News - ASRock picks fight with Gigabyte

[HEXUS]

Value arm of ASUS disses Gigabyte in an email to the press. Gigabyte UK boss fires back.

Read more.

[kalniel]

text removed by PD

Way to show the far east just how we should be talking about other companies Nick.. Quality Hexus proffesionalism.

EDIT: hi kalniel,

firstly, please know that we genuinely appreciate your input, value that contribution and respect your pov.

secondly, please accept my apologies for having to edit your post.

the reason for so doing was because (a) Scott's article was activated prior to our finishing a sub-edit (and your post appears to have been made whilst this was being undertaken) and (b) the opinion expressed was originally made during internal correspondence and was made with no intention of being published and (c) the article has now been updated.

thanks in anticipation of your understanding.

cheers,

PD

[Biscuit]

well said nick!

I do wonder at the validty of Gigabytes claims with this technology though.

[Cichlidash]

(text removed by PD) Makes you wonder what Gigabyte are giving Hexus that ASRock is not.

EDIT: hi Cichlidash,

firstly, please accept my apologies for having to edit your post.

please see my advices within Kalniel's post for the associated reasons.

secondly, as i'm sure you know, the HEXUS.community is not administrated in a draconian fashion at all, however, when i see cause to do so, i will take umbrage at the type of wholly untrue insinuation which you've made.

if you really understood everything about HEXUS and the integrity and commitment of each key, long-term individual within the company and also the financial extents we invest in to ensure you and the companies and products which we report upon are always able to compete upon an honest and level playing field, then you would realise how very far from the mark your suggestion is.

thanks in anticipation of your understanding.

cheers,

PD

[Fraz]

Maybe we should do what you say and turn that green spotlight on Hexus as well...

Let's face it. I doubt anyone is actually truly environmentally friendly + carbon neutral. Our society and population simply does not support that way of life. Of course, it's nice that people are now realising not to be overly wasteful and excessive, but we've all got a LONG way to go.

[Nick]

Guys, this is a personal opinion and is certainly not based on any professional relationship that HEXUS or I may have with any company.

Have a read of this: http://pureinsight.org/node/4504 (excerpt quoted below)

In September of 2006, China's official water conservancy pointed out in a report that
the pollution in the Yangtze River is threatening the drinking water source for the residents of 500 cities along the river.

According to the report, the pollution of the Yangtze River has three main factors.

The first is the discharge of industrial and domestic waste; the second is the agricultural runoff; and the third is discharges from shipping.

The amount of total waste that goes into the Yangtze River greatly exceeds the waste that goes into the Yellow River and the Huai River combined. However, because the Yangtze River is big and still has some self-purification power, the severity of the pollution has been hidden to a degree.

Or how about the New York Times?

And this is another interesting read : Incomplete Enforcement of Pollution Regulation: Bargaining Power of Chinese Factories

Now I'm not at all saying that ASRock have directly contributed to all the above... in fact, my reaction and comments would be EXACTLY the same if it were the other way around... to go even further, pretty much any company that tries to play a 'green' trump card against a competitor is open for an "Oh yeah? Let's see your green credentials" response.

If General Motors said that Toyota were making cars that weren't at least 50% recyclable, I'd be asking GM what they do with the 5 tons of impure, slightly toxic water that it takes to make one of their cars...

Like my comment says, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone"... ie, unless you're whiter than white, keep yer gob shut.

[Nick]

Maybe we should do what you say and turn that green spotlight on Hexus as well...

Let's face it. I doubt anyone is actually truly environmentally friendly + carbon neutral. Our society and population simply does not support that way of life. Of course, it's nice that people are now realising not to be overly wasteful and excessive, but we've all got a LONG way to go.

hehe, I was thinking about that and you know what, I reckon we're pretty green compared to other companies.

The vast majority of HEXUS staff telework, so no carbon emitting commutes to work. We mail and MSN each other, so there's very little paper being used and, because we're all paying our own leccy bills, machines and systems are powered down when not in use.

Ok, you could argue that the air travel to events is a big contributor to carbon emissions, but they are necessary for us to do the job we do and we travel as a group on one plane, not several flights from various locations. Anyway, I reckon our lack of travel when we're in the UK more than makes up for it.

EDIT: And yes, Fraz, you're right, we have a loooong way to go before anyone starts taking carbon neutrality seriously... I admit, I don't... not really. And I can forsee it becoming much less of a public and political issue as the recession bites. Given the choice between the cheaper, non-green option or the more pricey, greener option, what is the cash-strapped consumer going to do?

And yes, sometimes greener IS cheaper, but often it's more pricey as manufacturing and delivery costs are higher due to trying to keep the product green.

