Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with AMD processors => Topic started by: Night Gyr on June 11, 2011, 12:17:27 pm
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Hello guys!
I'd like to ask a question about the latest 990 Series AMD motherboards. Those models that have S/PDIF on the rear I/O panel seem to have only Optical S/PDIF available, not both Optical and Coaxial, as can be found in the Gigabyte Intel motherboards. Why is that? Is this:
a)a limitation of the AMD platform
b)a part of some Gigabyte strategy to make AMD boards second-class citizens to force people to buy Intel boards
c)Gigabyte's perception of the Coaxial S/PDIF output as a legacy and unnecessary interface?
And my second question is, why doesn't the GA-990FXA-UD5 have Dual Gigabit LAN? All the UD5 boards seemed to have such a network solution. Is this again a part of the "Cripple AMD boards strategy"?
Thank you,
--Night Gyr
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Night Gyr Welcome!.......... and lets see if we can brighten up your day!
You seem to have your mind made up about a conspiracy theory engineered and Driven by Intel
To UN-qualify myself ,... I do not work for or receive any financial gains from Gigabyte in any way, shape or form.
To be fair, Gigabyte understands both AMD and Intel followers sell motherboards.....In my view Gigabyte do a pretty fair job supplying a multitude of boards to cater to the diverse cross section of required specs and price range
Personally I research rather heavily before making a main board purchase so I know exactly what I'm getting for my money and a post such as yours becomes........... not really necessary.
It's just a fact of life that some of the things/features Intel followers enjoy are just not available on AMD boards.....But this goes both ways!
The reasons can be cost, compatibility of technology,....and even architecture come into the equation.
I'm afraid having the right board to begin with through research would have saved you a lot of perceived grief your having now!
Although this is only one persons opinion.
Aussie Allan
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For no specific reason, in most cases, features such as dual LAN and other 'extra' features are included in later releases.
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For no specific reason, in most cases, features such as dual LAN and other 'extra' features are included in later releases.
Quite correct. This is often because when a new platform appears it will sell anyway just because it is new, as it becomes more standard in the market the manufacturer has to try to add extra value to make the board stand out from the competition. This is when you tend to see all the little extras like Dual LAN, Fast Charge etc.
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For no specific reason, in most cases, features such as dual LAN and other 'extra' features are included in later releases.
What exactly is a "later release"? Do you mean the "X.1" versions of the boards? That would be really nice.
Re the first answer:
Well could you give me any technical reason (think logically :)) why a sound output jack would depend on the chipset or the CPU? They are completely unrelated, as we don't have sound in the chipset nor the CPU (yet). There are additional audio controllers (aka codecs) for that purpose. So this must be a part of Gigabyte's strategy, I think.
BTW, I don't own an AMD nor Gigabyte board at the moment. I was exactly doing what you had proposed there - researching the available options :) and doing so, I've come to a (seemingly silly) limitation. So I want to find out the reason for it.
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Now I've checked the 890FX and 790FX motherboards, there seem to be only the UD5 and the UD7 models available. All four of these have Dual LAN available. What is more interesting, there is a UD5 for the 890FX chipset with AM3+ support (Black Socket), and it has both features. Now that seems to be crazy, eh? :)
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Sometimes people have very strict criteria to be met, some times there's not a board on the planet that fit such strict criteria, this is when add-on cards/and/or third party equipment can to be implemented to complete the list on a single platform, with this sort of strategy, Absolutely anything is possible.
Aussie Allan
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Well sure you can, but I'm trying to find logic in Gigabute's actions. They had it all on similar boards in the past, why not keep including it?
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Night Gyr
My Crystal Ball unfortunately runs on Quadruple "A" battery's.... And being Saturday leaves me stuck till Monday.
The only people qualified to answer such a question IS Gigabyte......You may be able to get this information from the Gigabyte free information office in Oslo....it's on the corner of "Notahope" and Inyadreams"
P.S........... If you ever DO get this information we ALL would love to know as well ....Personally , I have no idea ;)
Aussie Allan
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Sir, I appreciate your sense of humour and the practical approach to life :)
But I'll be waiting for a GB rep to answer. Hope they do read the forums and can clarify the situation.
