nVidia vs. Intel - GPUs

Intel is the biggest maker of graphic processing units around. We typically don't see too many of them because they make very low end GPUs; for gaming, they are horrible. nVidia makes some of the best and fastest GPUs for gaming. Intel has been rumored for some time to be getting seriously into the gaming GPU market. 

nVidia seems to be really been spooked lately; perhaps we will see something soon. The company has reaffirmed that it makes the fastest GPUs and will continue to do so.  nVidia has also said that it is going to kick Intel's butt in the integrated GPU market. 

Welcome nVidia, it's about time! Intel has dominated this market and is the biggest maker (and market) for GPUs. AMD has jumped in with some serious contenders; that left nVidia with a few half-assed chipsets. It looks like nVidia is starting to seriously get into the integrated GPU market and wants to take their great gaming cores and beat Intel down with them. 

Remember back in the day when there was more or less one chipset on the market and you could throw in many different types of CPUs? Not only a Pentium or a Celeron, but also AMD and Via chipsets? This was when Intel dominated the market and AMD and others knew they didn't have the resources to build a great CPU and supporting hardware like motherboards and chipsets. With some bitter feelings between nVidia and Intel, could those old days be coming back? 

nVidia and Via have teamed up to create an ultra mobile platform. This is to try to keep up with Intel, which recently launched its Atom processors. nVidia has the MCP79 chipset, but right now that is for Intel processors.  nVidia has said that it would take very little re-engineering by nVidia to make it work with Via's Isaiah CPU. Their plan is to create a cheap, efficient mobile computer which hopefully will get the people at Intel talking.  

For nVidia, going from AMD to Intel was a struggle, since the memory controller on the AMD side is on the CPU, and not something nVidia need to bother with. When the company started building for Intel, it needed to have a memory controller and really couldn't use the same chipset as AMD was using. It appears that, from what nVidia has said, the Via memory controller is off the CPU and the chipset could be handled in a similar way to how the Intel chipset will handle it.

Look for this joint Via-nVidia effort to come to market in the first quarter of 2009, about a year after Atom hit the market. Is it too, little too late? Or a possible dominating force? We're just going to have to wait and see.

Next: Intel Slaps nVidia >>
 

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