VIA getting out of the Intel and AMD chipset business

Brian Ambrozy 11 Aug, 2008 at 3:05pm ET Article published in Tech

A sad day for the older computer enthusiasts in the crowd. I’m sure we all remember the heady days of VIA’s chipset mastery, especially in the Abit KT7A-RAID days. Those were the days of Icrontic’s meteoric rise to fame, and no small part of that was attributed to riding on the coattails of VIA’s chipsets. Our guides and member expertise with their platform were responsible for the birth of a whole generation of overclocking enthusiasts.

Alas, VIA have announced in an interview with CustomPC, that they are going to be focusing on platform development, their Nano CPU, and chipsets for the Nano.

Richard Brown, VIA’s Vice President of corporate marketing, said:

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.

Of course, as Fatcat says, “Well, if they had made something good after the KT133, this wouldn’t be happening.” Not known for stellar performance or even stability anymore, VIA’s exit from the chipset business doesn’t come as a huge shock.

Comments

11 Aug 2008 ~ 3:24pm Garg My Epox 8KHA+ with the KT266A rocked. Fond memories.
11 Aug 2008 ~ 3:28pm Thrax RIP KT266A and KT333CE
11 Aug 2008 ~ 5:43pm BlackHawk My KT133 (non A) can go DIAF.
11 Aug 2008 ~ 5:58pm BuddyJ I still rock my Shuttle AK-31a. KT266a and rounded corners FTW.
11 Aug 2008 ~ 6:11pm primesuspect Yeah my Shuttle SK31-G is still going. KT266a
11 Aug 2008 ~ 6:15pm Thrax I still have a KT133A, Asus A7V, that hasn't crashed in years. Solid as a rock. My mom's been using it since 2002, bought it in 2000.
11 Aug 2008 ~ 6:18pm primesuspect

Thrax wrote:

My mom's been using it since 2002, bought it in 2000.

I've been using your mom...... well, never mind.
11 Aug 2008 ~ 6:40pm Thrax I C WUT U DID THAR
11 Aug 2008 ~ 7:30pm Kwitko They have consolation in knowing that their Epia stuff rocks amazingly.
11 Aug 2008 ~ 11:50pm Leonardo

A sad day for the older computer enthusiasts in the crowd. I'm sure we all remember the heady days of VIA's chipset mastery

Mastery? Yeah, right. As Thrax alluded to, the KT266 and KT333 were very good, but not what I would call a benchmark by any means. It took VIA how many years just to come up to an acceptable standard?

Yes, I'm one of the "old" guys who started with KT100 and worked my way up. I remember in 2003 when I built two computers - one was an Intel with an Intel 975C chipset and the other was an AMD with an NForce 2 system. After the relative ease of building both of them, I realized on the spot that I would never, ever miss VIA chipsets.

The only positive that I can offer for VIA chipsets is that they enabled AMD to flourish. AMD CPUs + cheap VIA-based motherboards made many of us happy. ALI and SIS perhaps could have filled the gap had VIA not been there?
11 Aug 2008 ~ 11:52pm Thrax What are you talking about? The KT266 and KT333 were monster chipsets. There was none better for their day.

//EDIT: Mine were very stable and massive overclockers.
12 Aug 2008 ~ 3:43am Leonardo

There was none better for their day.

On AMD motherboards. I'll grant you that.
12 Aug 2008 ~ 11:28am BuddyJ If you fire up the Wayback Machine, you'd remember that VIA was the top dog just like AMD was. Until nForce came and upset things, VIA was the go-to for everyone... unless you'd rather have a SiS chip lol.
12 Aug 2008 ~ 12:59pm Leonardo

you'd remember that VIA was the top dog just like AMD was

It was top dog on AMD platforms because the competition - ALI and SIS, were even worse, not because of any particular merit of the VIA chipsets. AMD had produced some chipsets of their own, such as the 760 series. They were excellent, better than VIA, but were produced essentially to validate the Athlon platforms and to serve as a design blueprint for third parties, a la VIA. AMD did not have the capability to mass produce their own chipsets. VIA filled that gap.

VIA was critical for AMD's success, not because of any inherent innovation or quality, but because VIA was essentially the only mass production option available for AMD.

The day Nvidia released the NForce 2 chipset family, VIA became irrelevant except for the ultra low end market, to which it clung, and that only because of low cost.
12 Aug 2008 ~ 1:07pm Thrax That's not true at all, Leo. The KT266A and KT333 were regarded as being superior to the miserable AMD chipsets which were feature-light and hard to work with, both for vendors and end-users. Even during the Athlon 64's primary life, AMD's chipsets were a complete joke.

VIA became irrelevant because it made poor choices with the KT400 and on, not because all of its products were bad. VooDoo made the same mistake, and paid for it with their company.

VIA never made a real move for the Intel platform because Intel has always made and will continue to make solid, fantastic chipsets.
12 Aug 2008 ~ 2:32pm Leonardo Thrax, I am not eager to challenge you on the facts. I never used AMD chipsets, but had always read the they were good, just that they were only produced for demo platforms for the motherboard OEMs. And yes, I have not asserted that the 266 and 333 were anything other than very good. They were. I used them both. Before that though - ouch.
12 Aug 2008 ~ 2:51pm Jengo VIA has made a very smart business move. I would have done the same thing if my company sucked at making newer chip sets.

Now if only they figured out how to make a stable processor and chipset platform for that processor... *COUGH*C3 SUCKS*COUGH*

Hopefully their C7 Nano is much better, but ive never really looked into it.
15 Aug 2008 ~ 8:56pm PirateNinja

Gargoyle wrote:

My Epox 8KHA+ with the KT266A rocked. Fond memories.

I second that in so many ways. It was my first, my last, my every(very first enthusiast motherbaord)thing!

All good things..