AMD HomeGrown Chipset?

[MrPanther0]

I was just wondering. Intel makes some killer chipsets. Nothing else really ever compares. I don't see why AMD doesn't make a really good chipset for their own processor. After all, they know their CPU better than any other company possibly could. My only thought is maybe their chipset would mess with nVidia's nForce and that would be against some sort of covenant they have. Or maybe since nVidia helped out the Athlons from the Palamino all the way up to the current k8's that AMD is being just plain nice?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by MrPanther0 on 04/15/04 11:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[trooper11]

well i think a big reason they dont move into that area more is money basically. to risk putting money into chipsets at this point may be too risky for them, since 3rd parties have done pretty well for them, especially nvidia. maybe at some point they will, but i doubt any time soon.

 

[endyen]

Afaik, the amd chipsets for athlons were ok, just not screamers. The Ali A64 chipset was mostly copied from the amd basic. Amd has said that they will not focus on chipsets, presumably because thier R&D team is focused on chips.

 

[Crashman]

AMD tried chipsets, they had problems with their southbridge. I think they'd want to start from scratch with the PCI controller, that's a big step in developement cost to get it to work as well as Intel's. And then they'd have to put onboard devices to keep up with the current market, such as onboard LAN. Have they produced a LAN controller in the past 3 or 4 years?

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[phial]

yea they tried, didnt work out taht great

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[P4Man]

Typically AMD will bring out a chipset to support its new CPU's, until third party solutions are market ready; they brought out the 750 irongate, 760, 760MPX, and now for K8 they also have all the neccessary chips.

Mostly AMD's chipsets are just pretty crude, basic chipsets, that work allright, but nothing much more. Rarely top performing, nor very feature rich. The main reason however, they do not invest in developping state of the art chipsets is not that they wouldnt be able to, its that they do not wish to compete with their chipset partners (like VIA, nVidia, SiS,..). Intel really pisses those companies off by heavily competing with them, even asking a "tax" per chipset.

You can afford to do that when you've got intels marketshare, since there is still money to be made in spite of the tax, and the competition by intel, but if AMD where to try that, those companies would just give AMD the middlefinger, and ignore the AMD market. So, unlike Intel, AMD actually tries to help those companies making a buck in the chipsetmarket, which in turn leads to better support, more competition and wider choice of chipset solutions for their cpu platform even though its just a small market compared to the intel chipset market. Don't foget, only a few years ago it was questionable *anyone* would invest in an AMD only chipset. With only 15-20% of the market, AMD can't afford intel's policy. I think they are doing the smart thing here, even if it has (had) its major downsides as well.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[MrPanther0]

All valid points, and i presume that AMD works closely with nVidia and VIA when they are developing their respective platforms. I would just love to see an amd system as stable as on based on the 875 from intel.

Anyone know how stable the nf3 -250 is?