I don't understand why anyone would bother with a P4, ESPECALY with slower ram. I'll take an Athlon and DDR (or pc133) system any day of the week. P4's are slow, power hungry, hot, etc. whereas athlongs are...oh wait, all the same things. never mind
-- The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
Intel shouldn't do this...
by
krogoth
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I take it their main product aimed at desktop systems is CPUs, not chipsets. Right now they are trying to cut their CPU off from another part of the market so they can sell more chipsets later - reducing the sales of their main product for the benefit of a secondary product.
--
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
Of course they are..
by
XaXXon
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Of course Intel is going to tell computer manufacturers not to use the other guy's chipset. And the reason? Not because it isn't compatible, or isn't as fast as the Intel alternative, but because Intel will sue them if they do. Because Intel can't/won't put out a chipset that people want to use (only offering RDRAM or old and slow PC133), they sure as hell don't want someone else doing it. With how poorly the P4 is doing, however, you'd think Intel would be happy to have something out there to move more chips..
Re:Of course they are..
by
VAXman
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There's a fatal flaw in your assessment; Intel has licensed the P4 bus to both ALi and SiS and both are releasing DDR chipsets within the next month. The problem is not that Intel doesn't want others producing chipsets, it's that it doesn't want people producing chipsets without a bus license. There's really nothing more to this than what the headline says.
Intel Just Jealous
by
robbyjo
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Buy the VIA chipset. You should jump on it quick though. In a month or two, VIA will be so buried in legal paperwork that they won't be able to put a resistor in a box without a court injunction. It's really too bad that Intel can't let this slide, but I'm guessing that Intel and Rambus(t) have been in bed together so long that someone forgot where the key to the handcuffs is. Some Intel CPO woke up one day to find himself gagged and bent over a box, and his lawyers told him they couldn't do anything, but that they'd take some pictures to remind him in the future that KY and a condem aren't all that's needed in the corporate world.
</speculation>
-- LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
A couple thoughts
by
Brad+Wilson
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
First, to those who wonder exactly how it is that Intel can limit things that interface with the P4... they use patents to prevent it. By patenting the interface into the P4, nobody can use it without licensing the patent.
Second, I wouldn't believe either side yet. Lawyers have a tendency to slightly over-react. If motherboards come out and you get one, don't worry about it. You won't be liable for using the supposed "renegade" technology. Of course, IANAL, so everything I said was a lie.:):)
3 boxes in my home office. All Athlons. I don't dislike Intel; I just dislike Intel's pricing.
I don't get it...
by
Judg3
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Intel plans on releasing a chipset that supports DDR DRAM within a month or so ANYWAY, so whats the point of this fight? Does Intel make MORE money licensing the chipsets that use their processors then the processors themselves?
To me, at least, I think it's just that Intel got a little egg on their face and is now trying to use their muscle to halt it.
-- Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Re:I don't get it...
by
Drakantus
·
· Score: 3, Troll
The real issue is this: intel can't controll VIA, and the P4X266 chipset shows decent performance. This screws up intel's original plan: release i845 with SDR ram support, with poor performance. Later add DDR support, but artificially cripple the chipset so it still performs poorly. Then, say "we told you so, RAMBUS RAM is the only way to get good performance with the processors of the future, look we tried DDR and it still sucks, so you just have to pay the extra and use RDRAM".
-- I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
License to be compatible?
by
Frater+219
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Just to clarify the headline: Intel is not "warning" people that using the VIA chipset is dangerous -- that it might harm their Pentium 4 processors -- but rather that they wish it were illegal. A quote from the article:
"They are not licensed to sell products that are compatible with the Pentium 4," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.
Mr. Malloy and his superiors apparently believe that they have "intellectual property" not only in their patents, but also in devices they may have never seen which interoperate with their patents. I believe that this idea was settled in Nintendo v. Galoob, the "Game Genie" case, in which Galoob's right to create a device that interoperated with the NES game console (and which modified the behavior of the latter, no less!) was upheld.
Should be safe to ignore
by
BlowCat
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I could not find any technical arguments
in the Intel's statement. It's a legal
problem between VIA and Intel.
It should be safe
to ignore this warning.
I doubt that Intel can sue users
of VIA motherboards.
