Troubling News About Future Asus Boards

[Bruiser1]

Asustek plans to outsource motherboards and graphics cards to ECS, say sources

Monica Chen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 28 June 2010]

Asustek Computer reportedly plans to outsource some of its production of motherboards and graphics cards to rival company Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) as part of efforts to expand its outsourcing policy to reduce its dependence on Pegatron Technology, while boosting its profitability, according to industry sources.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100628PD208.html

This really bothers me as I've come to rely upon Many Asus products for their quality. Somehow, seeing them outsourcing some production to ECS doesn't exactly instill confidence in future products.

 

[Zap]

It'll be fine. IIRC ECS has made motherboards for a number of different companies in the past. They are cost effective and have capacity. They can be limited at the higher end in PCB layers and complexity. for instance if you have a 14 layer PCB to build (such as a GTX 280) you will go to Flextronics, not ECS. If you want a 6 layer PCB built, why not? Asus makes a wide range of products so it would make sense for them to outsource when necessary.

Besides, I don't think we need to worry about the Rampage IV Extreme or Radeon 5870 being made by ECS. More likely a lower end H55 chipset board or Asus Radeon 5350 would be in line.

 

[StrangerGuy]

ECS was building Abit mobos back in the NF2 days too, IIRC.

 

[taltamir]

This is a really bad move for asus in the long term... in the short term they capitalize on their brand name (known as a market leader in quality) to sell much cheaper hardware at typical Asus markup, but it will forever tarnish their reputation.
Remember Abit? Was considered the best in the market... then they decided to cut costs by outsourcing ECS (the cheapest in the market) to make their mobos while maintaining their high prices... well, Abit is gone. And so will Asus.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Wellp, talk about the Chinese outsourcing snake consuming its own tail... ha ha, guess I won't ever buy an Asus board again anyway. I do like my Gigabyte board but who the heck knows where that thing was made. Probably the same place (Foxconn) where those Chinese workers killed themselves. I remember the days when I used to buy Tyan dual-CPU boards made in the USA (486 and then Pentium MMX) but even then the Taiwanese 286 and 386 boards were flooding the market. The writing was on the wall then.

ECS? ASUS? They're all part of the same Chinese oligarchy. Get used to it! Though nominally Taiwanese companies, every piece of 24-layer motherboard you buy comes from Foxconn or another monster factory just like it. The US is barely ten years behind China in its construction of its own home-grown oligarchy. Someday we'll all be working for Foxconn and living in their dormitories. Because those will be the only jobs around.

 

[nenforcer]

I've been wondering about the build quality of the latest series of ASUS motherboards (M4N98TD EVO for nForce 980A (lacks onboard video adapters) and M4N75TD for 750A with the VIA 1708S onboard audio.

Previous ASUS motherboards used to use higher quality components (Analog Devices onboard audio) but now it appears all new ASUS motherboards not only look the same as competitors motherboards (light blue / baby blue tint) but lack any high end or differentiating features.

In fact the new 890GX / 890FX boards lack the Dolby Digital Live certified components that competitors like Gigabyte now include. Even MSI claims to have "Military" grade capacitors.

Thankfully the high end Intel boards from ASUS still look to retain the build quality of previous generations but you have to shop more carefully.

 

[nerp]

They're all the same. The brand means a lot more to the consumer than the actual quality and manufacturing of the board.

 

[taltamir]

They're all the same. The brand means a lot more to the consumer than the actual quality and manufacturing of the board.

I assure, they are not all the same.

Have you noticed anandtech doesn't just say "all motherboards are the same really, just buy the cheapest"? will certainly be a concise review...

 

[StrangerGuy]

I assure, they are not all the same.

Have you noticed anandtech doesn't just say "all motherboards are the same really, just buy the cheapest"? will certainly be a concise review...

AT and other tech sites just don't want to state the obvious that the top-end Asus ROG and the bottom-end G41 are the same performance-wise.

In fact, the mobo market has become just:

1. Mobos with 2 DIMMs + single PCIE 16x
2. Mobos with 2+ DIMMs + single PCIE 16x
3. Mobos with 2+ DIMMs + double/triple/quad PCIE 16x

1, 2, 3 all has the same performance if you exclude multi-GPU and OCing. (Even OCing-wise low-end boards are perfectly adequate these days)

 

[taltamir]

AT and other tech sites just don't want to state the obvious that the top-end Asus ROG and the bottom-end G41 are the same performance-wise.

In fact, the mobo market has become just:

1. Mobos with 2 DIMMs + single PCIE 16x
2. Mobos with 2+ DIMMs + single PCIE 16x
3. Mobos with 2+ DIMMs + double/triple/quad PCIE 16x

1, 2, 3 all has the same performance if you exclude multi-GPU and OCing. (Even OCing-wise low-end boards are perfectly adequate these days)

1. vastly different OC performance.
2. vastly different amount and kinds of BIOS bugs
3. vastly different build quality (and expected life)
4. vastly different component placement
5. vastly different features (ie: connectors integrated, etc)

 

[solofly]

If Asus goes down the toilet, I'll be switching to Gigabyte. All my rigs consist of Asus motherboard...

