Ask Me Anything - Official Gigabyte Representatives

[Marco925]

Gigabyte, When are we going to see your other products, such as laptops and Chassis in canada? Also, Are we going to be in for an ITX flavour of the FM2 Socket?

 

[bim27142]

The idea that a real PC gaming board needs to be full size ATX, is now clearly gone.

Couldn't agree more... any motherboard company who can make it happen (to squeeze that much feature in such small space) is clearly a generation ahead of the others. I am confident Gigabyte is more than capable of making this happen.

A G1.Killer Mini-ITX board would of course seem the next logical step, and without saying too much, I can tell you that it is something being discussed internally.

Thank you Sir!

 

[slomo4sho]

Asus just revealed a micro-atx FM2+ board and have previously indicated minimal interest in mini-ITX. AMD has plans for low TPD FM2 chips for the HTPC market. What are Gigabytes current plans for the mini-ITX segment of AMDs processor lineup (AM3+, FM2, and FM2+)?

Also, I am interested in the "AMP up" feature of the Z87 Sniper series. Any plans on incorporating this in future AMD boards?

 

[BrutusNZ]

Hi there,

Just wondering if Gigabyte has thought of incorporating RAM directly onto the Motherboard.
With Gigabytes' buying power I would think you could easily add 16GB of RAM for the same price as an end user could add 8GB. This would leave the end user either with enough RAM or the ability to purchase additional if required.

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

I noticed that aside the sniper line that uses a creative soundcore 3D chip, all other z87 boards use the Realtek ALC898 codec while competitors are using the newer ALC 1150 codec. Will we see some new Gigabyte motherboards with the new codec or do you feel that the sound upgrade over ALC 898 is not substantial enough to warrant its inclusion?

The ALC 1150 is indeed the newer codec and is advertised as having a marginally higher SNR, however this in fact applies to only 2 of the eight channels. Our internal testing shows the two solutions offer a very similar audio experience. It is understandable however that people will tend to think 'new' is better... or indeed, an upgrade...

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Asus just revealed a micro-atx FM2+ board and have previously indicated minimal interest in mini-ITX. AMD has plans for low TPD FM2 chips for the HTPC market. What are Gigabytes current plans for the mini-ITX segment of AMDs processor lineup (AM3+, FM2, and FM2+)?

Also, I am interested in the "AMP up" feature of the Z87 Sniper series. Any plans on incorporating this in future AMD boards?

We recently started offering an FM2 Mini-ITX board...
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4611#ov

There are also plans to expand the AMP-Up feature to more platforms... can't say much more than that right now however.

 

[lp231]

Thank you for the reply!

It seems motherboards with a 5 in its SKU is target at mainstream users, while motherboards with a 7 in it SKU is target at overclockers. One major difference between these two board, is the amount of physical features a users can see immediately just by looking at the board.
A example would be GA-X79-UD5 vs GA-X79-UD7. The UD5 have 8 ram slot and UD7 has 4. UD5 has 1x firewire, 1x eSATA, and 1x eSATA/USB combo. UD7 has none of it.
Shouldn't a motherboard with a higher SKU number have more stuffs, than a board with a lower number in its SKU?

 

[manofchalk]

Couple of questions, forgive me if they seem to about opposite corners of Gigabytes product lineup.

1. Gigabyte produce smartphones under the GSmart branding, a market I don't think any other motherboard manufacturers are a part of. Will there ever be some kind of integration between Gigabyte smartphones and PC products?
Say a live monitoring of CPU or GPU voltage and temperatures through an app, re-directing calls through the desktop if you happen to be at your desk, some application of NFC technology such as moving data between smartphone and PC in a similar manner to Samsung's S-Beam?

2. Does Gigabyte intend to release water-cooling options on their graphics cards in the future? If so, would it be similar to EVGA's HydroCopper cards which is purely water or more like the ASUS Poseidon that offers to be a hybrid between water and air? Or even something like the ASUS Ares II, with a built in CLC liquid cooler.

3. I notice that Gigabyte despite being largely being known for their motherboards and graphics cards, do make peripheral items such as keyboards,mice and headsets, as well as some computer chassis.
Does Gigabyte intend to expand further into these markets and compete with already established brands like Corsair or Coolermaster?

 

[Colin-GIGABYTE]

The age of the gigabyte is coming to the end, or will sometime in the future.

Do you plan on changing your company name to TERABYTE anytime soon?

LOL

 

[Colin-GIGABYTE]

Gigabyte, When are we going to see your other products, such as laptops and Chassis in canada? Also, Are we going to be in for an ITX flavour of the FM2 Socket?

I'll pass along the message to our notebook and chassis teams that we have customers who are interested in Canada!

As Henry mentioned earlier, we have a mini-ITX FM2 board that we just launched the F2A85XN-WiFi. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4611#ov

 

[Sarakael]

Hi there, I'm a first time poster, long time lurker.

Are the Gigabyte PSUs Haswell compatible? Specifically the PoweRock ax 600 (the one I own).

