Worrying trend. Fantastic looking boards but seemingly no longer in Europe...

roadie · 20 Dec 2006 at 11:58

I am an owner of an EPoX motherboard and have been impressed with its combination of performance, quality construction and price. It seems they have been busy recently with the release of a slew of new boards like the EP-AF590 SLI2, EP-AD580 XR, EP-AF570+ Ultra, EP-MF570 SLI for AM2 and EP-5P965+ GLI for S775. I believe that these boards would compete well against any of the current offerings from ASUS, abit, MSI etc.

However, they seem to have disappeared from Europe. Given the consolidation we are seeing in the motherboard market along with rising board prices, it would be great if we could see them re-enter the market and provide quality boards for less than the other manufacturers. It would be somewhat worrying if the motherboard market continues to become less diverse. For instance, it is looking like MSI might be swallowed up like Gigabyte has been. If that trend continues, we may be left with only a couple of main players.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I would love to see the return of motherboard manufacturers who have been know for making great products but that we have lost. Anyone else feel the same way?

Minstadave · 20 Dec 2006 at 13:18

I thought all the NF5 boards went out of production because they sucked? Or was that just the Intel versions? I'm getting out of date

pastymuncher · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:28

Good riddance i say. Their support was useless which is why i believe they vanished from here. I have a Epox 8NPA-sli (socket 754) and they would only let you put an extra 0.05v through to the cpu. When queried about the reasons for this, Epox said that it was because the capacitors could'nt take any more as they were not up to the job. In other words they cut corners and put cheapo nasty components on the board. Mind you, i was lucky to get an answer from them as they hardly ever answer emails/requests for help.

1dmf · 20 Dec 2006 at 16:43

Not a single board with PCI-X and not even a 975x chipset board, how are Epox competing with current board manufactures in the market ????

Do you like them just because they're cheap and cheerful :confused:

Corasik · 20 Dec 2006 at 19:57

I've owned 2 epox boards, and both boards had cheap caps, all burst just after the warrenty expired.

marscay · 20 Dec 2006 at 20:56

crap boards tbh

crap support to go with them ....good riddance epox i won't miss you.

BUFF · 21 Dec 2006 at 00:09

it is a worrying sign though - Biostar, EPoX hard to get if you want 1.
Shuttle pulled out of normal mobos, what about Soltek, Soyo etc. of yesteryear ....
DFI have said that they were going to pull out of mainstream boards leaving LANParty's etc. but I'm not convinced that you can get adequate distribution with only a couple of mobo models as it may not be worth the disty's effort.

At this rate it will be Asus + Gigabyte, MSI, ECS & Foxconn with maybe some other "branded" oem boards before long.

Nelly · 21 Dec 2006 at 03:01

Well if everyone keeps buying Asus + Gigabyte, it's going to happen, well Evga, BFG maybe sneaking in on the act, but at the end of the day the others are failing to produce decent enough mobo's well Abit seems to be making a comeback, as for Soltek it looks like they have moved onto different things, it will be crap if the world of motherboards is monopoly also, especially when certain companys monololise the such manfactuerers, the only thing that will happen is higher prices because their wont be really much competition!

BUFF · 21 Dec 2006 at 06:48

Nelly said:
well Evga, BFG maybe sneaking in on the act

they're just branded oem boards though - on another forum ECS support actually said that the only difference between the 3 was the badge :rolleyes:

if there becomes less competition not only do prices rise but there is less pressure to make & support better boards.

WJA96 · 21 Dec 2006 at 08:45

Corasik said:
I've owned 2 epox boards, and both boards had cheap caps, all burst just after the warrenty expired.

But the board was cheap to buy though, was it not? It's about choice.

WJA96 · 21 Dec 2006 at 08:50

BUFF said:
it is a worrying sign though - Biostar, EPoX hard to get if you want 1.
Shuttle pulled out of normal mobos, what about Soltek, Soyo etc. of yesteryear ....
DFI have said that they were going to pull out of mainstream boards leaving LANParty's etc. but I'm not convinced that you can get adequate distribution with only a couple of mobo models as it may not be worth the disty's effort.

At this rate it will be Asus + Gigabyte, MSI, ECS & Foxconn with maybe some other "branded" oem boards before long.

