According to the story posted at TweakTown, who has a chance to go to Asus's press event in Taipei, Asus is currently winning over Gigabyte's DES.

At its press event, Asus did a live show of two Intel X48-based motherboards with the exact same components and software. The other brand was, of course, Gigabyte with its X48-DQ6, DES power-saving system motherboard.

According to the tests, Asus's P5E Deluxe motherboard with EPU has a lower wattage of 104 Watts at idle while Gigabyte's X48 stands at 115 Watts. The magic that gives EPU a slight advantage is surprisingly simple, as it apparently turns off hard drives connected to the motherboard, of course except for the "C master" drive. After a certain period of idle time, 15 minutes according to the post, Asus EPU shuts down some of the drives.

For those that wonder, that's why there are three drives connected to those two setups. Gigabyte's DES isn't capable of doing this, but we are sure that Gigabyte won't let the matter finish at this. EPU's shutting  down hard drives magically sounds nice, at least for those that have more than two hard drives.

As we've said before, competition is good for the consumer market. This "war" is probably far from over, and we are sure that we will see more of DES vs. EPU situations.

You can check out the full story here.