NVISION 08 - Jen-Hsun Talks Larrabee, Mobility, VIA and More
by Anand Shimpi & Larry Barber on August 26, 2008 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
NVIDIA's Mobile Strategy: "Completely Focus on Smartphones"
Out of nowhere Jen-Hsun threw out quite possibly one of the most important statements I'd ever heard him make, that NVIDIA's mobile strategy is to "completely focus on smartphones".
Jen-Hsun went on to say NVIDIA believes the "phone will become the next personal computer".
This highlights an important potential strategy for NVIDIA. If Intel/AMD push NVIDIA out of the conventional PC market with their GPUs/platforms/CPUs, NVIDIA needs to look elsewhere: the mobile phone market is an interesting outlet. Remember this slide from IDF?
By 2012 Intel estimates that it will be shipping ~200M desktop CPUs, ~360M notebook CPUs and around 200M Atom CPUs. The mobile CPU market is just as large as the mobile GPU market, the difference being that margins are much lower. But it's quite feasible that NVIDIA could see a good hunk of its revenue coming from that market, should it be forced out of the GPU market. But it's worth noting that the Intel/AMD/NVIDIA GPU war looks like it will take at least 3 - 5 years to see through.
NVIDIA's approach could also really hamper Intel's push into getting x86 into mobile devices with Atom. NVIDIA would partner its GPU technology with existing CPU manufacturers/architectures (think: ARM), making Intel's competitors much better suited to compete with Intel.
Jen-Hsun on VIA
One reporter asked Jen-Hsun what his thoughts were on VIA, NVIDIA's CEO responded by saying that VIA has a really good chip (the Nano) and when paired with a GeForce GTX it can actually deliver a pretty high end gaming experience. Jen-Hsun committed to supporting VIA in two ways:
"We're going to go and optimize all of our software for Nano"
"We're going to do compatibility testing for all of the Nano platforms"
I'm unsure how much driver optimization NVIDIA can do for Nano, but it is a big deal since prior to this "announcement", NVIDIA had only optimized its drivers/software for AMD and Intel. Given the VIA Nano install base is nonexistent right now, I'd be willing to bet that the cost of "optimizing" for Nano is pretty small.
Compatibility testing is arguably more important as it means that NVIDIA GPUs should work with whatever Nano platforms end up on the market. Since Intel seems to be interested in leaving Atom crippled on the desktop from a platform standpoint, NVIDIA's support could allow VIA some additional success with Nano desktop machines.
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Gary Key - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
End of next week or Monday 9/8 for 790GX plus 780a comparison/update, retested with the 8.8 drivers this week and they changed the scope and tone of the story we had almost completed. The G45 will be up right before it, just to show a comparison on where Intel is at this point, which honestly is not far considering the driver and repeater problems.Theunis - Thursday, August 28, 2008 - link
Don't forget 790GX and G45 on Linux tests! Man I'm getting worried about Linux being left in the dark when it comes to hardware decoding for H.264 :(tayhimself - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Flat out stating that it wasn't too interesting. Nvidia are in a difficult position and playing their cards very close to their chest.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
There's only reasons Nvidia is being forced out of the chipset market are:1) They're being assholes when it comes to SLI compatibility with non Nvidia chipsets. Neither Intel nor AMD need Nvidia chipsets anymore. Both have well designed products to cover their entire markets.
2) Their chipset products are buggy as hell. When's the last time Nvidia released a chipset that didn't cause some type of data corruption? Nforce4? Nforce2?
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
As far as Lucid goes, do you really think Intel would be dumping boatloads of cash into this outfit if they didn't think the technology held promise? It's not going to cure world hunger, but it sounds like the Nvidia PR machine is spinning up 'cause they're getting worried.Griswold - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
Right. Thats why Intel dumped billions and billions on the HUGELY successful Itanium, which was intended to eventually replace x86 in the consumer place as well. And it did! No, wait - it didnt...JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
$50M isn't really "boatloads" to Intel - I think that's the value I heard in one of the reports? R&D is expensive, and if Hydra/Lucid ends up going nowhere Intel won't worry too much - they'll probably still get some patents and other interesting info from the whole process.evelyn - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
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