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NVidia Reportedly Will Exit Chipset Business
xav_jones sends along a story from X bit Laboratories claiming that NVidia is ready to quit making chipsets. That story links one from DigiTimes, which reports that NVidia has denied that it's getting out of the business. "[NVidia] is about to quit chipset business, which automatically means that the company's much-hyped multi-GPU SLI technology is either in danger or re-considered. Moreover, several mainboard makers have already ceased making high-end NVidia-based mainboards. [NVidia has]... reportedly decided to quit core-logic business to concentrate on development of graphics processors and following failure to secure license to build and sell chipsets compatible with Intel Corp.'s microprocessors that use Quick-Path Interconnect bus."
Nvidia released nice overclocking tools, had good BIOS options, nice features (such a firewall built directly into the NIC), etc.
I always buy NForce chipsets.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Successful companies don't usually just pack it in and go home in market segments they've been in for a long time. Sure there are issues with some chipsets and certain features, but they're not going to just call it a day. Also, "failure to secure license"? So, what, Intel said "You can only make one bid to get a license," and nVidia failed and now quits? What about "ongoing negotiations"? This is for some IP, this isn't like the Yahoo-MS deal. It's in Intel's best interest to license QPI to nVidia, because it means more sales of Intel CPUs.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
I was never happy that nVidia got into the chipset business in the first place. If any company has a talent to specialize and do one thing really really well (in a competitive environment), then that is what they should continue to concetrate on. nVidia seems to have talented people who can ultimately bring us photorealistic graphics at high performance for our games, as well as other engineering, and creative needs. I really frown on companies that water down their core business by diversifying into areas which they shouldn't be messing about in.
This kind of thing seems to happen quite often and in other ways. For example, John Carmack seemed to really have a talent in producing great engines for games on the bleeding edge of what is possible with new PC technology. John drove PC gaming technology. But what does John do? John goes off to create rockets. And then he journeys off to work on pocket devices, which are basically PCs from 1995 running Win31 with 16 bit graphics. ;( John has allowed Crytek and other engine creators to walk all over id software. (Or maybe John and his company never really were that great to begin with?)
The whole nVidia chipset fiasco is what brought about the feud between Intel and nVidia so that we, the consumers, could not buy a Intel motherboard chipsets with nVidia SLI graphics. Shame.
Focus! Focus! You will never be great at something unless you do it well and are the best at it. A jack-of-all-trades rambling about between different technologies will not make you great, or competitive.
Where the hell did this rumor even start?
It's like IBM stopping all work with Java or Starbucks announcing it will no longer sell baked goods at its stores.
Who even comes up with this stuff? On your mark, get set, castrate the company of your choice...
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
Well, to be fair, this is about core logic chipsets (nForce). They aren't exactly core to NVIDIA's business. Besides, given how poorly AMD is fairing in the enthusiast market, the merger of ATI/AMD making NVIDIA an AMD competitor (nForce originally made its splash, and had its "glory days", for AMD), and the desire of Intel to push its own chipsets (which have also been quite good recently, lessening the room for an "enthusiast" class third party) I wouldn't be incredibly surprised to see them make this move -- even though they apparently aren't doing it now.
According to Ars, the original source was one of the motherboard manufacturers. Aside from NVIDIA themselves, they'd be most likely to know. But again, according to NVIDIA, this is a load of crap.
Game... blouses.
Yes, it's not like the good old days when anyone with enough capital could just buy up the IP of an existing CPU like Cyrix or the IDT WinChip and rework the core until it was usable: there isn't anyone left. One route for them might be to license the IP for something like Transmeta Efficeon and try to bring the core up-to date, but the overhead and effort required may make it more effort than it's worth.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
They already have-X58 and Skulltrail (Extreme Gaming platform or whatever BS they decided to call it). And the Intel chipsets are just as good as the nVidia ones. Sometimes the nVidia's perform better, and sometimes the Intel's perform better. And that can of course vary by application too. Claiming the Intel chipsets are superior is just plain ignorant.
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Who even comes up with this stuff?
Probably someone trying to make money on stock...
Hopefully nVidia catches whoever started this one and successfully sues them for conspiracy to affect stock price, defamation, and a slew of other fun charges that I no doubt have never heard of...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,