NVIDIA & ULi Acquisition Interview

Subject: Chipsets | December 23, 2005 - 04:09 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Firing Squad has cornered NVIDIA's chipset guru, Drew Henry, in an attempt to get more information on the recently announced acquisition of ULi by the green giant.

If I was forced to speculate, I would suggest mobile chipsets and SATA-II. Although NVIDIA offers nForce3 mobile chipsets, they've been unusually quiet for the last few years. From this interview, we now know that 2006 will be the year that NVIDIA will return to the mobile market in greater force.

NVIDIA to Acquire ULI Chipset Maker

Subject: Chipsets | December 14, 2005 - 10:54 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Well, this is certainly going to be a smack in the face to ATI's hopes in the chipset market.  NVIDIA is set to take over ULI's chipset business next year and that is nothing but bad news for the big red machine.  As most of you know the ATI motherboard south bridge chips have been plagued with issues and ATI's quick fix was to pair the Xpress 200 north bridge with a ULI south bridge, just like we saw on the Asus A8R-MVP motherboard I recently reviewed.&n

Intel 975X Chipset to Support Both SLI and CrossFire

Subject: Chipsets | September 13, 2005 - 01:19 AM | Ryan Shrout
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According to Digitimes Intel's upcoming 975X chipset will support both SLI and CrossFire dual graphics solutions, throwing yet another wrench into the world of multi-GPU systems.  Now perhaps an Intel platform for a gaming box looks a little better?

Intel's forthcoming high-end 975X chipset, which is expected to be launched in the first quarter of next year, will support both Nvidia's SLI and ATI Technologies' 'CrossFire' dual-graphics technology, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers.

Intel Buys Entry Level Chipsets from ATI

Subject: Chipsets | September 12, 2005 - 05:40 PM | Ryan Shrout
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This is an interesting turn of events; due to Intel's recent chipset shortage, Intel has started buying RC410 chipsets from ATI in order to fill in the gaps in their 915 chipset market. 

Intel has placed orders for PCIe-enabled RC410 chips from ATI Technologies in order to maintain its supply of 915-based motherboards as the chip giant is reportedly to phase out its 865 and 915PL/GL chipsets in the fourth quarter and exit the entry-level chipset market, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported t

ATI To Release Five New Chipsets

Subject: Chipsets | August 30, 2005 - 10:52 AM | Ryan Shrout
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This is pretty interesting news this morning.  Digitimes is saying that ATI has plans to introduce a new lineup of chipsets for the AMD Socket M2 in 2006.  They first mention the new ATI RD580 and RD580C chipsets, which we first saw mentioned at the recent ECS Editor's Day (see below) and from what we here these will have two full x16 PCIe connections to compete against the NF4 SLIX16 chipset.  There is also mention of a new integrated chipset, the RS and RX48

VIA Announces VN800 Mobile IGP Chipset

Subject: Chipsets | August 17, 2005 - 04:19 PM | Ryan Shrout
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VIA has announced the first chipset for the new mobile VIA C7-M processor.

VIA today announced the VIA VN800, the first chipset solution for the VIA C7-M™ processor with DDR2 memory support for fast and efficient system memory access and hardware MPEG-2 decoding for flawless DVD playback.

NVIDIA "Announces" nForce4 SLI X16 Chipsets

Subject: Chipsets | August 8, 2005 - 11:51 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Though it wasn't officially released or announced yet, NVIDIA sent out a PR this morning touting the use of a new chispet in an upcoming Dell system.  The XPS 600 series of system will now be using the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 MCP that gives the board a full x16 lanes of PCI Express to both graphics card slots and rids the system of any switching or paddle boards for moving between SLI and standard modes.  In all reality, this will mean nothing in terms of perfor

Intel Chipset Shortage Remains

Subject: Chipsets | May 26, 2005 - 12:03 PM | Ryan Shrout
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In other chipset news, it looks that even though Intel is saying no chipset shortage exists, the motherboard vendors in Taiwan have very different opinons. 

Intel recently stated that the tight supply has improved, as the company is able to meet both shipment and lead-time goals for most motherboard makers.

ATI's MVP "CrossFire" Will Boost ATI Chipset Sales

Subject: Chipsets | May 26, 2005 - 12:02 PM | Ryan Shrout
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File this one under, duh.  Digitimes is reporting that when ATI launches their upcoming multi-VPU technology at Computex, the demand for their chipsets that support this technology will increase dramatically.

ATI Technologies, which reportedly is set to roll out its long-anticipated multi-VPU 'Crossfire' technology at the upcoming Computex Taipei, may see a boost in its chipset shipments as well, local motherboard makers predict.

