The mainboards market is now living through some kind of jam. One of the main reasons is an absolute muddle with the chipsets. Intel keeps postponing its poor i820 launching some novelties for Low-End computers. VIA is slowly, little by little, ousting the former leader. Well, we suggest trying to clear out what is in fact going on and predicting the possible peculiarities of the future mainboards development. In order to make the problem easier to understand, we addressed a couple of most curious questions to our favorite :-) mainboard manufacturers. Here is what they told us.

Q: To begin with could you, please, say a few words about yourself and about your responsibilities in the company?

ABIT: My name is Jean-Pierre Skalamera. Soon I will have been for 1.5 years with ABIT's marketing team. Coming from Switzerland I try to see what life looks like here in Asia. It is therefore an interesting experience to work for a local company. I mostly handle the European market, but I do not hesitate to get touch of people from other regions. Our main goal is to make sure that my colleagues and me get in touch with the important web-sites and editors of every country, in order to provide everybody with our news as quickly as possible.

CHAINTECH: Let me introduce myself first, my name is Clement Hung and I'm the Product Manager in charge of the products for distribution market.

GIGABYTE: Director of Marketing, Mr. Benson Chang who is in charge of product planning and market strategy.

MSI: I am Eric Kuo, Account Manager from MicroStar International Co., LTD responsible for Russian market.

SOYO: My colleagues and I made this interview together: Bart van der Hoek, our senior sales executive, Martine de Knoop, our marketing manager, and me, Rik Remeijn. Together, Bart and I are responsible for Soyo sales in Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, and Martine supports our activities marketing-wise.

Q: The shortage of Intel 440BX and 440ZX chipsets has been a very hot point for discussion recently. Did it tell on your company? What do you see as the main reasons of this shortage and how long will it last in your opinion?

ABIT: Of course, we also felt this shortage, as everybody in the motherboard business did. Now, the situation is improving. Intel has confirmed with us that they mispredicted the demands till December, as i810 didn't go as well as they planned.

CHAINTECH: Intel occupies most of the market share for chipsets and CPUs, it should be no problem for chipset production and supply. Owing to the two reasons which resulted in BX and ZX shortage: one is Over-Booking and the other is that i810 did not take off as Intel had expected it to. Intel will solve this problem by the end of October or later.
As you know, BX and ZX use the same die, BX's price is higher than that on ZX, Intel will move from ZX to BX. That's the reason why we have BX and ZX shortage at the same time.
Even if the shortage is solved at 10/E, BX will not be a profitable product in the market. There are two major reasons. First, BX's specs are out of date and cannot support FSB 133 CPU and ATA-66. And secondly the chipset cost will drop from $50 (Gray Market Price) to $26 (Intel Official Price).

GIGABYTE: Yes, Intel expected to move BX and ZX to i810 and i820 but the market still demands BX and ZX. Supply and demand cannot be balanced. This shortage may last till the middle of November. This situation could be better after mid-November or December.

MSI: Although Micro-Star is Intel's direct account in Taiwan and got very strong support by Intel, the quantity of BX and ZX chipsets is still not enough to fulfill the market demand for those chipsets.
I think the main reasons are the following. The transition between i810 chipset and ZX chipset is not smooth. i810 chipsets are planing to replace LX and ZX chipset, but Intel does not have enough promotion to assure the user of the i810 advantages. So, there is a gap between supply and demand on those two chipsets. Intel's production line is focused on i810, but people still want ZX. I think i810 is a really good solution for a system assembler, the total cost of ownership is lower, and with updated technology i810 chipset can support ATA66 and FSB bus up to 133MHz.

SOYO: Yes, it did tell on our company. Prices increased and, for some items, are still increasing, and we have to speed up the development of motherboards with new chipsets. The idea behind this shortage, created by Intel, obviously is forcing people into buying their new chipsets.

Q: Developing the previous issue: did Intel chipsets shortage make you pay special attention to the products of such companies as ALI, SiS and VIA?

