Slashdot Mirror
A Look Inside the Labs of Asus
Kez writes "While in Taiwan, we had the rare opportunity to take a look around the Research and Development labs of ASUSTeK, well known motherboard and graphics card manufacturer. They had their latest dual chip 6800GT and 6800Ultra cards on the test beds (only two boxes full of which had passed quality control at that point,) and so grabbed some benchmarks while we were there."
The article appears a little short on details for such a tour. I mean.. just two pages? They don't even mention which cities the headquarters are in.
see a Text Widget
Then get off your high horse and buy a normal, inexpensive graphics card like the rest of us you fool. Oh wait, if I wait 6 months this very same card will cost half of that?? WHAT? Are you serious, the cards go down in price when the next model comes out?
What happened to the day when a graphics card didn't take up my whole machine, and it didn't needs fans to cool itself down? Then there was no question if the 50c fan was going to kill my card.
Hey, they have this neat power strip with each outlet has its own switch. You can see it real well in the upper-left corner of the third picture ("testbed.jpg"). Where do I get one of those? It would be real useful for lab testing (like Asus is doing, duh). The closest I've seen are those under-monitor jobs, but those take up too much room and can't be wall-mounted. What I see here could be.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I honstely doubt that ASUS does anything that could be dubbed as "research", especially not in the graphics card section. Testing different variations of the reference design and altering fans is hardly even development.
This is not news in the slightest. Regardless of the details or lack thereof, this architecture nears the end of its life. While extremely powerful, the power draw and heat generation is positively killer for the average system, and an annoying hurdle to jump for the serious custom PC builder. I had to fully watercool every 6800 I have owned just to keep the operating temperature at something that wouldn't be worrisome.
Let's be fair, the X800 is no slouch on power draw either. I am not trolling in the slightest.
What I am saying is that the future architectures that are down the pike, while designed for greater performance, also give much consideration to power draw and heat generation. The X850 series with its liquid metal cooling stock is a step in considerations of heat generation and power consumption. Nvidia's new core uses significantly less power if I read the latest buzz correctly.
This is the next great fight in the graphics card market: power and heat vs performace. Round 1, fight.
The Crimson Dragon
Same with any cooling system. If it fails, the thing it cools is fucked. Unless you have redundant fans, in which case you'll get a load of people complaining that it's too noisy.
However, if you RTFA, you would have seen that they have gone to the trouble of getting the fan from CoolerMaster, so it's probably quite high quality.
> Isn't ASUS the company that does not play well with Linux? I am
> not very interested, sorry.
Isn't Linux the operating system that doesn't play well with games that use graphics cards like this?
I am not very interested, sorry.
Can you be more specific? I run linux and use mostly Asus hardware and I can't say any of it has cause any trouble.
This is not a turnip.
The Hexus.net article is just an advertisement, with links to places to buy the cards that were reviewed. The writer didn't have any technical insights because he apparently has no technical knowledge. For example, read this sentence, "35A from the two 12V rails on the ASUS PSU keep things ticking over." First, it says on the label, which is clearly visible, that the maximum is not 35A times 12V = 420 Watts, but 324 Watts. Second, neither the graphic card nor the motherboard nor the hard drives require that much 12V power.
Manufacturers make so much money from taking advantage of the technical ignorance of customers that it has in some cases corrupted an area of the industry.
No , Linux plays fine . Just the games makers (who often insist on using Direct-x as opposed to the more open and more widely supported OpenGL)and Graphics card manufacturers (specifically the chip makers) do not always produce reasonable drivers for the OS
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I hadn't heard that. I did a little research and found that ASUS has an anti-Linux attitude, which is unfortunate considering the motherboard for my first Linux box was from ASUS.
I will say that an anti-Linux or at least Linux-ignorant attitude is hardly unique to ASUS to though.
I had two servers from HP that shipped with Linux when I worked as a sysadmin for one shop. Even though HP shipped these boxes with Linux installed on them, calling HP and getting technical support for the Adaptec-based HP-branded SCSI card was nearly impossible.
