Gigabyte’s Solid-Core Capacitors: A Gimmick?

All the hardware manufacturers currently on the market boast and brag about not using anything other than the latest solid-core capacitors on their high-end motherboards. Perhaps the most notable of these is Gigabyte, which has been touting its “Ultra-Durable” brand of capacitors more than any other manufacturer. According to Gigabyte, their capacitors will last up to 18 times longer than standard electrolytic capacitors, and 3 times longer than the solid-core capacitors used in other high-end motherboards:

Gigabyte Capacitor Ultra-Durable 2

The problem is, these capacitors are also susceptible to internal damage and malfunctions, even if not as often. And when these capacitors do fail, it’s not as easy to tell nor as easy to fix.

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Is the Gigabyte P35-DQ6 Being Discontinued?

The Gigabyte P35-DQ6. Gigabyte’s most-popular motherboard in recent history and possibly the best-selling Intel [[INTC]] Core 2 Duo motherboard currently on the market. It overclocks well, it’s well within budget for a performance PC, it has tons of options, and it’s pretty damn stable. Is it also on the verge of a product recall?

In the past two weeks, the GA P35-DQ6 has been – quite literally – disappearing off shelves both online and offline. Popular online computer part retailers like Newegg, ZipZoomFly, TigerDirect, Fry’s, and Amazon — all of whom carried this highly-successful board a month ago — no longer have it in stock.

What’s even weirder (scarier, even) is that some stores like NewEgg and ZipZoomFly would keep some sort of record of out-of-stock items. The page would still be there, a backorder button would be present, and there would be some form of indication or the other that the product, at the very least, even existed at some point of time… but for some odd reason, they don’t.

We even had the DQ6 in a saved wishlist on NewEgg, and it just vanished from the wishlist without a warning or notification – only the 200-dollar less total alerted us to its absence – whereas an nVidia 8800 GTX model that was currently out of stock presented us with a colored warning in bold, red text at the top of the page.

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