"During the Q3 2004 Intel Corp. supplied 62.1% of all chipsets shipped worldwide, VIA Technologies commanded 18.5% of the market, Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. shipped 9.9% of core-logic products in Q3 2004, while ATI Technologies and NVIDIA Corp. only occupied 4.5% and 4.2% of the market." - <A HREF="http:// http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chips [...] html" target="_new">http:// http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chips [...] </A>
Intel would have 80% of the chipset market if they hadn't gone against supporting AMD processors on their own chipsets.
xbit says VIA has a better reputation than nVidia? Only amongst the idiots. Look, I understand ignorance, but if a person chooses to remain ignorant in spite of the facts in front of them, they're an idiot.
<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
Via did have a better rep. At least until the nforce2 chipset. After that it's all went downhill. Now they make cheap chipsets like SIS.
The A64 chipsets from VIA aren't that bad and were keeping up with nVidia unit the nforce4. But now I feel they have given up on the highend market and are targeting budget market.
SiS makes better chipsets than VIA, and has ever since the 735. The problem with SiS is that they don't follow the high end market.
The 735 was more stable, compatable, and faster than the KT266. So good in fact that VIA threatened to short-supply any motherboard makers who used it. All the major makers dropped their SiS 735 boards at the last minute.
745 was better than KT266A
645 was faster than Intel's 845 and I haven't seen any problems with it. Meanwhile VIA had those problematic 266 chipsets for the P4.
755 is better than the 800 series. Similar performance with better stability and better RAM compatability. Anandtech did complete testing to prove it.
SiS has been marginalized due to forces beyond their control. There's no reason for anyone to ever buy a VIA chipset for anything. And considering the damage VIA has done to the market, it's really amazing that people still support the company. But then again, people are flawed.
Meanwhile nVidia has been providing superior chipsets to SiS since the nForce2 series, with exception of the nForce3 150.
<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
I found the SiS735 extremely painful and unstabile, with the KT266 as the better performer. I have heard good things about sis645DX, but really my overall experience with both Via and Sis is reason enough to start mailbombing
Most 735 boards were either the ECS K7S5A or the PC-Chips version of the same. They didn't have the best power filtration and required stable power supplies to compensate. They had fairly tight memory timing and required quality memory to compensate. It seems almost shocking that an inexpensive board required quality parts to function properly, wheras most people try to put inexpensive boards with inexpensive parts into inexpensive systems. But the fact is that this cheap board, using good parts, offered excellent performance without the southbridge issues that plauged VIA's counterpart.
<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
right.. the ECS K7S5A, one of the most popular boards of all times. The backing story you gave is quite fun to read, as I've assembled two systems of it. One became generally unstabily and the other just became slow, both after 8 months or so. I hate sis too..
Blame SiS for a problem unique to the ECS/PC-Chips design?
One of my friends built two systems with the P4S533, one of them started frying processors. It was the VRM that went bad and would spike the voltage to 1.85v until you powered down, then return to normal. I've seen this problem on 1 other P4S533 (in here). So do I blame Asus for the bad VRM, or SiS?
Fact is, SiS has been pushed into the low end. No matter how hard they try, their chipsets are always marginalized. No matter how good these chipsets are, they always get matched up with the cheapest board designs.
SiS's real problem is that they charge too little for their chipsets, which makes their product "cheap" and a great option to be paired up with other cheap parts on a cheap board. That reputation means it's too late for them to increase pricing and be taken seriously, boardmakers would simply see the higher prices and say "I'm not paying that much for a cheap chipset".
<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
well, they aren't trying either. SiS is never all over the web about revolutionary chipdesign.. or even a changelog, not one that is posted with ADs all over anyways.
Blame Asus? well sure, they are known to overvolt on some boards, as well as Abit are known to undervolt on some, but at least they have an overall stabile and believable productline, so to speak.
They seem to be in a gridlock-situation, I suppose that if they tried really really hard to convince (by facts, of course) that they were "back" in the perormance leauge, a pricechange could be justified.
Via is deffinately NOT my favorite chipset maker, I much perfer Nforce2, 3 and 4's. They are all really great. But Asus doesn't make Nforce 3 boards . So I was forced to go with another company or go with...I can't say it....Must type the word....dun..dun.dunn..VIA!!!!! There I said it, now that I got that out of my system, anyhow I have the A8V Rev. 2.0 and it oc's like mad, also anandtech did a review than the VIA K8T800 Pro got 289FSB!!! on stock cooling, while the Nfoce 3's top OC was 290, so they are tied now. But I personally don't think it's a VIA trunaround, its more of a fact that they actually FIXED what was "broken" on their chipset and the fact that the memory controller is now on the CPU. So even though I don't have as much faith in Via as I do in Nvidia or Intel for chipsets, I must say that i'm really impressed with this board and chipset, it is the best board I have ever owned hands down. Maybe its just Asus makeing sure that the Via chipset doesn't F*** up.
heh..
. So I was forced to go with another company or go with...I can't say it....Must type the word....dun..dun.dunn..VIA!!!!! There I said it, now that I got that out of my system, anyhow I have the A8V Rev. 2.0 and it oc's like mad, also anandtech did a review than the VIA K8T800 Pro got 289FSB!!! on stock cooling, while the Nfoce 3's top OC was 290, so they are tied now. But I personally don't think it's a VIA trunaround, its more of a fact that they actually FIXED what was "broken" on their chipset and the fact that the memory controller is now on the CPU. So even though I don't have as much faith in Via as I do in Nvidia or Intel for chipsets, I must say that i'm really impressed with this board and chipset, it is the best board I have ever owned hands down. Maybe its just Asus makeing sure that the Via chipset doesn't F*** up.