Although Nvidia was expected by motherboard makers to cut into the motherboard market with its "Designed by Nvidia" scheme, Drew Henry, general manager of MCP business at Nvidia recently came to Taiwan to clear the speculation in the market, while promoting the company's upcoming MCP 73 chipsets.
Nvidia pushed the standardized motherboard specification to assist makers in saving costs, pointed out Henry. It could help makers with fewer research resources to launch products quicker, while the more capable makers would be able to add their own exclusive functions to differentiate themselves in the market. However, many makers were confused by the scheme, and therefore Nvidia has decided to stop using it, but the strategy of pushing standardized motherboard and graphics cards will continue.
Henry pointed out that with the large market for chipsets supporting Intel CPUs, Nvidia's MCP 73 should be able to grab a greater market share due to its advantage over graphics technology. Nvidia currently also has an around 60% share in the AMD platform market. The company will continue the research products for both sides and expand its overall market share, Henry added.
The MCP 73's overall performance is far away from Intel's 3 series IGP products and can only compete with Silicon Integrated System's (SiS's) new SiS680 series chipset (to launch in the fourth quarter), according to sources at motherboard makers. With the similar performance, the victor of the two chipsets will depend on pricing strategy and under-the-table support from Intel.
Article translated by Joseph Tsai and edited by Ricky Morris
