Intel Reveals the End is Near for its Desktop Motherboards

[DarkSable]

Good freaking lord. Tom's needs to use less sensationalist headlines - this one seemed to imply the rumors about Intel switching to soldered-on CPU/Mobo combos was true.

 

[sykozis]

[citation][nom]festerovic[/nom]most companies buying workstations would likely choose intel over cheaper manufacturers like ECS, foxconn, jetway, etc. Businesses account for the big slice in the market, not system builders.[/citation]
Intel motherboards were produced by Foxconn....

[citation][nom]R[/nom]Intel makes motherboards? I thought Foxconn made Intel and IBMs motherboards as well as others.[/citation]
Foxconn produces a lot of motherboards for various companies....including Intel and IBM. Believe Foxconn has also built Intel NICs...could be wrong though.

 

[4745454b]

And it isn't darksable?

the company reaffirmed the popularity of its K-series CPUs and socketed platforms (even if we were able to confirm that there won't be any LGA-based Broadwell chips).

If there won't be any LGA BW chips, doesn't that mean BGA?

 

[ibjeepr]

I seriously don't understand how some of these posts end up with negative ratings.
As far as Intel making MB's, I agree that they probably aren't the go to manufacturer anymore. As more companies have started to target that lucrative business market share, such as ASRock, Intel just really doesn't need to play in this area anymore.

 

[snowzsan]

THUMBS DOWN!!!

But in all seriousness, anyone thumbing down bought an intel board and everyone commenting on tom's is going to pay for their poor decision making and buyer's remorse.

 

[cewhidx]

Hmmmm trying to remember the last Intel brand motherboard I had....oh yeah there wasnt one 😛

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]caskachan[/nom]That means not producing Motherboards and lettign third parties take care of it right?[/citation]
Intel will still be producing motherboards, just not for the slowly dying desktop market anymore.

The article says Intel will redirect desktop motherboard resources to all-in-one, ultrabooks and other form factors for future markets.

In other words, Intel is foreseeing the end of the conventional desktop PC, the future is embedded/integrated and mobile.

 

[SteelCity1981]

always thought intel based motherboards were crap anyhow.

 

[ojas]

hahahahahahahahahaha this is funny because: wasn't everyone so sure that intel would make its own mobos for broadwell because it was evil and all?

If Neil, Marcus or Chris read this (or anyone else who knows): Basically, broadwell's skipping the desktop/notebook segment, but only for 1 cycle, right? I mean, do you think they're shifting to a two year cycle for LGA?

I can't think how a perpetual tock cycle for LGA is a bad thing. People won't complain about 5-10% increments, Intel will be able to sell more stuff every alternate year to the PC market, maybe they even retain the same LGA socket for longer...though unlikely, looking at the way they're moving to the SoC stage.

I just hope they have Lucid Virtu-like functionality support out of the box for the -k series CPUs.

[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]For anyone who accused me of lying with Haswell's integrated voltage regulator:http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/ [...] -regulatorFor anyone who accused me of lying with Broadwell's integrated south-bridge chip:http://www.pcper.com/category/tags/broadwellAnd for the GPU comparison:http://www.anandtech.com/show/6600 [...] ce-gt-650m[/citation]
Ah i remember having a discussing with Blazorthon about the possibility of an integrated south bridge in Broadwell. Thanks for the links!

 

[stickmansam]

WHat if Intel is leaving market over next 3 years just as they move all their CPU's to being soldered.
2013 + 3 years = 2016 which was expected time frame for soldered CPU's in mainstream AFAIK

 

[ojas]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6685/the-end-of-an-era-intels-desktop-motherboard-business-to-ramp-down-over-next-3-years

 

[jkflipflop98]

[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Intel motherboards were produced by Foxconn....Foxconn produces a lot of motherboards for various companies....including Intel and IBM. Believe Foxconn has also built Intel NICs...could be wrong though.[/citation]

Intel motherboards are made in-house at our Washington facility. We outsource some of them, but by and large we make our own, thanks.

