NVIDIA Terminates ULi Chipset Supplies

[malware]

Maybe many of you know that ULi was acquired by NVIDIA in February of last year. Now in order to push its own chipset series into the lower segment of the mainboard market, NVIDIA decided to terminate the supplies of ULi chipsets to third parties completely. At the CeBIT 2007 show NVIDIA Corp. has demonstrated such solutions as MCP68 and MCP73, so the ULi solutions need to be removed from their way. Engineers that were involved into ULi chipsets development will now join the NVIDIA team working in the same field. So, it looks like ULi branded products are history now.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Ketxxx]

Somebody needs to stop nvidia from buying everything, their getting like M$. If this continues hardware choices will literally be deminished to ATi\AMD or nvidia\intel :shadedshu

 

[Grings]

this is a real shame, the uli engineers came up with some very cool designs, i have an asrock939dual sata2 and i think its the only board that can use pci-e AND agp both at full speed, as well as having the option to put an am2 add on board on it (though thats not really worth it, but still an example of clever design) and the uli reference boards of this chipset could even do 2x8xSLI through a riser card ( http://www.ocworkbench.com/2005/uli/m1695/dualpcie-1.htm ) , plus they overclock well.

they also had that sli chipset (which probably led to nvidia's purchase, must have rattled them)

 

[C.Ash]

Wow, they bought them just to close them down? How monopolistic.

 

[Ketxxx]

Lets hope half the ULi engineers go to Via or something. Via in themselves still make pretty good chipsets, their just totally overshadowed by ATi and nvidia now.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Not sure if I ever used ULi parts. But, they didnt really get rid of ULi. They terminated the name and incorporated it into Nvidia. I like a chipset maker to incorporate all their things int he mobos. That way, you know its going to work well together, not kick and scream and fight each other.

 

[Ketxxx]

That way, you know its going to work well together, not kick and scream and fight each other.

*cough* Anyone remember the nf3 and 4 chipsets?

 

[Frick]

I think it's kinda sad.. Uli did some cool things. I mean, all those cheap and very upgrade-friendly boards will be missed, unless Nvidia do something similiar.

 

[Ketxxx]

Dont count on it.

 

[tkpenalty]

Nvidia will get sued for this, this is monopoly that they are doing. They NEVER will release a cheap chipset like AMD/ATI did. So stupid... nvidia is making a grave for themselves.

 

[Loghic]

They NEVER will release a cheap chipset like AMD/ATI did. So stupid... nvidia is making a grave for themselves.

The nVidia nForce 520 looks very interesting to me. It looks like there is al lot of "uli inside". The chipset is very cool, need little power an has a ahci sata controller. Just take a look at ASRock ALiveNF5-eSATA2+ (german review.