Alright, enough about integrated graphics. We don't think they're taking over the world, either. This time, our industry insiders talk to us about the new AMD Operton offerings, SFFs, netbooks, future motherboard designs, and product diversification.
If you haven’t read our Graphics Card Survey or the first half of the Motherboard Survey, here is a quick recap of what we've discussed so far:
- Nvidia is back in the graphics fight, but, at the moment, it’s an uphill battle.
- Nvidia needs more aggressive pricing on its low-end boards to keep Intel and AMD on their toes once CPU-based graphics becomes more prevalent.
- Intel is purportedly going to give AMD and Nvidia some stiff competition in today’s $75-and-under discrete graphics market.
- Mainstream market acceptance of hybrid IGP performance is a bit murky.
- Hybrid IGPs are going to see stiff competition in the mainstream market, and will be outclassed in the high-end space. Add-in graphics cards aren’t going out of style anytime soon.
- We should still expect excellent add-in card vendor board designs.
- Nvidia is still going to fight for its chipset business, if the latest lawsuit is any indication.
- There are more and more multi-core CPU designs on the horizon.
Our motherboard contacts were nice enough to pull a double shift. We already have their thoughts on the upcoming graphics landscape, but there are other topics that remain untouched--topics that are purely motherboard-related. After all, today's motherboard industry is almost unrecognizable compared to what we were seeing five years ago. Unfortunately, you need two hands to count the number of motherboard companies that are effectively defunct in the consumer market.
The participants are the same, but we changed up the questions.
- Over the past 10 years, Intel and AMD have gone back and forth in the server market. Most recently, Intel demonstrated the benefits of its Nehalem microarchitecture with Nehalem-EX in the MP space. Before that, Nehalem-EP and Westmere-EP showcased the architecture's benefits in 1P and 2P configurations. AMD recently told us it was no longer focusing on the workstation space. Has AMD lost the momentum it generated with Opteron back when Intel relied on NetBurst for driving Xeon, or are motherboard vendors still seeing new AMD Opteron offerings as a competitive (profitable) architecture in the server space?
- A few motherboard manufacturers have exited the industry. We are continually seeing profit margins on components drop. As consumers, how will we see motherboard manufacturers continue to drive their brand?
- In previous years, we saw many motherboard manufacturers diversify into non-traditional market spaces. Is your company’s current business strategy focusing on diversification or the core products?
- Small form factors were extremely popular five years ago because they provided a diminutive footprint and similar performance attributes as any other desktop machine. Largely due to the economic climate, price-conscious buyers have shifted towards ultra-low-voltage configurations like nettops and netbooks. Do you see this as another temporary trend?
- As Intel and AMD integrate more functionality into their host processors, what opportunities remain for motherboard vendors to add value?
Absolutely agree. This is basically where I've been placing my builds for the last 10 years; at the bottom of the price curve where performance hits the sweet spot for price. I alone typify that logic.
Smartphones/PDA? They've existed for a long time now. The problem is the technology wasn't around to give them the power they needed to do everything a Netbook can do. That is rapidly changing. I hate to say it, but I disagree with Netbooks being a long-term investment. The consumer now is driven by convenience. If my smartphone can be my multimedia outlet, document editor, day planner, browser, camera, accessory portal (ear pieces/headsets, printers, scanners, etc...) and telephone, they why would I want to lug around seperate devices for each of those?
Very short-term. At the way things are going, that will be one to two years worth of earnings at the most. Hardly worth the R&D IMHO.
This is the bottom line for everything, basically. This motto can not falter.
Complexity is definitely the direction the industry has taken. However, I would think if a manufacturer wanted to baseline a board with IGPs, they would do so in terms of finding a way to allow additional discrete GPU and/or CPU installments for those that tinker. I know this has been tried in the past, but I'm not talking about simple onboard graphics processors.
The baseline board would be for the general consumer and could handle day-to-day tasks found in every household. While additional GPU and CPU configurations that would work in conjuction with the onboard processors appeals to the specializing category. We just need a manufacturer to take that step to allow them to co-exist in the same environment and provide that extra benefit of accessorizing.
The Future Of Motherboads And Their Makers
The P55 is a great middle of the road platform, and if one graphics card (even two) is enough to wet your whistle, you could'nt ask for more.
I think brand loyalty comes about by great customer support and innovation, and it doesn't hurt to have a well used and supportive attached forum.
I've hide my eggs with Intel, WD, Corsair, ASUS, and EVGA for many years now, and they are safe.