Intel and Playing Hardball?
by
ackthpt
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
And we just finished all this dirty laundry of Microsoft today, too. Intel is worried that you may not have the same quality chipset, since VIA wants to do things their own way, and hasn't waited for Intel's blessing. What it really comes down to is that Via is the big dog, in Taiwan, and has tired of kowtowing to the Santa Clara based company. Intel has licensing arrangements with smaller competitors of Via, in Taiwan, and is probably just trying to extort enough money to level the playing field, as the Via chipset is a few dollars cheaper than the Intel sanctioned sets.
I'd give Via the benefit of the doubt, considering that Intel is still flapping their gums about how good RDRAM is, even after Craig Barrett put Rambus down.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Warning: My competitors eat boogers!
by
gnovos
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Wow, how desperate do you have to be to actually warn against a competitor by name and tell your customers not to chose them. What ever happened to advertising your products strengths as opposed to your opponents weaknesses?
Now, I am not going to say anything about Intel's products, but it is REALLY grasping a straws when the only ammunition you have is whining to your clients that your cheaper, quicker, and more savvy competition may not have it's licensing in order...
-- "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Re:The nature of Intel's relationship with Rambus
by
Grishnakh
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Intel has a contract with Rambus that if they sell a certain number of Rambus-requiring chipsets by a certain date, they get a huge pile of Rambus stock. Intel wants to push Rambus crap down their customers' throats whether they want it or not. One of Intel's Values that they give so much lip service to is "Customer Orientation". But in reality, Intel doesn't care at all about its customers, only that it can control them and milk them for extra profits.
The PII/PIII serial number "Big Brother Inside" disaster.
And now this. And never mind the fact that, when you buy Intel, you get the honor of paying more for less performance. What a joke. Has it never occurred to these corporate idiots that they're losing market share?
And in case anyone from Intel is reading this... Hey guys, there's a reason your numbers are declining: many people don't find your products competitive anymore. You might have been able to get away with such tactics five years ago, but not anymore. I'm running a K6-II right now, and if there was ever a miniscule chance that I'd have purchased an Intel chip in the future or even recommended one to someone else, it's gone now.
-- That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
It's astonishing how an article could spend that long talking about Intel suing VIA over a chipset which introduces a new DRAM type to an Intel CPU and not mention Intel's PC133 fiasco of two years ago.
For those who don't know, the only reason PC133 exists (as a PC standard DRAM type) is because of VIA. Flashback to early 1999: Intel had the market for chipsets (for Intel processors) almost completely to itself, riding on the enormously successful 440BX chipset, which used PC100. However, P3 speeds were ramping up while memory speeds had been stuck at PC100 for a couple years. The obvious thing to do was to update the BX to support a 133MHz FSB. After all, it was a dead-simple engineering trick (every BX mobo at the time could easily overclock to 133; many were stable up to 150), and the memory makers were already making SDRAM which could safely run at 133 but clocking at 100 because that was the highest official speed.
But instead--and unbeknownst to most of the techie world at that point--Intel had a contract with Rambus which offered them many goodies like the ability to make RDRAM controllers royalty-free (others paid up to 5%) and lots and lots of stock options. However, the contract was contingent on, among other things, Intel agreeing to do everything reasonably in their power to prevent "next-generation DRAM" types other than RDRAM from being paired with Intel processors for the consumer desktop. "Next-generation" was defined as > 1GB/s bandwidth.
PC133 has a bandwidth of 1.066 GB/s.
Moreover, Intel *thought* it was putting the finishing touches on the ill-fated RDRAM-only (at that point) i820 (Camino) chipset, with which they were going to introduce new and badly needed 133MHz FSB P3s. Instead, engineering delays involving the difficulties of getting RDRAM working (eventually they had to settle for only 2 RIMM slots instead of the original 3, a per-channel limitation which remains to this day), and the difficulties of getting a memory translator hub which allowed PC100 to be used on the i820 (a last minute addition when they realized people weren't exactly going to pay $500 for 128MB of RAM) working, pushed the release date back 6 months or so, until November.
Just to reiterate: Intel put off releasing 133MHz FSB P3s, and then when they did release them said that consumers could only use them with a buggy chipset, limited to 2 RAM slots, which offered one's choice of an extra-slow translated implementation of PC100 or of RDRAM which cost 10 times as much per bit as SDRAM. Meanwhile, tests with BX chipsets overclocked to 133 MHz FSB showed that this solution was significantly *faster* than the i820 + RDRAM chipset!
