NVidia Reportedly Will Exit Chipset Business

xav_jones sends along a story from X bit Laboratories claiming that NVidia is ready to quit making chipsets. That story links one from DigiTimes, which reports that NVidia has denied that it's getting out of the business. "[NVidia] is about to quit chipset business, which automatically means that the company's much-hyped multi-GPU SLI technology is either in danger or re-considered. Moreover, several mainboard makers have already ceased making high-end NVidia-based mainboards. [NVidia has]... reportedly decided to quit core-logic business to concentrate on development of graphics processors and following failure to secure license to build and sell chipsets compatible with Intel Corp.'s microprocessors that use Quick-Path Interconnect bus."

Comments

Damn

[Enderandrew]

Nvidia released nice overclocking tools, had good BIOS options, nice features (such a firewall built directly into the NIC), etc.

I always buy NForce chipsets.

Re:Damn

[WaroDaBeast]

nice features (such a firewall built directly into the NIC)

Actually, NAM can be very buggy. My system had never been really stable when it was installed; for example, I wasn't able to install a game without getting a BSOD. Just playing music in Winamp with nothing else open would crash my computer at times as well.

Re:Damn

[mariushm]

I don't have much experience with ATI chipsets but what I can say about nvidia's chipsets is that they're usually HOT and consume a lot of power.

I have an Asus mainboard with an Nforce2 chipset, it was great, with a great onboard soundcard (Soundstorm). Now, nVidia won't use a good soundcard anymore, to make their chips cheaper.

Now, I have an Asus mainboard with the Nforce4-SLI chipset... you can make eggs on it, that's how hot it is (see the P5ND2-SLI motherboard on google if you want). It's good, it's stable otherwise but nothing special.

Speaking about video cards...

Two or three years ago I had a Gigabyte Radeon 9200.
Gave it to my brother and bought an Asus nVidia 6600.
Now, I bought a Sapphire Radeon 4850.

What I can say is... maybe you don't realize it, because you have a LCD monitor, but me, with a 21" CRT monitor running at 1280x960, 100Hz... can definitely notice the improved 2D quality of the Radeon cards, compared to nVidia.
On nVidia cards the image is very slightly blurry.

ATI video cards are great, so are nVIDIA. On 2D ATI wins for sure, on 3D I don't know what to say.

The only thing I notice on 3D is that when a very new game is just released, some games have issues with ATI cards, which are (even when I had the Radeon 9200 was the same) solved in a week or so with the next video driver. Other than this minor inconvenience, I never really had problems with either ATI or nVidia.

Re:Damn

[Enderandrew]

I have an NForce5-SLI chipset with just air cooling. The whole system runs pretty cool, even with a 10% overclock.

Re:Damn

[Hektor_Troy]

you can make eggs on it, that's how hot it is

Well, I think you can cook eggs at around 60 deg C (140 deg F), which isn't that much, considering that you're trying to convey the image of a hotplate (mine can hit around 200 deg C).

Re:Damn

[Lord Apathy]

Well I think that I'm about to get called a troll but I've owned several systems over the last few years. Some have had nforce chipssets and others a mixture of AMD, Intel, and VIA. When I setdown and think about the systems that I have had the most trouble out of have nforce chipsets.

My current system has a AMD chipset in it and it has been the most stable and trouble free system I've. I bought two systems a few years ago. One for a linux server and the other for a HTPC. The linux server was a VIA / Bisostar system and the other was a Suttle nforce3. The biostar is now living in my sons room as a game machine and the shuttle is still a htpc. There has never been an issue with the biostar. But the shuttle has been the most troublesome system I've had. I've replaced everything in it from the graphics card, memory, cpu, and the PS and it still every 6 months eats itself. Last night the screen turned blue and it scragged the OS.

The system I had before this one was a Nforce4 and it had issues. Sometimes I had to cycle the power a couple of times to get it to boot. Once it was up it would run fine for months but would do some strange things.

