Interview with HIS – Peter Yeung: Director of Marketing

We recently had some time to sit down with Peter Yeung: Director of Marketing with HIS.

Peter graduated in the US with a major in Business Administration and Economics.  He lived in New York, Silicon Valley and is now based in Hong Kong. His role and responsibility is to continue building HIS as a top tier worldwide graphic brand by focusing on 4P (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). He has established a close relationship with key customers and suppliers to execute sales & marketing strategies. Under his coaching, the Sales & Marketing team have successfully gained market shares against competitors and have developed the HIS brand to become market leader in APAC (Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand), top 3 best selling brand in North America, top 2 market leader in Eastern Europe.  As part of the CEO's business management team he develops long-term goals and executes short-term key objectives.  He is also involved in the decision making process for all product development projects and he supervises the worldwide marketing department.

KitGuru: Hi Peter thanks for taking the time to sit down and talk with us. When AMD launched the ATI Radeon HD 5970, ATI Radeon HD 5870 and ATI Radeon HD 5850 cards users were able use 3rd party tools like MSI Afterburner to increase voltage levels to the GPU. Now it seems the non reference designs no longer have this option. Is this due to higher rate of failure (potential abuse) or part of a redesign process to help reduce costs?

Peter: HIS marketing philosophy is to provide the best gaming graphic card in factory pre-overclocked as standard. The end user can overclock the graphic card by using AMD Catalyst software to reach extra overclocking headroom as well.

There is a lot of compatibility issue on the bios, driver related when using the 3^rd party tools. HIS design is aimed to work the best with AMD Catalyst and HIS overclocking tools mainly. As matter of fact that HIS design aim to be “Faster, Cooler, Quieter”. HIS 5870, 5850, 5830 series has a higher cost overall than the reference design as we add a lot of feature to ensure that we got a balance of those 3 elements.

KitGuru: What other aftermarket cooling solutions is HIS considering on the ATI Radeon HD 5970?

Peter: AMD has done a great job to provide the best possible reference design cooling solution on the ATI Radeon HD 5970.  HIS continues to use the AMD cooling solution on ATI Radeon HD 5970. We currently are not considering any aftermarket cooling solution on ATI Radeon HD 5970.

KitGuru: Have HIS got anything special planned for the 4GB 5970 release?

Peter: We currently do not have any plans for a 4GB ATI Radeon HD 5970 release.  We are focusing our resources on the current lineup and next generation product.

KitGuru: When will we see HIS partner up with a quality water block producer (such as EK Waterblocks, Watercool, Bitspower, or AquaComputer) for a water cooled version of the ATI Radeon HD 5870 or ATI Radeon HD 5970?

Peter: We see the water block market is more for the technical savvy gamers that they have the knowledge or interest to set it up as DIY solutions. If there is some breakthrough technology, we will consider adopting it on HIS products in the future.

KitGuru: Are you planning any dual GPU solutions of your own design like an ATI Radeon 5770 X2?

Peter: We have been doing a lot of benchmarking on dual GPU (on a single board) solutions. Our testing has shown that HIS cooling solutions provide better cooling performance and a quieter product than those dual GPU solutions. Also, the gain of the dual GPU products is not significantly higher than running an ATI CrossFireX solution. Thus, we will still focus on developing a graphic solution that provides the 3 major elements: Faster, Cooler, and Quieter.

KitGuru: Are there plans for HIS to make NVIDIA GPUs in the future?

Peter: HIS has been in graphic card business since 1987. In those 23 years graphic industry experience, we have seen mighty nations raise and fall in different technology developments and cycles.  ATI won a majority of market share with technology break-throughs during the 8X APG cycle. We are now seeing that AMD has a dominant position and technology breakthrough in DirectX 11, ATI Eyefinity technology and ATI Stream technology.

We did not experience any other graphic chipset supplier who are able to provide such winning and exciting technology that has at least 6 to 12 months technology advantage and is consumer oriented. We believe that AMD is providing the best graphic solution and are leading the market now and will be for at least the next 12 months or longer.  HIS makes a smarter choice to make AMD GPUs now and in future. Thus, there is no plan to adopt another graphic solution at this stage.

KitGuru: Will HIS be launching additional ATI Eyefinity 6 solution cards (beyond what they have already)?

Peter: The ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition provides the best graphic horsepower and performance in multi-monitor setting.  HIS does not plan to launch ATI Eyefinity technology solution beyond on what we have on ATI Radeon HD 5870 now.

KitGuru: As GPUs and processors get faster and faster, is the capacity of on-board memory still as important?

Peter: The fastest sports car needs a good exhaust system as a whole to reach the faster speed. The GPU is getting faster and faster nowadays.  AMD has been providing the best end user experience by first adopting the GDDR 5 memory solution on the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series. The capacity of on-broad memory is still important as the game title requirement is higher than before and is requiring a larger frame buffer to run faster in higher resolutions.

As we aim to provide the best graphic solution for gamers, HIS will continue to provide the best memory solution with AMD together to yield the best visual experience on both gaming and HTPC.

KitGuru: Do you think that the size and weight of the coolers used today warrant the use of a full length back plate for additional stability?

Peter:  By only adding a full length of block plate cannot guarantee to provide and additional stability. All HIS boards need to go through an intensive quality assurance testing process to ensure that the product runs properly in difference kind of environmental conditions. We also conduct a drop test to ensure the product and cooling part is attached properly.

KitGuru: What makes HIS's approach to aftermarket cooling stand out above the others?

Peter:  HIS is famous for providing a faster, cooler, quieter graphic solution to the users.  HIS IceQ and iCooler series has won more than 1,000 awards from the major media worldwide. The IceQ solution has UV sensitive effects, can provide temperatures that are much cooler than the reference products.

The aftermarket cooling is only part of the equation that makes HIS stand out above the others. We have a professional team working around the clock to conduct R&D and a Quality Assurance to ensure every single HIS product that utilizes AMD ‘s superior graphic technology will deliver the best experience to the end user.

KitGuru says: We would like to thank Peter for taking the time to talk to us.

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