Wednesday, September 7th 2011
MSI Calls Bluff on Gigabyte's PCIe Gen 3 Ready Claim
In August, Gigabyte made a claim that baffled at least MSI, that scores of its motherboards are Ready for Native PCIe Gen. 3. Along with the likes of ASRock, MSI was one of the first with motherboards featuring PCI-Express 3.0 slots, the company took the pains to educate buyers what PCI-E 3.0 is, and how to spot a motherboard that features it. MSI thinks that Gigabyte made a factual blunder bordering misinformation by claiming that as many as 40 of its motherboards are "Ready for Native PCIe Gen. 3." MSI decided to put its engineering and PR team to build a technically-sound presentation rebutting Gigabyte's claims.
More slides, details follow.
MSI begins by explaining that PCIe support isn't as easy as laying a wire between the CPU and the slot. It needs specifications-compliant lane switches and electrical components, and that you can't count on certain Gigabytes for future-proofing.
MSI did some PCI-Express electrical testing using a 22 nm Ivy Bridge processor sample.
MSI claims that apart from the G1.Sniper 2, none of Gigabyte's so-called "Ready for Native PCIe Gen. 3" motherboards are what the badge claims to be, and that the badge is extremely misleading to buyers. Time to refill the popcorn bowl.
Source:
MSI
MSI begins by explaining that PCIe support isn't as easy as laying a wire between the CPU and the slot. It needs specifications-compliant lane switches and electrical components, and that you can't count on certain Gigabytes for future-proofing.
286 Comments on MSI Calls Bluff on Gigabyte's PCIe Gen 3 Ready Claim
I'm voting for BS from Gigabyte, especially as they claim a whopping 40 mobos.
www.techpowerup.com/150333/GIGABYTE-Announces-Entire-6-Series-Ready-to-Support-Native-PCIe-Gen.-3.html
Ivory bridge sample that's confirmed to exist......Wonder if msi have a bulldozer sample :).....
No-one can prove 100% without a doubt that their motherboard as today can work with PCI Express 3.0 cards, as there are no cards. That's how simple it is. As for anything else, let's wait for an official statement from Gigabyte shall we, before we draw conclusions either which way.
BTW, here in Japan, Gigabyte has released a series of "interesting" boards. Locally called the GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3/G3, GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3/G3, and GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3/G3; global names are GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 rev1.3, GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 rev1.3, and GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 rev1.3; these boards claim to be Ivy/PCIe Gen3 compatible. hmm.... ;)
Now on a board like the GD65 and UD4 there are 16 x pIC-E lanes. Now we all know that lanes that go through the PCI-E switches will be limited by the bandwidth of that switch. If the lanes don't go through the switch, in which 8 lanes don't on both the UD4 and GD65, those lanes directly connected to the first PCI-E 16x slots first 8x of lanes, can be PCI-E 3.0 capable, they are directly wired.
now the UD7 was not included on the GB list becuase all its lanes goto the NF200.
In theory BC of GIGABYTE's anouncement all LGA1155 boards with correctBIOS can support PCI-E 3.0 on those lanes direct from the CPU to the PCI-E lanes, which is usualy 8.
So MSI always copies GIGABYTE stuff, they totally copied them on USB extra power, down the advertising stuff. I doubt GB would just go out and blatently lie.
I'll go down to their offices tomorrow and have a chat with them, just for you, ok?
There are motherboard hardware specs and requirements for PCI-E 3 so if Gigabyte doesnt meet the specs we have a right to ask questions....Apart from the video memory issue there is the UEFI bios issue from Gigabyte.
Gigabyte call it a UEFI bios when its not a real UEFI bios.
Gigabyte realized they made a big mistake on P67/Z68 boards by not including UEFI bios when other manufacturers did incude a real UEFI bios. So Gigabyte built a fake UEFI bios, nothing more than a glorified "easytune" windows software and called it "hybrid UEFI".
Its exactly the same issue with this PCI-E 3.0 issue. Gigabyte gets caught with their pants down when the competition has something better, then they just lie and try to make a workaround.Haha funny....
You believe MSI but not GIGABYTE. Why don't you take a look over at overclock.net. The thread in which GB made this announcment has a pretty long thread, goto the last two pages. See what MSI REP MSIALEX says, hes a MSI rep, he says exactly what i just said, and he said MSI products can support what Gb said too. butit seems some overpretentious MSI people got offended. BTW same thing as ASsrock Slide earlier saying that asrock has PCI-E 3.0 but GB doesn't, but GB has the capbility too just like everything one. Asrock said this before GB even made their encouncment.
Good luck upgrading to those PCI-E 3.0 cards without Gigabyte's High ESD-Resistance iCs! Did I mention that Gigabyte is the FIRST(and only?) to have full traditional-BIOS support for PCI-E 3.0 cards?
I asked Gigabyte to respond, If the thread doesnt get deleted i will post what they say.....lol