That bios, with its limited ability to overclock or undervolt is one of the reasons I buy Gigabyte boards.

Are you listening, Asus?

Forgive me if I've missed something but if the high power consumption is with high TDP chips due to the VRMs getting too hot and therefore losing efficiency then wouldn't that not be a problem on AM2+ boards that have good cooling for the VRMs and therefore it's not a "universal problem"?

Your comment makes sense, but in fact, an AM2/2+ board with a VRM heatsink similar to an AM3 board was compared using an AM3 CPU -- and the former board exhibited >10W higher power. Hence Larry's comment.

Admittedly, our sampling of board/cpu combo comparisons is not vast, but the results have been consistent. I suspect it could be solved with BIOS updates -- but that doesn't seem to have been done yet.

Perhaps using DDR3 vs DDR2 contributes somewhat to the discrepancy?

>10W??? Very doubtful.

I did say "somewhat" but I take your point. I have to say that I find power consumption the hardest thing to get good, reliable and consistent results for when looking at reviews from various tech review sites. Everyone seems to measure it differently and have different test setups as well as using different apps to stress test. It can all get a little bit confusing and hard to decipher which is why I miss the way you used to measure power more directly rather than measuring at the wall.

Renoir --

I posted elsewhere that our tool to measure 2x12V socket current needs to be fixed -- but even there, it includes the mobo VRM losses, we can't measure what the CPU draws directly. In some ways, the AC power is a more realistic view -- the total power is more important, and if all the components are kept the same, it's really just the CPU which makes the difference.

All good and valid points. I guess I just wish it was easier to find a consensus on power consumption for various components across reviews. Pipe dream I know but it sure would be nice.

hi there,

i have a truehd marantz amp and two requirements:

1. output of generic sound e.g. media center as 5.1
2. output of other sound that starts as 2 channel and is then changed to 5.1/7.1 sound.

on my current system it does not upscale through the hdmi as its digital as it needs an encoder so i have to take analogue outputs into a dts convertor and then via optical to the amplifier. This is because ac3 filter will not convert 2 channel to 5 and output over digital output on vista.

surely the reason for the feature of the board is to encode e.g. 2-channel sound into dts (such as from avi) it can be streamed direct to the amplifier over hdmi....


am i missing something, but this is what i have been waiting for given i cant afford a new motherboard and the asus xonar hdmi soundcard?

Excuse me, what?

More information, please... What Marantz? What DTS convertor? What graphics card? What sound card? What motherboard?

Your setup sounds way too complicated than it should be.

Im thinking this artificial DtS maybe very useful for many. Sure many audiophiles has already big systems, but really cool if you can leave out the surround speakers Many of these 2speaker or even 1speaker surround simulations from various hifi-brands has gotten fine reviews. Interesting if this one gives a satisfying result. I my self have not connected any rear speakers to my system and it gives a totally adequate result for me. I do have a center speaker cause my fronts are far apart. If positioned closer to the TV - the centerspeaker is not so needed. Of coarse my demands to my stereo is mainly good quality musiclistening and if you put more focus on surround effect, a full speaker system will allways give the better result - If its any good and same quality as the stereo-setup you compare it to