Digitimes in the Far East are claiming that the upcoming Haswell based processor range may have a negative impact on some of the second tier motherboard players. This may even force some of them out of the market completely.

Haswell is set to integrate functions such as power phase control and other functionality, used for overclocking – right into the CPU. The Digitimes report indicates that sources they spoke to in the motherboard industry are concerned that the new processor will weaken the desktop market demand, causing some of the smaller players to exit the market completely in late 2013.

Digitimes say “Although Intel will adopt a system on chip (SoC) form factor for Haswell processors used in ultrabooks, the Haswell processors for the desktop segment will not adopt the same strategy until 2014; instead, Intel will gradually integrate more chipset functions into the processor and such a move could cause motherboard designs to become less differentiated.”

The report adds that Motherboard manufacturers are attempting to focus their resources on “adding functions such as USB and Thunderbolt interfaces as well as BIOS firmware features and new software applications.”

I spoke with a source linked to ASUS today and he claimed that they had no concerns.

Kitguru says: The bigger players such as ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte will not be affected.

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