Into this world stepped VIA offering the Apollo133 chipset, the first P3 chipset explicitly designed to use PC133. Nevermind that it was probably *less* stable than an Intel BX overclocked to 133 MHZ FSB. Nevermind that it underperformed the BX@133 as well. And nevermind that then, as now, Intel sued VIA with all their might, among other things requesting injunctions forbidding all VIA products from leaving Taiwan. (The pretext then was that VIA was abusing Intel IP by using the P3 bus with a DRAM type Intel had not sanctioned.)
VIA quickly gained > 50% of the P3 chipset market.
Indeed, the only reason you see ALi, SiS, and soon-to-be nvidia and others getting into the 3rd-party chipset market is because VIA paved the way a couple years ago.
Intel tried every FUD tactic in the book, from suing in multiple jurisdictions to claiming that PC133 SDRAM was not stable (the DRAM itself! And this from the company which had spent the past year patching bugs with RDRAM!). Intel got their ass handed to them in court, and by in the summer of 2000 introduced the i815, essentially the BX@133 product they should have introduced in late 1998.
Intel doesn't like getting humiliated, though, and they've had a seemingly personal vandetta against VIA ever since. In retaliation, they denied VIA the chance to license the P4 bus, as ALi and SiS and (interesting) ATi have done. (This is the basis for the current *threatened* suits. However, it's interesting to note that the P4X266 is currently shipping and no suits have yet been filed, meaning this is probably just a bluff on Intel's part.)
Intel reps were even seen at the recent Comdex show threatening mobo makers who had VIA promotional balloons flying at their booths. All the balloons were taken by the Intel people.
However, Intel's case this time is as flimsy as last. Disregarding potential antitrust concerns, the fact remains that NatSemi, whom VIA recently purchased *did* have a license for the P4 bus, and thus so does VIA.
So does this mean VIA will have similar success as last time? Well, I think they'll easily prevail in court if it comes to that, although it appears that Intel may be playing this one all FUD and no bite: warning mobo manufacturers not to use the P4X266 rather than actually filing any lawsuits. While of course not stated in the article, the well-documented fact is that Intel is telling the mobo makers that if they use the VIA chipset they will have their allocation of Intel's SDRAM (and soon-to-be DDR) P4 chipset, the i845, curtailed or dropped altogether. The result will likely be that only the third-tier mobo makers, who probably wouldn't have gotten a Brookdale allotment anyways, will be using the P4X266.
But another reason VIA won't snap up the P4 chipset market is much more hopeful. SiS' DDR Athlon chipset, the 735, has earned rave reviews, significantly beating every other chipset around. Their upcoming 635 chipset for the P4 will offer all that and more, including support for 333MHz DDR (PC 2700) which is coming down the pipeline now.
And they *do* have a P4 license.
Re:There's history here.
by
DeeKayWon
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Actually, it was S3 that VIA bought. S3 and Intel had a 10-year cross-licensing agreement, and according to VIA, that's what's gives them the Pentium 4 bus license.
VIA's dealings with NatSemi were the above-mentioned buyout of Cyrix IP, plus VIA contracted NatSemi to do manufacturing of their Pentium 3 chipsets after Intel revoked VIA's P6 bus license.
Licencing, P4 bundles with Rdram, and stupid Intel
by
jabagi
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There is a short explanation from a VIA executive about the legal threats in Tom's Hardware Guide. Via is basicly saying that they will cover any legal fees board manufacters might be liable to pay to Intel for manufacturing Via's new chipset. It seems that Via is expecting a huge amount of profit from this new chipset.
I also have a question for those in the US. Can you buy single P4 chipsets without Rdram? When P4 came out here they only sold them with Rdram bundles, but now they actually sell P4s and their RDrams seperately. What they do is take out the Rdram that came in a P4 box and sell them seperately. I wonder if that's legal...
BTW, I am actually beginning to hate Intel. I never liked them since I have known about AMD and some of Intel's monopolisctic tactics but it gets very annonying to hear them sue or slander some other company or technology every week.
I know it's sort of meaningless to ask legal questions on/. but I'll ask anyway: Could I for example build a fan specificly designed for P4s without Intel's consent? Would I get sued? Just because Intel has filed patents?! I mean Via must have produced its own cpu interface for P4. Other than that, it's just the number and the layout of the CPU pins they are using. Intel's gonna sue Via because of this?!!? Can somebody explain?
-- Can someone tell me what this "Sig" box is for??
