NVIDIA Q2 Results

/praying G80 comes out before Christmas

 

Well, it certainly does look like NVIDIA is going to milk the G7x architecture for all it is worth for as long as possible. I wouldn't doubt they have the materials to do a launch of G80 in September, but that schedule was dictated 2 years ago when Vista still looked to be released by now. So, a few extra months of polish to get yields good, launch in mid Q4 (calendar), and have plenty of stock before ATI/AMD does of the R600 at the beginning of Q1 2007 when Vista comes out. NVIDIA certainly is sitting pretty right now.

One thing though, I wonder how X1650 will affect the midrange, and if ATI can get that out ASAP? That to me is one of the more exciting fall products, as I am a huge fan of mid-range cards, and this seems like a good update for this market for ATI in terms of performance AND margins. I was quite fond of the 7600 GT when it first came out, and all indications point to the X1650 to be a small step up from that, yet still come in under $200. I'm more excited about that card than I am about the X1950 XTX.

 

It certainly will be interesting to watch the fight between X1650 Pro/XT and 7900 GS on the sub-200 dollar slot.

 

I'm going to plump for September 26th.

 

hmm don't know about september after that conference call, I heard last week it might be delayed. But again no concrete info.

 

it seems pretty obvious we're not going to be able to get G80s until Nov or Dec at the soonest.

Sept-Oct seems too soon.

 

But I thought all dates between the 9th and 27th of november were taken for the launch of the Wii and PS3?

 

I don't know if this was in the same conference call, but it seems to lend credibility to the AMD+ATI merger, at least from a technological point of view.
Apparently, Nvidia is also looking at CPU/GPU integration, albeit with sketchy details about what exactly did Jen-Hsun mean by "CPU".

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060813044646.html

Mobile devices ?

 

Well, I've noticed in the NVIDIA employment pages that for the past year they have been looking for "CPU Engineers". When asked if they were pursuing x86, I was just laughed at. You gotta figure though that NVIDIA is in no position to create a x86 processor from scratch and hope to compete with Intel and AMD within the next 5 years.

 

Well the 5G Video iPod's core-CPU is the ARM in the PortalPlayer chip. If Nvidia+Apple were chasing after the mythical "one chip" solution, then NVidia would simply have to bite the bullet and become an ARM-licensee -- whichi is NOT an inexpensive proposition for a 'first-time' licensee. Or perhaps Nvidia got such a grand-slam huge-design win with Apple, the expense is justified for a single-customer/single-product.

 

Do they have the in-house capability to design a simple RISC CPU design to go with Goforce 5500 on mobile devices ?
Or maybe licence something from Freescale and merge it with GF5500 future iterations ?

 

How about transmeta?

Or maybe use cell?

Or perphaps this could be an entry point for Nvidia to do their on CPU's?

 

Transmeta doesn't make CPU's anymore, Cell requires licensing and the in-house development is still a bit too optimistic IMO.

 

I don't see an Intel/NV merger as likely at all. . . I could imagine a limited JV tho, if they could agree on who was the senior partner, which is liable to be the sticking point. That might start looking more attractive if evidence begins to build that AMD/ATI is actually making progress at driving IGP down in cost on the bottom of the IGP range, and up in performance (and price/performance) at the top of the IGP range.

 

well they have the engineers, and accesse to libs/IC, BUT having your own fab to play with is the only way to to be in the CPU biz, OH and around 1bil$ a year to spend... NVDA CPU noway!

 

1B in the bank: check.
Fab: does VIA has one for C7 production (a much more complex x86 chip, actually) ? I don't think so... I fact, they are made at TSMC, just like most GPU's.

If VIA, a much smaller company, can design CPU's, why couldn't NV ?

Freescale does PowerPC-based products for embedded aplications for years (routers and other network equipment, cars, cell-phones, etc).
I can't see why they wouldn't be willing to license a design to Nvidia, perhaps even collaborating further down the road.

 

Via bought Cyrix which designed x86 CPU's for ages.

 

Yeah, i knew they bought it from Nat. Semi. a few years ago.
But, given the current landscape, would it be cheaper for them to just buy the whole VIA/S3/Cyrix ?
I don't think so.

Intel and AMD have an obvious interest in "x86-anywhere", but the reality of the market is that mobile devices have RISC/ARM/PowerPC CPU's.
Even CE manufacturers like Texas Instruments chips better, for instance.