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?
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
45 Comments
View All Comments
snedzad - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
No, it won't. KT880 chipset is for K7 (socket A) processors. You probably thought about K8T800 chipset, that doesn't support 939 socket. Only K8T800Pro and K8T890 are supporting 939 and none of them dual core. Even a bios update won't help. Via works on revision of the chipset that should allow dual core CPUs.xsilver - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
Will the kt880 chipset support dual core? (asus a8v, abit av8 etc...)many of us owners would like to know :)
Viditor - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
Nehemoth - I'm pretty sure that's not an official roadmap. It looks like an educated guess on VR Zone's part as to what's happening based on the analyst meeting from Friday.One thing they missed was the mobile sector. At the meeting, AMD said they were coming out with dual core Turions next year as well...
One other thing I think they might have wrong is the 65nm parts not coming out till 2007, though they didn't list anything for H2 06...
Viditor - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
"You can go to HP or Compaq and order a Turion laptop right now. So they are out there, just not pushed real hard right now"That's true, but notice that they only have one Turion designed notebook...
This was a very late arrival and it's not very well integrated. You can say there aren't many models because it's not being pushed, or go the other way and say it's not being pushed because there aren't many models...
It is a fact that unless a design is locked in by January, you will have very few models available for that year...
Marlin1975 - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
You can go to HP or Compaq and order a Turion laptop right now. So they are out there, just not pushed real hard right now.knitecrow - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
I love these industry update articlesNehemoth - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
If you go herehttp://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2328&s=1
Are The Manila And Windsor Cores
and see the new AMD roadmap, you can see the new core with integrated graphic..
Viditor - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
ElMoIsEviL - "marketshare figures taken from Mercury show results that differ greatly from these"Marketshare numbers from Mercury show the previous quarter...
Beenthere - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
Industry figures can be twisted to say whatever you want them to say and they are typically 3-6 months behind current sales. With AMD selling more desktop CPUs than Intel over the past several quarters and Mobo production being ahead of sales, you can be pretty certain AMD's sales and market share gains are very real. Even Intel's 10Q's show major drops in CPU sales and Intel is actually BUYING all the sales they are getting. If the shift is from 80/20 to 60/40 or 50/50 it's still a Helleva coup for AMD and the hand writing is on the wall for Intel, who's arrogance got the better of them.As for SLI - it's a technology few need and only enthusiasts will pay thru the nose for. Even if SLI Mobos get down to $100 which they will, you still need two over-priced graphics cards to use SLI. Even power PC users don't need SLI and few consumers will throw good money away like gamers do.
yacoub - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
So is that actually a saying in Taiwan or just creative journalistic license? ;)