Intel Files Lawsuit Against Nvidia

Ferrariman60 said:
As far as I can tell, the only way you can buy a mobo for LGA 1366 is by purchasing one with an Intel Chipset. If I'm wrong, please correct me, but a highly conclusive, 5 minute search of the web found no Core i7 Mobo's with a non-Intel northbridge.
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At present you can not use Intel Core i7 processors with anything but the Intel X58 chipset.

Ferrariman60 said:
This whole arrangement sounds a lot like Intel trying to protect it's current exclusivity on Core i7 Chipsets, doesn't it? Which sounds quite a bit like anti-competitive action to me- but like some others, I'm no lawyer, so I could be way off. By not having competition, they can charge whatever they want for the X58 chipset license- no one has any other options. If Nvidia brought a new one to market, not only might it be faster than Intel's, it would also be cause for competition, price wise. Intel doesn't want either thing, do they?
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How is this anti-competitive? There are alternatives from AMD for both processors and chipsets. NVIDIA chipsets are also available for AMD processors as well. Intel designed the processor and the interface between it and the chipset they designed is proprietary. The same as AMD's Hypertransport is.

Ferrariman60 said:
They are probably making some nice bank on these things right now, with the Cheapest Core i7 proc costing nearly $300 (and the next one costing double that) and the cheapest compatible Mobo running $200 (On newegg, I'm just trying to prove a point). That's $500 for an "entry level" Core i7 mobo/CPU combo- which is kind of crazy.
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How so? The performance it offers is second to none. Beyond that no one is forcing you to buy it. You are talking about a setup that can handle 8 threads simultaneously, previously a setup that could do that (using dual quad cores) would have cost you $2000 easy.

Ferrariman60 said:
As an aside, I think the squabbling these 2 are doing is hilarious. AMD has, let's be honest, weaker CPU's than Intel and weaker GPU's than Nvidia. These 2 are the leaders in both areas AMD has an interest in, and they can't even cooperate because they're busy acting like children.I think a strong case can be made for the value angle of the Phenom II, so it seems to me that Intel would like to invite Nvidia in for business. Seems to me that if they could make a really solid enthusiast chipset, maybe even (gasp!) a collaborative effort, they could really run away with it. But nope! They're too busy talking shit at each other. It's hilarious.
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Intel doesn't need NVIDIA for anything. NVIDIA just needs to concentrate on making GPUs. Intel doesn't care what video card you are putting in your machine right now. Technically Intel has more graphics chips out there than either AMD or NVIDIA. Granted they don't perform as well. Intel is supposed to enter the GPU business at some point as well. With their money, R&D capabilities, and manufacturing, Intel will likley succeed in the market. Though we may not see something really amazing for a couple of generations. Intel has been in this market before, and in a way always has been. They've learned quite a few lessons from the i740 days and in making their own graphics chipsets. Even if they fail in the GPU market, people will still be buying Intel processors and chipset based motherboards. So again, why does Intel need NVIDIA for anything? Why do they need their help to beat down competition that can't hold a candle to them in performance or in terms of business?
 
Ferrariman60 said:
As an aside, I think the squabbling these 2 are doing is hilarious. AMD has, let's be honest, weaker CPU's than Intel and weaker GPU's than Nvidia. These 2 are the leaders in both areas AMD has an interest in, and they can't even cooperate because they're busy acting like children.I think a strong case can be made for the value angle of the Phenom II, so it seems to me that Intel would like to invite Nvidia in for business. Seems to me that if they could make a really solid enthusiast chipset, maybe even (gasp!) a collaborative effort, they could really run away with it. But nope! They're too busy talking shit at each other. It's hilarious.
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CPU yes, but as for that "weaker" GPU it is currently bitch slapping Nvidia around in the business sense. Even if AMD goes belly up ATI will go on and right now they are riding high on the 4800 series. Nvidia needs to pull their head out, they have a faster GPU but ATI is currently killing their profit margin while keeping their own high.
 
Advil said:
.

Intel traditionally fails in everything they do outside of core CPU production.
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Except the graphics business, where they are single biggest player.

Seriously, ignore the 15 gtx295s nvidia will sell this year, go to any mass market computer manufacturer, any laptop maker, look at their low to mid range stuff, gma950, gma3100, 4500.

Yeah intel has no presence in the high-end (low volume) discrete graphics market, but the own the low-end (high volume) integrated market.

Just because intels gma stuff is of no interest to enthusiast (marginal) users like you or me, doesn't make Intel a graphics failure.

