a good time. Gigabyte has struggled a bit in the notebook sector, shipping only about 300,000 units in 2009 and failing to meet the company's expectations. Meanwhile, Gigabyte's handset subsidiary is seeing losses, though the vendor expects both of these segments to see significant improvement in 2010.

Image Credit: Gigabyte

Gigabyte Latest to Jump on H55/H57 Bandwagon

Bart Salisbury — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:54:59 -0600

The computing world moves on, and Gigabyte moves on with it, announcing five new new motherboards: four for the H55 chipset, and one for the H57 chipset.

The new motherboards will support Intel’s latest Core i3 and Core i5 processors, in addition to the Core i7. Most all have four DDR3 DIMM sockets, supporting dual-channel memory up to 2133+ Mhz. All will have onboard VGA, DVI, and HDMI ports, and four will offer Gigabyte’s high performance digital DisplayPort, which delivers up to 10.8 Gbps of bandwidth over standard cables, allowing for fast refresh rates and greater color depths. And all will offer a pair of rear panel USB 3.0 ports.

These motherboards are now available through a number of online retailers. Sorry, but no pricing information was offered.

Image Credit: Gigabyte

Gigabyte Trumpets World's First Mobo to Pass USB 3.0 Certification

Paul Lilly — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:15:47 -0600

Having been finalized for awhile now, the USB 3.0 spec has lost some of the glitz and glamor that accompany new technology announcements, but it's not all old news just yet. On the contrary, Gigabyte has taken to thumping its chest over its GA-P55A-UD3 becoming "the world's first motherboard to pass USB-IF (Universal Serial Bus-Implementers Forum) certification," paving the way for the company to plaster the SuperSpeed USB logo on its product.

Gigabyte claims its GA-P55A-UD3 "underwent strict compliance and product quality testing from the USB-IF" before receiving its certification. The mobo maker also said several other models with onboard USB 3.0 are currently being tested and are expected to pass certification within the next couple of weeks.

In addition to onboard USB 3.0, the GA-P55A-UD3 also boasts SATA 6Gb/s support, a 2-ounce copper PCB leading to lower temps and better power efficiency, DDR3-2000+ support, CrossFireX support, and several other features.

The GA-P55A-UD3 streets for about $143 shipped.

Image Credit: Gigabyte

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6

Gordon Mah Ung — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:30:00 -0600

A P55 motherboard that spares no amenity

If you thought Intel’s new budget Nehalem meant rock-bottom, feature-stripped motherboards to match, think again.

Gigabyte’s GA-P55-UD6 jams just about every feature you could think of into the new LGA1156 platform. There are the de rigueur updated power-saving utilities and the dual BIOS, which can save your bacon should your BIOS get corrupted.

And then there’s a whole kitchen sink of new features, such as the ability to secure the system using the onboard TPM module and then have it unlock when the computer detects your Bluetooth phone nearby. The same Bluetooth phone can also be used to put the system in standby or hibernate if you walk away, to save power.

Two other features are probably a bit more useful: As part of the board’s Smart Six apps, the BIOS QuickBoot feature allows you to set the BIOS to initialize much faster if no hardware has been changed. With the feature turned on, we saw the system go from a 30-second POST-to-OS load to 15 seconds. That’s pretty spectacular. The OS QuickBoot promises faster boots, too, but as far as we can tell, it’s simply a different way to invoke Vista’s Hybrid Sleep mode.

Gigabyte's P55 board is the first to sport six DIMM slots for the Core i5.

In the odd-feature department, the Smart Recorder function can log power ons and offs and which files are moved off of the computer. (Not trustful of your roommate?) Even odder is the Smart Dual BIOS feature that lets you store passwords and up to 12 important dates in the BIOS. Why? We don’t know.

On the physical front, the board ups the arms race in power regulation with a 24-phase power feature. A typical budget board features four-phase power circuits—Gigabyte says the 24-phase helps keep the board cooler by spreading the workload among more components and can also aid in delivering higher and more reliable voltage. Gigabyte also says it used two ounces of copper to build the traces in the board instead of the typical one ounce in budget boards. In theory, this should lower the resistance and also thermals.

Of course, there’s also 12 SATA ports (but no SATA 6) and eight USB ports (no USB 3.0), as well as SLI and CrossFire X support. Oh, and did we mention the six DIMM slots? That’s the feature that will get the most attention. Since Lynnfield is dual-channel, the majority of boards for the CPU feature four DIMM slots. The six-slots, though, aren’t as useful as you would think, right now. To populate all six, you must include four single-sided DIMMs. What that translates to with today’s RAM is four 1GB DDR3 sticks combined with, say, two 2GB DIMMs, for a total of 8GB. That’s the same as you would get from a four-slot board. The extra slots might be handy in 12 to 18 months, when RAM density has increased, but not today. We tested the GA-P55-UD6 with six DIMMS to see if populating all of the slots would hurt performance, and it didn’t. In fact, we saw slightly better performance with 8GB using six DIMMs than 8GB using four DIMMs.

We used the GA-P55-UD6 for the majority of our Lynnfield testing (November) and didn’t experience any issues, and performance was quite good when compared to X58 and i920.

Even the cost of the board is quite acceptable. If this were an X58 board, it would push $350, but at $240 MSRP the GA-P55-UD6 is a decent value. The fact that the board is currently selling for more than it lists tells you how hot is right now.