ASUS today released an official statement in response to recent development stemming from a Gigabyte press event held in Taiwan. Tom’s Hardware reported on the event, and noted that Gigabyte made several claims that ASUS had mislead customers by quietly modifying product specifications listed on the ASUS website without actually changing any hardware.
In its response, ASUS says that "a certain Taiwanese Motherboard Manufacturer" made false claims against ASUS motherboards. Specifically, ASUS is pointing its fingers at Gigabyte. In Gigabyte’s detailed comparison, the ASUS boards — specifically the P5K series — utilizing the ASUS EPU power saving system was nothing more than "cheating" users.
Gigabyte claimed:
We found that [Asus’] EPU in 4 phase mode CAN NOT act PWM phase changing while Asus still claims EPU is a hardware based energy saving chip. Don’t get fooled. The EPU (AIGear3+) is pure software based, not hardware!
In its statement, ASUS points out that claims made by Gigabyte are false, and that the "disinformation" is extremely damaging to ASUS and misleads the consumer. ASUS did not point out which claims made by Gigabyte exactly, were false.
In the statement, ASUS said:
"These claims have given rise to false information being communicated in both the mainstream media and technology channels. ASUS wishes to clarify the issues and so avoid any further confusion."
ASUS did not mention what it was clarifying, and did not provide any further details on how it would provide technical details to counter what was already said by Gigabyte.
In an official second statement following up to the first, ASUS pointed out that its products do perform as claimed. However, the second statement talks about the P5Q Deluxe, which is not the same motherboard that was used in the Gigabyte tests — which was the P5K series. According to ASUS’ website, the new P5Q Deluxe uses an entirely new EPU-6 chip for power management, and a new 16-phase power design. In Gigabyte’s original claim, the EPU (apparently an old one now) was nothing more than a chip that responded to software, and did no hardware control of any kind. The P5K claimed only 4-phase power and Gigabyte’s comparison indicated that the P5K did not perform any phase changing at all to save power.
At this stage, ASUS sill has not given a response for the board in question. The new P5Q with a supposedly new EPU chip does not apply to the original comparison.
Original article: Gigabyte: ASUS Lied & Fooled Customers
In related note, users have begun to pay close attention to things being posted on websites from both ASUS and Gigabyte. One reader noted that ASUS response did not attempt to talk about the details in question at all. In an analysis by The Tech Report, a Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 bested the ASUS P5K Deluxe by a significant margin with the ASUS P5K Deluxe coming in at last place on every power consumption test.
From alantlchan 16/05/2008 07:13:..................Asus did not responded directly to any point at all! It just keep saying P5Q series, but the MB in the test is Asus P5K SE/EPU! Also, P5Q series are P45 chipset MB that are not yet released!
Anyone carefully read the respond will see Asus tried to fool us again!
Why Asus don’t just do a live demo in front of the media with the same setup as Gigabyte if the accusation is bullshit? Asus has no such ability? If so, that means Asus is not technically as good as Gigabyte. If not, why not just showing us?
Below are my additional comments to those exclusive features:
Exclusive feature 3:
I would recommend everyone to have a look on Asus P5K SE/EPU on Asus website.At least 3 capacitors are not Japan Japan-made conductive capacitors.
Exclusive feature 4 and 5:Asus P5K SE/EPU have no Express Gate and Total Safety Features, these are just on P5Q...................
At the end of ASUS’s first statement, the company pointed out that it would look into legal action against "any individual, organization or corporation which creates or spreads such rumors." At this point, our educated guess is that ASUS may take legal matters to Gigabyte’s door steps as well as us at Tom’s Hardware. Gigabyte tells us that it is "not worried about an ASUS lawsuit."
Tom’s Hardware will conduct its own independent comparison of the ASUS P5K series and the Gigabyte EP35-DS3L. At this time, we’re still waiting for a response from ASUS that specifically answers the claims we spoke about in the original article.