 

[nonameo]

What ever happened to DFI? I don't really see much of them anymore.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

1. vastly different OC performance.
2. vastly different amount and kinds of BIOS bugs
3. vastly different build quality (and expected life)
4. vastly different component placement
5. vastly different features (ie: connectors integrated, etc)

I think what he's getting at is a lot of parts are actually built by only a few companies and then rebranded.
Back when Abit was ruling the roost with their higher end boards, even when outsourced to ECS, the Abit boards got good reviews.
It's just like any other industry.
Toyota got accolades and praises thrown upon them for having a higher quality, even though most of th eparts were made by a 3rd party. a 3rd party that also made parts for GM, Ford, Chrslyer and others.

It's all about brand recognition.

 

[faxon]

What ever happened to DFI? I don't really see much of them anymore.

they completely shut down their lanparty brand. most of the engineers who were there went to other companies i think (evga? they just lost their team to sapphire so it makes sense), the head of lanparty went to DFI's industrial branch. as for asus, they have never been the best in my books. they have always garnered way more complaints about bios bugs and shitty service than any other brand i have heard from, including ECS. i stopped buying from them a long time ago when i couldnt get any support for any issues i was having with their stuff, and i stopped recommending them as a salesman when i started getting a 1 in 3 return rate on their boards, from top to bottom.

 

[SunnyD]

I'm confused. I thought Asus was an OEM for other companies. So now Asus needs an OEM to provide OEM parts to other OEMs?

 

[taltamir]

I'm confused. I thought Asus was an OEM for other companies. So now Asus needs an OEM to provide OEM parts to other OEMs?

you got it.

This reminds me one time... I was working at a video editing place. well, some guy came in to outsource to us a job of making a wedding video, which was outsources to him by the guy who the couple hired (who did a poor job btw), we then outsourced it to another company. And when I went to pick it up? it wasn't quite ready... at least, not until some guy from another company came it (they outsources it to them)...

This was a hilarious chain of outsourcing. well, not so hilarious to the poor couple who had a bad video (the original movie was filmed by the original guy they hired, and he did a terrible job of it)

 

[busydude]

Its called diversification. They have products in high growth segments such as all-in-one pc's, LCD monitors, smartphones, notebooks and Netbooks whereas motherboard revenues have been saturated since long. ASUS wants to get out the image of an OEM and be recognized as a quality brand in consumer and retail space.

They may end up as an IBM or , unfortunately, a Daewoo. For now though, they are doing a very good businesss.

 

[Infrnl]

I personally think many of you are blowing this out of proportion.
Just because they state they may outsource to ecs does no mean anything will change except they can pay ecs less than they are paying out now.

They still have their specs, etc.
That like saying a Land Rover is a pos because they are owned by and made by ford. Land rovers are great vehicless despite where the parts are made and the fact that ford owns them.

Just look at all the die hard "made in usa" guys; American owned companies make some great products but most are now made in foreign countries in a similar fashion and they are still of good quality. some of these countries just do the same work for a lot less money; who cares.

Look at your intel or amd processors; they are great but not made by either company and are outsourced by foreign countries. This deal with Asus is non different.
Everything will be made to Asus's specs, just cheaper so Asus can try to make more money.

 

[pakotlar]

Yeah they want to leave some of their peripheral business to outsourced manu's while they use the freed up production capacity to either re-focus on their core business or open new markets. Since their high-end mobo business seems to be doing very well, I'm sure they're diversifying. I just hope they aren't outsourcing their high-end gamer stuff, although I don't know what the technical challenges are, so maybe the tolerances are high enough that they can get away with it. Anyways, good for them, sounds like they're doing great.

 

[Bruiser1]

I personally think many of you are blowing this out of proportion.
Just because they state they may outsource to ecs does no mean anything will change except they can pay ecs less than they are paying out now.

They still have their specs, etc.
That like saying a Land Rover is a pos because they are owned by and made by ford. Land rovers are great vehicless despite where the parts are made and the fact that ford owns them.

Just look at all the die hard "made in usa" guys; American owned companies make some great products but most are now made in foreign countries in a similar fashion and they are still of good quality. some of these countries just do the same work for a lot less money; who cares.

Look at your intel or amd processors; they are great but not made by either company and are outsourced by foreign countries. This deal with Asus is non different.
Everything will be made to Asus's specs, just cheaper so Asus can try to make more money.

Maybe you're right. I just have no desire to purchase anything ECS.

Just imagine you purchased a $300.00 Antec PSU, and discovered it was actually made by Okia?

 

[sandorski]

As long as Asus specifies Components and other parts, it shouldn't matter. ECS Mobos are crap(ish) not because of their Manufacturing ability, but because they Cheap out on Components.

 

[tcsenter]

Google some more. ASUS has always used ECS as a backup when ASUS couldn't meet peak demand, to either produce or design some of its low-cost budget boards, or when they were taking some facilities off-line for upgrades/improvements. Nothing new here, its been like this for about 10 years now.

 

[BTA]

What tcsenter said. Asus has used ECS for over a decade.

You Asus diehards wont want to admit it to yourself though.

 

[Vette73]

If Asus goes down the toilet, I'll be switching to Gigabyte. All my rigs consist of Asus motherboard...

I've used gigabyte after getting a Asus board they lied about. Never had issue with gigabyte and I am going with gigabyte for my HTPC.

 

[classy]

ECS makes good stuff, just not well featured stuff. I have owned a couple of ECS boards and they worked without a hiccup. Couldn't overclock worth a darn though.