nVidia launches anti intel website?

[nyker96]

I think they've been doing this for a long time, starting with cartons that mocks Intel. Maybe they should do one for the ATI as well.

 

[zsdersw]

Philosophically, I really don't get why Intel would have to let Nvidia make chipsets for its CPUs. Intel can decide who it does business with and who it doesn't, just like Nvidia or any other company can.

 

[yh125d]

Philosophically, I really don't get why Intel would have to let Nvidia make chipsets for its CPUs. Intel can decide who it does business with and who it doesn't, just like Nvidia or any other company can.

Nvidia licensed FSB from intel to build chipsets for them. Intel chose to do business. Now that they're working on a GPU and wanted to squeeze out NV they worded the technical documents for QPI to be different from FSB so that NV couldn't make chipsets for them. Intel purposely made it against the letter of the licensing agreement, if not the spirit.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Nvidia licensed FSB from intel to build chipsets for them. Intel chose to do business. Now that they're working on a GPU and wanted to squeeze out NV they worded the technical documents for QPI to be different from FSB so that NV couldn't make chipsets for them. Intel purposely made it against the letter of the licensing agreement, if not the spirit.

Isn't QPI sufficiently different from FSB that the licensing documents would not apply...

(Regardless of how Intel chose to word the QPI technical info.)

 

[yh125d]

Isn't QPI sufficiently different from FSB that the licensing documents would not apply...

(Regardless of how Intel chose to word the QPI technical info.)

Yes, strictly going by the letter of the licensing agreement NV has no right to produce chipsets for QPI. There is a point of contentionover the spirit of the agreement though. IMO, the spirit of the license was

NV: Hey, can we make chipsets for your socket?
IN: Sure, why not. That way people can use SLI on 775. We'll send over some paperwork to make it legal.

But, when Intel decided it was going to make a GPU(and had an SLI capable chipset coming in X58), they started to see NV as a competitor and decided to not amend the licensing agreement to include QPI, and refuse to let them get a new license for their new chipset. That is what the FTC saw as anti-competitive against nvidia, refusing to license new technology to those who had licenses for it's immediately preceeding tech


At least, I think that's how it is

 

[zsdersw]

Still, that's nothing more than a decision to end a business relationship, which is also something companies are free to do.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Philosophically, I really don't get why Intel would have to let Nvidia make chipsets for its CPUs. Intel can decide who it does business with and who it doesn't, just like Nvidia or any other company can.

In an open, competitive market, no one party has the right to dictate to the other parties if they are allowed to compete or not.

The current market is uncompetitive, because intel is a monopoly, and needs to be broken up to restore competition.

 

[Acanthus]

I'm glad that Nvidia is mostly out of the chipset business.

As bad as Via, their chipsets are.

I wouldn't say that.

NF and NF2 were amazing.

NF3/4 were par.

It was downhill from there.

 

[zsdersw]

In an open, competitive market, no one party has the right to dictate to the other parties if they are allowed to compete or not.

Intel isn't saying Nvidia cannot compete, Intel is saying it chooses not to do business with Nvidia on making chipsets for its latest CPUs. Intel is under no obligation to do business with anyone it does not want to, just like any other company. If Intel can be forced to do business with Nvidia, any company can be forced to do business with any other company. That's not a free market.

 

[jvroig]

Still, that's nothing more than a decision to end a business relationship, which is also something companies are free to do.

I agree.

I am not a lawyer though, so whatever else I have to say comes with that disclaimer.

I believe the "problem" here is that Intel is just so gigantic in the industry. If it were between two (or even five or whatever number) companies of the same size, and the industry had several of them, we won't even hear a peep from either company, much less see or hear anything from the FTC.

But the facts as they are, Intel is a juggernaut, and any action it does becomes magnified. Whether it is fair or not, it will be up to authorities like the FTC and a truckload of lawyers.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Intel isn't saying Nvidia cannot compete, Intel is saying it chooses not to do business with Nvidia on making chipsets for its latest CPUs. Intel is under no obligation to do business with anyone it does not want to, just like any other company. If Intel can be forced to do business with Nvidia, any company can be forced to do business with any other company. That's not a free market.

It's called "compulsory licensing", and I think that it would be appropriate in this situation.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Every single LGA775 chipset made by Nvidia has serious hardware flaws one way or another. In particular, the HDD corruption issue was never fixed starting from 680i four years ago all the way to the most recent 790i, that's is completely unacceptable for boards costing $300+. The only thing appealing about them is SLI; if you don't use SLI you will be crazy to buy Nvidia instead of Intel. The former is Russian Roulette for mobos.

