Motherboards in 2000 Preview - Part 1: Chipsets

AMD's Chipsets

The AMD 750 will have a very small presence next year as the market turns to VIA for an Athlon chipset solution. Does this mean that AMD is departing from the chipset manufacturing scene? Not at all.

Contrary to what we expected AMD to do when they released the AMD 750, AMD will be keeping a prominent role in the manufacturing of chipsets for their beloved Athlon processor. While they won't be manufacturing the mainstream chipset solutions, they will make sure that there is a chipset solution available during times of transition from one major technology to the next. While AMD wasn't entirely clear as to what the next period of transition would be, they did indicate that the next AMD chipset solution would not be a multiprocessor solution.

After this next chipset solution is made available, we should be able to finally see a multiprocessor Athlon chipset from AMD in the latter part of 2000. While this isn't exactly what we were hoping to see, it is good to see AMD taking an active role in ensuring the success of the Athlon.