Article translation
by
lie+as+cliche
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Intel Corp. (INTC - news), in its ongoing dispute with Via Technologies Inc., of Taiwan, is warning computer makers to steer clear of a new chip set from Via that could enable the manufacturers to build cheaper Pentium 4-based PCs by enabling them to use a less costly high-speed memory technology.
Intel, as part of dirty tricks against competitor Via, released anti-Via messages in the media thinly diguised as a public service warning, alerting consumers to the alarmingly lower costs of its competitor's products.
Intel claims that Via does not have the necessary licensing for its Apollo P4X266 chip set.
An Intel executive somehow decided it would be helpful to their profits to inform the public that Via concerns itself with manufacturing products rather than getting into bed with Intel.
Intel representatives have privately cautioned PC and motherboard manufacturers in the United States and overseas against using the product, saying it could draw them into a costly legal battle, said sources with some of those companies.
Determined to go all the way with the bad press, Intel threatened prospective corporate clients of their competitor with legal action if they used the more efficient product.
Intel has repeatedly taken Via to court over licensing disputes and is currently is pursuing a lawsuit involving chip sets designed by Via for use with Athlon processors made by rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel has a history of fighting its competition in the courtroom rather than in the marketplace.
According to Intel, Rambus offers the best performance.
Intel apparently considers itself credible enough to offer "impartial" advice to consumers.
Pricing has become a key issue this year as Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., and PC makers struggle through an industrywide slump.
Intel is nervous and jumpy about this, despite claims inferring that Via produces an inferior product.
Amid weaker-than-expected sales of the Pentium 4, Intel has announced it will release an SDRAM chip set next month and a DDR product early next year.
Intel's numbers are down and it's looking to point fingers. Intel itself plans to use similar manufacturing techniques to those it defames, but can't get them into the marketplace as fast as its competition.
But with Via releasing its DDR chip set now, the company, which holds about a 35 percent share of the world chip set market, stands to reap financial rewards by beating Intel to the market by several months.
Whereas Via has all their ducks in a row, stands to profit from it, and Intel doesn't like it, opting for a smear campaign.
Following Via's announcement this week, Intel claimed the company is not authorized to sell the product.
Lacking in actual facts against Via's product, Intel simply repeated the same gripes over again to pad out the press release.
"They are not licensed to sell products that are compatible with the Pentium 4," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.
And over again.
Mulloy would not say whether Intel was warning its business partners to avoid using Via's product, saying only that "those discussions are typically very private."
Intel refused to admit to telling companies the same thing behind closed doors that it's currently telling the public in a national press release, describing it as a very private matter.
However, a Via representative confirmed that companies had reported such incidences to them.
However, its competitor says they know Intel has.
Brown declined to discuss the licensing controversy, saying only that Via was "comfortable with this."
Brown was reluctant to say anything without running it through Via's legal department first, but suggested he didn't think Intel had a leg to stand on.
In other news, sources at Intel say they've decided to forego this kind of shallow denouncement in favor of simply advertising its competitors products in a line of television and print advertisements.
What kind of godawful reporting is this? Intel smear campaigns billed as news... Didn't they bother interviewing the companies in question that Intel was suspected of threatening, rather than getting a very biased "Did not!" "Did too!" from Intel and Via? Sheesh. I'm surprised this was accepted by Slashdot, although it was fun ripping it apart. Blatant corporate hijinx are beat sitcoms hands-down for entertainment value.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll use an AMD chipset instead, and build a dual AthlonMP system.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
I don't understand why anyone would bother with a P4, ESPECALY with slower ram. I'll take an Athlon and DDR (or pc133) system any day of the week. P4's are slow, power hungry, hot, etc. whereas athlongs are...oh wait, all the same things. never mind
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
I take it their main product aimed at desktop systems is CPUs, not chipsets. Right now they are trying to cut their CPU off from another part of the market so they can sell more chipsets later - reducing the sales of their main product for the benefit of a secondary product.
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
Of course Intel is going to tell computer manufacturers not to use the other guy's chipset. And the reason? Not because it isn't compatible, or isn't as fast as the Intel alternative, but because Intel will sue them if they do. Because Intel can't/won't put out a chipset that people want to use (only offering RDRAM or old and slow PC133), they sure as hell don't want someone else doing it. With how poorly the P4 is doing, however, you'd think Intel would be happy to have something out there to move more chips..
Because they can't outperform Via. Thus... just like their partner, Rambus, counter attack with lawsuit. What a classic. Meanwhile, Via has a very strong case, too.
