Live Chat with ASUS, Anand and Intel!

[pm]

Well, that was interesting. I got booted off and couldn't rejoin.

Question for both:

Earlier this year, Intel underwent the largest reorganization in it's corporate history to enable a focus on platforms. How has this change of focus affected the working relationship between Asus and Intel? In what ways is it likely to help end-customers? (Faster time-to-market? Lower cost? etc.)

 

[TheoPetro]

can anyone else get on there? its sayen no such domain when i try to reconnect

 

[KristopherKubicki]

It should be OK to join now.

Kristopher

 

[TheoPetro]

nope still says no suck file or directory

 

[Sp33d]

It's been flooded twice now, this time by pr0n insertions. >.>

 

[Sp33d]

So, are we taking bets on how many more times it will be flooded?

 

[ailleur2]

Its your irc network, just kline the tools

 

[Gamingphreek]

Arg it wont let me log in

I dont have an IRC account so i clicked on the link. It just says that an error occured when trying to login.

-Kevin

 

[Sp33d]

it's back, peoples/

 

[skrewler2]

/mode #asuschat +b tor@* problem solved

 

[Sp33d]

Maybe not...

 

[KristopherKubicki]

Yeah so - I didn't really expect that - my bad. I think we shouldnt expect any more problems anymore immediate problems.

Kristopher

 

[mokert]

I have an Intel 915P motherboard use DDR memory but I have only seen Intel 915P Motherboards with DDR2 on their site.Why aren't there any new motherboards supporting DDR memory?Why not get together with all other manufacturers and a make a connector to a controller where you can monitor,control and customise temperatures,fans and LEDs such as having 3 colour LEDs(red green and blue),and changing what colour you want and a strobe effect for the fan LEDs where you can make it appear the fan is going round slowly,backwards etc. You cannot see the graphics card in a case yet if the PCI sockets were angled upwards you would then be able to see the most expensive component in your PC.Whats wrong with having a headphone socket(on the front of the PC of course)with a volume control and base boost button like that walkman I bought 15 years ago?

 

[Googer]

Are we going to get a report from Anand and crew in a few days on the discussions that took place?

 

[Tu13erhead]

Originally posted by: Googer
Are we going to get a report from Anand and crew in a few days on the discussions that took place?

A transcript will be posted in a few days.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: mokert
I have an Intel 915P motherboard use DDR memory but I have only seen Intel 915P Motherboards with DDR2 on their site.Why aren't there any new motherboards supporting DDR memory?Why not get together with all other manufacturers and a make a connector to a controller where you can monitor,control and customise temperatures,fans and LEDs such as having 3 colour LEDs(red green and blue),and changing what colour you want and a strobe effect for the fan LEDs where you can make it appear the fan is going round slowly,backwards etc. You cannot see the graphics card in a case yet if the PCI sockets were angled upwards you would then be able to see the most expensive component in your PC.Whats wrong with having a headphone socket(on the front of the PC of course)with a volume control and base boost button like that walkman I bought 15 years ago?

Author Icon
mokert
Junior Member

Posts: 1
Joined: 11/14/2005


Welcome to Foums.anandtech.com Mokert!

 

[imported_Dhaval00]

Here is the scenario: I helped my brother upgrade his PC a few months ago. He is a hardcore fan of Intel and ASUS, primarily because they are the major players in the market, and also because they provide reliable service along with their products. I don't want to nit-pick, but I read the AnandTech review featuring the ASUS P5WD2 Premium board before making my ultimate choice (for my brother). I just finished reading the review of three motherboards based on the 945 chipset; it was good to see AnandTech concur with the fact that the current Intel boards don't offer anything (or not much) to the enthusiast (fanboys like my brother) crowds.

