Nvidia's chipset business has taken a PR beating in the past 12+ months. It all started when Nvidia's notebook GPUs began failing at an "abnormal" rate, then there was the whole SLI licensing fiasco. Now Nvidia is saying it plans to halt development of future chipsets that might work with Intel's Core i5 and i7 architecture.

According to Nvidia, it doesn't have much choice in the matter.

"We will continue to innovate integrated solutions for Intel's FSB architecture," wrote Ken Brown, a spokesperson for Nvidia. "We firmly believe that this market has a long healthy life ahead. But because of Intel's improper claims to customers and the market that we aren't licensed to the new DMI bus and its unfair business tactics, it is effectively immposible for us to market chipsets for future CPUs. So, until we resolve this matter in court next year, we'll postpone further chipset investments for Intel DMI CPUs."

As Arstechnica explains it, Nvidia has a license to Intel's frontside bus protocol, but there is no frontside bus in the P55 platform. The CPU now talks to the I/O hub using the same DMI bus that in previous platforms was used by the MCH. Nvidia has so far been unable to get a DMI license from Intel that would allow them to continue to making chipsets, prompting Nvidia to take Intel to court.

Nvidia was a bit more dodgy when it came to setting the record straight with regards to future chipsets on the AMD platform. At least one report suggests Nvidia has also halted development on the AMD side, and Brown didn't confirm or deny the report, saying only "we continue to sell a higher quantity of chipsets than AMD itself."

More proof that Intel's P55 platform packs enough punch to satisfy power users and mainstream users alike, MSI's P55-GD80 motherboard helped Taiwan overclocker Coolater set a new Core i7 overclocking record. Using the aforementioned board, Coolater was able ramp up his 2.8GHz Core i7 860 CPU all the way to 5.39GHz.

"The MSI P55-GD80 owes much of its outstanding overclocking ability to its equipped MSI-exclusive technologies, such as the one second auto-overclocking feature OC Genie, the SuperPipe cooling system that effectively drops the operating temperature by 50C, and 1>4 phase total DrMOS power supply design," MSI said in a related statement.

According to the validated CPU-Z screenie, Coolater ran a 245.39MHz bus speed with a 3926.2MHz frontside bus and a 1.672 vCore. And of course at nearly 5.4GHz, LN2 was involved in keeping the proc cool.

MSI's P55-GD80 streets for $210 on 'Egg.

For motherboard manufacturers, it's 'out with the old and in with the new,' whether they're ready for the change or not. Citing un-named sources sitting in mobo trenches, DigiTimes says Intel plans to slash the proportion of its G31 IGP chipeset shipments in half, reducing the number from 50 percent to 25 percent in the fourth quarter.

At the same time, Intel also plans to raise the proportion of its G41 shipments to 25 percent, but it remains to be seen how this will play out in terms of sales. According to DigiTimes, motherboard makers appear unwilling to jump on the pricier G41 bandwagon, which costs $7 compared to $4-5 for the G31.

Meanwhile, there already exists a suppy gap of around 20 percent for G31 chipset-based boards, which could reach as high as 50 percent in the fourth quarter. Asrock, ECS, Foxconn, and MSI are expected to suffer the most, as they ship more entry-level boards than Asus and Gigabyte.

Citing un-named sources in the motherboard industry, news and rumor site DigiTimes says Intel will officially announce its new socket 1156-based desktop platform on September 8, 2009. This includes the Core i5 750, Core i7 860,  and Core i7 870 processors, as well as the P55 motherboard chipset.

With anticipation for the new platform running high, motherboard makers expect sales to jump by 15 to 20 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter. P55-based boards are expected to account for 20 percent of all mobo shipments by the end of the year.

Still no word yet on pricing, although much to the chagrin of Intel, its upcoming platform has already been spotted in retail channels in Taiwan and China. The Core i5 750 was seen selling for $206, while the Core i7 860 and 870 were listed at $303 and $575, respectively.