OT: Message from Nvidia

Original URL: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/12/17/nvidia_on_intel_suit/

Nvidia boss: Intel suit to 'transform computer industry'
And GPUs rock

By Cade Metz in San Francisco

Posted in PC Builder, 17th December 2009 08:02 GMT

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Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang believes the US Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against Intel could "completely transform the computer industry."

On Wednesday, the FTC sued ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/16/intel_ftc/) the world's largest chip maker over alleged anticompetitive practices. Among other things, the consumer watchdog accused Intel of illegally attempting to smother the makers of rival graphic chips.

"These products have lessened the need for CPUs, and therefore pose a threat to Intel’s monopoly power," the complaint reads. "Intel has responded to this competitive challenge by embarking on a similar anticompetitive strategy, which aims to preserve its CPU monopoly by smothering potential competition from GPU chips such as those made by Nvidia."

After the release of the complaint, Jen Hsan Huang addressed the suit in an internal Nvidia memo, shared with Cnet ( http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10416968-64.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea.0). "This is an action the industry needs and one that consumers deserve. And it's one that can completely transform the computer industry," he writes. "Intel is fully aware that great graphics have become one of the most important features for consumer PCs, the fastest-growing segment of the PC market. Even more alarming to Intel is the revolutionary parallel computing technology in our GPUs that is being adopted by software developers across the world.

"The more successful we became, the bigger threat we were to Intel's monopoly. Instead of creating competitive GPU solutions and competing on the merits of their products, Intel has resorted to unlawful acts to stop us."

What's more, Huang sees the suit as a ringing endorsement for the graphics-chip industry - Intel aside. "Today's FTC announcement highlights the industry-changing impact of the GPU and the importance of our work," he says. "Our innovation is making the PC magical and amazing again. I can now imagine the day when Intel can no longer block consumers from enjoying our creation and experience computing in a way we know is possible." ®

Related story
FTC whacks Intel with anticompetition complaint (16 December 2009)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/16/intel_ftc/

 

I would have thought INTEL would have bought Nvidia by now, just like AMD bought ATI

 

I hope never.

 

So did the FTC reverse-engineer Intel's compilers or where did they get that info? If they did r-e, Intel should sue them for twice as much back

 

me too.. we can't let intel own everything otherwise we'll be paying super high prices...

 

Lol, like nvidia doesnt give discounts to companies so they won't use ati. Now they complain because intel does the same. Isn't this al about the fact that intel is going to introduce new graphic chips in 2010?

 

As i have said before, these greedy SoB's already dominate the graphics spectrum of computer components by having 90% of the market share.

 

I was thinking the same thing. I guess nVidia figured if it worked against them, it should work against Intel.

 

Oh the irony............

And I do think that Via and Nvidia were close to either merging or forming a very close relationship. The Ion platform IIRC was originally for the Via Nano platform, but I guess that fell through, which is too bad for Via, as I would like to see them with a more substantial place in the industry.

I'm somewhat worried about current dealings. There are just too few large size companies out there making CPUs and GPUs. Honestly I don't think ATi and AMD should've been allowed to merge, I think it created a weird "lop-siding" of the industry. While great graphics products have since then came into the limelight, AMD's CPU business is not so innovative and fast moving as Intel's obviously. I'd like to see more players in the CPU and GPU biz, but unfortunately it's an expensive to participate in industry where things can go great or to hell in a handbasket really quick. And of course we know what it was like back in the late 90s with many 3D chip makers, many graphics APIs, and just the sheer amount of convolution.

 

Had AMD not bought ATI the CPU company would have likely gone out of business. Like Nvidia, AMD saw where the tech was moving with GPGPU but ulinke Nvidia, who expected that everyone would gladly jump on their coattail ride, AMD went out and acquired their own means to GPGPU.

While the acquisition of ATI has put them behind Intel's CPU business, AMD is actually in the best position of the three companies for the future since they are the only ones with the established CPU and GPU required for GPGPU to work.

Nvidia knows it's future depends on the FTC siding with them against Intel...while Intel knows if they don't try to stall the competition until they get a working GPU (Larrabee) they're going to lose their market lead.

 

Don't need to reverse the compiler just compile 2 programs
1 using GCC and check the assembler generated and 1 using Intel CC and check the assembler generated and compare i think.

 

They just announced they lost it recently.
Nothing surprising since GPU wasn't designed in 1 day.

 

Intel didn't lose Larrabee...consumers lost it. Intel's GPGPU plans are still in the works they've just realized that their current x86 based GPU isn't going to work and aren't going to put it on the market.

 

Either way it is telling me: we failed.

 

Intel now has access to AMD patents for the next 5 years as part of their recent out-of-court settlement. If that includes access to ATI GPU patents I could imagine Intel using that info to switch Larrabee over to a more conventional GPU design.

 

Ok, so Intel AND AMD will have ATI technology? That sounds odd. Will we see Intel motherboards with AMD chipsets? LOL.

 

It'd be no odder than AMD using Intel's x86 architecture....which AMD has been paying royalties to do so for ages now as part of a licensing agreement with Intel.

There's been talk for awhile that AMD would lose that x86 license but as part of the recent settlement they now have free use of it for the next 5 years. Intel would be stupid not to try to recoup some of their lost money by not making use of AMD's patents like their memory controller, and Fusion APU tech.


Also interesting to remember as part of all this were the rumors at the beginning of last year that Nvidia was looking to buy AMD.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...D_Despite_of_Chances_to_Lose_x86_License.html

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206900811

 

LMAO NVIDIA trying to buy AMD(the second biggest processor and microcontroller seller in the world) LMAOOOOOOOOOO . Maybe its AMD who wants to buy NVIDIA, NVIDIA almost went to bankrupt when they had the faulty 8400 and 8600 cores...

 

Larrabee as a consumer product is dead. They said that in later iterations, it will become a consumer product, but for now, it will be development only.

http://gizmodo.com/5420407/intel-confirms-larrabee-graphics-card-is-dead

Intel can't get functional graphics drivers for the products it already has. They won't be making them anytime soon for hardware they don't have, either.

 

At the time of those articles/rumors Nvidia had zero debt and almost $2 billion in the bank while AMD was over $5 billion in debt from deals such as buying ATI.

 

Isn't the next iteration of Intel processors (Pinetrail?) supposed to have a graphics core on the CPU die? And even with the failure of Larrabee becoming a consumer product, they still have their well established line of IGPs that are by far the most numerous line of GPUs in laptops. Sure, they suck, but for rudimentary options, they do the job for most consumers right now. Larrabee isn't a complete loss. It's basically just a big, costly research project for Intel that might reap future rewards down the line for them.

Also AMD was pushed into x86 architecture AFAIK by IBM so IBM had a gauranteed supply of x86 processors in the early 1980s. Two suppliers could compete with eachother to prevent Intel from price gouging supplies to IBM IIRC. Also Nehalem and all subsequent i5/i7 CPUs from Intel have on-die memory controllers I believe. I'm sure they are going to keep the feature from now on.

And Phinagle, you're right about the importance of having a full GPU and CPU business, and the benefits AMD gained from it, especially these days.

 

Sure they might become a success just like Itanium (IA-64)

 

It looks like the FTC wants to force Intel to sell x86 licenses to anyone that wants to compete against them.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/...e-door-for-the-great-chip-war/?ref=technology


Which would mean Nvidia could produce their own CPU....and there's rumors that they may already be at work on it.