Most of your competitors in the PSU market have released a list of their Haswell compatible PSUs but not Gigabyte.

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Thank you for the reply!

It seems motherboards with a 5 in its SKU is target at mainstream users, while motherboards with a 7 in it SKU is target at overclockers. One major difference between these two board, is the amount of physical features a users can see immediately just by looking at the board.
A example would be GA-X79-UD5 vs GA-X79-UD7. The UD5 have 8 ram slot and UD7 has 4. UD5 has 1x firewire, 1x eSATA, and 1x eSATA/USB combo. UD7 has none of it.
Shouldn't a motherboard with a higher SKU number have more stuffs, than a board with a lower number in its SKU?

The X79-UD7 is designed for extreme overclocking and thusly extreme performance. To this end it has additional power phases for the CPU, additional PCIe Gen 3 switches and slots to allow for 4 way SLI and Crossfire configs. There are also additional buttons and switches, voltage read points, debug LED and other specific OC features - it even uses a larger PCB...

The UD5 address a rather different workstation segment where additional connectivity and memory support is the priority.

The UD7 is without doubt the flagship in terms of overall performance potential.. hence the model name.

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Hi there, I'm a first time poster, long time lurker.

Are the Gigabyte PSUs Haswell compatible? Specifically the PoweRock ax 600 (the one I own).

Most of your competitors in the PSU market have released a list of their Haswell compatible PSUs but not Gigabyte.

Thanks for your post Sarakael. I will contact our PSU team to suggest posting a Haswell compatibility list. Good call.

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Hi there,

Just wondering if Gigabyte has thought of incorporating RAM directly onto the Motherboard.
With Gigabytes' buying power I would think you could easily add 16GB of RAM for the same price as an end user could add 8GB. This would leave the end user either with enough RAM or the ability to purchase additional if required.

For us and pretty much every other MB vendor, this would be a bit problematic. Firstly DRAM prices tend to fluctuate quite a bit over time being one of the world's most fiercely price competitive segments. This would make it a challenge in terms of procurement, especially long term procurement and sourcing. Look at it this way, 16GB of DRAM shipped today, could have a different street value just weeks later when its still sitting on the shelf.

Secondly, a major part of the DIY ethos is about selecting the key components yourself. Memory choices vary considerably by segment with certain brands having good mind-share for enthusiasts, other brands for overclocking and others offering great value for money. I think many users have an affinity or loyalty for the memory brand they use so we'd almost be forcing our customers to use a certain brand or type of memory.

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Couple of questions, forgive me if they seem to about opposite corners of Gigabytes product lineup.

1. Gigabyte produce smartphones under the GSmart branding, a market I don't think any other motherboard manufacturers are a part of. Will there ever be some kind of integration between Gigabyte smartphones and PC products?
Say a live monitoring of CPU or GPU voltage and temperatures through an app, re-directing calls through the desktop if you happen to be at your desk, some application of NFC technology such as moving data between smartphone and PC in a similar manner to Samsung's S-Beam?

2. Does Gigabyte intend to release water-cooling options on their graphics cards in the future? If so, would it be similar to EVGA's HydroCopper cards which is purely water or more like the ASUS Poseidon that offers to be a hybrid between water and air? Or even something like the ASUS Ares II, with a built in CLC liquid cooler.

3. I notice that Gigabyte despite being largely being known for their motherboards and graphics cards, do make peripheral items such as keyboards,mice and headsets, as well as some computer chassis.
Does Gigabyte intend to expand further into these markets and compete with already established brands like Corsair or Coolermaster?

Although we don't specifically market our motherboards as specially designed to be integrated with our GSmart phone products, we do have several smart phone/tablet apps which can be used with your GIGABYTE motherboard. These are developed both for Android and iOS so they're compatible with the broadest range of gadgets possible.

Today Colin and I are specifically focused on motherboard questions as we are part of that business unit, so in truth I'd feel a little out of place talking about VGA card cooling.

Our peripherals business has grown considerably in recent years, and I believe we have some really strong and unique products in that segment. I think it's not so much about expansion, but staying as competitive and innovative as possible so that we can solidify and hopefully grow our position in that segment.

 

[beta212]

Hello, I really appreciate the candidness and honesty present in this AMA. I was wondering if there will ever be more motherboards that have an displayport on the motherboard for the iGPU (AMD's FM2 and later FM2+ and Intel's 1150).

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Hello, I really appreciate the candidness and honesty present in this AMA. I was wondering if there will ever be more motherboards that have an displayport on the motherboard for the iGPU (AMD's FM2 and later FM2+ and Intel's 1150).

If you look at our upper mainstream to high-end Z87 models, say UD3H and above, all these boards offer a DisplayPort on the rear IO panel. However we've found that in the mid to entry-level segment, DP seems to be less popular. I think you can see this tends to mirror in many ways the displays that are being used. i.e. mid to entry-level displays tend to offer only HDMI, DVI and even D-Sub.

