Taipei (Taiwan) - There is a new battle brewing in Taiwan and this time it is Asus that is bringing out the big guns against its rival Gigabyte: Gigabyte claimed in a recent presentation in front of journalists that Asus is flat-out lying about power savings and power efficiency of its EPU motherboards. Asus responded saying that Gigabyte is lying and is now threatening to sue Gigabyte as well as websites "spreading" Gigabyte’s claims.

Gigabyte apparently used an event last week in Taipei to tell journalists from hardware websites what it found out about Asus’ EPU motherboards. According to Gigabyte, Asus claims that its physical Energy Processing Unit, short EPU, can achieve power savings of about 80%, while Gigabyte said that number is closer to 59%. And, Gigabyte launched a widely publicized attack on Asus, alleging that the EPU is a pure marketing term and that Asus did not change the design, firmware or packaging of these motherboards.

Asus fired back with two statements, one of them refuting the claims and one threatening with legal action. According to Asus, its P5Q series of motherboards in fact "utilizes the newest version of the EPU hardware based energy saving chip, which can detect current PC loadings in real time and automatically moderate the power supply for complete system level power savings."

The second statement reads:

"It has come to our attention that a certain Taiwanese Motherboard Manufacturer has made false claims against ASUS motherboards. These claims have given rise to false information being communicated in both the mainstream media and technology channels. ASUS wishes to clarify the issues and so avoid any further confusion.
After investigation, it is clear that this company in question made use of a sponsored gathering of local and international media to deliberately spread information that we consider both untrue and without credible verification. This "disinformation" is not only extremely damaging to ASUS but also completely misleading to the consumers.
ASUS reserves the right to take legal action against any individual, organization or corporation which creates or spreads such rumors."

Such a reaction has probably been expected by Gigabyte. You can’t accuse your key rival of lying and not expect something flying back in return. However, we are not sure, if it is the right path to threaten websites with a lawsuit as well.