NVIDIA: We’re Not Leaving Chipset Business

NVIDIA has denied rumors that it plans to exit the chipset business. A spokesperson also said he knew of no agreement with Apple, Inc. to use NVIDIA’s chipsets in Apple’s notebook computers. NVIDIA is known to have lost some significant chipset business, and DigiTimes of Taipei reported that it would drop chipsets to focus on GPUs.

NewsFactor - NVIDIA Denies Rumors It Will Drop Chipset Business

But Nvidia is fighting the rumor in no uncertain terms. A spokesperson fired off an unsolicited e-mail to ChannelWeb and other media organizations Friday, claiming the story to be "false" and "groundless." Digitimes has not retracted the story, though it does mention Nvidia’s objection to its claims.

"This story is false and we have asked Digitimes for a full retraction," writes Nvidia’s Bryan Del Rizzo in the e-mail. "We have no intention of getting out of the chipset business. In fact, our MCP business is as strong as it has ever been for both AMD and Intel platforms. Mercury Research has reported that the Nvidia market share of AMD platforms in Q2 ‘08 was 60 percent. We have been steady in this range for over two years. Contrary to popular perception, we have not lost any ground to AMD, despite their chipset introductions over the last year or so."

ChannelWeb - Nvidia Calls Claims It’s Quitting Chipset Business Groundless

NVIDIA’s Brian Burke made it clear that NVIDIA’s chipset business is stronger than ever and touched on these points:
• SLI is still the preferred multi-GPU platform thanks to its stellar scaling, game compatibility and driver stability.
• nForce 790i SLI is the recommended choice by editors worldwide due to its compelling combination of memory performance, overclocking, and support for SLI.
• We’re looking forward to bringing new and very exciting MCP products to the market for both AMD and Intel platforms.

DailyTech - NVIDIA Denies Reports That It Will Leave Chipset Business

Even if several manufacturers have backed off 790i products for whatever reason, it doesn’t automatically follow that there’s a problem with the 790i chipset. NVIDIA will have a new round of chipsets out for post-Bloomfield Nehalem processors - a fact the company stressed when Ars spoke to them today, and one that undercuts the idea that NVIDIA plans to leave the chipset market.

ArsTechnica - NVIDIA to Ars: we’re not leaving the chipset market