Nforce and Xpress

[ThirtySixBelow]

Why is it that the graphics card companies make chipsets for motherboards? Is there a reason for this? I would think the motherboard companies would be making this kind of thing. So we would have ABIT and DFI chipsets, not Nforce chipsets. It just doesn't seem logical to me, but i'm sure there is a good reason.

 

[GForce64]

There are a few more dedicated chipset companies, such as VIA, SiS, and ULi, and Intel makes chipsets for their own processors. So it's not just the graphics companies.

Oh, and for your second comment, you know how hard it would be to standardize if 20-30 companies made their own chipsets?

 

[defakto]

Motherboard manufacturers put the board together with parts based off the specs that are passed to them from the chipset designers, I think vai is one of the few that do their own chipset designs. They usually use a reference lay out and improve what they can. it's much easier,and a whole lot cheaper for them to base a chipset off of something that was designed than to design their own chipset from the ground up.

 

[zoobaby]

Chipset development costs a lot. The overhead invovled is very significant. Since nVidia and ATI have already invested in the chip fabrication process for their video cores, they can invest in chipsets with only an incremental increase in overhead. Basically each new chip design runs into the millions of dollars to make and if it flops, that is a big loss. There is not really enough room for many players in the market.

The motherboard makers basically use a reference design from nVidia, SiS, ATI, ULi, Intel, and others. They then tweak it some to differentiate from the other board makers.