Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
As you can see by these figures, it is no wonder that a popular industry news website called The
Register (
www.theregister.com
)
uses the term “Chipzilla” when referring to the industry giant.
White-Box Systems
Many of the top-selling system manufacturers do design and make their own motherboards, especially
for their higher-end systems. According to
Gartner Research
, the top PC manufacturers for the last
several years have consistently been names such as Lenovo (formerly IBM), HP, Dell, and Acer.
These companies both design and manufacture their own motherboards and purchase existing boards
from motherboard manufacturers. In rare cases, they even design their own chips and chipset
components for their own boards. Although sales are high for these individual companies, a large
segment of the market is what those in the industry call the
white-box systems
.
White-box
is the term used by the industry to refer to what would otherwise be called
generic
PCs—
that is, PCs assembled from a collection of industry-standard, commercially available components.
The white-box designation comes from the fact that historically most of the chassis used by this type
of system have been white (or ivory or beige).
The great thing about white-box systems is that they use industry-standard components that are
interchangeable. This interchangeability is the key to future upgrades and repairs because it ensures
that a plethora of replacement parts will be available to choose from and will be interchangeable. For
many years, I have recommended avoiding proprietary systems and recommended more industry-
standard white-box systems instead.
Companies selling white-box systems do not usually manufacture the systems; they assemble them.
