Industry Update - Q2-2005: Chipset wars, AMD's growing market share and more...
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 13, 2005 4:34 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
VIA
The word around Taiwan is that many of VIA's engineers have left as the company's chipset business is struggling.All of the motherboard manufacturers that we've spoken to have agreed - VIA has seen much of its market share eroded because of the strength of NVIDIA's nForce3 and nForce4 platforms. Currently relegated to low-cost Socket-754 and integrated graphics solutions, VIA isn't the AMD chipset provider that they used to be.
The K8T890 chipset, VIA's first PCI Express Athlon 64 chipset, was announced to have full support for dual core Athlon 64s two months ago. However, motherboard manufacturers are telling us now that the current revision of the K8T890 doesn't support dual core AMD CPUs properly and that a later revision of the chipset, due later this month, will add working dual core support.
Luckily, no Socket-939 K8T890 motherboards will ship based on the current version of the chipset that we know of. A few manufacturers have stated that they will be shipping Socket-754 motherboards based on the current chipset, but since there are no dual core Socket-754 CPUs, it isn't such a big deal.
VIA has seen much success with their low power CPUs, however, and thus, they have put even more focus into selling these CPUs into emerging markets such as India and China.
ULi
The saying in Taiwan goes something like this - "There are three Taiwanese chipset manufacturers (ULi, SiS and VIA) and only one of them is making any money - ULi."ULi's business is profitable because they are only providing South Bridges and as such, they can piggy-back off of ATI's marketing by providing South Bridges to OEMs interested in using ATI's Radeon Xpress 200 chipsets. Unfortunately for ULi, this isn't a very good long-term business plan as there will come a day when ATI's own South Bridges are perfected.
ULi is therefore trying to make their way into the high-end chipset market, but with NVIDIA and Intel as the chief competitors there, it will be an uphill battle. Many manufacturers expressed interest in ULi, but we will have to wait and see to find out if it actually translates into a viable competitor.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
45 Comments
View All Comments
ceefka - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
Can somebody remind us why BTX was so much better than ATX?It doesn't look like Intel is throwing its weight about either. Having that strong partnership with Dell you wonder what's keeping them from flooding the world with BTX boards in BTX cases. My guess is Dell is holding back because their profits would suffer because of the high costs of implementation.
If I remember right BTX was also introduced to battle a few heatproblems. Now that Jamie Oliver cooks meals on a 3.0GHz Prescott, Intel is working on the problem at the source. Sorry about that, Jamie. Much better than throwing a new standard at it.
Gooberslot - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
I hope BTX takes a long time to take off or better yet that it never does.tygrus - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
31 - Posted on Jun 13, 2005 at 5:13 PM by Nayr"You can see DDR3 anytime you want. Just put any current Gen Mid-High end Graphics card in your computer...=P
As far as Desktop use...who knows.
"
As explained elsewhere.
GDDR2 not= DDR2.
GDDR3 not= DDR3.
The GDDR3 chips used by 3D graphics card manufactures is not the same as what might be used for desktop DDR3 modules. DDR3 will be by the same commitee as SDRAM, DDR and DDR2. GDDR from 1 to 3 were boutique/custom designs by mem makers with assistance from 3D graphic card manufactures and each design (GDDR, GDDR2, GDDR3) were by different people.
Quanticles - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
I want my k8 to have pcie!Nayr - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
YOu can see DDR3 anytime you want. Just put any current Gen Mid-High end Graphics card in your computer...=PAs far as Desktop use...who knows.
Icehawk - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
So are we ever going to see DDR3? :(Aenslead - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
I say its a great win for AMD. I am glad that they are advancing as much as THAT in just a few months, and I hope that VIA nor SiS die over us... otherwise, that'd leave the market to nVidia only, and we know monopoly is NOT a good thing.However, OEMs love VIA chipsets. Heck, we integrators love them too. The warehouse where I buy stuff sells like mofo the Biostar U8668-D, and, as you can guess, its based on the ANCIENT PM400 Pro... but hey, its *cheap*; models for 800Mhz use P4M800 chipset; same goes for AMD K7 and K8 markets: the KM400 is the best selling chipset here in Mexico, suported by ECS/Pc-Chips, and K8M800 is having a real nice penetration in this market. I have not seen a single fellow integrator asking for an nVidia chipset.
As the article said: costs rule.-
Son of a N00b - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
great arcticle Anand! Keep up the awesome work!SilthDraeth - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
In Sov...Anyways, when I read the tidbit about AMD building on die graphics into a new K8 core, I got goosebumps all over my body. Let the fantasy commense:
I have visions of them also incorporating that PPU (physics processing unit, if I am not butchering the abreviation).
Imagine, 2008, which means from now till then, 3 years, at least before those first chips become available, which in my eyes means AMD is already working on said chips...
AMD Dual Core 65nm,
On die mem controller supporting DDR2,
On die gpu
On die ppu
All operating at full processor frequency.
I can't help but think, and I may be dreaming but AMD will put out kick ass graphics...
xsilver - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
I dont care what the name of the chip isas long as the VIA socket 939 boards support dual core -- everybody will be happy
(except for the s754 owners... but they are probably using wishful thinking:P )