Some bits here and here at Anandtech, and there is another one at Hardware Central. Then, here and here at Tom's Hardware.
All says: Via Rocks, Intel sucks. I'll leave it to you to judge.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Buy the VIA chipset. You should jump on it quick though. In a month or two, VIA will be so buried in legal paperwork that they won't be able to put a resistor in a box without a court injunction. It's really too bad that Intel can't let this slide, but I'm guessing that Intel and Rambus(t) have been in bed together so long that someone forgot where the key to the handcuffs is. Some Intel CPO woke up one day to find himself gagged and bent over a box, and his lawyers told him they couldn't do anything, but that they'd take some pictures to remind him in the future that KY and a condem aren't all that's needed in the corporate world.
</speculation>
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
First, to those who wonder exactly how it is that Intel can limit things that interface with the P4... they use patents to prevent it. By patenting the interface into the P4, nobody can use it without licensing the patent.
:) :)
Second, I wouldn't believe either side yet. Lawyers have a tendency to slightly over-react. If motherboards come out and you get one, don't worry about it. You won't be liable for using the supposed "renegade" technology. Of course, IANAL, so everything I said was a lie.
3 boxes in my home office. All Athlons. I don't dislike Intel; I just dislike Intel's pricing.
Intel plans on releasing a chipset that supports DDR DRAM within a month or so ANYWAY, so whats the point of this fight? Does Intel make MORE money licensing the chipsets that use their processors then the processors themselves?
To me, at least, I think it's just that Intel got a little egg on their face and is now trying to use their muscle to halt it.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Just to clarify the headline: Intel is not "warning" people that using the VIA chipset is dangerous -- that it might harm their Pentium 4 processors -- but rather that they wish it were illegal. A quote from the article:
Mr. Malloy and his superiors apparently believe that they have "intellectual property" not only in their patents, but also in devices they may have never seen which interoperate with their patents. I believe that this idea was settled in Nintendo v. Galoob, the "Game Genie" case, in which Galoob's right to create a device that interoperated with the NES game console (and which modified the behavior of the latter, no less!) was upheld.
I could not find any technical arguments in the Intel's statement. It's a legal problem between VIA and Intel. It should be safe to ignore this warning. I doubt that Intel can sue users of VIA motherboards.
I'd give Via the benefit of the doubt, considering that Intel is still flapping their gums about how good RDRAM is, even after Craig Barrett put Rambus down.
Meanwhile, Rambus failure to overturn on appeal the SDRAM fraud charge is blowing up in their face with a slough of shareholder class action suits.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wow, how desperate do you have to be to actually warn against a competitor by name and tell your customers not to chose them. What ever happened to advertising your products strengths as opposed to your opponents weaknesses?
Now, I am not going to say anything about Intel's products, but it is REALLY grasping a straws when the only ammunition you have is whining to your clients that your cheaper, quicker, and more savvy competition may not have it's licensing in order...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Intel has a contract with Rambus that if they sell a certain number of Rambus-requiring chipsets by a certain date, they get a huge pile of Rambus stock. Intel wants to push Rambus crap down their customers' throats whether they want it or not. One of Intel's Values that they give so much lip service to is "Customer Orientation". But in reality, Intel doesn't care at all about its customers, only that it can control them and milk them for extra profits.
Let's see now...
The Pentium FPU error recall debacle.
The PII/PIII serial number "Big Brother Inside" disaster.
And now this. And never mind the fact that, when you buy Intel, you get the honor of paying more for less performance. What a joke. Has it never occurred to these corporate idiots that they're losing market share?
And in case anyone from Intel is reading this... Hey guys, there's a reason your numbers are declining: many people don't find your products competitive anymore. You might have been able to get away with such tactics five years ago, but not anymore. I'm running a K6-II right now, and if there was ever a miniscule chance that I'd have purchased an Intel chip in the future or even recommended one to someone else, it's gone now.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
It's astonishing how an article could spend that long talking about Intel suing VIA over a chipset which introduces a new DRAM type to an Intel CPU and not mention Intel's PC133 fiasco of two years ago.
For those who don't know, the only reason PC133 exists (as a PC standard DRAM type) is because of VIA. Flashback to early 1999: Intel had the market for chipsets (for Intel processors) almost completely to itself, riding on the enormously successful 440BX chipset, which used PC100. However, P3 speeds were ramping up while memory speeds had been stuck at PC100 for a couple years. The obvious thing to do was to update the BX to support a 133MHz FSB. After all, it was a dead-simple engineering trick (every BX mobo at the time could easily overclock to 133; many were stable up to 150), and the memory makers were already making SDRAM which could safely run at 133 but clocking at 100 because that was the highest official speed.