P.S. I've been positively astonished to find IPMI on this board. Fantastic, what else can I say. :)
P.S.S. They've removed the power/reset/ClrCMOS buttons as well. What a pity. Dear GB reps, if it's possible, could you explain why that has been done and if they will come back in a later revision? Thank you for the answer.
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No problems Night Gyr and I appreciate your understanding it was actually an attempt at light hearted humour whiling away the early hours of the morning......you sound like you want answers to specific questions.....although this forum is loosely associated with Gigabyte via Moderators , the administrator (runn3R) is the only one employed by Gigabyte and carries any real clout , ...a direct PM to this person or a direct contact to support may be the only way forward failing any worthwhile responses from members
Hope this helps
Regards Aussie Allan
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Hi
As Allan has already said I doubt that you wil find the answers you are looking for on this site. I would suggest asking GGTS for their input.
Just enter your email address and click on the language of choice.
GGTS http://ggts.gigabyte.com/
Please expect several days for a reply
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Thanks DM for your constant vigilance.....did you see all the fun and game on the discussion page !
Aussie Allan
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Well thank you guys I'll probably go that way.
See, I'm an EVGA guy, so kinda used to their approach to the problem, which is "the forum is both for the community and for the reps". :) OK I see GB has a different approach. Let's see how that goes.
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Did you expect it to go any other way to a competitors probes ;)
Aussie Allan
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Nice Sir! :D
Not probes, though. My first machine was fully GB, in the 775 era... those were the days, eh? :) I love what Gigabyte had been doing before, with plenty of features, some of them unnecessary. Now they're cutting their feature set down drastically and basically every removed feature moves them an inch closer to losing the crown. What a pity.
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Nice to know you still acknowledge they still hold the crown, If you stay away from entry level your still getting exceptional tech and value for money, I still believe 90% of enthusiasts use less then half of the features they go after in what they buy ...... the whole industry is in flux at the moment with so many new releases from chips to entirely new features......... knowing Gigabyte and a few warning signs , something big is in the wind, Intel are not the only ones that are good at keeping secrets.
Aussie Allan
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Well see what they did regarding the P67 platform? First the P67A-UD4, pretty basic I/O on the rear panel. Then Z68X(P)-UD4, and voila, Firewire, Power eSATA. I see a trend emerging here. But I wonder what the hell does AMD have up their sleeve in order for this 990FX-UD5 to be the basic one, the pre-release, and something else to play the role of the Z68X(P)-UD4 board from the above case.
Any ideas?
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I'm really behind the finer points of the current releases, my eye is usually on the big picture and big advancements.......... jumps, not steps forward in the industry is when I look at upgrading ,......I probably shouldn't say this out loud but I find the step to Z68 .....lacklustre for better words, hence staying with the X58 for the time being!......with my current requirements, upgrading right now just holds no value, I do mainly photo-editing on a machine that runs a Quad core at over 4 gig.......my main drive gives me 800Mb/s read and 600 write with 24 Gb of memory........what real advancement (bang for buck) would I get filling Gigabytes coffers right now..........Zero!
AMD is a tuffie!...... they deferred the "Bulldozer" release yet again..... They need this release to be as close to perfect as possible , I suspect it will be a Major jump from there present offerings and a small short lived edge over Intel but a win is a win, no matter how short lived.
The price point will be critical but with all things combined , a tightrope walk nonetheless.
At the end of the day they need to pull a pretty big rabbit out of the hat this time to claw back some sorely needed market share......this could be there last chance shot under there present structure in competing with intel head to head..........AMD just doesn't have the R&D budget nor the roadmap in-place that Intel enjoy from there perpetual revenue base.
If they fail with Bulldozer, I can see a major restructuring in there long term goals, maybe a shift in the type of target market they go after.......exactly what!....who knows!
Aussie Allan
Update........just a snip that's worth the read regards the Zambezi chip.....it's ability to run a single thread across two cores just might be the reason for the delay........
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20110114134306_AMD_s_Bulldozer_Microprocessors_Expected_to_Offer_50_Higher_Performance_than_Core_i7_Phenom_II_Chips.html