9 replies to this topic

[xboxrulz]

According to Tom's Hardware, NVIDIA may be in fact produce their own processor. They speculate that it may come in the form of a VIA-NVIDIA partnership.

What do you guys think? Good idea? Vote in the polls.

I personally think this will spice up the market for all.

Source: http://www.tomshardw...ml#BOM_comments

xboxrulz

[Quatrux]

I think it's a good move for computers in general, for hardware lets say, because I always think that competition among something is much better than monopoly, you want to get profit, you'll need to work, where on monopoly if you want to get profit you can just raise the price of some products and don't do much of new things, or do it quite slowly.

[toby]

That article suggests that Intel have the copyright on x86, which is far too close to monopoly, this won't change much in that case even if they do go through with Intel or Via.

It's good I suppose, the less they buy in for the gpus the cheaper they might be, and the bottom deepest logic of gpu isn't too different to cpu, if different at all.

[Darasen]

An interesting idea. Nvidia could probably make a good CPU. They have been creating GPU's for some time and as stated I guess the transition to an x86 processor would not be that huge of a leap technology wise. I was surprised when Nvidia first started making chipsets and was a bit skeptical at first, now Nvidia's are my preferred.

I would hope that if they decide to go this route that they are successful. I would hate to see the company invest as much as would be needed into making CPUs, advertising them and the like to fail. A heavy investment that did not work out could kill the entire company.

[Atomic0]

I would think that Nvidia would try and make a computer that doesn't require a separate CPU on the motherboard, rather a combined processor that runs both as a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). This combination of the two processors will allow processing power to be allocated between general processing and graphics processing when required, allow for the processor's capacity to be fully utilised.

[turbopowerdmaxsteel]

That's an interesting point you state, Atomic0. But, would that be any different from the on-board graphics chipsets being offered by Intel motherboards? Performance wise, it should be better than Intel GMA series because of Nvidia being lot more experienced in building graphics chipsets. However, will it be able to beat the dedicated graphics cards?

[xboxrulz]

I would think that Nvidia would try and make a computer that doesn't require a separate CPU on the motherboard, rather a combined processor that runs both as a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). This combination of the two processors will allow processing power to be allocated between general processing and graphics processing when required, allow for the processor's capacity to be fully utilised.

That's an interesting point you state, Atomic0. But, would that be any different from the on-board graphics chipsets being offered by Intel motherboards? Performance wise, it should be better than Intel GMA series because of Nvidia being lot more experienced in building graphics chipsets. However, will it be able to beat the dedicated graphics cards?

Actually this was the main reason for the AMD/ATI merger. It was so that AMD can incorporate a GPU core into the CPU so in theory, it'll be cheaper for OEMs to build laptops and would also in theory be faster because of its closeness to the CPU.

deltatux

[Atomic0]

AMD/ATI at the moment is struggling financially, after posting a net loss of $3 billion dollars for the year 2008, although they should be continuing with their research into CPU / GPU combos

For those interested in the advantages of combing the CPU and GPU, you should read the following Ars Technica article form 2006:
http://arstechnica.c...006/11/8250.ars

[Darasen]

While a CPU/GPU hybrid may work for a laptop I do not see the idea working for desktops. One of the advantages of a separate GPU even for on board graphics like nForce is the flexibility it affords mother board manufacturers. This is especially true for manufacturers such as Dell who are able to offer the same CPU in different models with varying graphics capabilities from Intel's (useless) on board video or Geforce chip sets as well as offering Pcie slots.

Another potential pitfall I see is that it seems that graphics technology accelerates a bit faster than CPU technology. I can not imagine AMD/ATI being able to spend the time and costs to update one side of a chips function. Conversely they might be stuck with chips that run at current clock speeds but end up a generation or two being in graphics capabilities.

I hope AMD still strives forward and remains a competitive alternative to Intel in the x86 market. Competition is always good.

[butterphingerz]

I personally hope they do. It'll increase competition in the market and lower prices for everybody while increasing quality and performance. Since they're already good at making gpu's they might be able to make a good processor that also renders graphics.