This is also true of our FM2 boards, which is a mid to entry-level segment. Most A85X boards support HDMI and DVI, with the flagship F2A85X-UP4 integrating DP.

 

[tech4sf]

Are there any advantages to having both a Gigabyte motherboard and Gigabyte graphics card? For example, anything similar to MSI's VGA Boost?

Side question, when are we going to see the GV-N760OC-4GD on shelves in the US? (I know, I know, motherboards...but I have been checking every day since this card was announced!)

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

Are there any advantages to having both a Gigabyte motherboard and Gigabyte graphics card? For example, anything similar to MSI's VGA Boost?

Side question, when are we going to see the GV-N760OC-4GD on shelves in the US? (I know, I know, motherboards...but I have been checking every day since this card was announced!)

Sure... the advantage is that you'll enjoy a really great experience by using components from an industry-leading brand...

But hey... Both our motherboards and VGA cards are sold based on their own merits, so in that respect our boards are optimized to get the best performance from VGA cards of all brands. Same goes for VGA cards.

Not sure when the GV-N760OC-4GD will be available in the US...

 

[antisocialworker]

We are currently offering a an new F2A885XN-WIFI board.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4611#ov

We showed it at Computex earlier this year and will get around to announcing officially it at some point in the very near future.

Regarding AM3+ in Micro-ATX, I'm pretty sure that we don't currently see sufficient demand. AM3+ is pretty much squeezed into an enthusiast space where ATX seems a better fit, not least because it provides better multi-GPU options.

I for one would love to see a mAtx AM3/AM3+ board with two PCIE slots (allowing for crossfire in a case with only four slots such as many Silverstone and Lian-Li SFF cases provide) along with an overclock friendly bios. Make one board such as the one I described, and have it scream quality. Build it, and they will come.

 

[Henry-GIGABYTE]

I'm a great fan of Gigabyte for a very long time and wonder if they plan to move into processors and software.. as in licensing ARM/Android to make PC motherboards with an integrated OS.

Context: way back in the dark days of BIOS, Ribbon cables, dead ram modules etc, it sucked to not have GUI access to FAT or NTFS drivers, or network. I wondered why gigabyte never put an OS into the motherboard to make troubleshooting easier. If I could I'd somehow connect my phone directly to my mobo or whatever computer I'm troubleshooting for quick direct access to everything especially for diagnostics, i.e. a mobo should have wifi built-in and be able to report to a phone. Such access is less relevant now that systems are so much more stable it is not an issue. Still IF I opted for another Gigabyte motherboard, I'd also want a Gigabyte android phone to go with it. Chances are I'd never need to connect that phone to the motherboard for configuration or troubleshooting, it would be lovely to have that feature.

Hi there. I think I understand your question...

We currently have no plans to move into ARM licensed Android platforms. I guess it's possible that some time in the future we could see ARM-based SOCs become powerful enough to enter the DIY PC segment and compete with x86. It's not impossible, but I don't see it happening anytime too soon.

As for PC diagnosis via your smart phone, we have been working hard to develop our smartphone/tablet app offerings in recent years, trying to integrate mobile devices with the PC. I think a diagnosis tool is a great idea and one I will forward to our software team. Cheers...

 

[manofchalk]

What trends do you see happening in terms of motherboard design and features?
Do you think that the AMD FX-9590 is the start of a new wave of processors to come, that truly require a high end motherboard with a beefy VRM solution to handle even before you start overclocking?

The CPU is gradually taking on roles that traditionally the motherboard has been responsible for. The memory and PCIe controller have already moved over, and with Haswell, Intel are integrating VRM's into the chip itself. How do you think Gigabyte or motherboard manufacturers in general will react to this trend of building everything into the chip?

 

[Madrugada]

Are there any plans to add the higher quality sound (even if it only applies to 2 channels) to H87 boards or low end Z87 boards?

Right now it's way cheaper to buy a H87 board and a soundcard than it is to buy a Sniper board. And in most cases these H87 boards are more than enough to enjoy gaming, music and movies. I suppose most people don't really need the multiple GPU and overclocking support. But the better audio would be great in my opinion.

 

[Marco925]

Gigabyte, When are we going to see your other products, such as laptops and Chassis in canada? Also, Are we going to be in for an ITX flavour of the FM2 Socket?

I'll pass along the message to our notebook and chassis teams that we have customers who are interested in Canada!

As Henry mentioned earlier, we have a mini-ITX FM2 board that we just launched the F2A85XN-WiFi. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4611#ov

Thank you! I have visited the Gigabyte team at computex 2010, and was impressed at their offerings at the time, and still am. I wish we could have that access. I Work at a computer store as well with some say as to what we sell.

 

[Saga Lout]

If you guys are still around after your marathon, here's a cheeky suggestion for you. When you ship a CPU and heatsink, wouldn't it be nice to include a tube of Thermal? I just opened a new AM3 chip (sadly not a Gigabyte) to find no paste and also found my own to have baked solid in the recent UK heatwave. Back in the car for a twelve mile round trip.