Turns out no one there knew anything about Linux. They said they'd call me back when they found someone who knew something about my problem. I didn't get a callback until 3 days later and it turns out there was 1 guy at that HP helpdesk facility that knew anything about Linux and he just got back from vacation.
It turns out by then I'd already figured out that the card was defective and simply ordered another one and let purchasing sort out the refund for the other card.
My blog
Now I understand why all of those pretty lights are being put on to hardware that gets locked up in my fully opaque case - so the testers have something nice to look at while the hardware is on the bench!
Its always someone elses fault with Linux isnt it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
"Are you serious? Just about every office/computer/electrical store here sells boards like that."
Of course I'm serious. If they were readily available, I wouldn't have asked. I haven't seen anything like that in any of the stores I frequent. Those include CompUSA, BestBuy, Circuit City, Staples, and OfficeMax. I also haven't seen them at either the local PC sales shows or the local hamfest. Of course, I didn't know such a thing existed (although it seems obvious now), so I wasn't asking after it in particular. But none of the displays had anything like it. I live in the North-East USA, if that matters.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Ironically, if you read the Display Manager box they show, the computer name is called 'LINUX-10N56ZQMA'. Future Linux support, anyone?
If ATI released bad drivers for Windows would that mean that Windows isn't a platform suited for gaming?
Device manager will remain cryptic to most, but there are definitely two 6800 series GPUs in there. Despite the name, the system is definitely not running Linux.
Sometimes a hostname is just a hostname.
I'd imagine it'll have similar Linux support to the other Nvidia cards on the market.
Sound, on both mobos, was unreliable. It would work for anything from 10 seconds to 2 days, then just stop. Compiling the sound driver as a module and unloading and reloading did not help. Various versions of the sound driver code did not help.
Also the mobos would crash irregularly. I found I had to slow down the CPU and particularly memory timing to keep them going for longer. It could have been a problem with the memory but I do not think so because I had to replace memory at some time and the condition still occurred with the replacement memory.
So no, I'm not very impressed with ASUS. My last mobo purchase was an ABIT, and while it's not perfect either, at least my sound works reliably.
The engineers at ASUS completely missed the idea behind a faraday cage!
Second, neither the graphic card nor the motherboard nor the hard drives require that much 12V power.
No, they don't require that much power. But what particularly a video card does require is CLEAN power. HDs spin up and down, so their power usage varies... and since there's no such thing as a 'real' voltage source, the voltage supplied by the PSU does vary (however slightly) with amps drawn.
Putting your HD+Mobo and Videocard on a seperate rail prevents these fluctuations from affecting the stability of your (overclocked!) video card.
Get it now?
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
That's odd. My Asus P2B-DS has been running pretty much nonstop since I got it in 1998-1999, as have a couple of other Asus boards I have. Comperable boards from Abit and others that I've had have died long ago (has anyone else noticed that capacitors tend to pop on Abit boards?). I'm kind of out of the loop when it comes to newer hardware, (my newest system is around 2-3 years old) so maybe things have changed recently, but I've really never had a bad experience with Asus boards.
Who read the title as "A Look Inside the Labs of Anus"?
/. with a hangover....
I guess it's what you get for reading
And you where thinking that they would have Taiwanese power sockets? Last time I was there, the hotel I stayed in had UK socket, but that's all I know, could have been a mutant hotel... Who knows, the Brits where pretty active in that part of the world a few years back.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
How exactly are you supposed to review a product at the labs of the manufacturers?
The article is a series of photos from inside the labs of Asus, along with some benchmarks to give you an idea of the performance of the cards.
For Hexus to do a proper review they'd need it on their own test systems with their own test software and without an Asus guy staring over their shoulder, and given the article remarks about the QC passed parts going out to media around the world, I expect that's what we'll see in due course.
Take an article for what it is - it's a look at a product, not an in-depth analysis - rather than criticising it as something it isn't.
I've done the same as you with Asus, and have been served pretty well by them, no complaints: both motherboards and video cards. I think it really was a run of bad luck for you, as Asus are generally considered good.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
The only real issue with an Asus board I've had, was a P3V4X which required a wire to be soldered from one side of the power bridge to the other. That puppy (after the solder job) is *still* running.
