While not yet official, this is HUGE news. The battle between Intel and NVIDIA appears to be at it's climax - with a grim outlook for the future of NVIDIA chipsets.
The good news: This may force NVIDIA's hand in licensing SLI technology for use on Intel-chipped motherboards.
Source: DigiTimes
The good news: This may force NVIDIA's hand in licensing SLI technology for use on Intel-chipped motherboards.
Quote:
| Nvidia has decided to throw in the towel and quit the chipset business, sources close to the situation at one of Taiwan's top motherboard makers have revealed. As the story is told, Nvidia called a meeting earlier this week with its motherboard partners to gauge support for it continuing to develop chipsets in the future. The motherboard makers' response? Silence. However, Nvidia has responded to the news by saying its completely groundless. The company stated that it has no intention of getting out of the chipset business, according to Michael Jong, senior director of corporate marketing for Nvidia APAC. Jong added that Nvidia is looking forward to bringing new and very exciting MCP products to the market for both AMD and Intel platforms. The sources claim that Nvidia will probably transfer the chipset team to work on GPU projects. On the motherboard makers' side, some makers have already canceled upcoming high-end motherboard projects based on the nForce 7-series chipset. The loss of its chipset business is expected to have a significant impact on Nvidia's GPU business in the short-term. Reception to the nForce 200 chip (BR04) which will enable SLI technology on Intel X58 motherboards has been lukewarm at best, with many makers saying they will not bother adding the chip on their boards. This means Nvidia needs to find a way of licensing and enabling multi-GPU support on motherboards using Intel and/or AMD chipsets fast. Otherwise it will have to cede the top-end of the graphics card market to AMD, which now has the benefit of Crossfire. |
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