VIA to leave chipset market

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 12th August 2008

VIA has decided to leave the third-party motherboard chipset market to AMD and Intel and to concentrate on CPUs.

The competition in the motherboard chipset market just took a hit with the news that VIA has decided to bow out.

Custom PC reports that the manufacturer has made the decision to concentrate its efforts on making its own low-power CPUs rather than chipsets for other manufacturers' processors.

Vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan Richard Brown told Custom PC that the company has had this in mind for a while, with the company deciding to move into CPU manufacturing “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.”

Brown goes on to point out that the vast majority of Intel processors use Intel chipsets on the motherboard, and now that AMD own ATI it has taken responsibility for its own motherboard chipsets as well. With rumours doing the rounds recently that Nvidia was to exit the motherboard chipset market – rumours the company flatly denies – the news from VIA, while disappointing, is perhaps not that surprising.

With new projects like the ultra-low power Nano – launched as a direct competitor to the popular Atom line from rival Intel – to sink its teeth into, perhaps the move from chipset hardware aimed firmly at the budget end of the market has come at an auspicious time. Still, it's always sad to see a competitor leave a market – especially one that is becoming more and more like a duopoly.

Does anyone here remember VIA chipset motherboards fondly, or did you always opt for a more upmarket brand when building your PCs? Share your thoughts over in the forums.