Bracing for the upcoming competition from Intel’s 845G and 845GL integrated chipsets, VIA Technologies has chosen to fight the new chipset war by lowering the price of its P4M266, while Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) will counterstrike with its new SiS650GX chipset, a low-price version of the SiS650.
Intel’s first Pentium 4-based integrated chipsets, the 845G and 845GL, will hit the market in April and May. With performance similar to that of Nvidia’s GeForce2 MX400, the new chipsets are regarded as an enormous threat to low-end graphics cards. Market competition becomes even tougher as Intel has decided to quote its 845GL at below US$30.
Facing the heightened competition, SiS has launched a new chipset, the SiS650GX, quoting the low-price chipset at US$18 per unit to first-tier motherboard makers. Compared to SiS650’s price of US$28-30, the SiS650GX is nearly 35% cheaper.
VIA has chosen to counter by lowering the price of its P4M266 about 12% from US$25 to US$22.
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