Anyway, I did buy the P5WD2 Premium board which features the Intel 955 Chipset, which is made by ASUS, and which was crowned with "words of beauty" by AnandTech. I must agree the board offers upto the mark features (it being an Intel board, I had to buy the 775-Socket T, 630 P4 processor). But the biggest grievance, that I shared by me and many others who bought this board is the redundancy of the second PCI-X graphics slot. Most of us (there are various posts/forums that I have come across that discuss this issue) who bought this board, bought it thinking there maybe a BIOS upgrade in the future that may allow us to run SLi on our system. When I say "most of us," I mean by the people who knew that the second PCI-X slot doesn't support SLi, but there was some hope. Even I agree to the fact that none of the companies, Intel or ASUS, advertized this board as supporting SLi. But I seriously believed that ASUS would offer such an option, because it had supplied the "bridge" cable along with the board. There haven't been any acknowledgements to some of the posts that I saw over on ASUS's forum board regarding this issue.

I as a customer knew what I was getting into, but then there are other people like my brother who are who are hardcore Intel/ASUS fanboys. Intel knows how AMD keeps outperforming it in this class (I don't want the Intel engineers who are giving their time to this thread to own up to such an opinion... it's implied). Now to support Crossfire and SLi, Intel has come up with a new board based on its 975 chipset. I think it's just ridiculous to make such a move when you already have customers whining about the inability of 955 based chipsets to support SLi. I am not asking any of your companies to honor this fact, becuase it was never advertized as an option anyway. But maybe you could make a few people happy, who bought this board, by releasing a new BIOS that will allow them to run SLi on this board. And I am sure it is possible, because there can't any other reason to why ASUS supplies the SLi bridge along with their motherboard. Again, most people who bought this board, and who have good knowledge of computers, boards, and components, anticipated the support for SLi on this board. I'd be happy if this option be made available to customers - else, I am sure that it'd be very hard for customers to install a new Intel/ASUS board in their PC cases.

If it can't be done, then at least let us know why it can't be done. Is it because you have to pay money to nVIDIA to get SLi supported on this board? Or is it because of technical reasons? If not, then why were we supplied with a SLi bridge connector?
Also, I'd like AnandTech to be more careful in reviewing such products... we as customers, trust your reviews and look forward to them before making a final purchase. You did give good grades to this motherboard, and I must agree with most of the points that you made, but you failed to look into the inability of the motherboard to support SLi. I am emphasizing on this fact over and over, becuase I made my brother pay ~$220 for this board - not because I liked the board, but because he beleived, as a customer, in an Intel/ASUS product. If it were up to me, I would have gone out there and bought an AMD motherboard with SLi support for much less.

Don't hate me, fellow engineers, but that is how the "smart" customer evolves into a smarter customer... to wrong a mistake, you just can't release a newer motherboard (aka, the 975). I would really not lose hope in Intel/ASUS if they can make the P5WD2 Premium support SLi. It is a wonderful board, but it would be hard to give it an "A" unless it can support SLi.

My Bother's "Rig"
- ASUS P5WD2 Premium
- P4 630J 3.0 GHz
- 2 GB PC5300 DDR2 RAM
- nVIDIA 7800 GT
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
- Dual Seagate 120 GB SATA HDs

 

[Sunrise089]

Not at all sure I see the reason to complain: You bought a board that did not advertise as being SLI compatible, and it isn't. You intentionally bought a more expensive, lower performing setup based on vague issues like "reliable service" and because Intel and ASUS are big companies, but companies like AMD, DFI and MSI are all very large and tend to make reliable parts as well. Then you admit that there was no promise made to support SLI but you expected it anyways. I don't know about you but I have seen 3000+ CPUs come with a HSF that will support higher clocks than 1.8ghz, but I don't expect AMD to come to my house and overclock my CPU. They promised me 1.8ghz, and they delivered. ASUS promised you a MB without SLI and they gave it to you.

I can totally understand being extra happy with ASUS had they gone the extra mile to add free SLI functionality, but I think you go to far when saying you have become disappointed with the MB and even disappointed in AT's review because neither discusses the (non-promised) SLI. For you next purchase just buy what you want, not what you think you might get lucky and get, that way you will probably be happier with all the components involved.

EDIT - actually this thread is being hijacked by the above poster and myself, sorry, I won't add anything else OT.

