News VIA to leave chipset market

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/08/12/via-to-leave-chipset-market/1

Rumours of Nvidia's exit from the chipset market may have been exaggerated, but VIA has confirmed that it will only manufacture motherboard chipsets for its own line of CPUs.

 

So we're left with Intel chipsets for Intel processors, AMD chipsets for AMD processors, and nVidia uncomfortably sandwiched between the two.

 

When did VIA last build a decent chipset for LGA775 / AM2 anyway?

 

What do you mean by "decent", they were always cheap and usable

 

thats not then point, anyway back in the AMD K7 day, some of there motherboards overclocked extreme well and performed just as well as there nvidia counterparts

 

Well, put it this way - if you were in the market for a new motherboard today, would you consider buying a VIA chipset board for your Core 2 Duo / Quad or your Athlon X2? Or would you be looking at Intel, nVidia and AMD exclusively? A quick look on www.scan.co.uk doesn't turn up ANY boards for these chips based on VIA chipsets, so my point is, while more competition is generally good for the consumer, why is it news that VIA has dropped out of the market of producing chipsets for Intel/AMD chips? I thought they had done so ages ago.

So then it is exactly the point - K7 was aeons ago and they haven't produced anything of note since. They may as well have dropped out of the "mainstream" motherboard market 5 years ago and concentrated on their own integrated products.

 

Shame.. I always loved VIA, being the champion of the underdog that I am.

 

It's news because it is now official. For all any of us know, VIA could've been working on new chipsets to arrive in the coming months but they've now ruled that out. I'd say that's news worthy.

Edit: Oops, quoted wrong bit. Fixed.

 

Shame, but it really is about time. Nobody is buying their chipsets anymore, and they are often having compatibility issues...

 

i consider their chipsets to be a peace of crap.... thank God they are out of the picture.

 

I have a KT600 on my Athlon XP that has never given me an issue (still being used as a low end gaming rig for my gf). I also had an Asrock with a PT880 so I could use a C2D with an AGP card. Had great experiences with both. I must admit VIA has never been high end, but I always saw them as being solid chipsets.

 

Ah, I remember when VIA were the kings of motherboard chipsets. It was after the Nforce 2 came out that VIA started to slip from the top spot.

 

i wonder how long uve been working with computer...

yup, the KT133, 100 (could be wrong with the names) was substantially beating the crap out of Intel or the maturing Nvidia chipset less than a decade ago. overclocking a Duron or original Athlon was VIA territory.

sad to leave them go.

personally i prefer them to let go the CPU market and focus on chipset instead. but hey.....

 

This is truly sad- as competition continues to dwindle in the Mobo and Chipset markets. I can remember back to the good ole 386 days when VEGA brand motherboards with Symphony chipsets were consider top drawer. Symphony was the company that evolved into VIA. We've lost dzens of Mobo makers in the past 10 years, and now the chipset industry is down to almost no independents. Prices will go up, technological innovation will go down. Off the top of my head I can remember these now dead chipsets manufacturers:

OPTI
VIA
ETEQ
CONTAQ
FOREX
UMC
ULI

I am sure there are others. The maturation of the the component industry is a double-edged sword for enthusiasts.

 

I'm still only using VIA chipsets. Via 800 on my main rig and a kt333 on my server. I loved them for their stability. The 800 is about three years old and the 333 is around six and they are still plugging away all happy like. I went the VIA route after I becam the early adopter of the rev. 1 Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo with the Nforce chip. Now that was utter crap. Went thru three different boards and to much money to want to think about. Then I got my Soyo via 333 and have been happy ever since

 

`tis a shame. I'm still running an AOpen board using their KT line of chipsets. Ah well, best of luck to them.. looks like they make a killer small CPU anyway.. hopefully they can keep it up