Chaintech to exit motherboard business

[Zap]

Chaintech to exit motherboard business

Fewer manufacturers = less choice, higher prices and less innovation

Seems as if Chaintech has had a rough 12 months. They will still make video cards and will make memory modules instead of motherboards. This is strange because some companies such as eVGA and BFG are going into the motherboard business. There has to be profit somewhere in the motherboard business...

I've actually only owned two Chaintech boards. First was the 7NIL1, the only Nforce2 Ultra 400 board that was mATX. More recently, just got a VNF3-250. The boards seem pretty solid. I also just got a Chaintech 6800LE video card, plus I have two of their VIA Envy24T PCI soundcards.

I wonder which tier 2 motherboard manufacturer will call it quits next? Shuttle was the previous one. Here's my eulogy to Shuttle.

Here is something both interesting and disturbing...

In May of this year I purchased a Shuttle AB60R motherboard from Mwave when they had them on special for $25.

By early July, Shuttle has announced they were quitting the motherboard business.

I don't buy another motherboard until...

In late August of this year I purchased a Chaintech VNF3-250 motherboard from ZipZoomFly for $56 shipped.

A few days after I receive the board, I read that Chaintech has announced they will stop motherboard production.

WTF is up wid dat!?!?!

OMG, now I'm afraid to buy motherboards that I like, for fear that some bad juju associated with my purchase will put the company on an inevitable course to stop motherboard production.

Hmmm, on a more positive light perhaps I can hire my services to these motherboard companies. I can threaten to put them out of the motherboard business by purchasing one of their boards unless... they GIVE me one for free. That won't count as me purchasing one, so they should be safe from my bad vibes!!! LOL, this would be just like that character in the book Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams, the lorry driver who was the rain god... Everywhere he went, the clouds rained on him. One person said, "hey, he can offer services to drought-ridden countries." The next guy said, "forget about that, he can offer to NOT visit places that don't want rain, such as sporting events, etc."

 

[eplebnista]

:shocked:

 

[Topweasel]

Its all about Profitability. If I remember correctly Chaintech actually manufacturers motherboards. Companies like EVGA and BFG order and rebrand other companies mothrboards and Intel for example has many compnaies making boards to their specification. They don't have to worry about Manufacturing costs at all and can just order less or more depending on sales. Shuttle on the other hand didn't really stop making motherboards, they just stopped making full sized ATX motherboards so they sould put their manufacturering efforts to their SFFs. Selling the case and mobo as on part was 10x more profitible then singular mobo sales and do to the enormous demand for SFF it became a no brainer to make the switch. Its getting harder for motherboard manufacturers to survive without a OEM deal create constant steady stream fo rthem to build off. Infact things like AMD not forcing new mobo purchases for X2 doesn't help as well, those kind of things keep them from having a new series of motherboard purchases. This was kind of the issue with the Socket A issue, but there was 2-3 changes in bus speed that required mobo changes and there was more competition from intel in the DIY market. Now with the A64 AMD has almost the whole DIY market and late or feature lacking motherboard realeases from companies like Chaintech or Abit (companies without OEM deals) has hit them hard because the likely hood of ramping sales is unlikely with the requirement for a new motherboard gone.

 

[bhazard451]

http://www.chaintech.com.tw/tw/eng/

Chaintech is NOT exiting the motherboard business. Thank god, I just bought the nforce4 ultra board a few months ago, works great and I got it for around $85

 

[Topweasel]

Since They were refering to a gradule decrease in motherboard production, phasing out instead of dropping out, then it is still highly possible for them to leave. That kind of press release looks like the standard deny deny deny till it happens presser.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Topweasel
If I remember correctly Chaintech actually manufacturers motherboards. Companies like EVGA and BFG order and rebrand other companies mothrboards and Intel for example has many compnaies making boards to their specification. They don't have to worry about Manufacturing costs at all and can just order less or more depending on sales. Shuttle on the other hand didn't really stop making motherboards, they just stopped making full sized ATX motherboards so they sould put their manufacturering efforts to their SFFs.

I thought in recent years ECS manufactured Shuttle boards?

 

[Silversierra]

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=401180
specifically posts 11 and 34

I think UB would know what he's talking about, as would the chaintech reps.

Side note: I can't imagine that chaintech is having bad sales, the vnf4 and vnf4ultra have sold very well. I remember when I got my vnf4ultra(in january), they were so in demand that you were very lucky to get one. Newegg would get some in stock and within an hour they were sold out again, and it continued to sell out for several weeks IIRC. It's because it's a good product, and is priced reasonably.. It also was either the first or near the first nforce 4 ultra board that you could buy, so they got a "head start" over the competition early.

 

[Topweasel]

Did you look at the monthly sales That digitimes had for them. Year on year sales decreases across the board and only a few months where the sales increased from the months before. Those numbers look ugly.

 

[Zap]

Good to hear they are sticking around. Now if only Shuttle was sticking around as well... I've used Shuttle boards since the socket 7 days. Their HOT-601 was a daring product and their HOT-557 was one of the better overclocking socket 7 Intel TX chipset boards.

 

[Silversierra]

Originally posted by: Topweasel
Did you look at the monthly sales That digitimes had for them. Year on year sales decreases across the board and only a few months where the sales increased from the months before. Those numbers look ugly.

If digitimes isn't right about them going out of business, then who says their profit figures are right?

Is digitimes like the INQ or something?

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Originally posted by: Silversierra
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=401180
specifically posts 11 and 34

I think UB would know what he's talking about, as would the chaintech reps.

Side note: I can't imagine that chaintech is having bad sales, the vnf4 and vnf4ultra have sold very well. I remember when I got my vnf4ultra(in january), they were so in demand that you were very lucky to get one. Newegg would get some in stock and within an hour they were sold out again, and it continued to sell out for several weeks IIRC. It's because it's a good product, and is priced reasonably.. It also was either the first or near the first nforce 4 ultra board that you could buy, so they got a "head start" over the competition early.

Heck, I liked my VNF3-250 so much I bought a second for a cheap work PC! Certainly glad that the rumors have apparantly turned out to be false.

 

[Fern]

Here's somebody else glad they're sticking around :thumbsup:

I was impressed with VNF3-250 Iused in abuild recently. Great quality/price IMHO.

Like Zap I bought a Shuttle b4 they went outta biz. Too bad, it was another good mobo for the price.

Fern

 

[Zap]

Yup, that last Shuttle board I got was great. It worked with mobile P4 chips without mods. :thumbsup: So what if it didn't support Prescott? It uses an Intel 865PE chipset with CSA network, Firewire, extra Silicon Image SATA controller all for $25. Awesome!