NVIDIA shows signs ... [2008 - 2017]

[Rys]

A greater threat to what? Intel's bottom line? Intel are probably reducing their bottom line by not letting NV play. I don't see NV IGP mainboards with Intel CPU sockets being a threat to Intel whatsoever, personally, so I don't think I'm agreeing with you at all.

 

[Alexko]

This is Intel turning the screws on NV, and little more. AMD's IGPs are a competitive advantage right now for myriad reasons, and AMD are leveraging that advantage (admittedly not that well), and have been since this whole thing reared its head.

Why aren't Intel letting NV onto the platform to squash that, because there are sales going to AMD right now because they have better IGPs, even though the CPU doesn't stack up. So I rather think it's because Intel don't want NV to sell any chips myself.

I think trinibwoy's argument has merit. If your CPU is about as good as (or worse than) your competitor's, you do everything you can to improve your competitive situation, which is what Intel did in the Pentium 4 era: they let NVIDIA make IGPs. They lost a few chipset sales, but gained/kept some CPU sales, so it was worth it.

But what if your competitor's CPUs are barely good enough to secure 20% of the market? Why would you let someone make chipsets for your platform and take chipset sales away from you? You can lose up to 80% of the chipset market, and only gain up to 20% of the CPU market. It's not worth it.

Obviously, there were broader strategic considerations at play as well, namely killing NVIDIA. But I'd wager that those were somewhat secondary, since NVIDIA's chipset business was going to die anyway, by Sandy Bridge's hand.

Complimentary doesn't mean that one sucks and the other one is awesome. It means together they are more attractive to consumers than they are on their own.

Actually, complimentary means free, that should be complementary…

 

[rpg.314]

Perhaps the possibility being ignored is that INtel didn't want a competitor gpu sitting in SB NEhalem onwards?

 

[trinibwoy]

A greater threat to what? Intel's bottom line? Intel are probably reducing their bottom line by not letting NV play. I don't see NV IGP mainboards with Intel CPU sockets being a threat to Intel whatsoever, personally, so I don't think I'm agreeing with you at all.

You would need to explain that position further. Not sure how you can suggest Intel has nothing to lose in the chipset market for Intel CPUs (they have 100% market share). They have everything to lose there and nothing to gain in the CPU market - competition there is currently a joke. The notion that Intel is playing hardball just to spite nVidia is silly.

@Alexko: yes complementary, thx

 

[trinibwoy]

Perhaps the possibility being ignored is that INtel didn't want a competitor gpu sitting in SB NEhalem onwards?

SB doesn't change the equation. Intel doesn't need nVidia or any partners as long as they can beat AMD willy-nilly with home grown stuff. You're skipping the basic question of why Intel doesn't want a competing GPU from nVidia on its platform? The reason is that it won't help sell more Intel CPUs but it will significantly cannibalize their chipset sales. And maybe even more importantly - they would have to share the glory with nVidia's bombastic marketing team

 

[Rys]

You would need to explain that position further

I think the loss of a chipset space on a mainboard would be more than offset by selling more CPUs to fill the boards that NV are on. In other words, I don't see NV-powered Intel mainboards cannibalising Intel-powered Intel mainboard sales.

 

[fbuffer]

I think the loss of a chipset space on a mainboard would be more than offset by selling more CPUs to fill the boards that NV are on. In other words, I don't see NV-powered Intel mainboards cannibalising Intel-powered Intel mainboard sales.

edit: IMHO
nV lost the chipset business as soon as Intel was able to run SLI.. no one that I know would run an nvidia chipset versus an intel other than a a die hard nV fan., theres no reason to. Intel's chipsets were (are) far superior in just about every way, less problematic in general.

 

[Sxotty]

I don't think that the whole intel superior thing is all that true anymore. They have certainly been every bit as problematic for me as any other chipset lately. I would have bought an intel based nvidia chipset myself recently, but went the AMD route b/c Intel was being stupid about the whole thing. I specifically want a decent IGP so I can put the motherboard into my HTPC later on and use the IGP. Intel thinks that is a bad idea, so I will pass on their platform. Now I have an AMD chipset and AMD CPU.

 

[Alexko]

I don't think that the whole intel superior thing is all that true anymore. They have certainly been every bit as problematic for me as any other chipset lately. I would have bought an intel based nvidia chipset myself recently, but went the AMD route b/c Intel was being stupid about the whole thing. I specifically want a decent IGP so I can put the motherboard into my HTPC later on and use the IGP. Intel thinks that is a bad idea, so I will pass on their platform. Now I have an AMD chipset and AMD CPU.

I'm in a similar situation, but keep in mind we're a geeky minority. Most CPUs are sold through OEMs to people who probably don't even know what HTPC even means.

 

[BRiT]

All that's needed for a HTPC is an Intel i3 530 (or higher) with it's IGP and an H55-based motherboard. It handles BluRay and HD Audio bitstreaming perfectly.

