We got hold of some interesting info about the shipments of Elitegroup mainboards Pentium 4 chipsets. Good 40% of the presently shipped mainboards for these CPUs are reported to be based on SiS645, the same 40% are based on the rivalry VIA P4X266A and only 10% are built on Intel 845. The other 10% account for Intel 850 and yet not sold P4X266 leftovers.
We were not surprised at the modest share chipset from Intel occupies in Elitegroup shipments. It’s right on the contrary: we wonder why Elitegroup uses i845 at all, because the two companies are far from being in good term. There is another point to think about: SIS and VIA chipsets have absolutely equal shares in the shipments of the biggest mainboard maker, which produces about 1.5 million boards per month! On the one hand, there is a tight cooperation with VIA that arose from its counter claims with Intel and no problems with productive capacities. On the other hand, Elitegroup has traditionally close relations with SiS which suffers insufficient productive capacities (though, the problem is not that acute now). Both these chipsets cost around $20, so there is a certain parity.
Now let us recall that there are no more manufacturers suited by Intel, so no one is likely to sympathize with VIA as strongly as Elitegroup. Subsequently, SiS645 is to be more popular than P4X266A. Well, the guys from SIS were really smart to have settled all the license fuss with Intel in advance. ;)