Gigabyte Planning Layoffs Amid Motherboard Woes - Report

[Guest]

Gigabyte is reportedly planning to lay off motherboard workers as the segment’s dwindling sales numbers are expected to continue their decline into 2019.

Gigabyte Planning Layoffs Amid Motherboard Woes - Report : Read more

 

[jasonsrevell]

Intel chip shortage? That's a convenient excuse but I don't see that as a reason for a lack of MOBO sales. Well for one thing, you've got the hobby favorite Ryzen 5 2600 CPU. That's not an Intel chip. Most hobbyists are running low to mid range setups and there seems to be plenty of Core i3 and Core i5s around.
I would estimate it has more to do with pc builders holding onto their MOBOs for at least 3-4 years before changing them out and not that many people building new PCs in general. Of course that doesn't apply to Toms readers. MSI in particular seems to not be able to keep up with demand for their inexpensive B450 boards, that is limiting their sales. Gigabyte has recently earned a reputation for shoddy gamer marketed boards just look at their amazon reviews mostly around 3 stars.

 

[osiris11235]

This is sad. I've been very happy with my Z390 AORUS XTREME, which has several features not replicated on other brands' Z390 boards.

 

[logainofhades]

Their quality has been hit and miss, as of late, which is sad.

 

[stdragon]

It's because their support sucks or is non-existent. They make quality hardware, but again, post-sales support is severely lacking.

If Gigabyte is suffering, it's because of their short sightedness

 

[mikewinddale]

"post-sales support is severely lacking"

Can you elaborate? Any articles about this?

I recently bought a Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi, and I started having intermittent problems with sleep mode. Sometimes, when coming out of sleep, the computer would reboot. I emailed Gigabyte support, and they replied a day or two later with a beta BIOS that fixed the problem.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with that motherboard. It supports ECC and it has more temperature sensors and a beefier VRM heatsink that most competing motherboards. So I hope Gigabyte doesn't downsize their motherboard division too much.

 

[Brian_R170]

Intel chip shortage? That's a convenient excuse but I don't see that as a reason for a lack of MOBO sales.

Exactly. If the demand exists but Intel can't supply enough CPUs, then AMD and it's partners will be more than happy to make up the supply difference as fast as they can. Plus, Intel's shortage is expected to get better in Q1 and Q2. If desktop motherboard demand simply stays flat, they'll have to hire back as many people as they let go within 6 months. Unless Gigabyte is losing market share for other reasons.

 

[Tanyac]

Intel had insisted on using Hyped up Killer LAN ports that are poor performers compared to the Intel LAN ports. That and a lack of fan headers and the second highest pricing around here (beaten only by ASUS), were the three reasons I would not buy a Gigabyte board. The last one I bought, the X99 Designare wouldn't even boot with a 5930K CPU.

All of the big 4 mobo makers have poor warranty support, particularly ASRock which has no presence in Australia and just flat out refuses to warrant it's product. Back in the day when I did use Gigabyte (Up to around the P67 chipset), I had more Gigabyte boards fail than any other brand at that time.

 

[10tacle]

Their quality has been hit and miss, as of late, which is sad.

And it's not just their motherboards. I stopped recommending their GPUs about four years ago when their GTX 9xx series cards started having a high rate of failure reports. A Gigabyte was my first build motherboard two decades ago.

Anyway, I don't know what's happened to them because they were always in my top three tier with ASUS and MSI rounding out the top two spots respectively for both motherboards and GPUs. The fact they blame Intel's chip "shortage" for it when ASUS and MSI are humming along fine in mobo sales says it all.

No, it's not Intel's 9-series chip shortage, which itself is a perfect storm of demand vs. supply, never mind as someone else brought up that AMD sells CPUs as well needing motherboards. And it's certainly not the first time we've seen this happen with a new generation of CPU either, especially with a fab reduction in the works which is even affecting the current five year old 14nm node 9-series.

 

[grofaz10]

A 'new' but wonky USB interface for Win 10 that stops Windows 7 from boot is one of the unwanted and annoying things about what used to be problem-free motherboards. Yes Martha there is a Win 7 work around, but why should there need be? Win 10 is flawed enough to keep Win 7 going (unsupported) for most of the next decade.

And, yes, their customer service does suck - hadn't realized Taiwan had so many public holidays.

 

[Tanyac]

So the general consensus seems to be that Intel are the only people who don't really understand why they aren't selling boards. That's sad.

 

[jrgsr70]

I have built a lot of computers in the last 15 years using Gigabyte boards and having good success with the. The boards was all using AMD processors. In the last two years trying to find Gigabyte boards has been a problem. Either they are backordered or not listed. Some of the best boards have been done away with, leaving me with good processors with no boards to put them in. Gigabyte could sell more boards if they would make the lower priced boards available for people that just need a computer for normal use, not the high priced gaming boards that is not necessary. The quality has suffered also. Gigabyte used to be top notch in their support, but has slid.

 

[DRosencraft]

Personally, my Gigabyte experience has been fairly decent, but in the last several years they've been heading the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned. It may not mean much to many, and is certainly a personal preference thing, but I hate the Aorus name and emblem.

Another issue has been availability. A number of times, a board I'm looking for, even a step or two down from the top tier, are either not available, or only available at a retailer who has put some big premium on it.

Which, lastly, gets to the issue of price. A lot of their boards are flat out more expensive than other brands, for not really anything in terms of better features. And in my experience, quality has not been any better than any other board I've had. I've used Asus, AsRock, MSI, and Biostar boards as well. MSI was the biggest headache because it was RMA'd three or four times. Mind you, this was over ten years ago, so I can't speak of the MSI of today. I had a Gigabyte that was solid as a rock for years until I need to upgrade my CPU and GPU and did a whole system refresh. The board I tried to buy before my current Strix was a Gigabyte. Wouldn't boot, customer service was of next to no help, and it ended up being easier to return it to Amazon for a refund than to RMA the thing for a replacement.

 

[ron baker]

gigabyte aren't BAD they're just mediocre. Laast couple of mobos' they either dont have anything in my size itx or the price is too high. Asus is always expensive, so that leaves ASrock and MSI .. ASrock has been getting my business.

 

[Steve James]

There is no CPU shortage. What a load if bull****

 

[logainofhades]

There is no CPU shortage. What a load if bull****

Yes, there is, hence why Intel CPU's are selling for more than MSRP.

 

[Steve James]

Its a false shortage to jack up prices

 

[mossberg]

So making a new chipset, on an old process, to free up 14nm capacity, is fake too right? Remove the tin foil hat already. MSI and Gigabyte both have come out complaining about the CPU shortage. There is nothing false about it.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Its a false shortage to jack up prices

Which would TOTALLY make sense except for the fact that the CPU shortage is instead driving people from Intel to AMD, hence AMD having a record year and gaining huge amounts of market share.

Prices are already jacked, I anticipate we start seeing price cuts from Intel before too long.

 

[littleleo]

There is no CPU shortage. What a load if bull****

Yep the companies are hiding them because they don't want to sell them to you. I'm glad someone has seen through their evil plot to take over the world!