I've know other people with nforce chipsets that have had no issues with them. But I do find it interesting that I do.

print page

[A little Frenchie]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/print/20080801105547_Nvidia_Set_to_Quit_Chipset_Business_Multi_GPU_SLI_Tech_in_Danger.html

Re:print page

[A little Frenchie]

oops... I forgot the second link: http://www.digitimes.com/print/a20080801VL203.html

In other news,

[Ethanol-fueled]

Several senior personnel who worked for the foundries which provided the faulty chips have been found dead in their homes. Though the deaths appear to be suicides, foul play has not been ruled out.

Nvidia Says: Bullshit; Chipset Business Strong

[AbsoluteXyro]

Is the correct title to this story. See here. "The story on Digitimes is completely groundless. We have no intention of getting out of the chipset business."

"Mercury Research has reported that the Nvidia market share of AMD platforms in Q2'08 was 60%," Del Rizzo said. "We have been steady in this range for over two years."

"We're looking forward to bring new and very exciting MCP products to the market for both AMD and Intel platforms," Del Rizzo added.

Ars Technia says this isn't true...

[metalcup]

Joel Hruska at Ars Technia appears to have spoken to NVidia, and the article he's written says NVidia is not going to quit the chipset market anytime soon. Looks like its just a rumor... http://arstechnica.com/journals/hardware.ars/2008/08/01/nvidia-to-ars-were-not-leaving-the-chipset-market

Dubious at best.

[bluephone]

Successful companies don't usually just pack it in and go home in market segments they've been in for a long time. Sure there are issues with some chipsets and certain features, but they're not going to just call it a day. Also, "failure to secure license"? So, what, Intel said "You can only make one bid to get a license," and nVidia failed and now quits? What about "ongoing negotiations"? This is for some IP, this isn't like the Yahoo-MS deal. It's in Intel's best interest to license QPI to nVidia, because it means more sales of Intel CPUs.

Nforce was great

[corychristison]

I really like the Nforce chipset.

In my experience they have always been stable and well supported.

Where does this leave us AMD users... I'm still not quite the fan of the AMD chipsets as they haven't been around long enough... all of the "performance" boards were Nvidia based. My current board has an Nforce 570.

How does the AMD 780 compare? Anyone?

Re:Nforce was great

[John Pfeiffer]

Don't have a 780 chipset myself, I have a 790, but I figure this ought to be just as relevant. I felt the same way when I built my latest machine back in February. I didn't want to go with an AMD chipset and ATI cards. I've been an ardent AMD fan for CPUs, but for the last two builds, I went from ATI to nVidia for graphics...

Of course, when I looked into it, it turned out that the latest ATI offerings beat the pants off of nVidia's, and the new CrossfireX SLI system looked like they took nVidia SLI, and changed everything that was wrong with it. Besides, there were no decent nVidia-based mobos that could socket a Phenom that I could find at the time. So I went with an AMD-based quad CrossfireX motherboard from ASUS (The M3A32-MVP Deluxe), and slapped a Phenom, 8gb of RAM, and a Radeon HD 3850 in it. (I later added a second 3850...technically I can still put two more in, too!)

I barely missed dual-NICs, the thing that got me most, was the lack of RAID5 support on the SATA chips... (Though I still haven't been in a position to need it.) As far as performance, it's been rock solid for me. My nVidia-based machine crashed and hung a hell of a lot more when gaming. As it is, I know this one HAS, but I can't clearly recall any one time. Even the onboard audio, despite being the same chip as my last nVidia machine, doesn't have the problems my old machine did. (Some audio samples being replaced with static and screeching in certain games.)

It's not all fun and games though, I also use the machine for graphics work. When I first put it together, I tested my passive CPU cooling setup by running an unbiased render of a complex scene in Fryrender for roughly 72 hours, keeping the cores maxed the whole time... Solid as a rock, AND never went above 41 degrees C. (Spent most of the time at 38C, when I wasn't heating up the apartment making dinner.)

