I agree with Wheelie's comments. Granted, labelling voltage tweaks as "+x V" helps tell you that you're going over the base line by that much, but that itself is of limited use. Processors and high-performance memory have a maximum Vcore listed, not "base Vcore +x V". So a high-end DDR2 module may require at least 2.1V but no more than 2.4V - so the base line is actually 2.1V, not the standard 1.8V. In all such cases, the "+x V" system makes it unnecessarily complex to figure out exactly where you are and how much room left you have.
As to complaints about the author's critique of the DQ6: the author had clearly stated at the beginning of the Paradox page that what followed were personal impressions. If you agree with his views, great, but if you don't, he's warned you beforehand, just take it for what it's worth and walk away. There's no need to hurl brickbats because one read something that didn't jive with one's own views 120%, or worse still, something that made one look like an idiot for falling for all the hype and bling. :P
IMHO, the critique was dead-on. Gigabyte has been increasingly reliant on fantastic marketing for a number of years now, to make what really are just moderately decent boards a bigger deal than they actually are. Pretty much added to the popularity and accelerated a trend in the industry: focus on what buyers see - "organ size" as Wheelie put it, like number of features (real or, as in this case, hyped-up, like quad-quad-quad-quad, 200-phase power, all-solid-electrolyte-capacitors etc), bling (LEDs on motherboard, UV-glow everything, keychain/CD packs/other freebies) and so on - and less focus on what buyers can't see, but play an equally if not more important role, like build/engineering/circuit design quality. Truly a case of the Emperor's new clothes, everything funky on the outside, nothing to shout about (or just nothing) on the inside.
A good case in point: the "Quad triple phase"... the board uses an Intersil ISL6327 PWM controller when I last had a look. This is a 6-phase device, which means that the board doesn't use a true 12-phase design as the marketing might cause the average Joe to believe (how many average Joes read the fine print and pay attention to the word "virtual" in "Virtual 12 Power Phases"?) but instead uses a 6-phase power design with twice the number of MOSFETs.... why not just call it 6-phase power, which is already impressive (and accurate)? If the purpose of having a whole 24 MOSFETs in the design was to lower the current flow through each MOSFET to lower power dissipation, why not just use uprated MOSFETs? 120A MOSFETs cost only about 35% more than the 56A ones used on the DQ6; so it'd be cheaper AND you get to save valuable PCB real-estate for other uses like better ground around the power islands, better-optimised routing, more fan headers and so on. But you see, staying at "6-phase" and calling it that isn't strong enough marketing: you need hyperbole, and by having '12' phases you get to add one more to the silly list of "Quads" as a "Quad Triple Phase". And since 12 is way way bigger than 6, you have an excuse to charge way way more for the board than you otherwise could.
To be fair, Gigabyte's not the only brand guilty of such gimmicks, but they certainly make full use of it... their DPS add-on module and "6-dual miracle" were about as incredulous as they were gimmicky.
But what has that all got to do with the article? Well, Wheelie made a good point: "One reason why they keep doing the same nonsense is because they think they are being appreciated." Very often, end-users' comments and feedback are either fail to reach manufacturers or, where they do, might fall on deaf ears. When a *publication* - especially a respected one such as xbitlabs - makes noise, at least the manufacturers pay some attention. Not least because the message carries more weight and is spread more effectively to the community compared to, say, one user's complaints on a forum somewhere. After all, there's a golden rule in corporate PR: "don't mess with the press". Without actually defaming anyone, they can sure cut your reputation a notch or two, on front page too.
Therefore it's not a bad thing that doors4ever expounded his critique of the questionable gimmickery on the DQ6. The praises have been sung at almost every other major hardware site around anyway, so it's not as if they're unknown. If nothing else, the critique would cause users and manufacturers to pause and think about it. Things like the need to remove the Crazy Cool plate to install the back-plate for various high-end cooling solutions, thus eliminating a feature supposed to help with extreme overclocking; the inaccuracy of various "Quad" features touted on the board which a user may not find out about until he/she has actually seen the board up close (or worse, bought one). In the end, users end up either getting swept by the marketing hype or end up paying a lot more than would otherwise be reasonable for a product. For the former, well, caveat emptor; but in the case of the latter, consumers are slowly being made to choose between the devil or the deep blue sea.
Sure, there're many brands around, but the number of good ones are but just a handful, and if they all load up more and more on the crappy bling just to stay ahead of each other in the gimmicks game, then we suffer because we're the ones footing their ever-increasing racing bill. Or made to sacrifice features that may actually be useful just because we had to choose a gimmick-less model. So, for example, the Asus P5N32-E SLI may be the bling-down version of the Striker Extreme, but it loses the 2x4-phase power, some of the CPU decoupling capacitors, the all-solid-electrolyte capacitor design, external SATA and high-performance heatpipe system - just because we didn't want to pay more than USD100 more for the bright-blue LEDs, PCB-mounted power/reset/CMOS clear buttons, back panel LCD display and electroluminescent back panel. If this trend goes on we might not even have a choice as every brand and every model would be more tricked out than a magician on steroids.
Phew, didn't realise it's so long, but I guess the issue doors4ever addressed struck a chord - maybe a nerve even :P Just my 2 cents!
[Posted by: Stele | Date: 04/27/07 06:48:28 AM]
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