QOTD: Do You Want Nvidia to Make CPUs?

[superhighperf]

yes

 

[Greatwalrus]

Absolutely, with the way Intel has been acting lately. The more competition, the better.

 

[shovel]

Go NVidia, or anyone else wanting to push things forward.

Years ago everyone was saying emulation was the answer... build any sort of awesome CPU & use x86 emulation to run your software. If Intel can tweak old Pentium CPUs for GPU duty(Larabee), why doesn't nVidia do x86 emulation on their GPU's...(might take a bit of hardware tweaking).
So their CPU turns out to be a modified GPU that does x86 emulation...

Does one still need an x86 license from Intel for software emulation?

 

[stevo777]

"This leads us to CPUs. Even in the CPU landscape, things are rapidly changing"--uh, no. It's the same perpetual x86 legacy crap they've been ramming down our throats for 30 years. No one seems to have the stones to change because of the huge software base.

In my view, NVidia should make a clean break from this horribly antiquated paradigm and go full tilt toward a completely new kind of CPU system. They have Parallel processing knowledge and should take advantage of that. By having a radically new system, they can completely differentiate themselves from Intel (Wintel). Sure, new software will have to be written and developers will have to start thinking again, but that is what's necessary to be leaders and not copycats. I think that NVidia is one of the very few companies that could pull it off.

 

[radnor]

Yes please.

These 2 Way fight ae getting dull. I loved back then when on the VGA fight there were:
3dfx, Nvidia, Ati, Matrox, S3.

On the CPU side there were:
Cyrix, Intel, Texas Instruments, AMD.

Two is good, three would be a charm. I hope they perfect those chipsets aswell. They need alot of love.

 

[matchboxmatt]

It would definitely be appreciated, since the more competition out in the market, the better.

Since Intel is moving into the high-end graphics market anyway, it would be nice to have an exchange take place.

 

[Guest]

there's a reason AMD is spinning off the plant,for obvious reasons.
First because it pays not to manufacture chips cheaper than intel, for the same performance, and on top of that having to pay intel a x86 licence.
Nvidia would do good to develop their own chips, that could be Linux compatible, or Nvidia software/CUDA compatible.

Nvidia would only make a hit if they beat the Atom on the low-powered devices.

I see no future in NVidia manufacturing i7 processors; they just don't have the experience and knowhow,and probably are at a level to immitate the big companies with lesser quality products.
That's why I'd say yes if they are going to produce their unique chips, no if they are trying to compete with larger x86 processors like core2duo/quad or Corei7.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Why not if they can make good cpu's esp in the price performance area i see no problem if they try.

 

[jimx]

YES!

 

[Guest]

No way do I want a processor that needs as many updates to fix bugs as their video drivers require. Stick with what you do well and stay out of the yard of the big dogs unless you can run with them. I don't see it being a success for them.

 

[crystalized]

the only problem that might arise from this is that ATI gfx cards will only work with AMD processors, Larabee cards will only work with Intel cpus and Nvidia GeForce will only work with Nvidia CPUs. which is even worse in my opinion, as it restricts the users choice.

 

[zedx]

Of course it's okay. But I'd like to see fully programmable (like larrabee) Nvidia and especially AMD(for their higher flops/watt) GPU's. Maybe that would be one of the main reason NV are hiring x86 engineers? NV said they would be launching a Larrabee competitor. Of course Larrabee does need competitors in the fully programmable GPGPU market. And could you please ask better questions?

 

[ira176]

Although I've haven't owned too many Nvidia products, (mostly motherboards with their chipsets) I would welcome Nvida to create something of their own. It would be great competition for the other two companies, and we might see some great new break throughs in tech because of it.

 

[Guest]

A qualified no. If Nvidia wants to make non-x86 CPU's then fine. If they want to make x86 CPU's they should not be allowed to freeload off DECADES of work done by both Intel and AMD. They have not spent a single penny developing x86 so they shouldn't just be allowed to copy free of charge.