So, all things considered, I'd say they make a damn good chipset. :D

Re:Open SLI

[MrStabby]

I'm referring to the motherboard performance, everybody knows that any on board graphics chipset is horrible, especially intel. But the X48 chipset has dual PCIx16 v2.0 and supports ATI Crossfire however nVidia's drivers refuse to allow X48 motherboards to support SLI with nVidia graphics cards, and many people have speculated that it could work if nVidia cooperated with Intel on the matter.

Ties between chipset and CPU

[owlstead]

Although this story seems groundless, it does look like the ties between CPU and chip set are getting stronger. This seems to be one of the reasons for ATI to be taken over by AMD. Intel was already creating its own chip sets and has a monopoly on defining an interface between the two. This is an interesting relationship since it would seem that the CPU is only part of the machine nowadays. I'm expecting that this relationship will turn around somewhere in the distant future.

With Intel it was always hard to sell your own chip set against theirs (for the desktop market). Now it will get harder with AMD as well, since they have the ATI chip sets to think about. It would be strange if there would not be some casualties. Hopefully nVidia is big enough to keep some chip sets around for some time. VIA has already given up, I hope their gamble on the embedded market pays off, although they will have pretty strong competition there as well.

Re:Ties between chipset and CPU

[Vanders]

If you notice, what you have is essentially four companies, who break down as:

1. Intel, who have their own CPU, chipset & video
2. AMD, who have their own CPU, chipset & video
3. Via, who have their own CPU, chipset & video
4. nVidia, who have their own chipset and video

Notice the odd one out? What do you think the logical long-term plan should be, if you were nVidia?

Re:Ties between chipset and CPU

[Vanders]

Yes, it's not like the good old days when anyone with enough capital could just buy up the IP of an existing CPU like Cyrix or the IDT WinChip and rework the core until it was usable: there isn't anyone left. One route for them might be to license the IP for something like Transmeta Efficeon and try to bring the core up-to date, but the overhead and effort required may make it more effort than it's worth.

Re:Ties between chipset and CPU

[fostware]

Yeah...

Via CPUs are crap, VIA chipsets are extra crap, and VIA video blows chunks.

nVidia have stuck to the things they do well.

The right thing to do...

[rmdyer]

I was never happy that nVidia got into the chipset business in the first place. If any company has a talent to specialize and do one thing really really well (in a competitive environment), then that is what they should continue to concetrate on. nVidia seems to have talented people who can ultimately bring us photorealistic graphics at high performance for our games, as well as other engineering, and creative needs. I really frown on companies that water down their core business by diversifying into areas which they shouldn't be messing about in.

This kind of thing seems to happen quite often and in other ways. For example, John Carmack seemed to really have a talent in producing great engines for games on the bleeding edge of what is possible with new PC technology. John drove PC gaming technology. But what does John do? John goes off to create rockets. And then he journeys off to work on pocket devices, which are basically PCs from 1995 running Win31 with 16 bit graphics. ;( John has allowed Crytek and other engine creators to walk all over id software. (Or maybe John and his company never really were that great to begin with?)

The whole nVidia chipset fiasco is what brought about the feud between Intel and nVidia so that we, the consumers, could not buy a Intel motherboard chipsets with nVidia SLI graphics. Shame.

Focus! Focus! You will never be great at something unless you do it well and are the best at it. A jack-of-all-trades rambling about between different technologies will not make you great, or competitive.

Re:The right thing to do...

[gujo-odori]

Simple: resources put to developing the chipsets are resources that are not being put to developing GPUs. I work for a company that up until a year and a half or so ago had a single product, which had then and has now the largest market share among vendors in that market. Then we launched a new product in a complementary market sector in which there is a dominant player. Sure, we hired new staff to work on this product and it has gained considerable traction in the last nine months and the dominant player in that market is probably starting to sweat :) However, some staff from our existing product line also moved onto that new product line and while development has continued on our core product and new features continue to be released and we continue to be number one in that market, we could have done more, faster if we were focusing on a single product line.

