Mobo makers unenthusiastic about Camino

CeBIT 2000 A straw poll of a number of manufacturers exhibiting at CeBIT has demonstrated that Intel's Camino i820 chipset is unpopular with third party mainboard vendors. Soyo, Chaintech, Gigabyte, Asus and a clutch of other Taiwanese mobo manufacturers were displaying boards using the i820 chipset, but conversations with staff at these stands demonstrated a general lack of enthusiasm -- and weak sales -- for products based on the Intel solution. At the Intel Developer Forum in Palm Springs, two weeks ago, Pat Gelsinger, a senior VP at the firm, maintained that his firm will ship "multimillions" of the i820 chipset between now and when it introduces Caminogate II, now known as the 820E, later on this Spring. Staff at the different stands all said that sales of their boards using the current revision of the i820 were weak. One told us: "Write something nice about the i820 so we can sell more boards." Meanwhile, most of the manufacturers at CeBIT were exhibiting motherboards based on the Via KX133 chipset; however, one vendor said there were still reliability and yield issues and, to ensure quality control, an extra testing of the boards before release was essential. ® CeBIT 2000: Full Coverage