Gigabyte Claims that Asus Is Deceiving Its Customers on Motherboards

Gigabyte engineers claim that hardware manufacturer Asustek is willingly deceiving its customers with low-quality motherboards built with "technologies" that don't bring any improvements. The allegations were accompanied by slides demonstrating that Asustek lied about its motherboard offerings.

According to a report released by Tom's Hardware website, Asustek's high-end motherboards that are allegedly equipped with energy-saving hardware are actually average products. For instance, the Taiwanese manufacturer claims that motherboards labeled with an EPU logo are equipped with an "Asus Energy Processing Unit". Marketed as extremely energy-efficient products, these parts lack the very "processor".

Gigabyte also claims that there are no visible benefits in using such a board, despite the fact that Asustek claims it delivers energy savings of up to 80.23 percent as compared to a "regular" motherboard. The wrongfully marketed motherboards are the Asus P5E3 Deluxe and P5E3 Premium, two expensive motherboards that in fact perform lower than Gigabyte's EP35-DS3L.

Moreover, Gigabyte engineers claim that Asustek's EPU motherboards manage to save energy by dramatically crippling the system's performance. According to Gigabyte, the EPU chip lowers certain system frequencies by small amounts, which means that the hardware resources you have paid for are not entirely used.

"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", said Gigabyte in a report.

Gigabyte also discovered that the EPU unit has no hardware role on the motherboard, as it merely handles software behaviors. Moreover, Gigabyte claims that the EPU chip is totally fake and has been "planted" on the board just to go well in the picture.

The famous Japanese aluminum solid capacitors on the board are also alleged to be fake. "Asus uses non-Japanese made metal solid capacitors to fool you", said Gigabyte. "Asus still tries to [cut] cost down." According to the report, the Asustek capacitors are made outside Japan and are more likely to blow up when operating under high load.

Update: Asustek has issued an official statement that denies Gigabyte's allegations. You can read the full report here.

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