Foxconn make more than half of all the motherboards currently produced and they make them for everyone except HGST (what used to be IBM). The EVGA, BFG and ECS 680i boards are all made by Foxconn and just the badges are different. The disappearance of brands is more down to marketing than a lack of production capacity. Some brands sell, some don't. ECS have a carp reputation, so they priced their board below the EVGA and lo and behold it's sold loads. Go figure!

BUFF · 21 Dec 2006 at 15:12

WJA96 said:
and they make them for everyone except HGST (what used to be IBM).

considering that HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) is what was the storage division of IBM (i.e HDDs) I'm not surprised that Foxconn don't make mobos for them ...

Lenovo now own what was the PC division of IBM.

WJA96 · 21 Dec 2006 at 15:19

BUFF said:
considering that HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) is what was the storage division of IBM (i.e HDDs) I'm not surprised that Foxconn don't make mobos for them ...
Lenovo now own what was the PC division of IBM.

I stand corrected. I got my former IBM diversified assets mixed up. Thanks.

Gibbo · 21 Dec 2006 at 15:34

BUFF said:
it is a worrying sign though - Biostar, EPoX hard to get if you want 1.
Shuttle pulled out of normal mobos, what about Soltek, Soyo etc. of yesteryear ....
DFI have said that they were going to pull out of mainstream boards leaving LANParty's etc. but I'm not convinced that you can get adequate distribution with only a couple of mobo models as it may not be worth the disty's effort.

At this rate it will be Asus + Gigabyte, MSI, ECS & Foxconn with maybe some other "branded" oem boards before long.

Hi there

DFI are going nowhere, they are just very selective with which models they release and who they sell them too.

Nelly · 21 Dec 2006 at 16:03

Soyo & Soltek - RIP

1dmf · 21 Dec 2006 at 18:36

Soyo & Soltek - RIP

You can add 'ChainTech' to the list - which is a shame as they actually were some very good , stable and reliable Mobo's

I guess quality isn't the key to success, it seem in electronics the new kids on the block can quickly build up a big fan base and out-market the oldschool.

just look at cellshock, Team group in memory, even Tuniq is a break off company of a well know sunbeam manufacturer.

I take it Epox will still be making budget graphics cards?

Hades · 21 Dec 2006 at 23:53

The best motherboard I've ever had was an Epox 8RGA+ (socket A). I actually preferred it to my current DFI. It overclocked well and never missed a beat. It was completely passively cooled. Loved it.

Jay_t · 22 Dec 2006 at 00:06

Hades said:
The best motherboard I've ever had was an Epox 8RGA+ (socket A). I actually preferred it to my current DFI. It overclocked well and never missed a beat. It was completely passively cooled. Loved it.

I had an Epox 8RGA+ & it was and still is great (its now in my mum's rig). I didn't buy it because it was cheap, I bought it because it was the best board going. NF2 chipset was o/ced from 166 to 200 MHz and still is now, around 4 years on. The onboard geforce 2 graphics also came in handy when my graphics card died on christmas day.

The support on AOA forums was provided by Epox bios engineers and urinated on anything Asus could offer. Some people here have short memories or haven't been around long enough to comment on this. :rolleyes:

Nelly · 22 Dec 2006 at 01:30

Asus should be boycotted!!! sure they bring out some nice stable boards, but they bring out all these boards & they dont support their products with forums which has Asus staff support or decent technical support at all & their bios updates are slow & nearly as crap as Abit's in my opinion. Look at the Striker its pants upto now compared to the Evga/ECS/BFG Nvidia reference board & costs a fortune, enough to put me off buying an expensive board anyway.

WJA96 · 22 Dec 2006 at 08:19

Nelly said:
Asus should be boycotted!!! sure they bring out some nice stable boards, but they bring out all these boards & they dont support their products with forums which has Asus staff support or decent technical support at all & their bios updates are slow & nearly as crap as Abit's in my opinion. Look at the Striker its pants upto now compared to the Evga/ECS/BFG Nvidia reference board & costs a fortune, enough to put me off buying an expensive board anyway.

The only thing I would disagree with at all in your post is the bit I've highlighted. Far too many ASUS products are released before they are ready and the support is appalling.

In my younger days I would buy what was cheap. Now I wait until someone else has worked all the bugs out and I buy on the trailing edge of a product's lifecycle. That way I (usually) get a decently stable product withouit paying a new product premium price.