A great example is those tumble drier balls that you can buy, supposedly to stop your clothes clumping together and therefore making the drier more efficient, thus reducing drying times and your carbon footprint. I can't find the link right now but (I think it was Sky or CNN) someone calculated that to pay back the carbon emissions from MAKING the ball, you had to run your drier for THREE years just to break even.

So we need to get sensible with what we do about carbon emissions... and I'll be honest, I can't see it being a high priority for anyone for the next 18 months at least... not when you'll be worrying over whether or not your savings will be there when you wake up...

[Main]

Just thought I'd point out that ASRock have a high profile RoHS compliance logo on their boxes, and have had them for a few years now...along with 'Made in China', so make what you like of it.

Although regardless of the environmental impacts, it probably is just more ASUS vs Gigabyte, given that they have this across the top banner of the ASRock wesite now, and there are some other things going on:

> looks like a there's a typo since the ASRock slide has the Gigabyte examples labeled the wrong way around, but
> Gigabyte have pulled these thermal camera images of the power circuitry from their marketing page...
> ...and have added the line "Thermal Solution: water cooling to avoid air flow for accurate measurement" since the video was made

[Cichlidash]

In all honesty it did seem quite a funny attack by ASRock, in that I can not see Gigabyte actually causing a global shortage of copper or destroying the planet by adding a bit more copper to the motherboard. Still I see this as being a bit more of a gimick than an actual breakthough for Mobo's but I may be wrong here.

The attack was directed at ASRock but as Nick has stated, unless ASRock can actually prove that they are a enviromentaly freindly firm perhaps they should not start throwing stones.

I think you hit the nail on the head though Nick about people being that concerned at the moment given whats going on with work and the financial sectors of our country at the moment.

[kalniel]

Guys, this is a personal opinion and is certainly not based on any professional relationship that HEXUS or I may have with any company.

Have a read of this: http://pureinsight.org/node/4504 (excerpt quoted below)


Or how about the New York Times?

And this is another interesting read : Incomplete Enforcement of Pollution Regulation: Bargaining Power of Chinese Factories

But isn't AsusTek based in Taiwan?

The attack was directed at ASRock but as Nick has stated, unless ASRock can actually prove that they are a enviromentaly freindly firm perhaps they should not start throwing stones.

They claim to be, and show the following awards for it:
http://green.asus.com/english/

[chadders]

A rather clever lateral thinker tidied up river pollution in Oz - make any factory pulling in water from the river take it in "downstream" and pump it out "upstream" - i.e. if they pump rubbish out, they only have themselves to blame for using dirty water.

[Noxvayl]

Did no-one notice the Vcore used for the QX6800? It was 1.168v... The normal voltage required for the processor is 1.3125v. Anyone could reduce the voltage of the CPU in order to fabricate results such as they did.

Why don't they send there motherboard to a third party and challenge Gigabyte to do the same to see which part is the better thermal product? I bet they wouldn't do that because then the third party tester would use the exact same settings and you'd find they aren't very different.

I don't claim that Gigabytes product is in fact thermally superior to ASRock's but I find it misleading that they would come out with such bogus testing.

[Main]

Did no-one notice the Vcore used for the QX6800? It was 1.168v... The normal voltage required for the processor is 1.3125v. Anyone could reduce the voltage of the CPU in order to fabricate results such as they did.

Oh...missed that...

It's worth pointing out the vcore of any processor will vary due to conditions during manufacture - searching for reviews of the QX6800 has some at 1.238v, 1.320v, and the Hexus review had one at 1.238v as well - but that doesn't mean that it isn't a case of cherry picking one that has a low stock voltage.

[Powderhound]

I personally would never touch an Asrock, simply due to their advertising. It's all in horrendous pidgin english, half the time their promotions sound as though they're actually a scam and they completely overinflate almost irrelevant features of their products.

[drtdover]

Waste of copper? not sure at least its aimed at increasing performance
lets look at other waste
why do the cables that come with new motherboards come in plastic bags?
do we need a manual to set up the board?
do we need a driver cd? or just use a lan port allready supported by windows.
do we need the piece of card board that seperates the board from the manual cd and cables.
i believe the answer is no to the above, if you need to let consumers know where the cables go print it on the inside of the box.

david thornton itacs

[Biscuit]

Waste of copper? not sure at least its aimed at increasing performance
lets look at other waste
why do the cables that come with new motherboards come in plastic bags?
do we need a manual to set up the board?
do we need a driver cd? or just use a lan port allready supported by windows.
do we need the piece of card board that seperates the board from the manual cd and cables.
i believe the answer is no to the above, if you need to let consumers know where the cables go print it on the inside of the box.

david thornton itacs

Dont forget that not everyone has been building computers for years so they need to include such information to cater for all experience levels. As for the CD, i would tend to agree with u however there have been cases where i havent been able to connect to the internet without installing the LAN drivers first. Great idea about printing the info on the box though!