 

[evident]

I wouldn't say that.

NF and NF2 were amazing.

NF3/4 were par.

It was downhill from there.

agreed. i thought NF2 was the chipset that really brought the athlon XP's into wide acceptance. the via KT266A and other chipsets i've had always caused me a crap ton of problems

 

[zsdersw]

It's called "compulsory licensing", and I think that it would be appropriate in this situation.

And, again, what right does the government have to enforce something like that on any company?

 

[shaolin95]

I wouldn't say that.

NF and NF2 were amazing.

NF3/4 were par.

It was downhill from there.

I agree with you.
I hate it when people to crap about things they know nothing about.
NF3 and NF4 were awesome boards indeed...how can forget the DFI NF3 board! Obviously that guy is a noob...

 

[sxr7171]

And, again, what right does the government have to enforce something like that on any company?

I don't know if in economics class they explained to you the role of government in a "free market" economy. There are market inefficiencies that can only be controlled by regulation. Believe it it no regulation is an essential part of a "free market" economy which really isn't a free market because of things like wealth effects, barriers to entry among other things.

If you choose to do business under a particular government's jurisdiction you do so under the rules of that government. That government may have policies that benefit the consumers or it may have policies that benefit a few "fat cat" firms but really in a democracy the government would be set up such that the rules benefit the consumers rather than investment bankers getting $1MILLION bonuses from your tax money funded bailouts in the middle of an economic downturn.


You should take a look at:

http://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomics...dp_ob_title_bk

 

[sxr7171]

actually nvidia is already inside a ton of planned launches for upcoming products with variants of their tegra and tegra 2 ARM based SOCs for mobile devices. if you look at some of the stuff demoed at CES you will see that there's quite a few products coming down the pipe based on their chips, including yes, tablets and smartbooks (basically tablets with a keyboard). one of the smartbooks i saw demoed had something like a weeks battery life idle and a days battery life at load, and the entire system fit on an SO-DIMM module. all you need to make it snappy then is give the user a second slot for upgradable ram and laptop hard drive (default boot off integrated flash) and you can really get a nice platform going similar to apples phone/tablet OS, or chrome OS, which some of the planned devices may be running

Yes, I forgot about that. They've pretty much single handedly made Atom a viable platform. I could never recommend a machine to someone that doesn't at least play Hulu video no matter how cheap it is. The thing about Tegra and Tegra 2 is that we've heard about them for quite a while and just now we are hearing about "high profile" devices using their silicon. I believe the Boxee box is going to use Tegra 2. I would like to see some of their silicon in mobile phones but I think PowerVR is the leader for good reason. Tile based rendering was proven in the Dreamcast and will be proven again in mobile phones.

 

[zsdersw]

I don't know if in economics class they explained to you the role of government in a "free market" economy. There are market inefficiencies that can only be controlled by regulation. Believe it it no regulation is an essential part of a "free market" economy which really isn't a free market because of things like wealth effects, barriers to entry among other things.

If you choose to do business under a particular government's jurisdiction you do so under the rules of that government. That government may have policies that benefit the consumers or it may have policies that benefit a few "fat cat" firms but really in a democracy the government would be set up such that the rules benefit the consumers rather than investment bankers getting $1MILLION bonuses from your tax money funded bailouts in the middle of an economic downturn.


You should take a look at:

http://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomics...dp_ob_title_bk

Thanks. Obviously I'm far too stupid to have known those things already, and earlier in this thread when I commented about philosophically questioning these things I was just kidding and didn't want to have a philosophical discussion, but really wanted to have a practical implementation discussion centered around what's currently the status quo.

 

[Lonyo]

Yes, strictly going by the letter of the licensing agreement NV has no right to produce chipsets for QPI. There is a point of contentionover the spirit of the agreement though. IMO, the spirit of the license was

NV: Hey, can we make chipsets for your socket?
IN: Sure, why not. That way people can use SLI on 775. We'll send over some paperwork to make it legal.

