Intel and nVidia Hop In Bed - Will Intel Lose Sales?
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So since nVidia looks like it might have the goods to make a chipset that could take sales away from Intel, keeping in mind we haven't mentioned SLI (doesn't make a difference to the vast majority of consumers) or the integrated graphics advantage (this same advantage has yet to give ATi a large number of design wins), what the heck was Intel thinking? In previous license agreements, you could always make the case that they weren't going to lose any sales because of it. The products that came from these agreements were mainly going to fill out the bottom (i.e. cheapo) bracket, a place Intel didn't particularly care to be involved in, and might push a few more CPU sales if anything.
But considering the fact that, in a single product generation nVidia took a solid chunk of the AMD market from VIA, and in the second pretty much relegated them to picking up scraps based only on price, Intel is looking at a much stronger competitor than they've ever granted a license to before. Granted Intel has a better product than anything VIA had to offer on the K7 and K8 platforms, and much tighter market integration with both consumers and the motherboard makers whom they essentially play like puppets on a string. However, this is really putting them in a potential position to lose a lot of gravy sales.
Intel has managed to become the largest retailer of graphics solutions, without providing a single discreet chip. Simply from sales of their chipsets, which contain various implementations of "Extreme Graphics," they've won that title, instead of nVidia or ATi. If nVidia is really serious and can get some design wins in business class Dell and HP boxes, that's a lot of "bonus" money which I'm sure does a lot for Intel's bottom line going out the window.
Considering the current state of Intel's processor platform, throwing away any kind of money is not a bright idea. Intel isn't AMD; they aren't teetering on German bank loans to keep them from financial ruin. Still, they have stated that they do have some backlog of processors not being sold. And given the lack of interest in the recent i915/925X chipsets to drive those sales forward, now probably isn't a good time for them to give up any areas in which they still have an advantage.
Next: Is nVidia Inside Any Better? >>
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