A közönség kérdezett – a GIGABYTE válaszolt!

How do you design, prototype and manufacture a Gigabyte motherboard? (what are the main steps, usual schedules, etc.)

• Generally it will go through EVT, DVT, PVT design & validation cycles, one
  new project normally takes 2.5 months.

How far does the R&D team plan ahead?

• Normally at least 6 months ahead.

How much time does Gigabyte need to release a new motherboard family based on a new chipset?

• Normally at least 4 months.

Which one’s harder to make: Intel or AMD board? What are the differences, if there are any?

• No matter Intel or AMD, design challenges are roughly the same – a brand new
  platform always takes more time, since it may involve a new CPU socket, new
  chipset etc.

What will be the next big thing in the motherboard business in general and from GIGABYTE’s point of view?

• USB 3.0 technology will spread through out the entire market soon.

We receive lots of questions about BIOS technology improvements. Will we see any new technologies (for example: EFI) in this area in the near future?

• We have continous investment in EFI BIOS, but according to our surveys, most
  of the users don’t do detailed BIOS setup (unless they are power users /
  overclockers). So we are keeping watch of the market demand regarding this
  field.

With the more and more integrated CPUs, motherboard chipsets have less and less job. How is this going to affect the motherboard business? Will there be lower prices?

• Actually motherboards, and designers have much more job than before because,
  because there is more room for us to create differentiation. Take our P55 /
  H55 for example, the board is still fully occupied by different feature
  chips and self-designed function circuits.

I’m waiting for the first mini-ITX Gigabyte LGA1156 board. Despite its small size it’s feature packed and can be a base of a really fast PC. Is this a new trend and we will see more and more Mini-ITX (or even smaller) boards from GIGABYTE or this is just an exception?

• Our first mini-ITX H55 + USB3.0 with 1156 socket m/b will be ready very
  soon. It is not a exception, we will continue to intorduce such products if
  we think our product fills existing market demand, or if we can create it.

How is GIGABYTE’s USB3 solution different from other manufacturer’s methods? What benefits does GIGABYTE’s solution offer?

• We don’t just offer standard design, but also offer Turbo mode, which allows
  the USB 3.0 controller receive its bandwidth directly from the CPU, which is
  the shortest path for best performance.

How many vendors currently provide USB3 devices? When does GIGABYTE expects that USB3 utilization on desktop platform solution will overcome USB2?

• There are lots of devices and getting more everyday! We have published a
  device list on our website for promoting the USB 3.0 ecosystem. Check out
  the link –
  http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/WebPage/mb_usb3mb/data/mb_usb3_devices.htm

Why did you change the contact area of the Hybrid Silent Pipe Cooling? For example on the X58A-UD7 the users can use the Heat-Pipe module with the water cooling block, but on the P55A-UD7, its impossible. The users cannot use the two solution at the same time.

• This is due to slots space limitation.

It’s great to see your first Pine Trail motherboard, the D510-UD. Do you plan any other board with the NVIDIA ION or ION 2 chipsets?

• This is TBA data, but I can say that it is still under heavy internal
  discussion.

Your competition officially introduced their Core Unlocking feature at the debut of the AMD 890GX chipset. Does Gigabyte provide any similar BIOS solution with their AMD 8xx product line?

• We prefer to do it by a seperate a micro-processor circuit, which will be
  independent of the CPU models. These boards will be available very soon
  (April 27th)

Users can buy microATX-sized Gigabyte motherboards with P55, H55 and H57 chipsets, but at your X58 line, users still can’t find any small-sized board. Other brands have these products with a good price, and we can read good feedbacks about them. So, because of that, can we count on new X58 boards in the near future?

• X58 is really a high-end segment, by making the X58 mATX doesn’t actually
  save any material cost. We still think users who need X58 are looking for
  performance & best upgrade ability, so very high end mATX is not our focus
  so far.

The P55A-UD7 is Gigabyte’s first motherboard which uses the NF200 PCIe bridge chip, which provides additional 32 PCIe lanes. Why didn’t you use it on your another UD7 board? I ask this, because if someone wants to use two VGAs and a PCIe ×1 sound card in the X58A-UD7, the speed of the main ports degrades to ×8, which could be a bottleneck for two Radeon HD 5800/5900 or GeForce GTX 480 cards.

• The X58 (and so, our X58 m/bs) already offer 2×16 + extra 4 lanes, all in
  PCIe gen 2 speed. It’s not beneficial to add an NF200 bridge, even when
  using SLI/CrossFire.

What would be the benefits/drawbacks of a Digital PWM on a GIGABYTE board? Is there a specific reason why GIGABYTE doesn’t use them on it’s final products? Is GIGABYTE planning to move in this direction?

• We always study new technologies, but as for PWM, no matter analoge or
  digital, we believe efficiency is the best measurement. So far digital PWM
  efficiency is not better than analoge, but we’ll keep surveying new and
  better solution.

Is GIGABYTE experimenting with special, hybrid embedded systems? (sorry to mention comptetitor name, but like: DFI HYBRID P45 ION-T2A2) Can we see similar products from GBT in the near future?

• Not at the moment, but it is a very creative idea, we will keep collecting
  market feedback

Is GIGABYTE planning to apply some more “hardware overclocking” features, like we could see on some competitor’s boards in the past? I see the technical background is more then ready (Hardware Precision OV, EasyTune, QuickBoost), but will costumers get more profiles (like Internet surfing profile with downclocking, or Gaming profile with smooth overclocking), possibly with a switching hardware, like a front panel?

• We will sincerely consider it if the demand is big.

Can we expect some ground-breaking manufacturing technology updates from GIGABYTE – like Ultra Durable Technology – in the near future?

• Yes, we will launch our new technologies very soon. And just few days ago,
  we announced only GIGABYTE boards can charge i-Pad ;
  http://www.hoc.hu/hir/20033-a-gigabyte-alaplapok-kepesek-az-ipad-toltesere-bekapcsolt-allapotban-is.html