That doesn't mean nv was wrong to get into the chipset business. Certainly, my employer was not wrong to enter the complementary market sector we entered. Sales are going very well and there are great cross-sell opportunities between our two product lines. I can see us becoming the dominant player in this new market. However, that doesn't mean that entering a new market will not have an effect on your existing products, especially in the short term. I assure you it does.

The problem nv has in the chipset market, as I see it, is that they entered a very crowded market with a dominant player (Intel), which didn't really need another player, and they put themselves in direct competition with Intel, something they weren't when they only made GPUs. It got more complicated when AMD bought ATI, since that also put them in direct competition with AMD. If nv were to exit the chipset business they could make nice with Intel as a hedge against AMD. Thus, exiting the chipset business, even if they are profitable in it, could make business sense.

Sure, they deny it. Of course, a lot of these sorts of denied stories later turn out to mostly or wholly true. Time will tell, but I shan't be surprised if we see an announcement from nv in 3 months that they are leaving the chipset business. Who knows? They might even be able to sell some of their IP to Intel and recover some of their initial investment.

It appears this story is bogus

[SpaceLifeForm]

Link

Nvidia (NSDQ:NVDA) has asked Digitimes for "a full retraction" of a story appearing Friday in the tech journal that claims the Santa Clara, Calif.-based graphics chip maker "has decided to throw in the towel and quit the chipset business."

Link

Nvidia said Friday that there's no truth to a Taiwan report that claims it's exiting the chipset business.

That report was published by Digitimes, a normally fairly reputable IT publication that claimed that Nvidia met with its main motherboard clients this week and asked for support for its next-generation chipsets.

The motherboard makers' response? Silence.

Although such a withdrawal would be highly unlikely, ExtremeTech asked Nvidia for comment. "The story on Digitimes is completely groundless. We have no intention of getting out of the chipset business," said Bryan Del Rizzo, a company representative, in a statement. (The same statement was later resent as an official company statement.)

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[eonlabs]

Where the hell did this rumor even start?

It's like IBM stopping all work with Java or Starbucks announcing it will no longer sell baked goods at its stores.
Who even comes up with this stuff? On your mark, get set, castrate the company of your choice...

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[lewp]

Well, to be fair, this is about core logic chipsets (nForce). They aren't exactly core to NVIDIA's business. Besides, given how poorly AMD is fairing in the enthusiast market, the merger of ATI/AMD making NVIDIA an AMD competitor (nForce originally made its splash, and had its "glory days", for AMD), and the desire of Intel to push its own chipsets (which have also been quite good recently, lessening the room for an "enthusiast" class third party) I wouldn't be incredibly surprised to see them make this move -- even though they apparently aren't doing it now.

According to Ars, the original source was one of the motherboard manufacturers. Aside from NVIDIA themselves, they'd be most likely to know. But again, according to NVIDIA, this is a load of crap.

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple announced today that it will stop selling actual products and will only sell hype, in pretty packages of course.

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[j01123]

It's like IBM stopping all work with Java or Starbucks announcing it will no longer sell baked goods at its stores

or, Slashdot will only post stories after they've been fact-checked.

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[hairyfeet]

Let us look at the facts. 1. The inquirer,in a story I submitted over a day ago and is still rotting in pending BTW,reported that a several vendors are dropping the 790i chipset due to data corruption issues. 2. Nvidia has had a bad run of chips lately,and since the 790i boards are being pulled,it looks like that bad run is across the board(no pun intended). 3. Nvidia makes a BUTTLOAD of money from SLI,as there are way too many gamers that like having dual Nvidia monsters if nothing else for the bragging rights. 4. And finally the ONLY way you can go Nvidia SLI is with an Nforce board,which even with the economic downturn is still a VERY popular seller,at least it was last time i looked at the sales numbers.

