http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160325PD204.html If Kaby (K series only, limited quantity) is early August - to make it 1 year from Skylake - I predict we'll certainly see some early motherboards at Computex: ASUS ROG will show its Hero/Ranger at the press event and we'll get some boards from GB, MSI, ASRock, but no premium stuff - those cards will be held close for launch. It really has to offer something special to seal an upgrade from Skylake or instead of Skylake/Haswell; an iterative update will continue to hurt the PC industry until Zen arrives for something 'interesting'. Broadwell-E is delaydelaydelay. It was April-May but could be Computex now. Xeon is certainly coming sooner but not sure about consumer refresh. Apparently the refresh X99 boards are ready. I predict we'll see either very limited or lose either/or both Biostar and ECS consumer MB product lines this year. ECS has its OEM and small PC range to lean on but it's 'gaming' stuff failed and I'm not sure what else Biostar does. Both don't make money that's for sure - you have to sell over ~5M MB to break even and they both ship 3M or less at last count AFAIK. EVGA motherboards, not sure. I wonder how long they'll continue to push money into an loss making div considering, I guess, they sell less than 1M. Yes they are premium boards with higher ASP, but nowhere near enough to cover investment unless its pulls off something special. Does it really need Intel boards to support the GPUs now? Does it even sell outside North America these days? Even MSI and ASRock are on profit-watch - I didn't see their latest shipment data admittedly. MSI have good branding but Gigabyte and ASUS are aggressive and they are getting squeezed last I heard.
Honestly, how long will MSI stay in the MB market? ~15M graphics cards and only contribute 10% profit? Insane. 5M MB must be losing money. http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160524PD203.html
Well if MSI go out of the Motherboard market, then there will only be EVGA boards left for me to buy as I won't touch Asus, Gigabyte or Asrock. If EVGA go then I leave the PC gaming on the shelf and go strictly console.
To be honest, the way games are these days on the pc that I like to play the experience is far better on the console as they are actually able to be played. Asus for me is a no buy since there motherboard do not last longer than 15 months, and they always go the same way, USB Ports, Network Ports, Sata Ports and then complete failure happened to every motherboard I have owned from Asus since Sandy Bridge came out except one which, is the P8P67 Pro I think it was. Gigabyte have the same issues but generally last around 18 months and generally for me start with the Sata ports failing. This is why I say if MSI and EVGA leave the motherboard market which I cannot see happening, but if they do then I will go strictly console.
Broadwell-E is the 14nm version of the Haswell-E architecture, right? Looking forward to seeing how it clocks. I may get the 6900K. Who's up for a secondhand, lapped 5930K!
Guess I'm lucky: this 'ere Gigabyte GA-F2A75M-D3H A75 (so sayeth the receipt I just looked up) was bought in October 2012 and is still going strong.
Not lucky it's just that most people don't suffer with the likes of Asus and Gigabyte boards. I know plenty of people who have got Asus boards that are still running after 10 years but my personal experience is that they always, die on me after around 15 months. MSI boards have been rock solid for me with no issues.
A little birdy dropped a specsheet on my desk with some "v4"s appended to dual-socket Xeon hardware arriving next month. In mass quantities, integrated in systems.
My ASUS mobo just died after 4 years and by the looks of this thread I've still got a few months until Zen and Kaby. Time to find a cheapo 1155 mobo...
Any update on Kabylake release? I was thinking about a Skylake build when I return in August but now I'm re-evaluating that idea.
Last I heard it was Intel going "November" and everyone else going "December for reviews/Tier 1 SI but really Q1". Not sure if that's changed in 6 weeks. For U/Y series will be during Q3 though.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20160708PD200.html?mod=2 ECS are out Biostar are out JW (China, but I did some reviews of their boards back in t'day) are out Deathwatch: MSI down to 4.5 ASRock down to 4 Soon you'll only be able to buy Gigabyte or ASUS
Hopefully ASRock remain in the consumer market. They have consistently made far more interesting and 'risky' boards than other manufacturers (e.g. the X99 ITX, or including PCIe Bifurcation support in the Z170 Gaming ITX). They have a good amount of server offerings, so hopefully that can sustain them.
My old motherboard was an EVGA Cheesecake. It died within a few months near end of year 3. Just within warranty. EVGA sent a replacement but I sold it and bought a new CPU/socket. I went for a new Asus at £130 that was so new there were no reviews. I had so many issues getting the EVGA stable with overclock and in that 3 years I never was able to fully stabilise it. The Asus has turned out to be a great motherboard. I didn't even bother flashing the last bios they made for it because it was already 100% stable with my i5 2500k at 4.9ghz. I don't install any of the asus software. I've had gigabyte boards and the ones I had came with a fan bug that caused fans to stop randomly. They never fixed that with bios updates and since my brother had the exact same motherboard... his did exactly the same. A friend a mine only buys gigabyte. From your list of failures it seems something is very wrong with your setup. Sounds more like your PSU or dodgy mains is causing issues. Really if you're using motherboard brand as the excuse to go to console gaming then you are a console gamer. You should certainly ditch PC regardless of brands coming or going.
Same here - I've only owned 1 gigabyte motherboard and it's still going strong in my wife's PC which is a Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 bought in September 2010
Crikey, I had no idea the motherboard market was struggling. It will be a pity, although inevitable, if we see fewer manufacturers with their hat in the ring as a result. P.S. I hope my old Asus P5Q doesn't plan on failing soon. It's 8 years old (I've owned it for 6.5 years) and has been quite heavily OC'd for all that time and I haven't finished with it yet.
