Pronouncing Asus, Graphics, And Thunderbolt
After being live for a full 24 hours, the Asus “Ask Me Anything” has officially concluded!
A big, huge thanks to Asus representatives who took the time out of their schedules to come and answer the awesome questions our community had for them. We know this was a lot of work on their end, and we're greatly appreciative of the time taken to engage with the community here at Tom's Hardware.
For answering questions, an epic thanks goes out to Raja Gill, JJ Guerrero, Nick Mijuskovic, and last but not least, to Erik Joiner at Asus for helping put this together on their end and securing the time and info required to feed our ravenous fanbase all this juicy info about what Asus is up to. Check out the massive thread here!
Tom’s Hardware Ask Me Anything: Asus
A digest of all responses:
Q. Hello, I bought a 7970 DCU2 Top and I'm disappointed because the vcore is intentionally locked; do you have plans to unlock it?
A. The voltage is not actually locked. The vbios for the card does allow for overclocking, but a correct version of GPU Tweak must be used to allow for the voltage to be adjusted. Asus has led the industry with extensive overvoltage technologies and performance features for GPUs and we will continue to do so. With that noted, it is important to remember that the vbios is co-developed and validated with our partners whether it be AMD and Nvidia.
Q. 3 questions. First, when will you make a version of the Radeon HD 7990? Second, will you ever make a slimmer version of the Radeon HD 7970? Third, will you ever hop into the PSU market?
A. Currently for the US market we do not have plans to release a 7990. As you may be aware we produced our own solution which was faster and quieter, the ARES II was a ultra-high end performance-oriented SKU that due to the complex design and yield was limited in production quantity. With that in mind you can rest assured our team is always looking at pushing the envelope in designs on the GPU front. Currently there are no plans to refresh the designs of our 7970 DCII or our 7970 Matrix. The cooling and acoustics are very important for this GPU and we want to ensure a consistent cool and quiet experience. We have no plans to manufacture or produce power supplies. We have extensive partnerships with leading PSU vendors and feel they offer outstanding solutions currently.
Q. I have a Z77 Sabertooth, and I'm really hoping to make use of the Thunderbolt expansion header. Can you tell me what the ETA on the Thunderbolt card is? It seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
A. Currently the add-in card has been supplied to Intel's validation labs. We have completed our internal validation and testing but there are requirements by Intel to ensure interoperability and compatibility. Until they complete the validation the card cannot be sold.
Q. On the ROG 1150 socket do the power phases interfere with a LAN connection in gaming to the point where I might want to use a standalone LAN card?
A. A bit vague, but there should be no issue at all.
Q. When will ITX/DTX FF will start getting love in their road maps?
A. Soon :)
Q. After looking at your new Maximus VI Impact (which is awesome), I was wondering if there'd be any chance we'd be seeing any sort of x79-based mini-ITX motherboard.
A. It would present considerable design challenges. Power being one of them. Given what would need to be cut out, it would make more sense to stick with Z87 - as least as it stands today.
Q. What's the correct way to pronounce Asus? I say 'ace-us' but when my girlfriend phoned, the guy answered with 'ah-zoos'. I know the name is derived from 'Pegasus', but that would suggest an 'uh-sus' pronunciation, which wouldn't sound right. Is there concensus at Asus over pronunciation or does it vary?
A. The correct pronunciation of Asus is ey-soos. Basically a long A and the last part is like Dr. Seuss.
Q. When is the Formula VI and Impact coming out?
A. Sometime next month :)