Other than that, every Asus board I've owned has come up trumps.
You haven't bought any Sis chipset motherboards have you? Any manufacturer will suck at these...
Don't get me started on Soltek though
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
After seeing all the cooling that the boards need and the small fan, I get the feeling these boards come with complementary earplugs.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
When it comes to hardware, that depends on a couple of things.
If it was a case where the drivers were supplied by the manufacturer of the hardware in an easily adaptable form, or the specs were practically shouted from the rooftops, then you could say it's Linux's fault - or more accurately, it's a flaw in the F/OS Software.
But considering how manufacturers - as well as you, me, and Joe Sixpack if he so felt inclined - can quite easily download the source to Linux, the GNU software, X11, CUPS, and numerous other bits of F/OS Software, making it so damn easy to know how to program the drivers correctly, I would say that the manufacturers are more at fault than the F/OSS programmers.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Where's the oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and various probes required to test designs? Not much of an "R&D" facility really. This looks more like a product-test bench. A stage that occurs far after the "R&D" portion.
First, it says on the label, which is clearly visible, that the maximum is not 35A times 12V = 420 Watts, but 324 Watts.
Not to mention, I'd like to see anyone get 35 Amps out of a standard home or commercial outlet. Most houses in the US are wired with 14guage wire, and are designed to handle 15A comfortably, which is usually the size of the breaker. Commercial outlets usually are 20 amps, using 12guage wire.
If anything in your computer used 35 amps, it would require a dryer-type NEMA plug and a dedicated circuit.
~Wx
sig?
When the Geforce 6800GT came out, it was $500. Now, it's $450.
And that was 6 months time.
Look, if you can't add anything constructive, just shut up. If you're not playing 3d games made in the past 3 years, or you're just surfing the web / writing spreadsheets, you can get by just fine with the "intel extreme graphics" that comes on the motherboard.
Some people play games, and some people want to have good framerates. If you're not one of them, then STFU. Go play zork.
~Wx
sig?
"These are very special tools only supplied to special electrical appliances shops, and usually not available within handreach from your chair..."
:) I am seriously unable to find anything like the strip in the picture referenced in my original post.
If they were readily available, I wouldn't have asked. I haven't seen anything like that in any of the stores I frequent. Those include CompUSA, BestBuy, Circuit City, Staples, and OfficeMax. I also haven't seen them at either the local PC sales shows or the local hamfest. Of course, I didn't know such a thing existed (although it seems obvious now), so I wasn't asking after it in particular. But none of the displays had anything like it. I live in the North-East USA, if that matters.
I also have tried some Google seaches, and the only one I was able to find was this one http://www.hammondmfg.com/1580.htm, which doesn't even have TVSS.
(The above is a near-repeat of this post, but the parent and the mod's apparently think I'm just a lazy bastard. While I may be a lazy bastard, I'm not just a lazy bastard.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Just a desk? Where do you think they got the bench marks?
The problem with ASUS boards is actually the bios. Their ACPI implementation is not complete. I've had a lot of problems with FreeBSD 5.x on ASUS boards, especially the nforce2 chipset models. I think GNU/Linux handles ACPI bugs better or at least in a similar way to windows.
Aside from the stuff above, I used to love asus. They sold certified Solaris x86 compatible motherboards in the late 90s. I had a nice solaris box running on a SiS chipset of all things. It worked for years. Anything before the softbios era was great. After that, they've never had a stable bios implemenatation and the ACPI bugs in more recent boards limit my use oF BSD. My last home built was a MSI board with an nforce2 chipset.. works great on FreeBSD 5.x (well the sata controller wasn't supported till i hacked it!)
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
this is probably a consequence due to a very commonly used, pirated version of windows which unattendedly installs a version of windows xp in traditional chinese without asking for the hostname.
this version of install-disc is commonly shared among hong kong and taiwan bittorrent communities.
