After 20 years of selling desktop motherboards Intel will begin winding down and dissolve its Desktop Motherboard Business over the next three years. Intel plans on shifting resources from the desktop motherboards to newer form factors like the new NUC (Next Unit of Computing), a 4 inch by 4inch self contained PC.  The company will have motherboards available in normal quantities for the new 14nm fourth generation Core i7 products, however, after that third party boards from ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI will be the primary sources for desktop motherboards.

Intel’s statement:

“We disclosed internally today that Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will begin slowly ramping down over the course of the next three years. As Intel gradually ramps down its motherboard business we are ramping up critical areas of the desktop space including integration of innovative solutions for the PC ecosystem such as reference design development, NUC and other areas to be discussed later.

“The internal talent and experience of twenty years in the boards business (which until recently has been largely focused on desktop tower type designs) is being redistributed to address emerging new form factors — desktop and mobile – and to expand Intel’s Form Factor Reference Design (FFRD) work and enable our partners to develop exciting new computing solutions.

“The Desktop segment continues to be a major focus for Intel with hundreds of products across many subsegments and applications. Intel expects the broad and capable DT motherboard ecosystem (ie Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and many others) to fully support Intel’s growing roadmap and large worldwide customer base. Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will not develop any new Intel branded desktop motherboards after completion of Haswell-based 4th gen Core launch products in 2013 and will continue to support all products sold through the warranty period included with the specific product.”