Intel sent out a message Wednesday saying it will be abandoning the classic desktop PC and leaving it to rivals like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI, even AMD maybe, to supply the boxes' basic boards to HP, Dell and the other vendors.

"We disclosed internally today," it said, "that Intel's Desktop Motherboard Business will begin slowly ramping down over the course of the next three years."

It means to divert those resources to Ultrabooks, tablets and smartphones.

It said "The internal talent and experience of 20 years in the boards business...is being redistributed to address emerging new form factors."

"Intel will stop developing new Desktop boards once Haswell launch is completed," the company said.

Haswell is due to start rolling out this summer.

"Intel expects the broad and capable motherboard ecosystem...Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and many others...to fully support Intel's growing roadmap and large worldwide customer base," it said.

CNET said the disclosure "follows rumors that Intel would stop making board connectors - the so-called Land Grid Array (LGA) socket - for desktops when a future generation of processors arrives after Haswell, under the code name Broadwell."