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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1710
Industry Update - Q2-2005: Chipset wars, AMD's growing market share and more...
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 13, 2005 4:34 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The PC market as a whole is in a bit of a transitional period; for the longest time, new CPU architectures or faster CPU speeds pushed for new technologies in the PC market. Each major CPU release from AMD or Intel would push for new chipsets that would, in turn, enable new graphics and storage technologies, all of which would have to be implemented on new motherboards. However, with the slow down in CPU releases, and the fact that AMD's dual core offerings don't require a new motherboard or chipset, we are seeing a great number of stagnant markets right now.
Despite the stagnation, there's a lot of updating to do on the CPU, chipset, motherboard and memory markets based on our findings at this year's Computex in Taiwan. So without further ado, let's start with an update on the AMD and Intel market share.
AMD vs. Intel - 7 Months Later
Seven months ago, on a trip to Taiwan, we went around asking all of the motherboard manufacturers that we encountered what their split was between AMD and Intel boards being shipped. At that time, we noted that despite what had been happening in the enthusiast community, motherboard manufacturers were still shipping mostly Intel based platforms. In fact, the split between AMD and Intel motherboards was similar to the 80/20 market share split between Intel and AMD - obviously, in Intel's favor.This time around, the tune was very different. Note that only 7 months have passed since my last Industry Update, but a lot has changed in the market. Whereas the largest percentage of AMD motherboards shipped (that we heard) 7 months ago was 30%, this time around, it was 65% for desktop motherboards. Most motherboard manufacturers we talked to claimed that between 40 and 65% of their motherboard shipments were AMD platforms, not Intel.
Intel, of course, did not have much faith in our findings, stating that they are in direct conflict with widely reported market share numbers that have been made public in the past.
Our feeling is that the truth is somewhere in between; Intel continues to lead in OEM sales; however, AMD has made some significant gains across the market. Not to mention that our sources for these figures have little reason to lie blatantly about them, and not a single manufacturer that we talked to offered a vastly different story.
With the exception of the recently released dual-core CPUs, we have not recommended the Pentium 4 in over a year - it's not too surprising to see some of this reflected in motherboard shipments. To think that Intel has lost absolutely no ground to AMD in recent history is absurd in our opinion. AMD hasn't taken over the market, but they've surely grown to be far more than just a thorn in Intel's side. Just five years ago, motherboard makers were afraid to display AMD boards at their booths at Comdex or Computex, but today, AMD based motherboards are the most interesting and proudly displayed.
Although the discussion above applies to desktop motherboard shipments, AMD also appears to be doing quite well in the server market. We spoke to one server motherboard manufacturer whose current shipments are 90% AMD platforms and only 10% Intel platforms. We were absolutely shocked by these statistics, but it seems that most of the Intel server motherboards are being shipped by Supermicro with manufacturers like iWill and Tyan focusing much more on AMD.
Rumor: AMD's Low Cost K8 with Integrated Graphics in 2008?
Apparently, AMD has been talking about doing a very integrated, very low cost K8 derivative for 2008. The CPU would feature an on-die memory controller like the current Athlon 64. However, it would also feature an on-die graphics core and I/O controller - effectively, removing the need for any chipset on the motherboard.If you'll remember a few years back, Intel had a similar chip planned, code-named Timna. Timna was supposed to integrate a graphics core and memory controller onto a single chip to drive total system costs down considerably, but Intel pulled the plug on the project at the last minute and shifted resources to what eventually became Centrino.
AMD is definitely in a good position to piece together such a highly integrated CPU, given that they have already integrated the memory controller on-die with much success. We do wonder where the graphics core would come from, as AMD would either have to design one from scratch or license the technology from another company. Given that this type of a CPU would be targeted at very low cost markets, it would almost have to be an in-house job. Granted, this is a very early rumor that may not pan out at all, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
In the more near-term future, AMD will be transitioning to an on-die DDR2 memory controller by the middle of next year with their new M2 Socket and Socket-F (for desktops and servers respectively). The initial design guides for boards based on these new sockets have been given to motherboard manufacturers, but the first samples won't be ready until the end of this year.
Finally, the last piece about AMD here involves Turion. Either AMD isn't very serious about Turion right now, or manufacturers aren't too impressed with it because we hardly heard any mention of the new mobile CPU at Computex from any of the notebook vendors. Many product roadmaps going through to the end of this year were completely devoid of any mention of a Turion based notebook.
