by Anton Shilov
09/23/2002 | 07:19 PM
VIA Technology, the largest supplier of core-logic devices for AMD Socket A platform plans to reduce the number of products in their portfolio from three to two. It is definitely a wise decision because it will allow the company to price their products more flexibly and also reduce some of the manufacturing expenses.
The idea was to offer the remarked KT400 North Bridge as KT333 North Bridge with AGP 8x transfer rate lowered to 4x, since generally it is the only difference between these chipsets. Unfortunately, VIA KT400 and KT333 North Bridges are not pin-to-pin compatible, according to this news-story based on the statements of mainboard makers. Since VIA plans to start the shipments of such new KT333 North Bridges in late September or early October, a lot of mainboard manufacturers are worried, as some of them already have PCBs for KT333 based devices (that are incompatible with new KT333), while the others are anxious about the lack of proper inventory and components that may be needed to manufacture such mainboards.<%BANNER[article]%>
It should be pointed out that KT333 core-logic is very popular these days. It is not very expensive and offers good price features ratio. In fact, some of the vendors have even indicated about shortages of this North Bridge on the market. As the life-cycle of the KT333 is set to end in December, VIA had to supply its partners the products until then, maybe this also forced VIA to roll-out the remarked version of the KT400 now.
The results of such operation may not appear good to mainboard makers, who will have to do something with current inventory they have, however, VIA seems to favour from this. Firstly, the company forces all its partners to perform the transition to KT400, secondly their product portfolio will basically consist from only two chipsets for AMD platform: KT266A for low-end and KT400 for all the remaining markets, hence, manufacturing expenses should decrease.
What kept VIA from revealing such plans to the mainboard manufacturers in Summer? If VIA, actually, revealed the information, why the makers are complaining now?