VIA ditches motherboard business, focuses on processors

It looks like VIA has finally had enough of the schoolyard fights with Intel and tauntings with hair dyers, as it has just dropped word over the weekend that it's quitting the motherboard chipset business in order to focus on processors and chipsets for motherboards that use its own Nano CPU. According to Custom PC, this is actually a move that VIA had seen coming all along, with vice president of corporate marketing saying that, "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." Of course, that also means that VIA is putting most of its "chips" in one basket (yes, we said it) and, as Slashdot points out, it leaves other third-party chip manufacturers like SiS with some tough questions to ask themselves.

[Via Slashdot]

[CAHLITO @ Aug 11th 2008 12:14PM]

Good Riddance!

[Andrew @ Aug 11th 2008 1:00PM]

Huh? My AsRock QuadCore motherboard using an old Via chipset was able to run Q6600 rock stable even though everything from SATA to DDR2 to PCI-E was retrofitted. A stability is not something that my Gigabyte P35 with Intel chipset or Asus A8R-32 (for X2 AMD) with ATI chipset could brag about as neither were able to avoid occasional freezes or reboots. VIA also released their chipset drivers often, unlike some other manufacturers. I am certainly not happy they are out, although at this point it was de facto the case already (no new chipset in years?).

[bartoron @ Aug 11th 2008 12:19PM]

What CPU socket(s) will its processors use now?

[Xenoterranos @ Aug 11th 2008 12:19PM]

Damn, what ridiculously-designed and impossible-to-navigate website am I going to use to find outdated and oft-ignored chipset drivers now? Damn you viaarena!

[Ian @ Aug 11th 2008 2:02PM]

QFT man.

[AlexL @ Aug 11th 2008 12:26PM]

"we believed that ultimately the third party chipset market would disappear"

This makes no sense. If they manufacture their own x86 chips, wouldn't that make them a first-party chipset manufacturer? If they don't make their chipsets, who's going to make them? Intel?

[Javier Guerra @ Aug 11th 2008 2:12PM]

exactly. they're tired of being the third party chipset builder for intel CPUs. they'll focus on theirs CPUs and chipsets for them (where they're first party).

[Jimmy @ Aug 11th 2008 12:26PM]

So, Nvidia and now Via both have dropped out of the chipset market. That must really be a tough market right now. Who is left AMD, Intel, and SiS? I have not liked anything I have gotten from SiS in a very long time.

[jay.viz @ Aug 11th 2008 12:35PM]

When did nvidia drop out?

[futurepastnow @ Aug 11th 2008 12:28PM]

VIA made decent chipsets if you're desperately on a budget... better than SiS, that's for damn sure.

[LinkDJ @ Aug 11th 2008 12:28PM]

"it leaves other third-party chip manufacturers like SiS with some tough questions to ask themselves."

Yeah, like "Hey, Where are we going to put all of this money?"

[Montusama @ Aug 11th 2008 12:29PM]

Does this mean no more miniitx mobo's? or is just just related to via's less important part of their business the consumer pc market?

If i remember correctly via's main business is in mini-itx computers not consumer based ones (other than chipsets they make)

[Ian @ Aug 11th 2008 1:39PM]

Do you guys read? It quite clearly says

"it's quitting the motherboard chipset business in order to focus on processors and chipsets for motherboards that use its own Nano CPU"

[ajfarson @ Aug 11th 2008 2:42PM]

Goodbye VIA... there is no room in the chip industry for a 3rd player... there is barley room for two. Motherboards paid the bills... dumb business move.

[limaxray @ Aug 11th 2008 3:04PM]

This is a smart move and I think a lot of people are missing the big picture here: the age of motherboard chipsets is coming to an end, period. The big thing now is smaller, more power efficient devices, and not faster and more powerful devices as it has been in the past. The fact is, just about everyone, sans the gamer minority, want smaller, more portable devices. One of the best ways to do this is with monolithic platforms; ie a system-on-a-chip. I'm really glad to see VIA focus on the embedded x86 market because this is the way to go (until we finally kill off the ancient x86 that is)

[sotec_productions @ Aug 11th 2008 2:58PM]

My god! Did no one RTFA?

It's as if everyone read the words VIA, quitting, and motherboard and lost their shit, "Oh no, VIA is gone man! Show's over!"

As Ian so kindly pointed out, they are not quitting the motherboard business, they are simply saying that with the new developments Intel and (eventually) AMD are pushing which will include the video chipset ON the CPU chip, there is really no reason for VIA to sink in the dying chipset market. Now that they have sustainable CPU's pushing hard, they are going to focus on that market and become a player in the monster CPU game. (that might take a while as they have no dualcore's that I'm aware of).

Just to summarize, this will mean that motherboards from here on out will very rarely if ever be impregnated with VIA vga chipsets. VIA will have it's own line of CPU's, vga chipsets, and motherboards to support. No more Intel with VIA chipsets, and no more AMD/asus/foxconn, etc with VIA chipsets. You will be able to buy an entire VIA hardware system.

www.mini-itx.com

[FuzzyCat @ Aug 12th 2008 4:03AM]

It doesn't help that the headline is sensationalist bullshit.

[Knives_Out @ Aug 11th 2008 3:18PM]

KT266a !!!!!!!!!!

[brons2 @ Aug 11th 2008 5:20PM]

This is a good move for Via, they can focus on their highly profitable mini-ITX stuff. They can get better profits in that area as an established and dominant player. (Intel's Atom notwithstanding). They make some great low power stuff for appliances, have procs as fast as 1.2 Ghz with passive cooling and mini-ITX boards as fast as 1.0 Ghz using only 7 watts.

[RobMtl007 @ Aug 11th 2008 8:58PM]

Greetings:

Does this mean that the Pico Motherboards will go on sale.

Via Pico Motherboards are probably the smallest motherboards ever made.

Regards Robert

[Josh @ Aug 12th 2008 4:13AM]

I for one see this as the first step in the inevitable nVidia/Via merger. nVidia does the Chipsets and Video Cards, Via does the CPUs. Kinda like Intel and AMD/ATi. (Yes I know nVidia makes chipsets for both AMD and Intel right now)