Chipsets
With ATI, Intel, NVIDIA, ULi, SiS and VIA all competing for market share, the chipset business is particularly interesting right now.The AMD Chipset Battle: NVIDIA vs. VIA
The battle for AMD platform market share continues to be between NVIDIA and VIA. VIA was largely responsible for the success of the very first AMD Athlon, as they were the only mainstream chipset provider for quite some time. However, since then NVIDIA has stepped up to be a very serious competitor. All of the manufacturers we have talked to have said that in the past year, NVIDIA has grown extremely quickly to take control over virtually all of the high end K8 chipset business.Despite NVIDIA's incredible growth, VIA is still found on quite a few AMD motherboards for three reasons in particular: 1) Socket-A, 2) Socket-754 and 3) K8 Integrated Graphics solutions.
The K7 market continues to be dominated by VIA, but as a dying market, it isn't one that we normally focus on. The Socket-754 and K8 Integrated Graphics solutions are also dominated by VIA however. The Socket-754 market is very price sensitive right now, which is where VIA wins over NVIDIA. Ironically enough, NVIDIA, the graphics manufacturer, does not have a K8 chipset shipping with integrated graphics and thus, gives up a large portion of K8 market share to VIA.
NVIDIA has been working on an integrated graphics solution for both the Intel and AMD markets: the C51 and C60 (AMD and Intel platforms respectively). Motherboard manufacturers have received these new chipsets with relatively mixed response. Both the C51 and C60 implement a much larger graphics core than the integrated S3 graphics that VIA offers in their chipsets.
The problem is that NVIDIA's cheapest integrated solution is still more expensive than VIA's offerings, which are currently priced at the $13 - $14 price point. The OEM markets will gladly pay the added premium to be able to use the NVIDIA name in their marketing, but the rest of the markets are simply looking for the cheapest overall solution, and NVIDIA's approach won't provide that. So, it appears that although NVIDIA will be eating a bit of VIA's lunch, they will still leave a big hunk of it for VIA.
If you're wondering why NVIDIA doesn't simply stick a small DX7 graphics core in their chipsets to compete with VIA, it comes down to profit margins. NVIDIA needs to keep their profit margins high, and by going after the ultra low end integrated graphics market, they cannot maintain high enough profit margins to justify spending so much time and resources producing cheap enough chipsets to compete with VIA. It would surely bring hard times to VIA, but with NVIDIA dominating the high end market, there's simply no economic reason to go after VIA's share of the AMD business.
Motherboard manufacturers that we've talked to all expect the high end AMD market to be dominated by NVIDIA and ATI based solutions, while the integrated graphics offerings will be dominated by VIA. Ironic, isn't it?
The Multi-GPU Battle: ATI vs. NVIDIA
ATI's recent entry into the multi-GPU market with CrossFire has created competition in both price and performance aspects of high end AMD and Intel chipsets.ATI continues to have problems with their South Bridges, and thus, they are turning to ULi to supply the South Bridges for motherboard designs based on their new multi-GPU chipset. ATI's closest partners are currently beta-testing their new South Bridge, but none of them have any confidence in ATI's ability to bring their South Bridges to market in time. While they are all ready to use ULi based South Bridges if necessary, in order to keep ATI happy, they are continuing to work with ATI's South Bridge in their designs.
Given the lack of interest in any of ATI's previous chipsets, ATI knows that in order to get CrossFire off the ground with any sort of success, they will need some pretty powerful partners in the Taiwanese market.
Thus, ATI is talking to VIA and SiS to license out their multi-GPU technology so that you will be able to purchase a motherboard based on an ATI, VIA or SiS chipset and be able to run ATI graphics cards in multi-GPU modes. VIA is particularly interested in this partnership as they aren't the biggest fans of NVIDIA at this point.
First availability of ATI's CrossFire chipsets won't be until July or August time frame from what we're hearing.
NVIDIA is very curious about ATI's CrossFire, as it will mark the end of NVIDIA's exclusivity on multi-GPU platforms. In order to help expand the SLI market, NVIDIA appears to be ready to drop the price of their nForce4 SLI chipset. While currently priced at around $80, the chipset will drop in price to close to $40 later this year. The goal is to enable SLI motherboards to be priced at $100 or less. We have even heard that some very aggressive motherboard manufacturers are looking to offer sub-$80 nForce4 SLI motherboards by the end of this year.
At $80, it would be senseless not to buy a SLI motherboard, which is exactly what NVIDIA wants.
