Enthusiast Hardware Builders Go Enterprise

[FrgMstr]

Many of us long-time PC hardware enthusiasts are well aware of that the core companies that were behind the first enthusiast PC motherboards, have spent a lot of resources over the past decade diversifying their businesses. This article over at DigiTimes, which short on data, does mention that GIGABYTE and ASRock are making profitable in-roads into the enterprise server market.

Because of weakening motherboard demand, Asustek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI), ASRock and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), which together contribute 90% of the worldwide motherboard shipments, have seen dropping sales in the past few years. But Gigabyte and ASRock have recently started seeing increased shipments for server motherboards and the growing volumes are expected to help the two firms achieve good profits in 2017.

The other two of the "big four" seem to be trucking along with other focus in mind.

The motherboard market's weakening demand only has a small impact on Asustek's overall results since the company is still seeing stable profits from its notebook and graphics card product lines. MSI is also seeing limited impact from the motherboard business thanks to its strong gaming notebook business.

A quick look at our the menu of manufacturers on our Motherboard Reviews page will give you an idea of just how compressed the motherboard builder market has become over the last two decades.

 

[rgMekanic]

Damn shame, but I can't help but blame lack of CPU innovation over the last while, more and more people seem to be interested in PC gaming since the newest gen of consoles released, but I imagine most are buying pre-built or if savvy going used.

Asrock Rack has been coming up with some neat stuff, so I can see why their server side is increasing.

 

[Dan_D]

This doesn't surprise me. I've had long talks with some of the GIGABYTE PR people over Enterprise solutions and that market in particular. I do miss the variety we used to have. We used to see DFI, Soyo, BioStar, EPoX, Foxconn, EVGA, BFG, ABIT, and a few others that have since disappeared. Although EVGA and BioStar are very much alive.

 

[Zion Halcyon]

Not terribly surprising. However, it could eventually have some unexpected benefits in the long run. Server motherboards and chips tend to be more robust, albeit poorly optimized for gaming.

However, if that is where the money is, what you could end up seeing is server and workstation motherboards becoming slowly optimized for gaming as well, and a slow shift of games to better optimize off of server level architecture. The difference here is that it isn't being driven by "oh hey, more cores, new technology, lets develop for it!" which hasn't happened in a long damn time, but instead by pragmatism from the motherboard companies, where if they can make server motherboards and then repurpose them for the enthusiast crowd, the availability of these will go up, and by having a market more saturated, developers will begin developing for the prevalent architecture.

To that end, Ryzen may actually be forward-thinking, as despite the marketing as a gaming chip, it seems to handle insane workloads for half the cost of intel's chips, which if their server chip is anything like that, will make it a far more attractive option than intel due to the cost.

Of course this is all speculation, and nothing new - the only difference is that the change will be driven by where the market it, and not by enthusiasts wanting to have games coded for the latest and greatest.

 

[Merc1138]

Little differentiation between products, companies insistent upon having a dozen or more SKUs per chipset, and low demand for people to replace boards unless they're dead... it's not really surprising.

Just look at Z270 boards alone. MSI has 19. Gigabyte has 20. Asus surprised me with only 16. ASRock has 12.

And that's still not counting the half dozen H270 boards, and half dozen Q270 boards, and a smattering of B250 boards. So top to bottom you've got manufacturers with 30 SKUs or more split across 4 chipsets to support two generations of CPU? And for that skylake generation that is supported in those newer boards all of those companies still have Z170 boards sitting in retail channels collecting dust(and technically some of them support kabylake as well if they ever bothered with updating the BIOS to do so). There are not a dozen variations of features on the boards with the Z270 chipsets, it's a lot of cosmetic crap(like MSI and their camo themes stuff recently). All of those redundant SKUs cost those companies money before they can make a return on them.

 

[aliaskary77]

Yep, way too manu skus. When building my last workstation, Asus had 6 types of boards for the same model line, very overwhelming.

Are people moving to laptops for everyday use as they are getting cheaper, are are those sales also going down?

 

[Merc1138]

Yep, way too manu skus. When building my last workstation, Asus had 6 types of boards for the same model line, very overwhelming.

Are people moving to laptops for everyday use as they are getting cheaper, are are those sales also going down?

Honestly, if it was just 6 types of boards within a specific chipset line it would make sense. 3 boards across the range for ATX z270, 3 boards across the range for ITX, boom done, that's all you need. Most of the other chipsets(Q, H, B) they could probably get away with just an ITX and ATX variant for each. A basic z270 board, one with a bunch of features(more ports, better VRMs, and such), then a "here's everything including the kitchen sink" board and that's it(this is where you tack on integrated wifi, a VRM heatsink that doubles as a waterblock and so on) hitting the $125, $200, and $300 brackets rather than a board priced for every $10 interval to the point where you can't even tell the difference between most of the Z270 uber g4m3r mk 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc. and if those users really want to cheap out on a lower end board, then that's what the other chipsets are for. Right now if I search newegg for just Intel 200 series chipset boards, there's 4 chipsets, 7 vendors, and 124(and they don't even have every model that the vendors they have listed make, just most of them) motherboards, that's insane.

As far as laptops... that's tough to say. Tablets can certainly make a dent for a lot of average users who just need a larger screen than their phone. But at the same time, laptops end up taking a beating and need replaced way more often than the average desktop. Most people will balk at how much it costs to replace a busted LCD screen on a laptop and just use it as an excuse to upgrade, nevermind how many simple repairs there are(replacing HDDs, keyboards), and factor in that you get people spilling things on them(isn't normally an issue for a desktop PC) so I can't imagine those sales nosediving any time soon.

 

[Dan_D]

Yep, way too manu skus. When building my last workstation, Asus had 6 types of boards for the same model line, very overwhelming.

Are people moving to laptops for everyday use as they are getting cheaper, are are those sales also going down?

Laptops showed a massive increase in sales before tablets really took off. I believe tablet sales cannibalized the mobile market somewhat. I don't know how it breaks down today, but essentially you can get away with tablet use for everything but work PC's, gaming and high end workstations. People who don't use PC's for work or gaming can generally get by with mobile devices while at home. We are seeing the PC evolve into a more specialized piece of hardware instead of the generalized device it evolved into years ago. PC's used to be really specialized, became general purpose and now are specialized again.

 

[buttons]

Laptops showed a massive increase in sales before tablets really took off. I believe tablet sales cannibalized the mobile market somewhat. I don't know how it breaks down today, but essentially you can get away with tablet use for everything but work PC's, gaming and high end workstations. People who don't use PC's for work or gaming can generally get by with mobile devices while at home. We are seeing the PC evolve into a more specialized piece of hardware instead of the generalized device it evolved into years ago. PC's used to be really specialized, became general purpose and now are specialized again.

I really do not understand why people want to use tablets. Every time i pick one up, i immediately become frustrated with either the lack of keyboard or the crap touch cover and or kick stand some of them bundle with. Maybe i am the weird one here, that actually likes to use a laptop ... on my lap.

The few i had, i only used to check notifcations or news feeds-- anything beyond that i wanted a real keyboard

 

[Dan_D]

I really do not understand why people want to use tablets. Every time i pick one up, i immediately become frustrated with either the lack of keyboard or the crap touch cover and or kick stand some of them bundle with. Maybe i am the weird one here, that actually likes to use a laptop ... on my lap.

The few i had, i only used to check notifcations or news feeds-- anything beyond that i wanted a real keyboard

I can handle using a phone or tablet to look up something quickly, or in the absence of something else but I agree with you. If I'm going to sit down and do any serious reading or work, I need a real computer.