Tom's Hardware's AMA With Gigabyte, In Its Entirety

Bundled RAM, Haswell Compatibility, And Gigabyte's Other Businesses

Q. Are the Gigabyte PSUs Haswell compatible? Specifically the PoweRock ax 600 (the one I own).

A. I will contact our PSU team to suggest posting a Haswell compatibility list. Good call.

Q. Just wondering if Gigabyte has thought of incorporating RAM directly onto the Motherboard.

With Gigabytes' buying power I would think you could easily add 16GB of RAM for the same price as an end user could add 8GB. This would leave the end user either with enough RAM or the ability to purchase additional if required.

A. For us and pretty much every other MB vendor, this would be a bit problematic. Firstly DRAM prices tend to fluctuate quite a bit over time being one of the world's most fiercely price competitive segments. This would make it a challenge in terms of procurement; especially long term procurement and sourcing. Look at it this way, 16GB of DRAM shipped today, could have a different street value just weeks later when its still sitting on the shelf.  Secondly, a major part of the DIY ethos is about selecting the key components yourself. Memory choices vary considerably by segment with certain brands having good mind-share for enthusiasts, other brands for overclocking and others offering great value for money. I think many users have an affinity or loyalty for the memory brand they use so we'd almost be forcing our customers to use a certain brand or type of memory.

Q. Gigabyte produces smartphones under the GSmart branding, a market I don't think any other motherboard manufacturers are a part of. Will there ever be some kind of integration between Gigabyte smartphones and PC products?  Say a live monitoring of CPU or GPU voltage and temperatures through an app, re-directing calls through the desktop if you happen to be at your desk, some application of NFC technology such as moving data between smartphone and PC in a similar manner to Samsung's S-Beam?

A. Although we don't specifically market our motherboards as specially designed to be integrated with our GSmart phone products, we do have several smart phone/tablet apps which can be used with your GIGABYTE motherboard. These are developed both for Android and iOS so they're compatible with the broadest range of gadgets possible.

Q.I notice that Gigabyte despite being largely being known for their motherboards and graphics cards, do make peripheral items such as keyboards, mice and headsets, as well as some computer chassis. Does Gigabyte intend to expand further into these markets and compete with already established brands like Corsair or Cooler Master?

A. Our peripherals business has grown considerably in recent years, and I believe we have some really strong and unique products in that segment. I think it's not so much about expansion, but staying as competitive and innovative as possible so that we can solidify and hopefully grow our position in that segment.

Q. Hello, I really appreciate the candidness and honesty present in this AMA. I was wondering if there will ever be more motherboards that have a DisplayPort on the motherboard for the iGPU (AMD's FM2 and later FM2+ and Intel's 1150).

A. If you look at our upper mainstream to high-end Z87 models, say UD3H and above, all these boards offer a DisplayPort on the rear IO panel. However we've found that in the mid to entry-level segment, DP seems to be less popular. I think you can see this tends to mirror in many ways the displays that are being used. i.e. mid to entry-level displays tend to offer only HDMI, DVI and even D-Sub. This is also true of our FM2 boards, which is a mid to entry-level segment. Most A85X boards support HDMI and DVI, with the flagship F2A85X-UP4 integrating DP.

Q. Are there any advantages to having both a Gigabyte motherboard and Gigabyte graphics card? For example, anything similar to MSI's VGA Boost? Side question, when are we going to see the GV-N760OC-4GD on shelves in the US? (I know, I know, motherboards...but I have been checking every day since this card was announced!)

A. Sure... the advantage is that you'll enjoy a really great experience by using components from an industry-leading brand... ;)  But hey... Both our motherboards and VGA cards are sold based on their own merits, so in that respect our boards are optimized to get the best performance from VGA cards of all brands. Same goes for VGA cards. Not sure when the GV-N760OC-4GD will be available in the US...

Q. I'm a great fan of Gigabyte for a very long time and wonder if they plan to move into processors and software?

A. We currently have no plans to move into ARM licensed Android platforms. I guess it's possible that some time in the future we could see ARM-based SOCs become powerful enough to enter the DIY PC segment and compete with x86. It's not impossible, but I don't see it happening anytime too soon.