So I think it is quite safe to say that the article is BS. BTW,if you want to read the inquirer story about the canceled 790i boards and which manufacturers are involved,it is right here. But considering they had to set aside 150 million for repairs and replacements of mobile GPUs,to kill the Nforce which is the only way they can sell two high priced boards to the same customer frankly would be suicide. The last thing they would do is a move like this that would make them look weak after the mobile GPU fiasco. So even if they have come up with some way to add SLI to a single board by some kind of drop in chip most likely they'd wait until the whole mobile GPU mess has blown away. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[Kamokazi]

Look at the editor who posted it...you suprised? Time to bust out the kdawsonfud tag.

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[rarel]

If you think about it, Starbucks abandoning Java would make for interesting news as well...

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[giminy]

Who even comes up with this stuff?

Probably someone trying to make money on stock...

Hopefully nVidia catches whoever started this one and successfully sues them for conspiracy to affect stock price, defamation, and a slew of other fun charges that I no doubt have never heard of...

Re:It appears this story is bogus

[NitroWolf]

Apple announced today that it will stop selling actual products and will only sell hype, in pretty packages of course.

That's not funny. Their garbage will still sell to the mindless assholes who buy their current packages of hype.

Except for the iPod. You'll have to pry my shiny iPod from my cold, dead hands.

Re:Open SLI

[TomHandy]

NVidia licensed SLI for the Intel X58 chipset (which will support both crossfire and sli). Pretty sure Skulltrail supports SLI as well.

Re:Open SLI

[Kamokazi]

They already have-X58 and Skulltrail (Extreme Gaming platform or whatever BS they decided to call it). And the Intel chipsets are just as good as the nVidia ones. Sometimes the nVidia's perform better, and sometimes the Intel's perform better. And that can of course vary by application too. Claiming the Intel chipsets are superior is just plain ignorant.

Re:If only

[techno-vampire]

I'd be happy if they'd just do a little debugging on their Linux drivers. After I bought an nVidia card for my Fedora 9 box, installed the drivers and got Compiz running, my system started hanging, sometimes several times a day. It was always when I was trying to come back from xscreensaver. After considerable googlemancy, I found an nVidea forum (Sorry, I don't have a link for it.) that had several hundred threads about screensaver issues with Linux. Apparently, there's a problem coming back from screensavers that do "line drawing." I don't know how true it is, or if it's been fixed, but I do know that ever since I set it to one screensaver only instead of random there hasn't been a problem. There's been an update, and I really should try again, but I haven't had the time for it as yet.

The word in the silicon valley...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is that NVidia is working on an Intel-compatible CPU.

My speculation:
They're probably shuffling resources internally, Their chipset designers might be working on the chipset to interface with their CPU.

You haven't heard this from me ;)

In Other Random Speculation...

[Enderandrew]

Slashdot Founder CmdrTaco reportedly plans to shut down the popular Slashdot web destination. "People forget my website was once largely just a portal for enlightenment themes. The purpose of Slashdot is to report on news that matters."

Slashdot will be replaced with a new web portal, OMGPonies which will focus on over reacting to all pony news that someone might have remembered reading on 4chan.

CmdrTaco has asked that the community assist him by submitting stories and drawings in the idiom of a otatu-catgirl and jacked up on pocky. We were unable to substantiate the rumor that the site will feature bedazzler fan art of Hannah Montana, despite CmdrTaco's legendary collection.

(Man, I'm just picking on that guy today!)

Re:And so, what ?....

[tyrione]

Apple announced today that it {...} will only sell hype, in pretty packages of course.

I fail to see how this is any different from the current situation. :-P

BeOS lost. Get over it.

this is good news.

[DragonTHC]

The nforce 6xx series chipsets were a striking failure. They did not work properly.

No motherboard manufacturer can claim 6xx boards with few problems.

Re:AMD / ATI chipsets are good on board with ram

[Calinous]

You could connect memory to be used ONLY by the video card on a special slot - it was used for laptops, I think. Also, if I remember correctly, Intel had an option to add a special card with RAM in the AGP port, and the chipset would use it as video memory.
      This was used as the video part of the chipset can use more memory bandwidth than the main RAM allows it, and using integrated graphics with main memory lowers the available bandwidth to the processor.