14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that things are not going all that well for VIA, a leading manufacturer of x86 processors designed for low-power, small-form factor computer systems, as it has just announced that it suspended its project to bring VIA processors on NVIDIA-enabled platforms. The two companies will continue to work on future products, some of which are said to be showcased at next year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Back in April, the two chip makers signed an agreement according to which they would begin collaborating on a new project that would see VIA's C7 and Nano processors paired with the MCP79 chipsets from Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA. Sources at VIA told Digtimes that this project had just been suspended, but that VIA and NVIDIA co-developed desktop PC products were to be showcased by the two companies at CES 2009. Currently, there are no reports of when the collaboration between the two will resume its course.
Earlier this year, VIA showcased a desktop computer system that combined the company's newly introduced Nano processor with a GeForce graphics card to render, at quite an impressive quality, one of the latest gaming applications on the market, Crysis. The Nano processor was installed on a Mini-ITX 2.0 platform that also boasted 2GB of DDR2 and a discrete GeForce 8600 graphics card from NVIDIA, more than enough to allow VIA's platform to flawlessly run Crysis.
With the collaboration between the two chip makers coming to a halt, we are unlikely to see any netbook platforms running on an NVIDIA chipset and a VIA processor, at least not in the near future.
In related news, the company has recently announced its October sales results, which marked net sales of NT$640 million (approximately US$19.41 million). The figures represent a 13.86% month-on-month increase of NT$562 million (US$17.05 million) for September 2008. However, despite better month-on-month market performance, the company still recorded a decrease of 38.44% year-over-year.