Today NVIDIA suspended developing chipsets for the latest Intel microprocessors, ostensibly because of a licensing dispute with Intel. But I think this move has long been in the cards for other reasons.
I’ve purchased and used a wide variety of motherboards with NVIDIA nForce chipsets, all paired with AMD processors. These boards suffered myriad minor maddening problems attributable to the chipsets. The final straw came in 2007 with Windows Vista: NVIDIA never provided drivers for its nForce2 chipset and later dropped support of nForce3. If your motherboard used those chipsets, tough luck, no Vista (or Windows 7) for you.
I swore never to buy or recommend another motherboard with an NVIDIA chipset.
The handwriting was on the wall over two years ago. NVIDIA’s primary chipset partner, AMD, acquired NVIDIA’s arch rival, ATI, in 2006. AMD then rapidly declined in processor market share. Few compelling reasons remain for using NVIDIA chipsets with Intel processors. And Intel litigators never sleep. So NVIDIA’s prospects for making big money in chipsets are nil.
Though I’ve had excellent luck with NVIDIA graphics, I won’t wax nostalgic for nForce chipsets. Hasta la vista, baby.