Also one could easily point out that Nvidia has had limited success outside it's "core" business area.

If intel really commits to the mid-range discrete graphics market they can brute force their way in there, they have, have no doubt.

The only thing playing in Nvidias favor, and I suspect the root of the junkyard dog antics, is that, despite "our" interest in the latest and greatest hardware, the "high-end" is very much a marginal market, it relies on low volumes and high margins, it's a very different business model from the higher volume, lower margin mid and low end graphics market where the actual profit is.

Intel doesn't have to compete with gtxs and x2 cards to "win" financially, those aren't the cards that make money, and I suspect that Nvidia is the only one who thinks this is a pissing contest.
 
Dan_D said:
How is this anti-competitive? There are alternatives from AMD for both processors and chipsets. NVIDIA chipsets are also available for AMD processors as well. Intel designed the processor and the interface between it and the chipset they designed is proprietary. The same as AMD's Hypertransport is.
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There is a huge difference between HyperTransport and Intel's QPI. QPI is Intel's direct answer to HT, and technically they are similar. But as far as licensing goes, they could not be more different. HT is found servers, routers, chipsets, notebooks etc. and the licensing of HT does not cost you anything. HyperTransport is an open architecture, which is the polar opposite to Intel.

Intel keeps the entire infrastructure to itself, and in this case refuses to grant a license to anyone, whether they are willing to pay a licensing fee or not. Intel has a culture of being closed, predatory, and downright greedy. It certainly has worked out very well for them no doubt about it. Intel's business model for QPI and chipset licensing fits in perfectly with their anti competitive behaviour.

If AMD were to follow Intel's business model for chipsets, they would only allow Nvidia to make a chipset for certain AMD products and charge them a licensing fee, and would keep the highest profit chipset business to themselves.
 
MartinX said:
Just because intels gma stuff is of no interest to enthusiast (marginal) users like you or me, doesn't make Intel a graphics failure.
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Yes it does, because Intel's "graphics" are an epic failure from a performance perspective. Big deal you say, it's good enough for the tasks that it does. Well not really. For a business PC, perhaps, but Intel has dragged down the average performance so low that it has literally hampered not only the enjoyment for the consumer, but has hampered PC gaming development in general.

In fact AMD and Nvidia have a much, much better IGP solution for about the same cost and same power envelope. Yet Intel still holds the #1 volume share of graphics.
 
§kynet;1033734402 said:
Yes it does, because Intel's "graphics" are an epic failure from a performance perspective. Big deal you say, it's good enough for the tasks that it does. Well not really. For a business PC, perhaps, but Intel has dragged down the average performance so low that it has literally hampered not only the enjoyment for the consumer, but has hampered PC gaming development in general.

In fact AMD and Nvidia have a much, much better IGP solution for about the same cost and same power envelope. Yet Intel still holds the #1 volume share of graphics.
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Most computers are not really used for gaming.

The problem with nvidia IGP solutions is their chipsets are not known for reliability. Why would you risk using an nvidia chipset for a "work" PC?

I don't follow the "enjoyment" logic either. PC's sold as media PC's typically come with a GPU, and most people don't even need that. If it wasn't for HD movies, I don't think we'd be seeing a push for better IGP's.
 
§kynet;1033734402 said:
Yes it does, because Intel's "graphics" are an epic failure from a performance perspective. Big deal you say, it's good enough for the tasks that it does. Well not really. For a business PC, perhaps, but Intel has dragged down the average performance so low that it has literally hampered not only the enjoyment for the consumer, but has hampered PC gaming development in general.
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This is false.
 
earnolmartin said:
I thought Intel and Nvidia had some kind of an alliance just like ATI and AMD?
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nope. there might've been something on paper, but if so they're certainly disregarding it. A few years ago nvidia told intel to FOAD when they tried to license SLI for their mobos. Then when i7 came up and nVidia needed a QPI license to make a full chipset Intel returned the favor and gave nVidia the choice of giving the SLI license or having to ceed the top end of the GPU market to AMD on intel boxes because they'd be limited to 1 card solutions. The only reason nvidia can sell NF200 chipsets is that intel kept the same NB-SB bus as in the 775 series.
 
No it doesn't. As much as you want to believe that having graphics solutions that can play games is the only definition of good graphic card, for most people as long as the IGP doesn't negatively affect their browsing/work and by this I mean it doesn't make what they do slower, than it's good enough.