ABIT: We are currently developing a VIA board which, by the way, we already showed at Computex in June. So the decision to start the development had been made long before the shortage. Also we do have a long and close relationship with SiS and do have OEM products with their chipsets. In the future we will present more new products specialized for System Integration.

CHAINTECH: Owing to the BX/ZX shortages, our customers pay more attention to clone chipset M/B:
- VIA for external VGA solution.
- SIS for VGA integrated solution
- ALI supports both but cannot meet scheduled demand

GIGABYTE: Yes.

MSI: Microstar's policy is not to stick to one chipset vendor, as soon as third party chipsets are good in terms of performance-to-price ratio, we will produce mainboards based on those chipsets. So, we already have a plan for those chipsets on our product roadmap, but the shortage in ZX/BX chipsets made us to find some customers and to make them increase their order of Micro-Star mainboards based on those chipsets.

SOYO: Not at first, no. We already had several non-Intel chipsets in our range, according to the market demand. At the moment we are more or less forced to offer substitutes for BX and ZX chipsets.

Q: What do you think, will Athlon be a real threat for Pentium III? At present the amount of mainboards designed for this particular processor is just incomparable with the mainboards for Intel processors. How can you comment on the possible changes of the situation in the future?

ABIT: As you know, it does not only depend on the CPU, but on the whole environment like chipset, etc. The first reports you can find show that the development is still necessary until Athlon is a real alternative for the demanding end user. We are therefore monitoring the development closely in order to see what kind of decision we will make for our company in the future.

CHAINTECH: AMD's biggest competitor is AMD itself. Only AMD can improve its production process to achieve higher yield rate, AMD can start intimidating Intel.

GIGABYTE: Yes, cost/performance could be a real threat to Pentium III. In the future they will be still incompatible and have their own technology.

MSI: I thing Athlon will be a competitor for Pentium III, from the price and performance's point of view. But the bottle-neck for AMD maybe its production capacity and promotion for AMD's brand recognition.

SOYO: Normally, Athlon would be a competitor to the Pentium III processor, and thus it wouldn't be a big threat to the PIII, because after all, it is an Intel product. However, under the current circumstances it might serve as a good replacement for the BX and ZX chipsets, which will make it easier for people to switch to Athlon. For what we hear, it appears to be a very good board, both performance and quality wise.

Q: Despite the fact that i810 and MVP4, which are the first chipsets supporting AMR, came out several months ago, AMR cards are still a very rare thing in today's PCs. What is your opinion, will they manage to occupy a special place in the PCs or the modern "fully-fledged" sound cards and modems will stand in their way?

ABIT: At the moment compatibility is still an issue with some new AMR cards. The cards will probably establish first through large system integrators, rather than in the retail market.

CHAINTECH: Chaintech shipped 50% M/B with audio in Q1'99. That means any low technical barrier peripheral will be integrated into M/B under the trend of low cost demand. There will be MR solution only, AMR will never exist.

GIGABYTE: Sound cards and modems will stand in their way.

MSI: I can't comment on i810 and MVP4 which are the first to support AMR. Micro-Star started mass production of MR card (audio codec in a standard on our mainboard so our solution is MR not AMR) in September. It took two months to get the certificate for CTR 21. So, I think that's why MR solution is not popular yet. But it will change, our customers start ordering it now.
The main advantage of AMR solution is the cost saving (up to 70% compared to hardware modem), very satisfactory performance sufficient for most users, I believe, it will occupy a certain market.

SOYO: The problem was that Intel didn't have any chipsets that supported AMR. i810 is supposed to change this situation, but for now, the market only accepts AMR with great difficulty.

Q: Is your company going to make an i810E based mainboard? Do you expect any difficulties to arise as a result of the separation of the products with such close features - i810 and i810E. Or maybe you expect i810E to push i810 out of the market?

ABIT: I don't think we should see this as a competition between chipsets, but as a widening of the product range. As you know, there is a huge potential in developing countries such as Mainland China and some other ones. Those markets do not demand upgradability at any price, but systems with standard capabilities at the best price. Being able to offer a product tailored to the demands of the customer at the best price will be an important issue. Therefore it is important to have a wide choice of components.