Yes, I've noticed. I bought an Abit BF-6 and an Abit BE-6II at roughly the same time. They both died at roughly the same time due to the cap problem. That's when I learned my lesson and went on board with Asus. Their boards have been pretty good -- the biggest problem I have is finding the optional accessories that aren't included when buying a motherboard. Some of those parts seem downright impossible to obtain.
So I suppose Abit has given you all the information on their uGuru, I mean winbond, monitoring system.
I think it is great that HP had someone available who knew his stuff, and that they were willing to put you in touch with him
I agree, I have found the most unreliable fans in any newer computer are the stupid graphics card fans. To add insult to injury, they are usually a bitch to replace, since they are usually some custom job that's glued to the graphics card. Not to mention that even when they are working properly, they are still noisy.
The last time I had one fail though, I just ripped the sucker off and epoxied a huge heatsink I salvaged from an old Pentium Pro system to it. Works great, though I did lose a couple of PCI slots.
Did you try running Windows on them to see if things were still broken? My guess is that you just had some cheap-ass flakey boards, and the Linux support was not the issue.
I must say that after dealing with some Socket-A Asus branded boards, I'm not too impressed with Asus either (though, I used to be). Right now, I'm running a Soltek. I know it's a cheaper brand, but so far no issues.
good point, my bad.
ort.
sig?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I have found the boards from back then to be extremely good too. It's the newer stuff, especially the Socket A boards, that are just garbage. But, as always, YMMV.
A home outlet can easily supply 3.5 amps...3.5A at 120V = 35A at 12V. P=IV -> Watts = Amps * Volts 12 * 35 = 420 420 = 120 * 3.5 Power draw stays constant across voltage/amperage conversions, so when you decrease the voltage (to 12V) the amperage increases by the same factor. Grandparent post was correct that they didn't check their math against the pic, though.
I also suspect that I own the last board put out by anybody which still had an ISA slot. Last one out the factory door in a long, long while. I needed it for my trusty scanner's proprietory card.
It was that, or trying to get a decent scanner with a viewing bed larger than a sheet of typing paper. Sheesh.
-FL
Er.. I'd suggest you reread your "electronics 101" book.
35A at 12V will just draw ~4A from the wall plug (depending on conversion efficiency) and won't be a problem at all.
It sucks! Ever tried downloading drivers from them? I spent an hour trying to find the latest drivers/BIOS for my motherboard recently. I had to try servers in several countries before I found one that wasn't down for "database resyncronization" or something like that. And then I found two versions of "beta BIOS" (whatever the hell that is) that both claimed to be the "latest version".
Also, my motherboard came with a utility that will check for the latest version of the drivers and BIOS from the website. It has never worked.
Yes, we get it indeed. You don't know shit about electronics.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
Oh, and you're an expert in the field? I'm a third year computer engineering student, and I've taken my share of electrical classes to know that an "Ideal" Voltage Source exists only in principle. There are however ways of simulating the ideal case in various ways, by making the voltage across the source vary very slightly with the current drawn.
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
I agree, the onboard sucks. But I bought a 128MB card for like $60, and it plays FarCry and GTA just fine. Never a drop in framerates, I run at least 1024x768 (I know, that's not good enough for some) and sometimes higher.
My point is, there is no game that really CAN'T be played on a cheaper card. You don't have to pay $500 to get good framerates at a devent resolution. You pay that much money only to brag to the other lan party losers that your graphics cock is bigger than theirs is.
My $60 card needs no fan...that's the point. It's a 128MB radeon of some sort, and there is no fan. And guess what, it plays every game I have ever tried just fine. Including HL2. Cheap fans??? How bout no fan, and it still runs cool (as it needs to) and I didn't waste the $450 on a top-o-the-line model either...that was my point.
You're forgetting that the voltage is being stepped down. Your household wiring can supply 15A at 110V, i.e. 1.65kW. A transformer which takes the 110V down to 12V could, in the theoretical best case (assuming no losses/impedance/resistance) supply 138A to the PC without exceeding 15A on its inputs. In practice, you won't get anything like this, but 35A won't be a problem.
Here's a good writeup about it.
Abit were total dicks about giving me any help to diagnose and fix the problem, though. Don't know if any other company would have been better.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.