For most people a need for better gfx pretty much arise only when trying to play HD clips/tv shows. Even with crappy IGP like the GMA950, with a half decent CPU most consumer's need to play at least 720P clips can be met, made even easier with more efficient codecs like CoreAVC. Netbooks like the Mini 12 and Samsung NC10 are perfect examples of this. 1080P can be done too as long as the CPU is at least C2D or equivalent, which most PCs sold today are anyway.

And your comment about hampering PC gaming in general is hilarious. I mean more than 3/4 of new games these days are either FPS, 3PS, so it's not like there's much variety there anyway. Don't blame Intel for making PC gaming advancements slower. Blame developers for their propensity to make more FPS.
 
DanNeely said:
nope. there might've been something on paper, but if so they're certainly disregarding it. A few years ago nvidia told intel to FOAD when they tried to license SLI for their mobos. Then when i7 came up and nVidia needed a QPI license to make a full chipset Intel returned the favor and gave nVidia the choice of giving the SLI license or having to ceed the top end of the GPU market to AMD on intel boxes because they'd be limited to 1 card solutions. The only reason nvidia can sell NF200 chipsets is that intel kept the same NB-SB bus as in the 775 series.
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I had no idea. Thanks for that info!
 
AMD/ ATi and Nvidia should merge. They would provide better competition to Intel.
 
Intel knows how to smack down a company (Nvidia) that thinks it is "bigger" than Intel. Nvidia should learn from this mistake and just try to make hardware people want.
 
chrnochime said:
And your comment about hampering PC gaming in general is hilarious.
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Devs like Valve and others are not laughing, and have stated that they loath Intel for holding back PC gaming. They know a little bit more about the industry than you.

As for the assertion that Intel's craptastic GPU is "good enough" that is comical. It is not good enough, period. Any attempt to justify their pathetic graphics is a joke at best.
Netbooks like the Mini 12 and Samsung NC10 are perfect examples of this. 1080P can be done too as long as the CPU is at least C2D or equivalent, which most PCs sold today are anyway.
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Funny you should bring that up. With a decent VPU, even a slow CPU with assistance can play back hi-def material.
 
Shouldn't this be a simple case? Why are there so many posts about SLI and x86? :confused:

Either Nvidia has a QPI license or it doesn't.


Intel's legal department isn't stupid. When they reviewed the NVDA/lNTC cross-licensing agreement in back in 2004, you can bet your ass they stipulated only P6 bus. Not "the P6 bus and all future Intel interconnects" or some vague statement. This isn't the first time this issued has happened. VIA wasn't that long ago.

Intel's chipset is part of their bread & butter. They would be stupid not to file a suit.
 
MartinX said:
Is it just me or has Nvidia been smoking a lot of crack lately?

Ever since they started their campaign of, what can only be described as schoolyard smacktalk, last summer I have become increasingly disillusioned with their position.

I'm not sure Intel is the one with the decaying business here.
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Are you for real ?!
Unless you do nothing but server based stuff, what hardware component do you prioritize when you buy a new computer ?
You know the answer to that, so what's the decaying business again ?
 
Damn first the 60% revenue hit and now this...

Yay for nerd-on-nerd crime, this nerd rage is getting out of hand.
 
MartinX said:
...

The only thing playing in Nvidias favor, and I suspect the root of the junkyard dog antics, is that, despite "our" interest in the latest and greatest hardware, the "high-end" is very much a marginal market, it relies on low volumes and high margins, it's a very different business model from the higher volume, lower margin mid and low end graphics market where the actual profit is.

Intel doesn't have to compete with gtxs and x2 cards to "win" financially, those aren't the cards that make money, and I suspect that Nvidia is the only one who thinks this is a pissing contest.
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I don't think you realize how many "9500 GTs" NVIDIA has sold, especially for OEMs...

That's just their highest profit market...as is for most of the other companies, where the high-end just captures mindshare.
 
Silus said:
Are you for real ?!
Unless you do nothing but server based stuff, what hardware component do you prioritize when you buy a new computer ?
You know the answer to that, so what's the decaying business again ?
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Funny you should ask.

Look at last quarter's financial results for INTC and NVDA. Which company took one hell of a nosedive when the economy is tough and consumers have to make a real choice between hardware components. Hint: It wasn't INTC.
 
My 2 cents

Intel should buy Nvidia

I think we would see some really cool shit if that happened.
GPU and CPU on the same die.
Intel could really bring things like CUDA, and Tegra to life.
Nvidia is a big company, but having somebody like intel backing you can really get things moving.
 
