Silicon Valley neighbors Intel and Nvidia may be close together in terms of geography, but they could not be farther apart in terms of philosophy. Regardless, this not-so-friendly rivalry could help determine the way personal computers are built in the future.

Intel, of course, leads the CPU-centric contingent that feels the computer revolves around the central processing unit. Nvidia is at the forefront of of the group that feels that the increased use of multimedia places graphics processing at the center of the computer. This is an old war, but the recent battles involving Netbook computers (light-weight, low-cost, energy-efficient, highly portable laptops suitable for web browsing, email and general purpose applications) have escalated the fighting.

These smaller laptops, with their smaller screens now growing from 8 inches to 10 or even 12 inches, allow Nvidia to return to their original claim: the Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 950 (a part of the Intel CPU chipset) causes a logjam and slows system processing. While Intel wants to keep screen sizes down so that their Atom processor and the 950 can keep up with operations, Nvidia is of the very strong opinion that the screens on Netbooks can get bigger while still using the Atom processor, as long as an Nvidea video processor is added to replace the one supplied by Intel.

The place where all of these varying opinions come together is on the motherboard. Intel bundles the Graphic Media Accelerator 950 in a nicely priced package with its CPUs. Nvidia is trying nothing less revolutionary than to convince computer makers to forego those bundled prices in favor of replacing the Intel Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) with an Nvidia GPU. That is guaranteed to make Intel unhappy, according to a story today by CNET.

There is some precedence for such a move: that is exactly what happened in the new MacBooks from Apple. The MacBook now ships with an Nvidia GPU where the Intel GPU usually sits. Obviously, Apple is buying into Nvidia’s claim that the Intel GPU is too slow and causes performance shortfalls. If Nvidia can convince other manufacturers of the same thing, Intel will have lost a considerable share of the GPU marketplace, and the structure of the CPU chipset will have changed dramatically.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 7:17 pm under Intel, Technology.  Print This Post

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