NVIDIA Chipsets For…VIA Processors!?
One of the factors that lead to a bad view of their microprocessors in early to mid 1990s was the fact that AMD allowed virtually anyone to manufacture mainboards for them, while chipsets were also designed and manufactured without being closely supervised by AMD engineers, and this lead to the existence on the market of a lot of instable boards that lead people into thinking AMD processors were the problem. Now, it seems AMD and Intel are pushing their own processors and chipsets, sometimes assorted with their own integrated graphics processors too, and in less than two years we'll have full AMD or full Intel platforms, this leaving NVIDIA outside the chipset market...
Well, since NVIDIA can't simply let go, they made a very smart move, deciding to offer core-logic for VIA's processors. According to various reports, NVIDIA is set to offer chipsets for VIA's Isaiah processors, but while this hasn't been officially confirmed yet, we can't bet on it.
The tricky part of the whole deal is that, if the rumors are true, VIA will stop producing chipsets for its own processors, while S3, wholly-owned VIA subsidiary, will continue to design and manufacture discrete graphics chips (anyway, as long as they are not going to sell them in any other place than the official page, I don't see S3 grabbing back the market share lost, unless they are going to release a killer card with perfect drivers and low price...).
For now, NVIDIA and VIA are quiet regarding this matter, so I can't really say what's going to happen, but with the desktop and mobile market in AMD and Intel's hands, moving in the low cost area may be a wise decision for NVIDIA.
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