What Nvidia got from Intel

[Alpine]

The deal explained



THE INTEL/NVIDIA tie up that broke yesterday was big one love in, full of speculation but short on facts. Let's see if we can rectify that.

The deal has three major points for Nvidia. First they get a 1600FSB licence, but that is kind of a no brainer, if Intel wants gaming boards, they have to license this. Up to now, Intel's gaming efforts have been fast but fatally flawed in terms of features, and this is a good way to fix things.

In a similar vein, Intel will put NV chipsets on Intel boards like they used to do with ATI before they became the enemy. Look for low end and specialty boards, not mainstream business grade boards here, NV chipsets are too buggy for that kind of application. It also might bundle GPUs with boards as a package for OEMs.

More importantly, the deal covers CSI, and NV gets a license for that. This means that Nehalem 1S parts will have NV chipsets on them, at least until the relationship sours as Intel ratchets up the GPU business. This is pretty big.

That brings us to the holy grail of the relationship, Intel is letting NV into the one place it slammed the door on to everyone, 2S servers. Yes, NV is getting a Xeon license. This is probably due to Intel needing a board for V8.1 that can use a GPU that is not from DAAMIT. In any case, this is huge.

When they decide to talk about it, prepare for insufferable slideshows that talk about synergies, happy things and puppies with big eyes. What could be done in a series of bullet points will probably only be half-way over before you consider swallowing your tongue to end it all. They still hate each other though.



The INQuirer