Saturday, January 3rd 2009
Gigabyte Has a Crippled VGA Slot: MSI
Although presentations that are internal to companies never make it to the public scene, some of those presentations are interesting, to say the least. Computer hardware manufacturers spread around an area as saturated as Taiwan, China, Malaysia, etc., get so involved into aggressive competition that in more occassions than one they get carried away. Internal presentations are the ones manufacturers such as ASUSTek, MSI and Gigabyte share with their potential customers in channel vendors, OEMs, and the likes. One such presentation by MSI, a particular slide of which, has become an example of how far competition has taken the manufacturers.
MSI, in one of its internal presentations regarding its G45M Digital motherboards, accuses Gigabyte of misleading its consumers by selling motherboards with "crippled VGA slots". Quite simply put, the VGA slot, in this case, PCI-Express x16 slots most commonly used to install graphics cards are "crippled" by Gigabyte, by reducing its number of PCI-Express lanes. The affected Gigabyte motherboards, according to MSI are EG45M-DS2H, EG43M-SH2H, and EG41MF-S2H. So while the slots are mechanically PCI-Express x16, they are electrically PCI-Express x4 (with a bandwidth reduction of 75%). MSI backs its claims with Gigabyte's own data published on its website.
Now comes the question of "Why?". The Intel G4x northbridge is capable of providing 16 lanes to a mechanical x16 PCI-Express slot, but it would also mean wiring the northbridge to the slot. With the way in which PCI-Express is built, the number of available lanes can be manipulated by simply not connecting the lanes to the device. In this case, not wiring all the lanes to the slot, when the northbridge is very much capable of providing the lanes. Furthermore, Gigabyte put up a "VGA compatibility list". Backed with credible evidence, MSI looks to capitalise on Gigabyte's design flaws in its own marketing campaign.
Source:
ModReactor
MSI, in one of its internal presentations regarding its G45M Digital motherboards, accuses Gigabyte of misleading its consumers by selling motherboards with "crippled VGA slots". Quite simply put, the VGA slot, in this case, PCI-Express x16 slots most commonly used to install graphics cards are "crippled" by Gigabyte, by reducing its number of PCI-Express lanes. The affected Gigabyte motherboards, according to MSI are EG45M-DS2H, EG43M-SH2H, and EG41MF-S2H. So while the slots are mechanically PCI-Express x16, they are electrically PCI-Express x4 (with a bandwidth reduction of 75%). MSI backs its claims with Gigabyte's own data published on its website.
Now comes the question of "Why?". The Intel G4x northbridge is capable of providing 16 lanes to a mechanical x16 PCI-Express slot, but it would also mean wiring the northbridge to the slot. With the way in which PCI-Express is built, the number of available lanes can be manipulated by simply not connecting the lanes to the device. In this case, not wiring all the lanes to the slot, when the northbridge is very much capable of providing the lanes. Furthermore, Gigabyte put up a "VGA compatibility list". Backed with credible evidence, MSI looks to capitalise on Gigabyte's design flaws in its own marketing campaign.
75 Comments on Gigabyte Has a Crippled VGA Slot: MSI
That seems really stupid to me.
It might come as a shock to some of you but some people don't need a computer to game or they just don't game on the PC and they need it maybe as a server for something , and this is how a raid controller comes into play.
The onboard raid controller of the G45 chipset is not very good for advance users who stackes several HDD's in raid , it's like de video card that is onboard , good for some poor graphics games but not for the latest , it's like that with the raid wich is basic for advance users , the raid from G45 if i'm not mistaken eats CPU resources for some configurations of raid and eats it bad.
Gigabyte should be blamed for carrying to much about helping some people wich don't see a computer just a gaming machine , next time they should stick to the usual and crowd the box with tons of stickers and "features" , seems to trick the consumer , some preety colors and a nice picture on the box.
1.) The number of people puting RAID controllers in these budget boards is nothing compared to the people puting graphics cards.
2.) They increase compatibility for a very small minority, and decreased compatibility and performance for a very large majority.
3.) There are very simple work arounds for the disabled onboard video. All these boards have another PCI-E x1 slot and two PCI slots, or just 3 PCI slots. Stick a cheap video card in one o those, and the cost for it will be relatively nothing compared to the cost of a RAID controller and drives.
4.) If they were truly concerned about people using RAID controllers, why not run the for PCI-E lanes from the southbridge over to a second PCI-E slot, replacing the PCI-E x1 slot with a PCI-E x4 slot? That would have let people use their RAID controllers with onboard video, and not given people a crippled PCI-E x16 slot.
Do you made a survey of the whole world and know how many people change the onboard video card and how many needs it for a raid ? don't think so.
You talk very stupid things there , stick a cheap video card in a pci express x1 slot ? the problem for some people with this news is price and if we add a cheap video card to the price of the MB we get pretty far , who knows maybe we reach 150-160$ on newegg.
