Can anyone remember the launch of the first Athlon processor in 1999 ? The only platform for AMD's Pentium III killer CPU was based on AMD's 750 chipset, as VIA had been unable to get their Athlon chipset ready on time. VIA's KX133 chipset was finally released some hefty six months later. When AMD had launched Athlon in August 1999, the CPU had shown to be faster as well as cheaper than any Intel processor on the market at the time. The world was ready to go out and buy systems with AMD's new wonder processor, but people were shocked when they went into the shops. Yes, Athlon processors were indeed available, but motherboards were extremely rare. It took more than 3 months until the AMD750-motherboard shortness finally eased up. What had happened?

Only a short while after the original Athlon release, I had reported of the scared Taiwanese motherboard industry , which was dearly afraid of Intel's wrath. The chip giant from Santa Clara had told motherboard makers that it really wouldn't appreciate if they should dare making motherboards for Athlon processors. Things like that had happened many times before, but never at that magnitude. In insider circles, this behavior is called the 'Intel Chipset Game'. It goes like "You piss us off, you ain't getting any chipset allocations next time". There had been other variations before, like e.g. "you ain't making i740 graphics cards, you ain't getting any other chips from us as well." Let's not get lost in the details. I am sure you are getting the picture.

Taiwan's most prominent motherboard maker Asustek had played a major role in the Athlon-motherboard game in the final months of 1999 . The Asus Athlon-motherboard 'K7M' with AMD's 750 chipset was sold in 'white boxes' and without any labeling. You couldn't even spot that it was an Asus board. While some 'journalists' dismissed my reports as crazy conspiracy theories, it finally took an article in which I announced that Taiwanese motherboard makers are more afraid of Intel than of an invasion by mainland China to change the ridiculous situation. A few weeks after the publication Asus suddenly started shipments of K7M boards in actual Asustek-boxes and the other big Taiwanese mobo-players followed. It meant a lot to me when AMD's vice president of marketing thanked me personally at CeBIT 2000 for my involvement in this drama.

Due to the great success of the Athlon and Duron processors in the following two years, AMD has been able to increase its market share considerably and Intel was busy taking care of its in-house problems with failing chipsets, failing processors and of course their buddy Rambus Inc. It seemed as if finally motherboard makers had gained a new freedom of choice. Intel had lost its position to dictate the chipset market. The world seemed in order, at least for a glimpse.