JackPack said:
Funny you should ask.

Look at last quarter's financial results for INTC and NVDA. Which company took one hell of a nosedive when the economy is tough and consumers have to make a real choice between hardware components. Hint: It wasn't INTC.
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Uh? The "nosedive" you mentioned, was mostly related to the one time charge to cover the mobile GPU failures and of course the current economic state.
Also, Intel may post a loss for Q1: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/16264

Consumers made no "real choice", during this economic situation. They simply stopped buying...
 
Silus said:
]

Consumers made no "real choice", during this economic situation. They simply stopped buying...
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If consumers stopped buying, they chose to.
ATI's sales werent down like nvidia's, so yea those *chose* to not buy from nvidia.
 
Lou Cypher said:
One of the things that makes Intel so good is their chipsets, they always work right the first time.
I never understood why anybody would want to put a Intel cpu on anything other than an Intel chipset.
Go through the [H]forums and you will find many issues across a wide range of Nvidia chipsets.

Bash Intel all you want, they make the best stuff.
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yea like p4 and the 810, 820 and 850 chipsets, and that rambus idea was just terrific. and i always go for the intel on board video.
 
Silus said:
I don't think you realize how many "9500 GTs" NVIDIA has sold, especially for OEMs...

That's just their highest profit market...as is for most of the other companies, where the high-end just captures mindshare.
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I also don't think you realize how many IGPs Intel has sold, especially for OEMs...
 
Silus said:
Uh? The "nosedive" you mentioned, was mostly related to the one time charge to cover the mobile GPU failures and of course the current economic state.
Also, Intel may post a loss for Q1: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/16264

Consumers made no "real choice", during this economic situation. They simply stopped buying...
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Lol, that one time charge is for Q2 2008, not the last quarter.:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html
Second quarter revenue and gross margin are expected to be lower than guidance provided during its first quarter financial conference call held May 8, 2008. Total revenue is now estimated to be from $875 million to $950 million. The estimated decrease in revenue and gross margin is due to several reasons: end-market weakness around the world, the delayed ramp of a next generation MCP, and price adjustments of our GPU products to respond to competitive products.


Separately, NVIDIA plans to take a one-time charge from $150 million to $200 million against cost of revenue for the second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems. Certain notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a certain die/packaging material set are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. To date, abnormal failure rates with systems other than certain notebook systems have not been seen. NVIDIA has initiated discussions with its supply chain regarding this material set issue and the Company will also seek to access insurance coverage for this matter.
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Rise didn't have one either.

SGS Thomson had a cross license agreement with Intel and fabbed for Rise. Therefore, that arrangement was okay.
 
Okay, makes sense. Was just wondering. So the only way for Nvidia to get into the X86 CPU business is through VIA (excluding Intel and AMD)? Could they do what Transmeta did?
 
lucky777 said:
Okay, makes sense. Was just wondering. So the only way for Nvidia to get into the X86 CPU business is through VIA (excluding Intel and AMD)? Could they do what Transmeta did?
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The license agreement is often specific that only THAT company can use it, as is the case of AMD I believe, so I'm not sure that would work directly. For example, if AMD was bought by NVIDIA, then AMD as a company would still need to exist, in order to use the license. Don't know the specifics though.
 
I don't think VIA is an option either. VIA bought Cyrix and partnered with NatSemi, hoping to win the legal battle with Intel, but the x86 license with NatSemi wasn't transferrable. Also, the license is usually exclusive - if the company is sold, then the license is void.

I'm not sure about Transmeta. If Nvidia tried to do what Transmeta did, it might get sued by Transmeta. After Crusoe went bust, Transmeta turned into one of those companies that just sit around waiting for someone to infringe on its IP.
 
Silus said:
Have you even read AMD's results ??
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Yea I have sales are not down as much as Nvidias are.
Yea there stock and company is in the shitter, but thats becuase AMD is doing a shitty job.
They dont charge enough for their products and have a lower contribution margin.
 
just a note.

here at the office the intel igp's have consistently caused performance issues, enough so that some of our users went to discrete gpu setups and the issues went away. The current systems i am building for our power users are built around a discrete setup because of these past issues.

In that degree i do think intel is a failure in the igp market, the only reason its igp ends up everywhere is simple. They sell the largest amount of chips, and its on their chipset mobo, therefore like it or not you are getting their igp, this is especially prevalent on laptops
 
Meanwhile here at work, dual monitors w/Nvidia Quadro NVS 110M. Works like a charm. : )
 
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