OCW Readers' Award 2004 Results (2)
Bluetooth / Shadow 28 Dec 2004

Most Popular Desktop Chipset Manufacturers

Year 2004 was an exciting year for the chipset makers as there are some new comers and some companies are fading away. In year 2004, nVIDIA is in the limelight with NF2-400GB and NF3 series of boards. At the year end, we see the NF4 and NF4 SLI. For nVIDIA, it is a year with good exposure and well acceptance by users worldwide.

As for ULi, ULi's M1687 wasn't that well accepted as there are only a couple of manufacturers using this chipset. Sometimes it is more of a timing issue. ULi launched ULi M1689 and together with ASrock, they have penetrated the entry level market that was previously dominant by SiS chipsets. Lately, we seen the chipset is also used on boards from Albatron and DFI.

SiS came in third in the polls. Although it has made in roads in year 2002-2003, year 2004 wasn't really a good year for them. They seemed to have gone back to the OEM market after signing deals. This left us with only memories of the well acclaimed cost/performance chipset for both Intel and AMD platforms.

As for VIA, it remains to be seen how they could re-capture the likings of our readers. ATi is also another chipset maker that is coming strong at the year end. We will see in year 2005 how they fare.

Most Popular Graphics Card Manufacturer 2004

For the post popular graphics card maker, Sapphire leads all the way during the polls. For readers from Asia region, this brand might not be so familiar to you. In Europe, this is quite a popular brand.

The runner-up is the familiar maker ASUS. ASUS can be said as a all rounder since they do almost anything from Mainboards to graphics cards to phones and PDAs. The 2nd runner-up goes to ATi. It seems that readers prefer cards from ATi instead of the branded ATi's cards. In fact, I don't see any difference between the cards except the packaging.

Most Popular Graphics card chipset maker

As for graphics chipset makers, it is not surprising for us to see the top 3 are ATi, NVIDIA and XGI. In year 2004, ATi seems to be leading the way with their Radeon 9x00 series and X800 series of AGP cards. When PCI-E is introduced, they probably hesitated and NVIDIA took its lead in the PCI-E market with its 6600GT series of cards. NVIDIA also introduced the SLI technology to pair up two graphics card and it seems to be leading the market now. As for XGI, they shocked the world with Vorari dual core card but it seems that it didn't make it into retail. XGI seems to target the mid-low range of users that are concern about price. Chaintech Volari V3 is one such card that uses the XGI chipset and it seems to draw quite an amount of readers in our reviews.

Most Popular Mainboard Manufacturer

ASUS is really the big brother in Taiwan when it comes to mainboards. To date, it seems that no other companies is able to overtake its popularity. I feel that it is more of a branding.

ABIT is the runner-up and in year 2004, ABIT has been doing a lot promotion of its gaming rigs which gains popularity these days.

ASrock seems to made a big impact on its competitor's sales since its launch 2 years back. So far, it has released many remarkable models which are innovative in design and most importantly, they are stable and price is just right for the consumers.

Next >>>

(C) Copyright 1998-2009 OCWorkbench.com