VIA Ditches Motherboard Chipset Business

[chris4404]

Following the media hit that was VIA's Nano processor, VIA says that it's now quitting the motherboard chipset business that used to be its bread and butter product for years. VIA's vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, Richard Brown, explained that: 'Intel provides the vast majority of chipsets for its processors and, following its purchase of ATI, AMD is also moving very quickly in the same direction.' VIA will still be developing chipsets for integrated motherboards featuring the Nano CPU, but will no longer produce chipsets for Intel and AMD CPUs. Was this the right decision, and where does this leave other third-party chipset manufacturers such as SiS?

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[MrObvious]

Well they suck kinda anyway.

[thndr143]

Originally Posted by MrObvious

Well they suck kinda anyway.

To me,they were the "welfare" brand of chipsets. Garbage

[lexandro]

When ever I head someone say "I have a VIA chipset" I always cringe. I had the misfortune of having a VIA chipset mobo, and it was terrible. The driver support was and is atrocious. I'm not sad to see them go.

[Mr.Scott]

Depends on the chipset and the board it's on. There were a few decent VIA chipset boards.

[WyZe]

I don't know why people say they suck, it's not like they were designed to be fast or overclockable, they were designed to bring low cost computing to the masses. I'm pretty sure everyone who claims they suck was just an idiot at some point in their life and purchased a board with a VIA chipset and then cried themselves to sleep when they couldn't overclock -- your fault, not VIA's.

People just love to hate.

[Sakesaru]

Yay for less competition

[zlander79]

Originally Posted by Sakesaru

Yay for less competition

As if they were ever any real competition?

[onewecallgod]

Low end laptops might be getting more expensive now.

[afrakes]

This kind of makes sense, isn't nVidia going to develop chipsets for Via platforms?

[WindtalkerCS]

Originally Posted by Sakesaru

Yay for less competition

QFT
So this now means that (if rumors are true about nvidia) that intel will be the only intel chipset maker and AMD the only AMD chipset maker? Doesn't sound that great to me.

[Binarybandit]

And then there were 3. Stands tall Nvidia,AMD, and Intel. I ,like mr.scott, have had a few via chipsets that done exactly what they were suppost to do. Yes, if Nvidia has quit which seems odd to me that they state we are not quiting but we canceled all R&D which is a confirmation of sorts right? It will make it easier now to build driver databases now if AMD and Intel have FTP servers. Yay no more hunting for hours over chipset drivers.

[webstien]

the kt400 motherboards werent so bad. I remember the msi kt4v-l I had voltage modded and everything and it was pretty fast :P

[unclutchable]

Someone fill me in here. I've been out of the hardware loop for a few years now.

Back when I was in it, Intel was still making their chipsets, and nVIDIA was making their chipsets for AMD systems.

I'm guessing that Intel is still making Intel motherboards, nVIDIA has moved onto Intel since the AMD/ATi merger, and AMD/ATi is making chipsets for their own systems.

Am I correct?

[ether.real]

Originally Posted by unclutchable

Someone fill me in here. I've been out of the hardware loop for a few years now.

Back when I was in it, Intel was still making their chipsets, and nVIDIA was making their chipsets for AMD systems.

I'm guessing that Intel is still making Intel motherboards, nVIDIA has moved onto Intel since the AMD/ATi merger, and AMD/ATi is making chipsets for their own systems.

Am I correct?

Intel makes intel chipsets.

AMD makes AMD chipsets.

nVidia makes both.

[Sakesaru]

Originally Posted by WindtalkerCS

QFT
So this now means that (if rumors are true about nvidia) that intel will be the only intel chipset maker and AMD the only AMD chipset maker? Doesn't sound that great to me.

Yeah it... was... kinda... obvious sarcasm I was using there.... hence the frowny face....

Think it's time for you to have a coffee bud.

Originally Posted by zlander79

As if they were ever any real competition?

Haha, yeah they where/are pretty terrible.

I doubt they got the sales numbers that Intel/ATi/nVidia got, but they got numbers. Personally I'd rather pay a little extra for a better chipset, but not all people are of that mindset.

At the end of the day, less competition = bad for the consumers (us).

[JSTGamer]

Just because they were terrible End-user chips.... doesnt mean that some of us are happy to see them go.... Seeing as how most computers are NOT custom, most do NOT need to play COD4 at highest settings on a 20% overclock, and most AREN'T aiming for the lowest Super-pi numbers.... most computer consumers just need something that workes at a affordable price..... TA DA!!! Keep in mind, we overclockers make up a small percentage of an enormous market. I dont have figures... but there are probably more people out there looking for a really affordable computer than there are of us (especially since the intel "everyone should have a cpu act" they got going on). I mean why are the Asus eee's so popular that they keep creating new ones!! Even a desktop version!!! < $$$$

Now I am however happy to see them "Strategically" (because this didnt happen overnight) strengthening their efforts in another section of this vast technology market: Mobile CPUs.

Now with that out of the way... I really do remember hating their chipset i Had to use with an old P3 computer(lol thats in my sig now.... took a long time for me to get 50 posts apparently, years!!), it apparently didn't like me either.

JT

[unclutchable]

Originally Posted by ether.real

Intel makes intel chipsets.

AMD makes AMD chipsets.

nVidia makes both.

I find it strange that nVIDIA isn't butt hurt about AMD and ATI being in bed together now.

[ether.real]

Originally Posted by unclutchable

I find it strange that nVIDIA isn't butt hurt about AMD and ATI being in bed together now.

nVidia gets butt hurt about everything. Just nothing they can do about it.

[untrueparado]

this is very upsetting, no more $200 emachines at best buy during thanksgiving for my linux home server. some via chipsets are surprisingly stable and good if you ask me. they serve average users perfectly and will work for low powered linux machine.