VIA
The word around Taiwan is that many of VIA's engineers have left as the company's chipset business is struggling.All of the motherboard manufacturers that we've spoken to have agreed - VIA has seen much of its market share eroded because of the strength of NVIDIA's nForce3 and nForce4 platforms. Currently relegated to low-cost Socket-754 and integrated graphics solutions, VIA isn't the AMD chipset provider that they used to be.
The K8T890 chipset, VIA's first PCI Express Athlon 64 chipset, was announced to have full support for dual core Athlon 64s two months ago. However, motherboard manufacturers are telling us now that the current revision of the K8T890 doesn't support dual core AMD CPUs properly and that a later revision of the chipset, due later this month, will add working dual core support.
Luckily, no Socket-939 K8T890 motherboards will ship based on the current version of the chipset that we know of. A few manufacturers have stated that they will be shipping Socket-754 motherboards based on the current chipset, but since there are no dual core Socket-754 CPUs, it isn't such a big deal.
VIA has seen much success with their low power CPUs, however, and thus, they have put even more focus into selling these CPUs into emerging markets such as India and China.
ULi
The saying in Taiwan goes something like this - "There are three Taiwanese chipset manufacturers (ULi, SiS and VIA) and only one of them is making any money - ULi."ULi's business is profitable because they are only providing South Bridges and as such, they can piggy-back off of ATI's marketing by providing South Bridges to OEMs interested in using ATI's Radeon Xpress 200 chipsets. Unfortunately for ULi, this isn't a very good long-term business plan as there will come a day when ATI's own South Bridges are perfected.
ULi is therefore trying to make their way into the high-end chipset market, but with NVIDIA and Intel as the chief competitors there, it will be an uphill battle. Many manufacturers expressed interest in ULi, but we will have to wait and see to find out if it actually translates into a viable competitor.
SiS
Much like VIA, we haven't heard much from SiS. They are producing the South Bridge for the Xbox 360 (as ATI could not supply the South Bridge for the console), but that's about all that's interesting. SiS does have some good chipsets on paper, but as history has shown us, most motherboard manufacturers won't implement their chipsets in anything other than the lowest cost solutions.Motherboards
For the most part, motherboards are pretty stagnant these days. The number of individual motherboard manufacturers is dwindling, and many motherboard makers are simply motherboard designers who get their boards manufactured by Foxconn or ECS. Sometimes, you'd be surprised if you knew where your motherboard really came from.Of course, the most interesting motherboards are all Socket-939 and LGA-775 based now; the transition from Socket-754 and Socket-478 is pretty much complete, with the former still being used for entry-level AMD motherboards.
The trend these days is to put as many PCIe x16 slots on your motherboard as possible, regardless of whether or not you can use them for SLI or CrossFire configurations. So we've seen motherboards based on Intel, SiS and VIA chipsets with two PCIe x16 connectors, yet with no real use for the dual slots for now - other than added marketing potential.
As we mentioned in our Computex coverage, the move to the BTX form factor is going extremely slowly. Most manufacturers are expecting to ship less than 10% of their products in a BTX form factor, with the large majority of them forecasting numbers closer to 3%. By the end of 2006, demand is expected to rise a bit, but the most aggressive numbers that we've seen are 30% - 35% (including OEM shipments). The majority of manufacturers are saying that only 15% of their shipments will be BTX motherboards by the end of 2006. The end result is that the BTX transition won't really take place in any appreciable numbers until 2007 or 2008, with BTX being the de-facto standard by 2009.
Memory
Much like the CPU and motherboard markets, the memory market appears to be at a standstill, thanks to it also being in a transitional period. The transition from DDR1 to DDR2 is taking much longer than expected for two reasons: the increased longevity of DDR1 and the slowing CPU market.Being able to run at much higher frequencies than DDR1 is the major advantage that DDR2 offers. But since Intel's FSB is still stuck at 800MHz for the vast majority of processors, Intel platforms don't really need more than a dual channel DDR400 interface, much less DDR2-667. AMD won't transition to DDR2 until Q2 2006, so there won't be any demand from the other side of the fence either until then. With DDR2 not making much sense on Intel platforms and not used on AMD platforms, there's no surprise that the transition to DDR2 is taking a long time.
In fact, it sounds like one of the biggest pushes to DDR2 will be mobile, with Intel's Sonoma platform for Centrino. By the second half of this year, most manufacturers will be ready to transition to DDR2 mobile solutions.
Because of the slow DDR2 adoption, memory and motherboard manufacturers are thinking that it will be one more chipset generation before we see a real shift in memory technology.