CHAINTECH: i810e performs 15% better than i810, but there is a US$8 price difference gap. The price gap will be cut down depending on the stock quantity of i810. If the price gap is very small then 810 will be phased out automatically.

GIGABYTE: Yes, since there is a cost difference between i810 and i810e, they will have their own market.

MSI: Micro-Star is starting to produce i810E based MS-6183E, MS-6178E and MS-6182E mainboards. As PC's segmentations are getting complicated, and i810 and i810E will support different CPU front side buses, I think i810 and i810 will have a clear line between segments. i810L/ M/ and DC100 will occupy value PC segment, but 810E will take the Performance segment.

SOYO: Yes, we are going to bring out such a board. However, in our opinion, Intel has weakened the potential position Whitney could have had in the market by splitting the item up into different versions. It's better to have one good Whitney than a whole dozen of low-end versions.

Q: Since we came to speak about integrated chipsets there is a question. Do the mainboards with the integrated processor deserve the right to exist in the market?

ABIT: Not everybody is a high-end computer user. Especially with the booming of the internet, more and more users just will want to have a good computer that offers standard quality, and few offices need the latest processor every quarter. Therefore, not everybody does upgrades regularly, and when the time comes, then it is usually time to change the entire system due to a change of standards. With the computer getting more and more ubiquitous in life, this is just another step to offer another option to customers and manufacturers.

CHAINTECH: Under the pressure of low cost demand, integrated chipsets must be the trend. SOC (System on Chip) is the final target for Integration. There will be almost nothing left on M/B when SOC comes. What will the Market be then?
- The merging between sales channel will be more.
- M/B vendor will be the last survivor compared to peripheral vendors.
- But more M/B vendors will enter the market (peripheral vendor will try to become an M/B vendor)
- System integration capabilities is the key for survival.
- Strategic alliances among different industries is necessary to create an entrance barrier for newcomers.

GIGABYTE: This kind of motherboards will exist in low-cost entry market.

MSI: The PC price is going down, free PC, Value PC are so popular in many countries, SOC (system on chip) is a good solution for this market segment.

SOYO: Integrated chipsets: yes, there is a market for chipsets with integrated options, e.g., SiS has always had a reasonable market share. As for integrated processors: no, there is no market for those, developments are simply going too fast for that.

Q: Is there any potential chance that in the near future there will appear a mainboard designed by your company and based on the chipset, shall we say, from S3, ATI and nVidia?

ABIT: As we have already said, system integration nowadays requires products with integrated graphic chips. We will soon have products with this feature, but also retail products.

CHAINTECH: Currently, Chaintech have a model with ATI VGA chipset on board. We prefer chipset vendors to integrate VGA into their chipsets. As you know, VIA works with S3, ALI works with nVidia.

GIGABYTE: Maybe, if they have this kind of chipset.

MSI: Micro-Star has many mainboard solutions with integrated ATI and nVidia chipsets. For example, MS-6166 is based on ATI Rage 128VR chipset, MS-6158 has nVidia TNT M64 on board. And it will be continued in our roadmap.

SOYO: We have such motherboards in our current range, such as the SY-6IBM (ATI 128) and the SY-6IZM and SY-7IZM (ATI Rage Pro).

Q: What do you think, will the mainboards based on Intel i820 and VIA 693A/694X compete with each other or maybe these pieces should be regarded as the products belonging to different levels? All in all, what is your opinion, which set will enjoy most popularity and demand among users during the next half a year: i820 and Direct Rambus DRAM or Apollo Pro 133/133A and PC133 SDRAM?

ABIT: As we know, Intel i820 was delayed. On the other hand, the rise in the SDRAM prices reduces the price differences with Rambus memory. The delay of Intel i820 gives certain advantages, of course, to VIA's chipset for the next few months, but the long-term issue is not so easy to predict. Intel i820 has to be considered as the top chipset, but due to its delay it is hard to deny that there is a temporary gap. But this shouldn't be a cause for concern, as high Rambus memory prices have already indicated that the Intel i820 products won't be produced for the mass market at first.

