NVIDIA Quitting Chipset Business? UPDATED

UPDATED: NVIDIA has denied rumors that it plans to exit the chipset business, see NVIDIA: We’re Not Leaving Chipset Business

Nvidia has decided to throw in the towel and quit the chipset business, sources close to the situation at one of Taiwan’s top motherboard makers have revealed. As the story is told, Nvidia called a meeting earlier this week with its motherboard partners to gauge support for it continuing to develop chipsets in the future.

The motherboard makers’ response? Silence.

It is still early days and not all the facts are known at the time of writing, but it is believed Nvidia will transfer the chipset team to working on GPU projects. On the motherboard makers’ side, some makers have already canceled upcoming high-end motherboard projects based on the nForce 7-series chipset.

DigiTimes – Nvidia to quit chipset business

HEXUS.channel spoke to Ben Berraondo, the UK PR manager for NVIDIA to ask for an NVIDIA perspective on this. “Every company that has already released a 790i board isn’t pulling it,” he said. “You’ll have to talk to Foxconn to get the details of their specific case but I doubt it’s just a chipset issue.”

Hexus – 790i chipset issues: NVIDIA and vendors give their views

If substantiated, the news would also be potentially fatal to a speculated NVIDIA deal with Apple for a custom computer platform that would use Intel processors. While the rumor that triggered the speculation didn’t name any company as a potential designer, NVIDIA has been suggested given the performance of its first notebook platform and would leave Apple without a supplier for at least some of its Macs once NVIDIA completely phased out its chipset development.

Electronista – NVIDIA to back out of mainboard chipsets?

Why nVidia would go to the trouble of gaining a QPI license from Intel just to throw in the towel on motherboards is a question for the ages. Hopefully the issue will be clarified post haste.

TrustedReviews – Rumour: nVidia Abandonning Chipset Manufacture