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
Chipsets
With ATI, Intel, NVIDIA, ULi, SiS and VIA all competing for market share, the chipset business is particularly interesting right now.The AMD Chipset Battle: NVIDIA vs. VIA
The battle for AMD platform market share continues to be between NVIDIA and VIA. VIA was largely responsible for the success of the very first AMD Athlon, as they were the only mainstream chipset provider for quite some time. However, since then NVIDIA has stepped up to be a very serious competitor. All of the manufacturers we have talked to have said that in the past year, NVIDIA has grown extremely quickly to take control over virtually all of the high end K8 chipset business.Despite NVIDIA's incredible growth, VIA is still found on quite a few AMD motherboards for three reasons in particular: 1) Socket-A, 2) Socket-754 and 3) K8 Integrated Graphics solutions.
The K7 market continues to be dominated by VIA, but as a dying market, it isn't one that we normally focus on. The Socket-754 and K8 Integrated Graphics solutions are also dominated by VIA however. The Socket-754 market is very price sensitive right now, which is where VIA wins over NVIDIA. Ironically enough, NVIDIA, the graphics manufacturer, does not have a K8 chipset shipping with integrated graphics and thus, gives up a large portion of K8 market share to VIA.
NVIDIA has been working on an integrated graphics solution for both the Intel and AMD markets: the C51 and C60 (AMD and Intel platforms respectively). Motherboard manufacturers have received these new chipsets with relatively mixed response. Both the C51 and C60 implement a much larger graphics core than the integrated S3 graphics that VIA offers in their chipsets.
The problem is that NVIDIA's cheapest integrated solution is still more expensive than VIA's offerings, which are currently priced at the $13 - $14 price point. The OEM markets will gladly pay the added premium to be able to use the NVIDIA name in their marketing, but the rest of the markets are simply looking for the cheapest overall solution, and NVIDIA's approach won't provide that. So, it appears that although NVIDIA will be eating a bit of VIA's lunch, they will still leave a big hunk of it for VIA.
If you're wondering why NVIDIA doesn't simply stick a small DX7 graphics core in their chipsets to compete with VIA, it comes down to profit margins. NVIDIA needs to keep their profit margins high, and by going after the ultra low end integrated graphics market, they cannot maintain high enough profit margins to justify spending so much time and resources producing cheap enough chipsets to compete with VIA. It would surely bring hard times to VIA, but with NVIDIA dominating the high end market, there's simply no economic reason to go after VIA's share of the AMD business.
Motherboard manufacturers that we've talked to all expect the high end AMD market to be dominated by NVIDIA and ATI based solutions, while the integrated graphics offerings will be dominated by VIA. Ironic, isn't it?
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snedzad - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
Not quite, #23. Pro edition of K8T800 chipset supports 939 sck., and non pro doesn't (intended for sck 754).Here is the evidence:
http://www.asustek.de/products/mb/mbindex.htm
Ciao
patrick0 - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
I don't care about on-die Graphics, prefer if they just add some PCIe lanes on-die (at least 17).I/O controller on-die is a great idea.
overclockingoodness - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
#15: I think you are wrong. The K8T800 Pro is for K8 Socket 754, so it won't support DC.Windaria - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
You know... I still can not understand why anyone would really like the BTX format. From everything I have read, it seems as if it is specifically designed for air to be blown in the back and out the front.The problem is that, while that sounds great, it appears to compeletely fail to take into consideration the environment that a PC is in. Every time I have ever had fans on a computer suck in the back and blow out the front... they get clogged with dust in no time because the rear of the computer tends to attract more dust. As a result I always have to switch them around.
nserra - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
Uli is profitable because they have very cheap to manufacture single chip designs, and they do a lot of chipsets for USB2 external HD, …..I am waiting for Uli come out with their SLI chipset with REAL AGP that can be a good buy, even without the SLI. I didn’t buy right now one of the 3 ASROCK ULi based boards just because of that.
I think that Uli, sis, via aren’t bad, the problem is the “effort” that mobo makers have with them. If they could do the same they do with intel chipsets…. I won’t even talk about the quality of components they use on those chipset companies…..
Nayr - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
Actually #15, the K8T800Pro will support Dual-Core CPU's. VIA is only having a problem with the K8T890 Chipset and DC CPU's. It was on the front page a while ago.All in all, a good read and an interesting view on what's to come down the pipe line.
coldpower27 - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
You can probably take this article regarding the marketshare figures for AMD chipsets with a grain of salt, with the anonymity of these figures.Yes AMD was/is, a leader of the US retail desktop sales, however current retail US desktop marketshare figures for H1 2005 are not unknown.
If they asked, motherboard manufacturer's primarily interested in retail sales, than these figures would be inline with the gains in the US retail desktop market.
Though the OEM would be a different story, Dell would probably get most of it's mobos from Intel itself.
Sunbird - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
mmm, new movie,Chipset Wars, set on a island far far away...
Uli: "Sis and Via, I'm am profitable, come over, and we could rule the motherboards together!"
ceefka - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
The shift with Taiwan mobomnfs is of course very nice for AMD, but doesn't Intel also make its own motherboards? And lots of them while we speak? How does that add in the total of motherboard making/selling?Anyway, you cannot expect the whole industry to go to sleep when so much speaks in favour of the Opteron and A64 especially since they are both coming in dual core also. AMD's growth is well deserverd.
The Sempron going 64-bit was expected and needed. This will give room for:
1. Hardware developpers to come up with the missing 64-bit drivers.
2. Software devoloppers to release some more 64-bit applications.
3. MS to eventually drop 32-bit support in favour of a full 64-bit (only) version.
The less manufacturers hanging on to 32-bit apps the faster the transition to 64-bit.
#9 Nice one. That Windsor core looks promising.
xsilver - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
#15oh my bad -- yea I meant the s939 k8t800pro -- names are too damn similar :)
I have the abit av8
hope it supports dual core