 

[imported_Dhaval00]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089
Not at all sure I see the reason to complain: You bought a board that did not advertise as being SLI compatible, and it isn't. You intentionally bought a more expensive, lower performing setup based on vague issues like "reliable service" and because Intel and ASUS are big companies, but companies like AMD, DFI and MSI are all very large and tend to make reliable parts as well. Then you admit that there was no promise made to support SLI but you expected it anyways. I don't know about you but I have seen 3000+ CPUs come with a HSF that will support higher clocks than 1.8ghz, but I don't expect AMD to come to my house and overclock my CPU. They promised me 1.8ghz, and they delivered. ASUS promised you a MB without SLI and they gave it to you.

I can totally understand being extra happy with ASUS had they gone the extra mile to add free SLI functionality, but I think you go to far when saying you have become disappointed with the MB and even disappointed in AT's review because neither discusses the (non-promised) SLI. For you next purchase just buy what you want, not what you think you might get lucky and get, that way you will probably be happier with all the components involved.

EDIT - actually this thread is being hijacked by the above poster and myself, sorry, I won't add anything else OT.

I emphasized on the fact at least three times that the companies never advertized the board as being SLi. AGREED. But did you read my thread closely? I have a golden question in there - why did ASUS supply the SLi bridge with the motherboard? And I did base my purchase after seeing this as an accessory in AnandTech's review & reviews carried out by other Websites. Again, all I am expecting is an honest answer/opinion from this conglamorate of engineers (no hard feelings for them as individuals - they don't make the marketing/desing decisions anyway).
I don't think I am flaming this thread. It is a legitimate question, especially when you have an SLi connector and two PCI-X slots present on the motherboard. Also, my point could be considered as valuable customer feedback. When I stop whining about products/services, companies may keep making mistakes or bringing products to the market that are redundant.

*EDIT* Another point comes to my mind, considering your point holds valid - the motherboard wasn't going to support SLi, but I was charged for the SLi connector anyway. Wasn't I? Don't you think you have the right (we could downgrade it to a "privilage" for the purposes of this discussion) to ask a manufacturer about a product for which you have been charged and can't use? If ASUS wasn't going to support SLi on the board, then why charge customers for an accessory that would in turn support SLi? Again, I don't want to be a prick and play foul around these wonderful engineers who are giving AT their precious time. But I am sure they can address this issue with an honest opinion, if not a promise

 

[Gary Key]

Dhaval00,

I will ask the question to Asus about NVIDIA SLI support for the P5WD2 Premium. You are not the only one who wants an answer. ;-)

 

[Avalon]

Intel: Do you pronounce your name "in-tel", or "eye enn tee ee ell"?

Asus: "Ah-soos", or "ass-us"?

Sorry, couldn't resist.



Been seeing that around too much these past couple months. Everyone else has already covered questions I've been wondering. Kudos for offering this live chat.

 

[KristopherKubicki]

Avalon: "Ah-Zues"

Kristopher

 

[w00t]

tell AMD i <3's them
tell Intel I would <3's them if they were the best but there not so haha.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: Gannon
1. Boot times / and no good (high bandwidth) solid state drive interface.

THere is nothing insufficient about SATA/SAS for solid state drives. Using old RAM as a storage methoer is infeasible, because it's volatile and thus requires constant power. And these devices already exist on the market see here.

The real question should be, is Intel going to apply 65nm process to flash ram? How much will this increase spead and reduce power consumption/costs versus current flash RAM production? (info here)

2. Are we going to see broad standard support for booting of USB Flash and other USB Flash readers

This really isn't an issue for Intel. All current Asus boards and most of the other current motherboard can boot from USB devices no problem.

3. And a related question: Intel/Asus, we really need open source bios's or at least the portion of it that can add new boot devices as they become available

4. Open source bios's, when is this going to happen?

This would be a support nightmare.

That's why companies could say that *open bios's are not supported*, yet ALLOW hackers to tinker with their own bios's

 

[ribbon13]

What happens when the modded BIOS won't post, therefore you can't flash an official BIOS? Just a dead piece of hardware? Of course, you could have a spare BIOS chip for your board handy... but there is nothing preventing a programmer for doing that anyway. And BIOS wouldn't have a 'source.' It's direct machine code from the very beginning.