CHAINTECH: Price on RAMBUS is six times higher than that on SDRAM in Q4'99. RAMBUS will be popular only if the price is twice as high as that on SDRAM. In terms of Cost/Performance Ratio VIA 694X takes the advantage.

GIGABYTE: They will compete with each other. Apollo Pro133/133A will be more popular.

MSI: I can't comment on this issue, as i820 chipsets are not launched into the market, but it will really depend on the price and availability of Rambus DRAM, and the reliability of i820 and 693A/694X chipsets.

SOYO: Well, Intel and VIA both have their own share of the market. In this case, everything depends on Rambus. It seems that Intel is already considering an i820 with SDRAM. This would bring the situation back to where it was: the eternal battle between Intel and VIA. This could only change if Intel brought out i820 with SDRAM only, because this would make i820 relatively expensive.

Q: In the past months it appeared much harder for a person willing to buy a PC to decide on a platform most suitable for his/her needs: Socket 7, Socket 370, Slot 1, Slot A. Does it differ greatly from the older times, when each new processor generation was accompanied by the only platform, which could fit: Socket 3, 5, 7? Do you approve of the today's rich choice? Is it positive or negative?

ABIT: Remember the time you could choose only 1 toothpaste in the store? Of course it was much easier to choose at that time. Computers are getting more and more consumer-oriented products, so one can expect even more diversification in the future. At the beginning, this process might sometimes create insecurity for customers, but the high-end user should realize that not all products are aimed at him anymore.

CHAINTECH: Yes, it is positive

GIGABYTE: For the end user it is positive since there are more choices for him. Although the makers will have a lot of hard work to do, the one who has more resources and design capabilities will be more competent such as Gigabyte. :-)

MSI: As I observe, PCs market segment is getting complicated, wide range means more benefits for end-user and larger size of the market. At the offices people need an entry CPU for word processing and that's enough. But if there are few choices, the end users have to pay higher price for the performance they don't need.

SOYO: That depends from which side you look at it. For consumers, it means a wider range but a more difficult choice. For manufacturers, it is not a good situation, because of the high R&D costs. The situation in the past (with fewer models) was better in that respect. However, this situation can also be an advantage competition-wise, because smaller manufacturers cannot keep up with the pace of R&D.

Q: A few years ago there were a couple of irreplaceable component parts for each PC: a card controlling the input and output ports and a CD-ROM drive. Today all this belongs to the list of the mainboard's irreplaceable components. Which non-integrated device will be the next to share its features with the mainboard at the next integration stage?

ABIT: This will of course largely depend on the chipset manufacturer. But as we saw before, we can expect in the future also more flexible solutions. Like our BE6 and BP6 BX chipset mainboards, where we integrated an ATA/66 controller.

CHAINTECH: VGA => Audio => I/O => LAN => Modem

GIGABYTE: It could be a LAN card.

MSI: I think LAN on board will be very popular, Micro-Star will have many models with optional or standard LAN on board.

SOYO: According to our technical staff: sound/modem cards based on AMR and on-board network and VGA controllers.

Q: Asus and Gigabyte were the first companies, which included IEEE-1394 mainboard with a controller at one side. Is your company planning to make anything like that? Or maybe you regard USB 2.0 as a more promising solution?

ABIT: IEEE-1394 is still a specialized product. I do not expect it do become important for ABIT before H/2 next year. The judgement for the USB 2.0 will be done when it is ready, at the moment it is still to early to make any serious judgements.

CHAINTECH: We will issue a M/B with 1394 chipset on board at Q4'99. 1394 and USB 2.0 will exist at the same time.

GIGABYTE: Yes, we do have IEEE-1394 mainboard. However, USB 2.0 would be a more promising solution due to its lower price. (But it is still not ready yet)

MSI: IEEE-1394 is not really popular now, only very little equipment has this function, so the market is not mature, same as USB 2.0. We will do more research to see the real market demand.

SOYO: Market demand has not been substantial enough for Soyo to include such a motherboard in its product-line (yet).

