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
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.
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ceefka - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
Can somebody remind us why BTX was so much better than ATX?It doesn't look like Intel is throwing its weight about either. Having that strong partnership with Dell you wonder what's keeping them from flooding the world with BTX boards in BTX cases. My guess is Dell is holding back because their profits would suffer because of the high costs of implementation.
If I remember right BTX was also introduced to battle a few heatproblems. Now that Jamie Oliver cooks meals on a 3.0GHz Prescott, Intel is working on the problem at the source. Sorry about that, Jamie. Much better than throwing a new standard at it.
Gooberslot - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
I hope BTX takes a long time to take off or better yet that it never does.tygrus - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
31 - Posted on Jun 13, 2005 at 5:13 PM by Nayr"You can see DDR3 anytime you want. Just put any current Gen Mid-High end Graphics card in your computer...=P
As far as Desktop use...who knows.
"
As explained elsewhere.
GDDR2 not= DDR2.
GDDR3 not= DDR3.
The GDDR3 chips used by 3D graphics card manufactures is not the same as what might be used for desktop DDR3 modules. DDR3 will be by the same commitee as SDRAM, DDR and DDR2. GDDR from 1 to 3 were boutique/custom designs by mem makers with assistance from 3D graphic card manufactures and each design (GDDR, GDDR2, GDDR3) were by different people.
Quanticles - Tuesday, June 14, 2005 - link
I want my k8 to have pcie!Nayr - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
YOu can see DDR3 anytime you want. Just put any current Gen Mid-High end Graphics card in your computer...=PAs far as Desktop use...who knows.
Icehawk - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
So are we ever going to see DDR3? :(Aenslead - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
I say its a great win for AMD. I am glad that they are advancing as much as THAT in just a few months, and I hope that VIA nor SiS die over us... otherwise, that'd leave the market to nVidia only, and we know monopoly is NOT a good thing.However, OEMs love VIA chipsets. Heck, we integrators love them too. The warehouse where I buy stuff sells like mofo the Biostar U8668-D, and, as you can guess, its based on the ANCIENT PM400 Pro... but hey, its *cheap*; models for 800Mhz use P4M800 chipset; same goes for AMD K7 and K8 markets: the KM400 is the best selling chipset here in Mexico, suported by ECS/Pc-Chips, and K8M800 is having a real nice penetration in this market. I have not seen a single fellow integrator asking for an nVidia chipset.
As the article said: costs rule.-
Son of a N00b - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
great arcticle Anand! Keep up the awesome work!SilthDraeth - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
In Sov...Anyways, when I read the tidbit about AMD building on die graphics into a new K8 core, I got goosebumps all over my body. Let the fantasy commense:
I have visions of them also incorporating that PPU (physics processing unit, if I am not butchering the abreviation).
Imagine, 2008, which means from now till then, 3 years, at least before those first chips become available, which in my eyes means AMD is already working on said chips...
AMD Dual Core 65nm,
On die mem controller supporting DDR2,
On die gpu
On die ppu
All operating at full processor frequency.
I can't help but think, and I may be dreaming but AMD will put out kick ass graphics...
xsilver - Monday, June 13, 2005 - link
I dont care what the name of the chip isas long as the VIA socket 939 boards support dual core -- everybody will be happy
(except for the s754 owners... but they are probably using wishful thinking:P )