Topic: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

From an interview with Custom PC

VIA quits motherboard chipset business.  (source: Neowin.net)

VIA is now focusing on x86 processors and the integrated motherboard market, rather than chipsets for third-party CPUs
VIA P4X266 motherboard chipset

Previously one of the best chipset makers for enthusiasts looking for high performance on a budget, VIA has told Custom PC that it now sees no future in making chipsets for third parties such as Intel and AMD.

Speaking to Custom PC, VIA’s vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, Richard Brown, explained that: ‘One of the main reasons we originally moved into the x86 processor business was because we believed that ultimately the third party chipset market would disappear, and we would need to have the capability to provide a complete platform.’

‘That has indeed come to pass,’ said Brown. He also added 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.’

Rumours about VIA quitting the chipset business started to surface towards the end of last year, when DigiTimes alleged that the former president and general manager of VIA’s platform business, Chewei Lin, planned to resign and take 40 VIA chipset technicians over to ASMedia, a subsidiary of Asustek.

VIA’s previously had a rocky relationship with Intel over its third-party chipsets. Back in 2001, VIA released the Apollo P4X266 chipset, which brought DDR memory support to the Pentium 4, despite not having a license from Intel. To avoid the wrath of Intel, motherboard makers produced boards based on the chipset using VIA’s name rather than their own brands.

We asked Brown if VIA’s relationship with Intel had recovered since then, and he replied: ‘The only way I can answer that is to say that VIA and Intel are direct competitors in a very tough market. Having said that, we do have a great deal of respect for Intel not just as a competitor but also for the huge contribution they have made in driving the development of the PC industry.‘

Has VIA made the right decision, or is there still a place for third-party chipset manufacturers in the business? What's more, where does this leave other chipset makers such as SiS? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Look out for a full interview with VIA next week, where we discuss Nano, multi-core CPUs and VIA’s cooperation with Nvidia.

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

Good riddance. Hardware manufacturers have had their highs and lows, but nobody has been consistantly BAD as VIA. RIP, 4-in-1 driver garbage, I hope never to deal with ye again!

smile

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

Heh, not that I'd shed them a tear, but honestly, this is the second rumor of a chipset maker quitting business (after nVidia) that you post about...
Not saying that I ming keeping informed but I prefer solid news over vague rumors any day wink

Besides, it would be nice if you could link to your source and use quote tags, I think that's something Fair Use would or should require.

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

Maybe it's time to spin Via, Nvidia, and SiiS support off into their own driverpack....

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

There were several "rumors" concerning Nvidia so I assumed them to be true, even the best can be fooled !!!

I have never had a problem trusting NeoWin.

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/08/1 … hipset-biz

Stu

Last edited by BigBrit (2008-08-12 11:46:29)

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

newsposter wrote:

Maybe it's time to spin Via, Nvidia, and SiiS support off into their own driverpack....

The team is already discussing the option of moving obsolete/derelict drivers into a "Legacy" DriverPacks.

Read BEFORE you post.  HWID tool   DriverPacks Tutorial   DONATE!
http://driverpacks.net/userbar/admin-1.png
Not all heroes wear capes, some wear Kevlar!

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

I feel the same way.  Good riddance, VIA!  Before I fully knew what I was doing when building PCs, some of the first Windows computers I built happen to use VIA chipsets.  The performance is worse than anything and they just never stayed on top of the latest technology very well.  Now when I build a computer, I start with which chipset I want it to be based on.

ECS AMD690GM-M2 with integrated ATI x1250 Video and Realtek High Definition Audio
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.3GHz
OCZ 2GB DDR2-6400
SATA RAID 0
Dual-Boot Vista Ultimate SP1 x86 - XP Professional SP3

Re: VIA rumoured to be quitting Chipset market ??

Rumours.
While we still support XP/2003/2000 we hope(d) to be able to keep the supported "non-native" OS support viable.

Rumours.
Hardware makers have to stick to standards, and one of those GUI IO recognition markers is firmly etched into the mask/and its other recognisable part of IO is flashed to the imbedded firmware talking to other parts of the PC BIOS.
The rumour is that this has to be unique to each device type.
Pink Floyd is rumours.
It is very unlike hardware.
Some of the driver writers were, I think, not looking at (or do not have any/will not abide to any) standards for their type of device.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.