 

[Alexko]

All that's needed for a HTPC is an Intel i3 530 (or higher) with it's IGP and an H55-based motherboard. It handles BluRay and HD Audio bitstreaming perfectly.

Which is still way more expensive than a basic Athlon II X2. It doesn't really do all that well in HD video playback either, 133 in HQV: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3973/nvidias-geforce-gt-430/4

Of course, you get a much faster CPU than the Athlon II X2.

 

[Sxotty]

All that's needed for a HTPC is an Intel i3 530 (or higher) with it's IGP and an H55-based motherboard. It handles BluRay and HD Audio bitstreaming perfectly.

That is incorrect in that you make false assumptions about what a person may want to do with an HTPC But yes we are in the tiny minority and Intel need not lose sleep over this personal lost sale.

 

[rpg.314]

SB doesn't change the equation. Intel doesn't need nVidia or any partners as long as they can beat AMD willy-nilly with home grown stuff. You're skipping the basic question of why Intel doesn't want a competing GPU from nVidia on its platform? The reason is that it won't help sell more Intel CPUs but it will significantly cannibalize their chipset sales. And maybe even more importantly - they would have to share the glory with nVidia's bombastic marketing team

Ok, let me try again.

May be Intel didn't want nv having a QP license because that will give them a foothold in compute market as well, and will also allow them to make gpu's that share coherent caches with CPU, removing LOTS of disadvantages nv currently has in compute.

 

[BRiT]

HTPC stands for Home Theatre PC. It does not stand for Gaming. Use the correct terms.

 

[Sxotty]

HTPC stands for Home Theatre PC. It does not stand for Gaming. Use the correct terms.

Yeah, but what would that be? HTPC+ LIG? (low intensity gaming) or some other acronym. It is fun to play older games on the big screen sometimes especially racing games.

 

[Kaotik]

HTGPC? Home Theater Gaming PC?

 

[RecessionCone]

Aren't/weren't you in the NV fellowship program and might have a bit skewed view on this? (correct me if you're not Bryan)

I think everyone can agree that NVIDIA is missing the necessary licenses to the interconnects on 2009, 2010 and 2011 CPU's

Yes, I'm Bryan. But don't tell me you don't have your own skewed views yourself.

I don't understand why Intel thinks changing the interface to their processors requires getting a new license. Since Intel owns the interface, they change the interface at any time. Why would any company enter into a legal agreement to get a long-term license to interface with Intel processors which allows Intel to void the agreement at any time by changing their interface? It makes no sense.

And I'm surprised people are so eager to defend Intel here - why are people happy that Intel has granted itself, through legal shenanigans, a monopoly on chipsets for its own processors? As I said before, if Microsoft disallowed any other company from producing a web browser that interfaces with Windows, that would lead to all sorts of anti-trust outcry. If Intel disallowed AMD GPUs from interfacing with Intel CPUs, what would people on this board say about the lack of choice? We know what this board thinks about PhysX not working with AMD GPUs (and I agree with the complaints). So it's very surprising that people have bought Intel's reasoning here.

 

[Kaotik]

RecessionCone, so in your opinion if you had license for, say, original Pentium's interface, you automaticly have license to every single new interface Intel develops, too?

They didn't change the interface for the Core2 CPU's, they changed it for the Core i3/5/7 CPU's which are completely different CPUs

 

[Arun]

RecessionCone, so in your opinion if you had license for, say, original Pentium's interface, you automaticly have license to every single new interface Intel develops, too?

They didn't change the interface for the Core2 CPU's, they changed it for the Core i3/5/7 CPU's which are completely different CPUs

His point (which is debatable I suppose) is that a license agreement like that has a specified length (finite or infinite) for Intel's benefits whereas, if it's interface-dependent, the length is unspecified and difficult to predict for NVIDIA's benefits so it's easy for Intel to screw up NV with no consequence on their side.

The fair thing to do if you want to limit it would have been a license for all current and future interfaces, but with a limit in time for both sides of the deal (not even necessarily the same one). Once again, keep in mind this is especially problematic because NVIDIA didn't just pay a round sum - they licensed patents to Intel as part of the deal, without which NVIDIA would likely have a plausible case against all of Intel's current IGPs. NV would certainly *prefer* to break the deal completely in the current situation, but apparently they can't.

That does NOT mean Intel's reading of the contract is in any way wrong or illegal, and NVIDIA very well might lose in court. But personally, I do think the deal was fundamentally unfair if Intel's right (yes, NV should have understood the contract better before signing it then, but if Intel's arguement is based on a technicality it would not speak highly of them to say the least).

 

[Xenus]

Indeed from what I gather these licensing type of deals are usually made for a given time period. Aka we can do this for 5 years and decide if we want to lengthen it during that time. If that's the type of deal Intel sold Nvidia on then 3 years in says oh we meant for this interface not the new one so you can't build these anymore for the new chips. That's rather sleazy on Intel's part.