But instead--and unbeknownst to most of the techie world at that point--Intel had a contract with Rambus which offered them many goodies like the ability to make RDRAM controllers royalty-free (others paid up to 5%) and lots and lots of stock options. However, the contract was contingent on, among other things, Intel agreeing to do everything reasonably in their power to prevent "next-generation DRAM" types other than RDRAM from being paired with Intel processors for the consumer desktop. "Next-generation" was defined as > 1GB/s bandwidth.
PC133 has a bandwidth of 1.066 GB/s.
Moreover, Intel *thought* it was putting the finishing touches on the ill-fated RDRAM-only (at that point) i820 (Camino) chipset, with which they were going to introduce new and badly needed 133MHz FSB P3s. Instead, engineering delays involving the difficulties of getting RDRAM working (eventually they had to settle for only 2 RIMM slots instead of the original 3, a per-channel limitation which remains to this day), and the difficulties of getting a memory translator hub which allowed PC100 to be used on the i820 (a last minute addition when they realized people weren't exactly going to pay $500 for 128MB of RAM) working, pushed the release date back 6 months or so, until November.
Just to reiterate: Intel put off releasing 133MHz FSB P3s, and then when they did release them said that consumers could only use them with a buggy chipset, limited to 2 RAM slots, which offered one's choice of an extra-slow translated implementation of PC100 or of RDRAM which cost 10 times as much per bit as SDRAM. Meanwhile, tests with BX chipsets overclocked to 133 MHz FSB showed that this solution was significantly *faster* than the i820 + RDRAM chipset!
Into this world stepped VIA offering the Apollo133 chipset, the first P3 chipset explicitly designed to use PC133. Nevermind that it was probably *less* stable than an Intel BX overclocked to 133 MHZ FSB. Nevermind that it underperformed the BX@133 as well. And nevermind that then, as now, Intel sued VIA with all their might, among other things requesting injunctions forbidding all VIA products from leaving Taiwan. (The pretext then was that VIA was abusing Intel IP by using the P3 bus with a DRAM type Intel had not sanctioned.)
VIA quickly gained > 50% of the P3 chipset market.
Indeed, the only reason you see ALi, SiS, and soon-to-be nvidia and others getting into the 3rd-party chipset market is because VIA paved the way a couple years ago.
Intel tried every FUD tactic in the book, from suing in multiple jurisdictions to claiming that PC133 SDRAM was not stable (the DRAM itself! And this from the company which had spent the past year patching bugs with RDRAM!). Intel got their ass handed to them in court, and by in the summer of 2000 introduced the i815, essentially the BX@133 product they should have introduced in late 1998.
Intel doesn't like getting humiliated, though, and they've had a seemingly personal vandetta against VIA ever since. In retaliation, they denied VIA the chance to license the P4 bus, as ALi and SiS and (interesting) ATi have done. (This is the basis for the current *threatened* suits. However, it's interesting to note that the P4X266 is currently shipping and no suits have yet been filed, meaning this is probably just a bluff on Intel's part.)
Intel reps were even seen at the recent Comdex show threatening mobo makers who had VIA promotional balloons flying at their booths. All the balloons were taken by the Intel people.
However, Intel's case this time is as flimsy as last. Disregarding potential antitrust concerns, the fact remains that NatSemi, whom VIA recently purchased *did* have a license for the P4 bus, and thus so does VIA.
So does this mean VIA will have similar success as last time? Well, I think they'll easily prevail in court if it comes to that, although it appears that Intel may be playing this one all FUD and no bite: warning mobo manufacturers not to use the P4X266 rather than actually filing any lawsuits. While of course not stated in the article, the well-documented fact is that Intel is telling the mobo makers that if they use the VIA chipset they will have their allocation of Intel's SDRAM (and soon-to-be DDR) P4 chipset, the i845, curtailed or dropped altogether. The result will likely be that only the third-tier mobo makers, who probably wouldn't have gotten a Brookdale allotment anyways, will be using the P4X266.
But another reason VIA won't snap up the P4 chipset market is much more hopeful. SiS' DDR Athlon chipset, the 735, has earned rave reviews, significantly beating every other chipset around. Their upcoming 635 chipset for the P4 will offer all that and more, including support for 333MHz DDR (PC 2700) which is coming down the pipeline now.