But, when Intel decided it was going to make a GPU(and had an SLI capable chipset coming in X58), they started to see NV as a competitor and decided to not amend the licensing agreement to include QPI, and refuse to let them get a new license for their new chipset. That is what the FTC saw as anti-competitive against nvidia, refusing to license new technology to those who had licenses for it's immediately preceeding tech


At least, I think that's how it is

They didn't have an SLI capable chipset in the X58 until after Intel had shut out NV.
NV wouldn't give Intel an SLI license for the X58 IIRC, and wanted board makers to use the NF200 chip on their motherboards in order for them to be able to support SLI, but eventually (after they had already been involved in their chipset dispute) NV gave up on that requirement, pretty much, and let SLI run on X58s etc without needing the extra NV chip.
But IMO the GPU thing is right, not that any of this matters anyway since both Intel and AMD are going chipset on-die eventually anyway, so there will be no need for a NB chip, and hence NV would be forced out of the market in the end anyway, this just brought the end closer sooner.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

But IMO the GPU thing is right, not that any of this matters anyway since both Intel and AMD are going chipset on-die eventually anyway, so there will be no need for a NB chip, and hence NV would be forced out of the market in the end anyway, this just brought the end closer sooner.

Hmm, I forgot about this. You make a good point. But what about the Southbridge?

 

[yh125d]

Hmm, I forgot about this. You make a good point. But what about the Southbridge?

Will likely also be integrated on the CPU at some point. NV never made SB anyways (pretty sure, I can't think of any)

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Will likely also be integrated on the CPU at some point. NV never made SB anyways (pretty sure, I can't think of any)

There's only one Intel board currently listed on newegg with an nForce southbridge. AMD boards don't list what the SB is.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813500018

 

[sxr7171]

Thanks. Obviously I'm far too stupid to have known those things already, and earlier in this thread when I commented about philosophically questioning these things I was just kidding and didn't want to have a philosophical discussion, but really wanted to have a practical implementation discussion centered around what's currently the status quo.

I'm sorry if the textbook link was over the top, I didn't mean to be pejorative. But really Intel cutting out a chipset over spite is not right.

Now can we honestly say as a consumer we would be better off without a choice of chipsets? Look at the Atom platform. It is useless with the Intel integrated chipset. But with Nvidia ION it is a half-way decent platform. Now Intel didn't lock out nVidia there but they made sure to charge MORE for the CPU without the chipset than the CPU + chipset.

I can't really say what benefits we would have had if nVidia were allowed to make a socket 1366 chipset. Maybe just some extra options and definitely lower prices. I think someone else would be in a better position to speculate on the technical differences we might have seen.

 

[sxr7171]

They didn't have an SLI capable chipset in the X58 until after Intel had shut out NV.
NV wouldn't give Intel an SLI license for the X58 IIRC, and wanted board makers to use the NF200 chip on their motherboards in order for them to be able to support SLI, but eventually (after they had already been involved in their chipset dispute) NV gave up on that requirement, pretty much, and let SLI run on X58s etc without needing the extra NV chip.
But IMO the GPU thing is right, not that any of this matters anyway since both Intel and AMD are going chipset on-die eventually anyway, so there will be no need for a NB chip, and hence NV would be forced out of the market in the end anyway, this just brought the end closer sooner.

Well if the technology itself is bringing the NB and SB on die then I'm all for it. That would be a valid technical reason and I have no issues with that. However the way Intel prematurely kicked out NV was bad. Then again I guess NV did start it with their "need" to push a HW chip on Intel instead just taking a license fee.

It seems to me that NV was blindsided by all the changes in the CPU/MB and they are scrambling to do whatever to keep some revenue. I wouldn't say NV is blameless at all. They are probably lazy and greedy from the looks of it. I know that whenever they had a chance to milk their success they had no qualms about doing so to the fullest.

But again Intel should have handled it a little better especially with the reputation they have bully first AMD and now NV. But it seems to me that NV was a dog with a big bark and no bite and they overplayed their cards.

 

[zsdersw]

I'm sorry if the textbook link was over the top, I didn't mean to be pejorative. But really Intel cutting out a chipset over spite is not right.

I'm not privy to the feelings of the execs who made that decision, so I cannot say, but it seems to be biased speculation to conclude that it was "out of spite" and also that it's "not right".

Now can we honestly say as a consumer we would be better off without a choice of chipsets? Look at the Atom platform. It is useless with the Intel integrated chipset. But with Nvidia ION it is a half-way decent platform. Now Intel didn't lock out nVidia there but they made sure to charge MORE for the CPU without the chipset than the CPU + chipset.

Obviously the technical merits of Nvidia's chipset for the Atom processor warrant its presence, but that doesn't mean Intel should be forced to give Nvidia access to do so. Us consumers should exercise the most powerful right we have; to vote with our wallets. If Intel doesn't do what we want, we'll take our business elsewhere.