Q: The situation we now witnessing is rather interesting. Intel tries to limit the overclockability of its processors by all possible and impossible means while the mainboard manufacturers try to offer the users as many overclocking options as possible. Impeccable and easy overclocking is one of the primary concerns and occupies one of the first places in the new mainboards promotion. What is Intel's attitude towards this situation, we never noticed any displeasure or concern expressed by Intel in this respect?

ABIT: Our aim is to provide our customers more settings for their computer, and not overclockability. Actually we discourage people from doing this, as it might harm their system. We have an excellent relationship with Intel, because we offer top products for their CPUs.

CHAINTECH: Intel is trying its best to stop this trend to safeguard a smooth operation of the CPU environment. Chaintech will provide customer better CPU performance under safety consideration.

GIGABYTE: No, we didn't have this kind of pressure from Intel.

MSI: As a mainboard manufacturer we do not encourage end-users to overclock if they do not have enough knowledge on it. But for experienced user, we will provide maximum possibilities to enjoy the fun, and overclocking stability. I think, Intel's main concern is to eliminate re-marked CPUs from the market.

SOYO: We feel this is mainly a warranty-issue. Intel tries to limit overclocking mainly because overclocking can damage your CPU, and Intel CPUs have a life-time warranty. This can generate a lot of RMA. The same goes for chipsets: Intel guarantees their functioning up to a certain frequency, which, in case of overclocking, could bring them a lot of RMA.

Q: Today a lot of mainboard manufacturers are forced to design one and the same board in three different form factors: Baby AT, ATX and Micro ATX. What do you think about Baby AT? Will it manage to overcome these hardships?

ABIT: We currently do not have Baby AT products, and also do not focus on it. For us it is more important to offer solutions for the new Flex ATX standard, but of course we can design Baby AT boards if a OEM customer wishes.

CHAINTECH: Baby AT is for upgrade market.

GIGABYTE: Baby AT may disappear gradually. But now the market in the developing country still has demand.

MSI: I think BAT has no future because it is an out of date technology. Many functions cannot be supported by BAT power supply. I think M-ATX does replace BAT.

SOYO: This also depends on the position you are in. For consumers a bigger range may be attractive, but for manufacturers it can be a bit of a burden. However, there will definitely be a place in the market for the Baby-AT form factor for the coming years. Somewhat further in the future, it may remain only for the upgrade market.

Q: And to conclude with we prepared quite a tricky question ;-) How will the today's mainboard differ from that in a year or so?

ABIT: As you know, the chipset makers define most of the specs of a mainboard, so their roadmap will deliver you the best information. But everybody knows ABIT will always do its best to give more than the standard and even integrate future technology, as we currently do with ATA/66.

CHAINTECH: (1). Specs enhancement with better price (2). All-in-one

GIGABYTE: There are more and more all-in-one chipsets and VGA integration in today's motherboard. Today's average selling price is nearly 15% lower than a year ago. The features in today's motherboard are "ISA-less" and have soft audio, soft modem and new form factor, such as Flex ATX.

MSI: Compared with the previous times, people evaluated MSI mainboard very high in terms of performance and quality, and it was enough for customers at that time. As the market segmentation is getting complicated, and technology changes very fast, we feel we must work very hard to differentiate Micro-Star and others' products. So we provide many unique features on our MB, such as D-LED, CPU plug & play, Anti-Virus..... thus, we must add on more value to benefit end users.

SOYO: As the core functionality of a motherboard depends on the chipset used, we will see motherboards using different chipsets. :-)
Seriously: certain technologies now in use, like ISA, USB, SDRAM, ATA will come to a halt because their standard cannot keep up with the current development in performance speed.

Q: Thank you so much for your help and for your kind attention.

ABIT: It was a pleasure.

CHAINTECH: Thank for your professional questions.

GIGABYTE: Thank you.

MSI: Thank you.

SOYO: It was our pleasure :-)

Well, the guys did a great job! But we also managed to put up a good show: the interview seems to be quite a cool thing. Don't you think so?