 

[garyshome]

I am using an Intel board to make this post! Pentium D 3.2g 945gpm, XP. Still running strong, use it every day. May replace when haswell surfaces.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

[citation][nom]vanwazltoff[/nom]it seems like intel boards were notorious for being overpriced compared to other manufacturers[/citation]

Overpriced and underfeatured

 

[prince_david]

Honestly didn't know they even made motherboards.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

[citation][nom]InvalidError[/nom]Intel will still be producing motherboards, just not for the slowly dying desktop market anymore.The article says Intel will redirect desktop motherboard resources to all-in-one, ultrabooks and other form factors for future markets.In other words, Intel is foreseeing the end of the conventional desktop PC, the future is embedded/integrated and mobile.[/citation]

I would say shrinking desktop market, not dying. Unless you postulate that game/other app development wont need more power/graphics, and eveyone will be happy for a long time with a their non-upgradeable cigar boxes. They came out with MacMini? form factor boxes in their NUC line. The majority of which seem aimed at the commercial market, that just needs a static device that gets the job done. In which case an i3, 2-4G memory, networking, limited storage (maybe a small SSD in there) and on board graphics
fit the bill perfectly.

 

[ddg4005]

This really isn't a problem. Do-it-yourselfers like us typically use boards from the Big Three (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI).

 

[ithurtswhenipee]

I only bought 1 of there motherboards (DX58SO) and it sucked. They won't be missed.

 

[oxiide]

[citation][nom]snowzsan[/nom]THUMBS DOWN!!!But in all seriousness, anyone thumbing down bought an intel board and everyone commenting on tom's is going to pay for their poor decision making and buyer's remorse.[/citation]
I don't see why--the article clearly states that Intel will continue supporting Intel-branded motherboards through their warranty periods. No one has any reason to have buyers' remorse.

Intel boards are a relative rarity anyway. They're fine quality, I'm sure, but their offerings are already dwarfed by Asus, Asrock, MSI, Gigabyte, etc. which also provide excellent products, often for better prices. Very few enthusiasts are likely using Intel boards, unless maybe they have pre-built machines.

 

[serendipiti]

Simply because desktop motherboards are dead, no future there.
14nm nodes will be enough for CPU + GPU + Chipset, Add there On Package 16GB RAM and thunderbird for external PCIE... and all you need to "keep it together" is the heatsink itself...
Probably keeping RAM outside of the package is a good idea, but then we are talking of a CPU socket with 6 SODIMM slots... and that's all folks!!

 

[K2N hater]

Intel-branded motherboards are actually manufactured by Foxconn and they are by far the worst in market. Even the server boards lag behind the competition except for the price tag.

Intel is acting smart... These products hurt their reputation.

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]Non-Euclidean[/nom]I would say shrinking desktop market, not dying. Unless you postulate that game/other app development wont need more power/graphics, and eveyone will be happy for a long time with a their non-upgradeable cigar boxes.[/citation]
By the time Broadwell comes around and effectively turns PCs into SoCs with the motherboard doing little more than exposing the CPU's IO ports and mainstream CPUs only being available as BGAs, even the lowest-end chips will have several times more processing power than most people need. This is already true for a large chunk of the market even today. For point-of-sale or "static" applications, computing requirements have been met more than a decade ago, not much of a challenge there other than reducing costs, size, weight and power.

People who need more than that or insist on a socketed CPU will likely have to look at workstation-oriented solutions at that point.

 

[blppt]

I have a DZ77-BH55K that I use with a 2600K in my Hackintosh box. No problems. The UEFI interface on the Intel is much better looking and performing than the hackneyed one on my G1 Sniper M3 Gigabyte (with a 3770K) that I use for my gaming setup, if that counts for anything.

 

[g-unit1111]

it seems like intel boards were notorious for being overpriced compared to other manufacturers

Not to mention they include a lot of junk software that you don't need and their BIOS hasn't had a face lift in well over a decade. I think only Intel and EVGA are the only ones left who still use the old text BIOS method.

 

[blppt]

Not to mention they include a lot of junk software that you don't need and their BIOS hasn't had a face lift in well over a decade. I think only Intel and EVGA are the only ones left who still use the old text BIOS method.

Untrue. My DZ77 has a very nice looking UEFI interface that is easily nicer to use than the patchwork one on my Z77 Gigabyte.