The new multi-VPU Crossfire will be a comparable technol

Foxconn Roadmaps Leak Upcoming Chipset Info

Subject: Chipsets | May 25, 2005 - 09:55 AM | Ryan Shrout
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I found these roadmaps in my inbox this morning that appear to have come from a Foxconn presentation of some kind. 

First up is the Intel roadmap; we can see that the NVIDIA chipsets are in red, the Intel chipsets in blue and the SiS chipsets are in green.  NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI is shown here as the Q2 2005 product and if you look to Q4 of 2005, you'll see another product called C60G and C60D.  These are very likely the upcoming integrated g

NVIDIA Preps C51 Chipset for K8 with Integrated GPU

Subject: Chipsets | May 10, 2005 - 10:29 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Digitimes is reporting that NVIDIA is readying its C51 chipset to enter the mainstream segment of the K8 market, both S939 and S754.  Apparently there are going to be two versions of the chip that will have two different graphics cores.  The report also says that NVIDIA may be lowering prices on their SLI chipsets.  If the prices Digitimes claims ATI is going to release their chips for are true, NVIDIA may be in a lot of trouble!

In addition, Nvidia plans to reduce the prices on its current l

Are VIA and ULi Going to Adopt SLI?

Subject: Chipsets | April 27, 2005 - 11:41 AM | Ryan Shrout
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According to this article at Digitimes, it looks like both VIA and ULi are going to obtain rights to use dual-graphics technology from both ATI and NVIDIA.  You'll remember that PC Perspective was one of the proponents of the SLI technology from NVIDIA being available to other chipset vendors, but at the time, NVIDIA claimed it was all a quality control issue.  Perhaps this shows that it was really a money issue after all?

Taiwan-based chipset makers including VIA Technologies and ULi expect to obt

VIA Announces Chipset Support for Dual Core AMD CPUs

Subject: Chipsets | April 21, 2005 - 10:14 AM | Ryan Shrout
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VIA is touting their complete support for dual core AMD processors with their K8 line up of chipsets, even though the Opteron was solely launched so far today.

VIA Announces Chipset Support for AMD Dual-Core Technology

Offering comprehensive support for AMD's latest Dual-Core AMD Opteron(TM) processors, VIA K8 Series chipsets ensure full compatibility with next generation processing solutions

Taipei, Taiwan, April 21 2005, - VIA Technologies, Inc, a l

NVIDIA SLI Ships 750,000 Units

Subject: Chipsets | April 20, 2005 - 12:24 PM | Ryan Shrout
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NVIDIA is touting the success of their SLI technology today, boasting sales of 750,000 so far as well as the new SLIzone website. 

SANTA CLARA, CA—APRIL 20, 2005—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today announced that it has shipped more than 750,000 NVIDIA nForce™4 SLI media and communication processors (MCPs) for the AMD64 market in the past five months.

Additionally, NVIDIA has started shipping its newly-announced NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition MCPs desi

nForce4 Intel Edition Review

Subject: Chipsets | April 14, 2005 - 10:29 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Xbit Labs has finally decided to take the NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition chipset for a spin.

Although the performance of the new NVIDIA solution with the DDR2-667 is very attractive, it is not its primary advantage. The major pride of nForce4 SLI (Intel Edition) is its rich functionality.

VIA Releases new Hyperion 4.56 Drivers

Subject: Chipsets | April 12, 2005 - 10:16 AM | Ryan Shrout
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VIA has released new chipset drivers for in the form of a Hyperion v4.56 release.  Catch them over at VIA Arena.

VIA Hyperion drivers are suitable for any VIA chipset and all Microsoft Windows 32 bit Operating Systems. Please read the information about all VIA chipset driver choices, however, so that you chose the drivers that can best be recommended for your system.

NVIDIA Announces nForce4 SLI Intel Edition

Subject: Chipsets | April 5, 2005 - 09:00 AM | Ryan Shrout
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Here's the official PR on the new Intel-based NVIDIA chipset.  You can read my chipset preview here.

NVIDIA To Re-enter Integrated Graphics Market for AMD

Subject: Chipsets | March 16, 2005 - 10:57 AM | Ryan Shrout
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It looks like FIC may have spilled some beans at CeBit this year, as they had a motherboard at the booth touting the use of an "NVIDIA C51G" chipset. 

While NVIDIA is tight-lipped over the core-logic code-named C51, some details about the chipset are still available. The C51G is a two-chip value solution for AMD Athlon 64 market.