Intel's successful mobo business

WHILE SOME WIRES are playing hunt the "Via P4X266 board manufacturer" and others are saying the move to brand its own motherboards shows desperation, we thought it was worth taking a look at Intel's rather successful business flogging boards.

Intel's been in this biz for a long time now and quite a few system integrators buy its products - quite often because their customers demand Intel-only boards.

And the business has mostly been successful - that is you subtract the Rambus-linked i820 Camino and i840 Carmel chipsets which wreaked havoc on Intel as well as its customers' boards. Certainly, the boards we've seen have always been nicely finished and with these exceptions are robust.

The nice thing to Intel about it producing motherboards is that it can compete with its customers - in this case the Taiwanese manufacturers - and also from time to time slap them round the head and remind them who's boss.

One good example was Intel's Timna "dead duck a l'orange" plan, where Gigglebyte and a clutch of other major Taiwanese OEMs had brought motherboards to production for this chip, blissfully unaware that the processor was going to be canned and they'd be the last to know.

Intel is also rumoured to put pressure on the Taiwanese firms not to use a) AMD chipsets, and b) Via chipsets but always firmly denies this and says that it doesn't cut balloons loose or rip down flags either.

The latest list of Intel-branded mobos from a distributor demonstrates the range it has available and shows that Via deciding to brand its own mobos is not such a crazy idea. We can't think whether AMD has ever sold its own mobos - certainly we don't remember them doing so over the last 12 years or so - but are prepared to be corrected if we're wrong.

Boxed Intel Pentium III/Celeron boards
ATX 815 based boards
D815EEA2, $108, AC97 soft audio, 512Mb PC-133 three slots, 5 PCI 1 AGP 4USB 1CNR

D815EPEA2, $96, AC97 soft audio, 512Mb PC-133, three slots, 5 PCI, 1AGP, 4 USB, 1CNR

Micro ATX based boards
CA810EAL, $135, Creative PCI audio, LAN, 512Mb, PC100 two slots, 3PCI 2 USB (not long for this world)
D815EFVL, $117, AC97 soft audio, LAN, 512Mb PC133 SDRAM, 3 PCI, 1 GP, 4USB
D815EPFV, $94, AC97 soft audio, 512Mb PC133 three slots, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 USB, 1 CNR
D815EPFVL, $106, AC97 soft audio, LAN, 512Mb PC-133 three slots, 3 PCI, 1AGP, 4USB

Boxed Intel Pentium 4 Motherboards (All ATX)
Garibaldi 850 423-pin, $130, 2Gb PC800 RDRAM four slots, 5 PCI, 1AGP, 4 USB, 1 CNR
Garibaldi 850 423-pin $151, AC97 soft audio, LAN, 2GB PC800 RDRAM four slots, 5 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 USB
Maryville 478-pin 850 $153, AC97 soft audio, 2Gb PC800 RDRAM, 5 PCI, 1 AGP, 4USB, 1 CNR
Maryville 478-pin (as above but with LAN) $166
Winnipeg 478-pin 845, AC97 soft audio, 3GB PC-133 SDRAM three slots, 6 PCI, 1AGP, 4 USB, 1 CNR
Winnipeg as above but with LAN, $138
Medford 478-pin 850, AC97 soft audio, 2Gb PC800 RDRAM four slots, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 USB, 1 CNR
Medford as above but with LAN $162
Havre 478-pin 745, $123, 3Gb PC-133 SDRAM, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 USB, 1 CNR
Havre, as above, with LAN $135

Many of these Intel products compete directly with products from Gigabyte, Elitegroup, Asustek and the rest, but benefit from the supply and distribution chain the chip giant already has.

Whoever manufacturers the Via P4X266 motherboards, and names such as Soltek and FIC seem to be coming up, Digitimes today reports that a number of so-called "second tier" mobo vendors are likely to adopt the branded products.

After getting good performance scores from a number of Web sites and magazines, Via's real problem with these boards will be to get the distribution chain right on the products. µ