In the end it doesn't matter as long as they state it it will work at that speed and there is actually a reason for this crippled slot other than to cut costs and scam you little unknowing and poor angry consumers.
You people better welcome this because for some people comes usefull and for other don't but that's why you can choose MSI or Asus or whatever brand you want , don't you like diversity ?
Yes, the motherboard is cheap, but if you are using the system for RAID, it is no longer cheap. You are looking at a minimum of $120 for a RAID card worth using over the onboard. Then you are looking at at least another $100 for two decent moderately sized hard drives. So just to do the RAID setup is at the very minimum $220, throwing in a $40 PCI card isn't going to break the bank.
And as for the number of people wanting to put RAID cards in vs. the number putting video cards in. Just look at the number of people running dedicated video cards vs. dedicated RAID cards(and even then there are less running dedicated PCI-E RAID cards). Graphics card sales are a lot higher than RAID controller sales.
www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20080808090756_Market_of_Graphics_Adapters_Flat_as_Intel_Grabs_Highest_Market_Share_in_Years.html
those numbers mean only one thing , most people don't put another video card in that slot , you must feel very stupid now.
So , considering most of them never replace the onboard then sometimes it's good that slot could actually help some 1 % of people that want raid , and my personal opinion is that a diversity is good , to have more choices , if i want to put a 4870 on a g45 chipset than you rather buy an ASUS or MSI because they have a pci 2.0 x16 but if i won't ever consider changing graphics i could also consider buying a gigabyte motherboard.
Also, please refrain from attacking him personally. He hasn't done any of that that I've seen and it doesn't count as a point in your favor in your discussion.
Show me some numbers on descrete graphics cards vs. RAID controller cards and then we can talk. Simply showing that more people use integrated cards than descrete cards(duh) doesn't say anything about the number of descerte cards vs. RAID controllers. It is pretty common sense that more people have descrete graphics cards than descrete RAID controllers.
I'll refrain from offending people Thermopylae.
Gigabyte is only trying to cover their ass by making up the RAID controller excuse. If that was their true reasoning, we would have seen them making a big deal about it. It would be part of the advertising on the box. It would be listed as a feature on the product's webpage. None of that is true though.
And like I have already pointed out, if that was their true goal, they certainly could have gone about it in a much better way, and still given the use of a full PCI-E x16 slot.
this is a 4x 1.0 or 1.1 slot (unspecified) which is definately NOT good for gaming, or 3D rendering using a dedicated card.
The amount of users who add RAID cards is low to begin with, let alone people who do so on budget microATX boards.
Gigabyte also have a series of motherboards with a PCI-E 2.0 16x slot for video, and a 4x open ended slot for crossfire or RAID cards. why cant users with specialised needs buy specialised boards, instead of giga crippling them?
as Erocker has said, feel free to discuss (even heatedly) your cases, but under no circumstances are personal attacks going to be ignored.
For who doesn't read the forum posts , gigabyte didn't excused itself with this argument , it's just some guys talking on a forum and discovering a cheap MB with integrated grpahic card doesn't work with raid and only gigabyte let's them do that.
I don't know how much a specialised MB costs but it could be more than that gigabyte mb and not everyone wants to spend a lot of money if they want to get a game server up or a file server up.
To conclude this discution , what's the cheapest solution with integrated graphic card that allows people to add a raid controller in the pci express slot ? 16x, 8x or 4x ?
If there is a MB that is just as good in construction ( solid capacitors ) allows raid controllers without disabling the onboard graphic has a pci express 16x slot that will work at that speed and is cheaper or in the same price range as the gigabyte mb than i will shut up and mind my own bussines , if there is not then some people with a low budget in mind could be helped by this solution and the existance of this MB is not so unthinkable.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500018
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186140
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130130
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188034
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188034
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500006
Cheaper than the G45 Board:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500019
Going to shut up now?
Where is the proof it will work , from what i read G45 chipset motherboards don't support a raid controller in that slot with the onboard graphics still working unlles the integrator does some modifications like gigabyte did.
It was preety hard to find from the start newtekie because how are you going to prove this ? i need some prove so google it and find it , i can give you a lot of links with MB's cheaper than gigabyte too but will they work like that guy wanted on that forum ?
As for build quality, that is really a subjective thing. There are definitely some better quality boards in the list I have. The Zotac board crushes the Gigabyte in build quality IMO, and it is ~$15 cheaper. As do some of the very cheap(sub-$50) boards.
Solid caps is not the definitive mark for quality either, especially cheap solid caps, a board with normal caps can last just as long as a solid cap board, in fact I have several high end boards from the previous generation that are all normal caps.
Bye and have a good life.
And AS I know, EG41MF-S2H... is x16...