Gigabyte's Gigatrend to promote price war

Gigabyte follows Asus with its Asrock range into the low end fray, where cents, and we're talking Taiwanese cents, make the difference between profit and loss.

The mobo makers find themselves between a ROC and a hard place this year - the hard place being Intel, which has the power and capability to deliver SKUs for the many different variants of chipsets it will deliver in the second quarter.

The Taipei Times said that shipments of Gigatrend will start in April, with Gigabyte targeting China, some Eurozones, and South America.

But how much room is there for Gigabyte/Gigatrend at this end of the market? The report reckons Prescott and associated chipsets may give the mobo makers a boost.

But it will be hard for any but the biggest makers of motherboards to compete with the Intel SKUs available between now and the end of the second quarter.

Recent roadmaps seen by the INQ show that the Mighty Intella has a total of 18 different own mobos between now and the end of the year, using the 925,915 variants, and with exotic names such as Downey, Iron Falls, and Cherry Creek. And that number doesn't include the many different existing boards using current chipsets. µ

L'INQ
Taipei Times

Intel's own SKUs during 2004