abit to Close its Doors on December 31

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

Earlier this year, rumors began to float around about the potential demise of abit, or at least their motherboard division, and while a few sites posted "fact" about the company's closing, it never happened. Time went on, and the rumor seemed to be put to sleep. According to Cameron over at TweakTown, though, abit's doors will officially be shut on December 31st.

The article doesn't mention the source of the fact, but it does seem credible. The company's last great motherboard was the P35-based IP35 PRO. After that, none of their follow-up models seemed to garner much attention, which is likely due to the lack of a push on the marketing side.

Another reason it sounds credible is that while in Taiwan this past summer for Computex, in meeting with abit, the only thing they could really talk about was their FunFab digital photo frames. Our guide didn't have much to say on the motherboards, except that they were new, and used Intel's latest chipsets. It was the FunFab that was the ultimate focus, and it seems that side of the business didn't take off like the company hoped.

Many people consider abit to be the ones responsible for the overclocking revolution, and it's rare to hear bad things about their motherboard's reliability and stability. I haven't used an abit board in quite a while, so I can't comment much on that, but the impact that the company has had on the motherboard landscape is apparent.

Fast forward to this year and ABIT were left with a single product line to try and keep the company from collapsing - digital picture frames with the ability to print. They didn't work out as planned, there were rumors of ABIT re-entering the graphics card market once again, but those rumors didn’t eventuate. Computer enthusiasts join me in bidding farewell to the once mighty strong ABIT - they are going to close the company once and for all on December 31st.

Source: TweakTown
​

 

[Kougar]

Abit did have two or three X58 motherboards that were photographed, so I was hesitant to believe they were closing up shop.

However, it was pointed out that Abit closed down their own support forums just recently... With the lack of any Abit X58 boards having hit the shelves and the closure of their support forums, it is safe to say Abit is finally going to be no more.

I'll remember them because my first motherboard was an Abit IS7, and I loved how it was able to overclock my 2.8GHz Northwood P4 to 3.4GHz with an almost 1,000Mhz FSB. Not bad for a CPU that already had an 800FSB, most motherboards weren't able to take the FSB higher with those since most P4's had a 533FSB with much more headroom to work with...

 

[Rob Williams]

I was also hesitant to believe it as well, but there are so many things that are now falling into place. Even back in late October, I never received a response to two e-mails I sent, so it didn't give me much hope. It's too bad... the more competition, the better. I don't have the benefit of having some great abit story to relay, but it's clear that they were appreciated by many enthusiasts.

 

[Kougar]

Well, I'm not sure it was a "great" story, but everyone remembers where they got their start on with their hobby... If I hadn't had so many issues with my Compaq OEM during high school I'd never have jumped off the cliff and built my first PC; I didn't know anything about building a computer back then. That Abit IS7 still works great today even though the chipset fan is long dead... it wasn't as famous as the IC7 premium model, but it was/is a solid board.

Abit may have released some stellar boards since Universal saved them the first go around, but they have also been plagued with BIOS support issues ever since. I am not sure if they ever released updated BIOS's to fix major 4870 X2 issues yet, for example? When a company falls so far behind with their customer support, I think it's better they weren't still foisting their problematic products onto unsuspecting customers.

 

[Rob Williams]

When a company falls so far behind with their customer support, I think it's better they weren't still foisting their problematic products onto unsuspecting customers.

I couldn't agree more. It's too bad for those people who opted for their boards and are still having issues... a fix is not going to come along after the company ceases, at least not likely.

 

[moon111]

It the automotive world, people somehow believe if companies close up, that the lack of competition will create better products somehow.

With notebooks gaining ground, PC companies disappearing, the only 'custom' built rigs will all be using an Intel processor on a ASUS motherboard running Microsoft Windows. I got to chose my own case, yippee!

 

[Merlin]

Never used any Abit products, none that I can ever remember.
Farwell Abit, we never met

 

[Kougar]

It the automotive world, people somehow believe if companies close up, that the lack of competition will create better products somehow.

Better products, no. Healthier companies, certainly. The automotive market is very satuated... not oversaturated, but pretty close in my view.

The sheer overcapacity and oversupply by all three of the Big 3 was just stupid. There was a very interesting WSJ article... something about GM having more than 5 times more dealerships than Toyota... but Toyota sells 85% of GM's sales. At least before this mess began they did, now it's probably even closer to 1:1 parity.

With notebooks gaining ground, PC companies disappearing, the only 'custom' built rigs will all be using an Intel processor on a ASUS motherboard running Microsoft Windows. I got to chose my own case, yippee!

That's really amusing, but oh so true!