nVidia vs. Intel

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On the face of it, Intel and nVidia aren't exactly rivals. But when you dig a little deeper, you can see some major frustration on the part of nVidia, and Intel has grievances as well. This article will examine the positions of these two companies, and why they're so mad at each other under the surface.

The technology industry is no stranger to competition, which is one of the big driving forces in the industry. Ten years ago the top-of-the-line CPU was an Intel Pentium 266 MHz; now we have quad core CPUs running at 3.2 GHz. I can't think of any other industry that has this much change in so short time. 

You would assume that Intel and AMD would be at each other's throats since their main products are in direct competition with each other. It's not AMD that has been attacking Intel lately; it's nVidia. Why is nVidia sending some smack to Intel?

CPUs

Intel makes the fastest CPUs. nVidia makes... well, they don't make any CPUs.  So where is the bad blood here? I'm sure nVidia would love to start researching CPUs and developing a competing CPU against Intel's processors. It would certainly be a difficult achievement, though; to see nVidia go from none to any kind of competitor in even a decade would be an achievement. 

Before this boat leaves the dock, Intel is holding the anchor and it's not going to be letting go. Intel holds the rights to the x86 architecture. There were a dozen or so companies that could produce any kind of x86 processor, and now we are down to three: Intel, AMD, and VIA. 

nVidia has little chance right now to get a license, and if they were to buy VIA, Intel would have the choice of whether or not to extend the license. I think it's a fat chance in hell that it would happen. This has lead to a little bitterness between both companies.

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