We're hearing more and more rumors about Nvidia's chipset business and how the company is losing support from the motherboard manufacturers; and according to a story on The Inquirer it now looks like even the really big guys are pulling out.

Although Charlie appears to mostly have based his story on the lack of products on various motherboard manufacturers' Websites, considering how few high-end Nvidia boards were on display during Computex, this is hardly a surprise.

We've confirmed with some of our sources that at least some of the companies on Charlie's list have indeed pulled the plug on their 790i boards and some even went as far as cancelling all future Nvidia-based motherboard products.

The word on the street is even more worrying, as we're hearing rumors of Nvidia considering pulling out of the chipset business altogether. Considering that Intel didn't grant Nvidia a QPI license, what is left for Nvidia's chipset business? Not much, that's for sure and with the announcement last month that Nvidia will use the nForce 200 bridge chip as a solution for adding SLI to the X58 platform, these rumours might not be too far from the truth.

There's a problem with the nForce 200 solution. though, as not only will it add cost to the motherboards, but an additional chip will use up space on the PCB, which requires a layout change; and the nForce 200 chipset runs extremely hot and as such needs extra cooling. All of this talks against this solution as becoming popular with the motherboard manufacturers, despite what Nvidia wants to make us believe.

There might still be a market for Nvidia in the lower end of the market, but it's very hard to make any money here, as the margins are cut throat and the competition is fierce. Besides, there's little point for Nvidia to produce low-end chipsets, especially considering the costs involved versus the revenues that could be had.

It looks like it's a dark time ahead for Nvidia, but hopefully its other product ranges can make up for what will possibly be lost with the chipset division's demise.