Slashdot Mirror

can we have more dual bios boards?

http://www.gigabyte.us/microsi...

is real old.

M$ is pretty much killing itself in the consumer market and is rapidly reaching the point of no return and perhaps even crossed over.

Windows (all versions): 85% and stable
OS X: 11%
Linux: 1.5%
Misc (possibly mis-ID as desktop): 2.5%

Not sure where you got those figures. Linux Desktop Market share is now at 2.27%. Not huge but definitely increasing.

One third of the 85% above is now using Win10. Half the gamers on Steam now run Win10. With Ryzen and Kaby Lake there is no Win7 support. Sorry to disappoint you, but even as people are holding on to Win7 there zero evidence of any migration away. When push comes to shove I imagine most will begrudgingly upgrade like they did with WinXP.

Again I will refer you to the URL. Windows 10 is approx 25.3% with Windows 7 approximately 47.2% and surprisingly Windows XP at 9.17%. Even Windows 8.1 is at 6.9% so that tells you how popular Windows 10 is, although as people throw away their old windows machines and purchase new ones then Windows 10 market share will increase.

In the motherboard BIOS there is an option for "Other OS" and I initially installed Fedora 24 (now 25) on the Z170 (takes Sky Lake) without any problems so I don't forsee any issues with the motherboards for Ryzen (when it comes out) or Kaby Lake which has the same LGA 1151 socket as Sky lake and will run on Z170, H170, B150 and H110 series motherboards . It will be possible to install Windows 7 (if you can get a legitimate version or do you pirate it?) under the Other OS feature but like you have said it will not be supported by Microsoft.

As far as PC games go, Microsoft Windows dominates although if you go to Steam and look at the number of games available for Linux and SteamOS there are over 5,000 and some are AAA. Good luck finding the time to play them all.

The majority of people will not upgrade to Windows 10 unless Microsoft use the same tactics when they made the OS a free upgrade if you had a legitimate copy of Windows 7 or Widows 8.1. If you wish to upgrade now you have to pay for Windows 10 and most people will not do that unless they replace their PC which in the majority of cases the new PC will come with Windows 10 as the default OS.

Preface: I'm not a shill, just excited for this product. I'm seriously considering this board for a Hackintosh.

I give to you, the Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Designare

The PCIe lanes IMHO are laid out well. There are two 40 gigabit Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on the back using 4 lanes with DisplayPort input-passthrough from any GPU. There are two gigabit Intel NICs. There is a 4 lane M.2, a 4 lane U.2, and a 4 lane PCIe slot that can all be used concurrently with 16 lanes for one GPU or 8-8 for two GPUs. One can install a 4 lane add-in card that provides another two Thunderbolt 3 ports, both with DisplayPort inputs.

So, if one wanted to, one could run a GTX 1080 with three displayports all routed through Thunderbolt 3 ports; just like a MacBook Pro, with four ports in total, with both M.2 and/or U.2 possibly in a raid.

Even those tiny little BRIX one can get these days can hold 32G of ram.

Do you have a link for what you are talking about? My desktop has 32 GB at home, and it has a pretty shitty MB, but I am not sure what you mean by a BRIX.

I found this on Google:
http://www.gigabyte.us/product...

But as far as I see, they only support 2 SoDIMM (DDR3L), which many of the specs pages list as 2x8GB max, so I don't know if this is what you are talking about.

Go find me a motherboard or graphics card that don't have the logo. Go on, do it. I doubt you can.

First try:
http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/270-WS-W555.pdf

Second try:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/P9X79_DELUXE/#overview

Hmm... Third try:
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4046

Can you find a motherboard that actually has the logo?

How does Intel plan on representing chipsets that have been repaired/fixed? End-users are going to need a simple utility to verify this, as will us UNIX system administrators. :-)

I imagine that they could simply increment the PCI device ID revision attribute of the controller (from rev 0x00 to rev 0x01) or something similar, but they haven't disclosed how they're going to differentiate between "old/broken" and "new/working" chips.

The only thing I can find is a "stepping number" that's associated with the chipset (and that's based on http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=984), but there isn't a way to obtain that information directly from the PCI bus; you have to already be speaking directly to the controller via PCI commands to get that. So, I sure hope Intel plans on disclosing how to verify that your board has a repaired chip.

The Gigabye press release is here http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=984 and it says nothing like what this article says, there is no mention at all of returns. Q: What action should I take if I have already purchased a GIGABYTE 6 series motherboard? A: Firstly, please determine your computer setup. No action will be needed if you only use the SATA 3 ports. If you are using the SATA2 ports, then there are possibilities that the device’s performance will decrease after a period of usage. To ensure the highest standard of customer support & services, GIGABYTE recommends that all customers who purchased GIGABYTE 6 series motherboards contact their local dealer (retail store where you purchased the motherboard) at the end of April for a motherboard exchange. GIGABYTE will provide an equivalent new motherboard replacement.

Gigabyte has a GeForce 9800 GT that is passively cooled. That's the highest I've seen.

Sadly the 260 GTX cards seem like a much better deal (price/performance) if you don't mind it using a fan (coming from someone who's always insisted on fanless video cards).

>Is it relevant because they shrunk the overall thing and now its a "netbook" ?

No, it's relevant because it's $500 instead of, say, a $2000 Fujitsu Lifebook.

I don't think it's relevant enough for the front page, since Gigabyte released their first "touch-screen tablet netbook" a year ago.

Gigabyte has since released an updated 10.1" model, so potential buyers should know that ASUS isn't the only curent player in this netbook sub-category.