VIA quits motherboard chipset business
AFTER WIDESPREAD rumours of Nvidia quitting the chipset business imminently, Via has announced it will also exit the once competitive motherboard chipset market.
Speaking to Custom PC, VIA vice president of corporate marketing in Taiwan, Richard Brown, outlined the reasoning behind the company's exit.
"One of the main reasons we originally moved into the x86 processor business was 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."
"That has indeed come to pass," said Brown, adding: "Intel provides the vast majority of chipsets for its processors and, following its purchase of ATI, AMD is also moving very quickly in the same direction."
Although Via intends to stop manufacturing chipsets for Intel and AMD processors, it will still carry on fabricating chips for its own brand of Nano processors - which are in direct competition with Intel's new Atom.
This declaration from Brown hasn't come as a surprise to those in the industry.
Sources at the company had suggested that going forward the merged division would focus on supporting the company's own CPU platforms and slowly exit the third-party chipset market.
However, this is the first time we've heard the news coming from an official representative. ยต
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It's just as well, performance was usually lacking.
So to summarize:

Intel: Makes own processors and chipsets and graphic chips.

AMD: Makes own processors and chipsets and graphic chips.

Via: Makes own processors and chipsets and graphic chips.

NVidia: Doesn't make processors, getting out of chipsets, having problems making competitive graphic chips.

It's no longer chic (or profitable) to make just processors or chipsets or graphic chips, now you need the package (or platform) deal to compete. Bub-bye, NVidia.

...really, Via made decent chipsets at affordable prices. 99% of the world is perfectly fine with a Via-type chipset that doesn't have OC controls and whatnot.

I would be pumped to see them put out a competitive CPU/platform of their own...theire new CPU tech sounds compelling.
VIA's chipsets sucked big donkey dick anyway.
This totally sucks. The only chipsets I every bought were VIA and Nvidia... Now what? Intel?
Intel makes good chipsets for Intel CPUs, AMD makes good chipsets for AMD CPUs, there's obviously no room for VIA. Of course the fact that VIA makes crap chipsets has nothing to do with it whatsoever.
There must be a little room for cheap off-brand chipsets if Intel used SiS for some of their boards (like their first ITX board). Guess that's going away with Atom...
775Dual
4CoreDual
4CoreSATA2

All excellent DDR/AGP -> DDR2/PCIe transition boards. Probably not as much room for them these days, but for what they lacked in speed and BIOS options, they made up for in being cheap, solid, and flexible.Posting Message - Please Wait
Goodbye and good riddance. In the end it will be better for consumers. No more obscure VIA chipsets inside cheap boxes; just AMD or Intel, both of wich provide solid chipsets for their respective CPUs.
choices-less competition. That is never a good thing. Oh well best of luck to them in their future ventures.

Hell, I still miss Micropolis hard drives.
Via hadn't updated their chipsets substantially in a long time.

That said, I found their performance to be fine with socket 754 and am2 platforms. Their linux drivers were also quite stable, we deployed hundreds of them running linux.
nvidia are saying bye bye as well soon, and not because there is no room for them, they make good chip sets, comparable to the Intel and AMD ones respectively. 
but success has gone to their already green heads, because anything that says N Force and SLI together immediately your charged 500 buks for a motherboard. people aren't stupid and will just by Intel for Intel, and ATI for AMD, NV are forcing themselves out.

Via on the other hand are gone because of lack of understanding in the market, they produced chip sets for normal users, they had no business being in the high performance sector, i bought a via chip set for a 939 athlon and it was dismal at best.
now I'm a Intel man (only used AMD since the a64) but since C2duo took off, its hard to pass the X38 and Core 2 duo platform they just mix so well
With nVidia falling by the way and now Via shutting down, the range of selection for budget chipsets is going to cause a single choice buying situation. Intel for Intel and AMD for AMD, this will not work for the average computer user/builder. Without competition the prices get ridiculous and the selection will shrink as well. Quality control will fall by the way too.
I have to go against the fanbois consensus here, and declare my dissapointment, though not suprise.

Those of us who have appreciated the rock-solid stability of VIA chipsets with Linux for the past 7+ years (i.e. I've had VIA Socket A based servers up - 24/7/365.25 for 7/8 years) will sigh as we look at whats left on the market.

My NVidia based stuff has never reached what I would call server grade (in fact "pitiful is a word that springs to mind) "performance. Linux Open Source support, and thus stability of the platform has been poor, ATI no better. 

<sigh>

Thank you VIA, for your products of the past. Tis a shame you are no more.
Nothing wrong with VIA chipsets.

Yes they had a few products that sucked ass, but so does every company.

I have been using VIA chipsets since the K6 days.

I do see the trand that more Value boards are switching over to gforce6100, so VIA chipsets are getting more rare, but last time I used a value board from VIA for the K8, it works just as good. No crashes, very mature chipset.

One thing about VIA, I find they are good with drivers, and they post new updates a lot.

So it is a sad thing they they have decided to go, and chipsets/board will go up in price a little bit due to lack of competition.

These days you can buy a great value board starting at $55 to $85 range.

Just put it this way, VIA has been in the buisness for a very long time. There products are not crap. If they were crap they would of been out of buisness a long time ago.

Just becuase AMD bought ATI doesn't mean that mobo makers are going for AMD chipsets more. I still see a lot of NV chipsets on boards. And I am lucky to find any VIA chipsets.

The problem more lies with Intel. Intels market share has picked up more, and people in the Intel market are moving away from 3rd party chipsets so it seems. In the AMD market, people are not so picky.

This would be an easy problem for NVidia to fix if they wanted. Its all about merketing.

Also, i would hate to see NVidia to drop out of chipset market, becuase then laptops would suck. You got to be retarded to buy an Intel chipset based laptop, as they are very limiting and a joke for graphics. atleast with a NV chipset you can run games. 

VIA chipsets are not pushed hard enough. 
NV chipsets are not markeded properly.

But the main problem is that Intel is strong right now, I am sure things will change when AMD's buisness becomes better/stronger. I just hope that AMD somehow can compete with Core 2 better and get back some market share. ATI comming out with a good grapgics card was a good step, we just need the same miracle in the CPU area.