ASUS, AMD in labelling stuff-up

Sam Varghese
Monday, 28 November 2011 13:48

Business IT - Technology

The labelling on the packaging of some ASUS motherboards which are built for AMD processors may be leading to the wrong conclusion about what processors a given board will support.

The labelling on the packaging of the processors is no help in this regard either.

For example, the M4A78LT-M LE motherboard, which is sold in Australia, states on the box that it supports the AMD Phenom II.

This is incorrect. The board only supports processors up to 95 watts and the Phenom II sold in Australia is 125 watts, according to an AMD representative in Sydney.

There is nothing on the labelling of this processor to indicate its wattage - which would probably give the buyer an idea that there is more than one of this kind of processor.

I found this out through bitter experience. When I asked an ASUS representative why this misleading legend was on the box, the company offered to provide me a board that would run the processor I had bought, the six-core X6 1055T.

The Phenom II was released in April last year and the first releases were 125 watts. Later, the company released a 95-watt version, but only in the US, Europe and Japan.

The AMD representative said he did not know why the 95 watt version had not been released in Australia. He agreed that the labelling was "not ideal" and said he had passed on my concerns to people up the line.

When I asked ASUS what they would do for other customers who were misled the way I was - there are several such cases on the web - the ASUS representative did not provide an answer.