In an economy where it is more important that things last, what I want to see is a focus on durability. Gigabyte advertises this very well, but I find that ASRock has many of the same elements (e.g. all-solid, Japanese caps, ferrite chokes) and costs a lot less.
Thought it is some software that does what with motherboards ?
And talking heads music band has got what to do with this ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_Heads
If not for the weird article name the rest is very nice.
Good to see Toms getting serious about hardware and reality from a users point of view.
5*
I don't know with people bashing the Atom, due to its poor performance or efficiency. It is a chip with a very small die area.
Jtt283 - ASROCK is a subset / knock off of ASUS - think of it as the ASUS version of Saturn - quirky and a bit bizarre (hey, I got a 4core dual SATA2 REV 2 running on one of my systems), but reliable and relatively inexpensive.
That is, till EVGA releases another bad batch of Motherboards/Vid Cards (Thanks to Nvidia's faulters, still an issue in small instances and its debatable on each board which is to blame)
Evga's stance is the same as Microsoft's xbox, offer a product that may fail, and if they do, honor the warranty without any sort of argument.
Out of all my Intel using buddies that had Evga parts (well over 100) 20 of them had to return boards -multiple- times. That's not an acceptable return rate and a reason that I won't use another EVGA board for builds in the future. (Letalone the turd cooler they put on my Geforce 6800 so many years ago.)
Asus had those Crosshair 4 boards that were faulty also, Hell Gigabyte had some boards that had no paste on the northbridge!
Don't just assume becuase it's a brand Y it'll last forever. Buy what's the best for the budget.
More robust components, greater voltage control capacity causing greater power stability, and - most importantly - the more extravagant cooling provided for on far more areas of the board usually means that the board is just plain going to last longer than cheaper alternatives.
You get what you pay for. You buy strong components parts, you insure stable power and sufficient cooling and your pc lasts until Windows obsoletes it out of existence.
One more thing the PC manufacturing world needs to deal with: you guys need to come up with MUCH better ways of keeping dust out of the box (ones that don't impede airflow). Even cleaning inside the box regularly is not an optimal solution as things like taking the unit apart to get at the back of the motherboard risks damaging it.
My PC is for my small business & personal use. I'm more concerned with smart Power consumption management (don't want skyrocketing energy bills), upgradeability to next-generation technology and long lifespan while keeping costs down.
Everything seems to be all about gaming - my needs are omitted or ignored by PC PR/Adverts and websites. I'd like to see more products that focus on my needs - not everybody is a PC gamer. What PC website community focuses on my needs?
My comment on "dust in the box" is one of those sorts of issues...and about using some "over-clocker's" components to get a long life.
Unfortunately, no one makes money by playing up selling a pc that will last 5 or more years and few people make parts for that market.
Microsoft tends to actively discourage that sort of thinking by pushing hardware manufacturers to change the plug-in / data buss options for parts every couple of years to optimize for Windows updates - these eventually shut down or hinder the operation of older motherboard hardware formats (early AGP, USB 1.0, older CPU slots, isa card slots, etc) usually by messing with either the Windows boot or voltage control.
Figure your pc designed for a version of Windows will last more or less thru one Windows redesign - a Win 95 pc lasted until Win 2000 (sort of) , Win 98 to XP, a Win 2000 system will last to Vista, XP systems are being killed off right now by Win 7, etc.
I'm not sure how that will work with Vista / Win 7 as Windows 7 is actually Vista SP2 and is using less resources but you get the idea.
In addition, buying an off-the-shelf desktop pc or cheap laptop is pretty much a prescription to getting a pc that - due to system manufacturers using cheap parts on their lower-end systems - will crap out on you a few months after the base warranty expires...if you are lucky
I don't game much either, but I do use my systems as home media centers (why by a dvd player when you can just plug in a pc to your tv AND be able to surf the net from your comfy chair or laying in bed) and I do CAD work for both school and my job - so a little bit of extra oomph in the gpu beyond the onboard graphics is needed on at least one pc.
Your safest bet is in doing a LOT of research...this means reading thru hundreds of customer comments on sites like NEWEGG and TOMS about specific components AND by trying to follow the help forums. NEVER buy anything that has less than a hundred comments good and bad.
If all you see is people asking either novice "I can't read the instructions" type of questions (guilty as charged your honor!) or about hot-rodding their pc and few actual faulty part issues, you can bet that part or pc is a decent option that will last you a while.
Jose - I'd guess I'd say if you are looking for a normal-user community, I'd just surf the help forums.
So it's not important at all? Or do you mean cannot be overstated?
For example - the ability to do an iSCSI boot this way would be HUGE.