nVidia vs. Intel - Intel Slaps nVidia
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In recent news, an Intel rep said that GPU manufacturers like nVidia won't be needed in the near future. Intel's upcoming Nehalem processors will move the GPU, which was previously in the chipset or a different chip altogether, into the CPU itself, eliminating the need for any kind of GPU. They said they are sticking the GPU into the CPU, and nVidia doesn't have anywhere to stick it.
Intel sure does have a point, but it pertains more to their needs. You could throw a GPU into a CPU core, but it's probably going to give you the performance of an Intel GPU, and nowhere near as powerful as nVidia's GPUs. For people that want to play games, there is no way you are going to be able to get away with Intel's GPU inside the CPU. For now, there still appears to be a market for nVidia GPUs. With more people playing games on consoles and the market for computer games dying, we could see the end of GPU cards come sooner or later, but I'm guessing it will be much later rather than sooner.
Intel and nVidia merger?
When AMD bought ATI, it sent tidal waves through the technology sector. A GPU company and a CPU company now one -- what a dominating force! Well, it hasn't been as dominating as it was thought to be at the time of the merger, but this move by AMD opened the door for Intel to buy nVidia. There were rumors of such a buyout shortly after AMD's shopping spree, but nothing ever materialized from it.
It doesn't appear that this deal is going to be done any time in the next few years. Both companies are at each other's throat and neither wants to give an inch. If AMD gets some hardware on the market that can knock the pants off both Intel and nVidia at the same time, I think that Intel and nVidia might reconsider their position. But they would both have to no longer be the dominating force in their respective fields.
Conclusion
The bad blood between Intel and nVidia goes back years and the new arguments are only throwing gas onto the fire. All was good back when nVidia stuck to what they did best and Intel stuck to what they did best. Now both want to expand horizontally, are starting to spill into each other's markets, and not making each other happy.
Intel hopes to put the nail in the coffin with their new processor in development, which will move their GPU to the CPU and eliminate the need for off-core GPUs, which would kill nVidia. I don't see this hatred going away any time soon, and I don't see nVidia's GPU cards dying off any time soon. Intel is years behind nVidia as far as graphics power, and people still want and need powerful GPUs for games.
AMD could make this a do-or-die relationship for Intel and nVidia if it could get some benchmark-killing hardware out its doors, but the way AMD is going, I think I'll be writing about the death of AMD before then.
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