And what people don't realize - where is Nvidia likely to compete in the first few gens of any chip they make? (Anyone think the high end?) They will likely be providing even MORE PRESSURE on AMD as they compete for the "low end" scraps and this might have the unintended consequence of weakening AMD more than Intel and thus making Intel even stronger. What you will most likely see is a continued (or escalating) price war at the low end and while helpful to consumers for the short term, there's only 1 company that likely can withstand a continued price war. Intel cannot get away with crushing the only competitor in the market as regulators would run wild. With Nvidia in the picture, Intel could potentially hammer on AMD and leave behind Nvidia only (and someone who is even less competitive).

For folks saying the more competition the better, this is a naive view, and need to ask is this really more, legitimate competition? If Nvdia was bringing something NEW to the market... great, if they are just bringing another x86 clone - that is not more competition, it is just more clutter.

 

[ravewulf]

YES! Just think of the enhancements they could make combining their GPU and chipset tech with their own CPU tech like AMD/ATI is doing. And, as always, the more competition the better 😀

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Would be great with nvidia making cpu's, so long it doesn't mean that you can only use nvidia graphics on nvidia cpu's, intel graphics (once larabee arrives) on intel cpu's and ati graphics on amd .... if everything can be mixed as we're used to, I don't see any reason not to give nvidia a shot.
But ofcourse they'd have to find a naming scheme, and stick to it. If they'd make a bunch of cpu's and do what they did with g92, I don't think any users will even dare buy the cpu, cause they don't really know what they're getting based on a name.

 

[V-force]

Is Intel going to give nvidia a licence to produce x86 instruction set CPUs? It woud be great if she did.
But let's just have a look at waht's going to happen about AMD and x86 instruction set. This should be our real problem....

 

[bboysil]

YES, more competition, better products, lower prices!

 

[hillarymakesmecry]

Absolutely

 

[powerbaselx]

No. Targeting the PC market of course not.
Producing CPU's it's not the same thing than producing GPUs.
And while we live in a Intel+MS world, every other company making CPUs and OS's is at risk.

NVidia is a good GPU producer, a leader along with AMD/ATI, and should keep that focus.

There are also royalties issues regarding the use of Intel technology to assure compatibility to run MS Windows to have access to mass market, and no alternative CPU technology can survive in the PC consumer market.

So i guess a CPU line would canibalize the GPU sucessful one. It's not a good business plan for NVidia.

 

[Dave K]

I vote NO... I want them to continue putting ALL their effort into delivering cutting edge graphics performance... ANYTHING that pulls talent away from that Core Business is bad IMO.

Building CPU's and trying to compete with industry heavyweights is going to be VERY distracting to NVidia, costing their Graphics unit capital and probably resources. NOT worth it IMO.

 

[KyleSTL]

I was just thinking, there are a ton of GPUs available from both companies, but there are far more CPUs than GPUs. Imagine how complicated nVidia naming scheme for CPUs will be.

nVidia currently has 15 different active current-generation (9-series and 200-series) GPUs (not including all memory capacity configurations).
Intel has 22 Core 2 current-gen processors alone. Imagine how many they have including mobile, Pentium, Celeron and Atom!

nVidia will slowly try to confuse us to death.

 

[gto127]

They would probably have to merge with AMD if they really wanted in just for licensing reasons, but this probably wouldn't be good for the consumer since you'd only have 1 graphics choice.

 

[FHDelux]

Hands down, the more CPUs to choose from, the better. I do not necessarily agree with NVIDIA's actions as of late, but they have some brilliant engineers working for them.

 

[powerbaselx]

[citation][nom]GTO127[/nom]They would probably have to merge with AMD if they really wanted in just for licensing reasons, but this probably wouldn't be good for the consumer since you'd only have 1 graphics choice.[/citation]

Or to merge with Intel but that wouldn't be easy to be approve by the market regulators because of Intel large marketshare on CPUs and the effect that would cause on fragile AMD.

Regarding CPUs, while MS Windows rule the world, there is no space for another company on mass consumer market. And Apple helped also when discarding the IBM PowerPC CPU's (which are one of the best professional CPUs for about 1/3 of the worldwide enterprise market) for Intel CPU's so it could run also Windows on Apple Mac hardware... :-(