Are Gigabyte Motherboard Models Misleading to Consumers?

Late last month, Hardware.info (click here) ran an article displaying the characteristics of two different motherboards; but are they actually different? Well, that is exactly what seems to be the case and the below illustrations!  Same motherboard, same EAN number but different spec?  What is going on you may wonder….

The Gigabyte B85M-HD3 (can you tell the difference?)

So what is the big deal you may ask?  Well, imagine you are looking for a motherboard for your system and you come across a model you like the look of; the price fits, spec fits, but you want to delve deeper?  Well a lot of people check out reviews on products (you are on a review site now!), how would you feel if the board you researched, seen the performance, checked the numbers, turned out to be a cut down spec version without even knowing it?

Well, that is the problem really, there was no mass press release, no mention of a 2^nd “revision” and there was also no word on retailer’s pages stating the differences.  As you can clearly see, the “newer” B85M-HD3 features a slightly different layout, but to keep it simple, here are the notable differences:

• No dual BIOS featured on the Rev 2.0; a huge selling point with the Rev 1.1 model; but share the same EAN number
• Rev 1.1 has 4 x power phase and 3 x Mosfet drivers per phase; Rev 2.0 only has 3 x power phase and 2 x Mosfet per phase; they also use lower spec MOSFETs too!

So it has come into question since this article about the ethical repercussions of listing a board with the same EAN (retailer code) the board has nothing to differentiate between the 2 different revisions?  How do you know which board you are getting when ordering from your chosen retailer?

I personally when reviewing a product, if a person was to purchase a product based on my review, my results and they ended up buying the exact same model, but it had significant specification differences, it would reflect badly on me; after all, it isn’t exactly the same board is it!  It would give me the feeling of letting the consumer down because, at the end of the day, my career is based from testing products before you purchase them; so you know exactly what you are getting without having to spend the money first!; something Gigabyte have took for granted and blatantly disregarded in this instance.  Now this could be a one off but it does begin to question the entire practice; is it ethical?

What is your opinion?  Would you be happy to presume you are buying a motherboard to be shipped the same model with a lower spec?  Is this acceptable business practice?  Let us know in the comments below!

For the full article including a list of results when both boards were put to the test to compare, please visit – http://us.hardware.info/reviews/5835/spot-the-differences-gigabyte-motherboard-revisions-present-markedly-different-test-results

Source & Images – Hardware.Info