We get Gigabyte's reaction to the landscape-changing decision from Intel.
Yesterday, Intel revealed news that it will cease engineering desktop motherboards after Haswell this year. Instead, Intel will be reinvesting its resources into other areas that it believes to present greater growth opportunities, such as reference designs for Ultrabooks and all-in-ones, along with its Next Unit of Computing (NUC).
Given how this decision by the world's largest chipmaker will directly affect the businesses of motherboard vendors, we decided to reach out for comment from the industry giants. The first to respond was Gigabyte with the following statement:
"While over the years Intel motherboards have been a competitor, they have also been a important partner in that they have opened up future markets for GIGABYTE to sell desktop motherboards into. For example the market for corporate systems using Intel’s now popular VPro technologies – there was initially very little demand for these platforms, but now after Intel motherboards created the market, GIGABYTE now offers a number of models because volumes are significant enough to warrant their own segment within our product portfolio. We expect the market for Thin Mini-ITX mobos to be another example of this later in 2013. So we’re a little sad to see them go. However, we understand that this highly competent team at Intel will continue to drive new market segments with form factor reference designs such as the tiny NUC that we saw at CES this year.
"We plan to do all we can to make this transition as smooth and painless as possible by working with our channel partners and friends at Intel to provide sufficient consumer, corporate (VPro) and power user motherboards to markets where Intel motherboards enjoy strong demand. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable motherboards are an excellent substitute for Intel branded motherboards, and we offer a full range of models from the ATX form factor down to the Thin Mini-ITX form factor for AIO systems."We don’t think that this will affect Intel’s CPU market share because in future motherboard vendors are likely to focus more in their Intel platform business in regions where Intel motherboards are popular than in the past where they would be competing with an Intel sales team for this market share."
They did spearhead pushes into different form factors however. Didn't see much outside of ATX before they entered. However I do not know if that was due to tech advances or Intel. That said their mobos were fairly sturdy but like their SSDs were always priced well above the competition and they were just downright ugly... (Hey some people are into Mobo aesthetics!
Really? someone gave this a negative vote... You need to learn how business works.
Their H series boards offer a great value and the Q series boards offer workstation/enterprise grade features for just a little more. Anyone purchasing a Z series motherboard would probably not want to go Intel because they will be gaming/overclocking and as I said before Intel tends to be a little sparse in the BIOS/overclocking options
Supermicro are the best, and most reliable. Intel's were pretty close as well, and very stable, and very well-supported. Eventually, I gave up on the off-brands because they were just not as stable. Although sometimes the Asus or Gigabytes would have features people would want, or higher performance, and then they'd be a good buy.
Intel leaving the motherboard business isn't a good thing for customers. You can still get Supermicro, but after that, you fall off the shelf. You're going to replace an Intel with a Biostar? Asus? ECS? I like Gigabyte for hobbyist stuff, but even then, it's not at that level. So, basically, you're going to have to get Supermicro now, or get a knock-off brand, without Intel in the middle. Supermicro is very expensive too, but if you need a real motherboard, you have no choice anymore.
Better cooling, more components, SLI/crossfire, 1000+W PSUs...etc.
Basically a full form factor provides everything a high quality system builder needs: Options for moar power!
I just had to add a comment after reading this.... Intel makes the most stable motherboards on the market. It's true they don't have all the extra bells and bling of other motherboard makers but if your needs is a systems requiring the utmost stability and no overclocking then you go with Intel.