And they *do* have a P4 license.
I also have a question for those in the US. Can you buy single P4 chipsets without Rdram? When P4 came out here they only sold them with Rdram bundles, but now they actually sell P4s and their RDrams seperately. What they do is take out the Rdram that came in a P4 box and sell them seperately. I wonder if that's legal...
BTW, I am actually beginning to hate Intel. I never liked them since I have known about AMD and some of Intel's monopolisctic tactics but it gets very annonying to hear them sue or slander some other company or technology every week.
I know it's sort of meaningless to ask legal questions on /. but I'll ask anyway: Could I for example build a fan specificly designed for P4s without Intel's consent? Would I get sued? Just because Intel has filed patents?! I mean Via must have produced its own cpu interface for P4. Other than that, it's just the number and the layout of the CPU pins they are using. Intel's gonna sue Via because of this?!!? Can somebody explain?
Can someone tell me what this "Sig" box is for??
AMD is warning users not to use the Intel P4
Intel Corp. (INTC - news), in its ongoing dispute with Via Technologies Inc., of Taiwan, is warning computer makers to steer clear of a new chip set from Via that could enable the manufacturers to build cheaper Pentium 4-based PCs by enabling them to use a less costly high-speed memory technology.
Intel, as part of dirty tricks against competitor Via, released anti-Via messages in the media thinly diguised as a public service warning, alerting consumers to the alarmingly lower costs of its competitor's products.
Intel claims that Via does not have the necessary licensing for its Apollo P4X266 chip set.
An Intel executive somehow decided it would be helpful to their profits to inform the public that Via concerns itself with manufacturing products rather than getting into bed with Intel.
Intel representatives have privately cautioned PC and motherboard manufacturers in the United States and overseas against using the product, saying it could draw them into a costly legal battle, said sources with some of those companies.
Determined to go all the way with the bad press, Intel threatened prospective corporate clients of their competitor with legal action if they used the more efficient product.
Intel has repeatedly taken Via to court over licensing disputes and is currently is pursuing a lawsuit involving chip sets designed by Via for use with Athlon processors made by rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel has a history of fighting its competition in the courtroom rather than in the marketplace.
According to Intel, Rambus offers the best performance.
Intel apparently considers itself credible enough to offer "impartial" advice to consumers.
Pricing has become a key issue this year as Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., and PC makers struggle through an industrywide slump.
Intel is nervous and jumpy about this, despite claims inferring that Via produces an inferior product.
Amid weaker-than-expected sales of the Pentium 4, Intel has announced it will release an SDRAM chip set next month and a DDR product early next year.
Intel's numbers are down and it's looking to point fingers. Intel itself plans to use similar manufacturing techniques to those it defames, but can't get them into the marketplace as fast as its competition.
But with Via releasing its DDR chip set now, the company, which holds about a 35 percent share of the world chip set market, stands to reap financial rewards by beating Intel to the market by several months.
Whereas Via has all their ducks in a row, stands to profit from it, and Intel doesn't like it, opting for a smear campaign.
Following Via's announcement this week, Intel claimed the company is not authorized to sell the product.
Lacking in actual facts against Via's product, Intel simply repeated the same gripes over again to pad out the press release.
"They are not licensed to sell products that are compatible with the Pentium 4," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.
And over again.
Mulloy would not say whether Intel was warning its business partners to avoid using Via's product, saying only that "those discussions are typically very private."
Intel refused to admit to telling companies the same thing behind closed doors that it's currently telling the public in a national press release, describing it as a very private matter.
However, a Via representative confirmed that companies had reported such incidences to them.
However, its competitor says they know Intel has.
Brown declined to discuss the licensing controversy, saying only that Via was "comfortable with this."
Brown was reluctant to say anything without running it through Via's legal department first, but suggested he didn't think Intel had a leg to stand on.
In other news, sources at Intel say they've decided to forego this kind of shallow denouncement in favor of simply advertising its competitors products in a line of television and print advertisements.
What kind of godawful reporting is this? Intel smear campaigns billed as news... Didn't they bother interviewing the companies in question that Intel was suspected of threatening, rather than getting a very biased "Did not!" "Did too!" from Intel and Via? Sheesh. I'm surprised this was accepted by Slashdot, although it was fun ripping it apart. Blatant corporate hijinx are beat sitcoms hands-down for entertainment value.