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NVIDIA CEO dismisses X86 development rumors

By Hubert Nguyen, Posted on Nov 9, 09 01:23 AM PDT

Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA has dismissed rumors that NVIDIA was working on an X86 chip (an Intel-compatible processor). His strategy is to continue using NVIDIA processors to accelerate all kinds of computing tasks (graphics or not), on every platforms: from supercomputers to handheld devices.

That didn't seem to convince market Analyst Doug Freedman from Broadpoint AMTech who thinks that "Nvidia could become a supplier of x86 CPUs by necessity, perhaps in the next 12 months". Right...

If NVIDIA had an X86 product that could be competitive in a multi-billion dollar business that is actually many times its own size, why would the company enter that market "by necessity"? And if it doesn't have a competitive product, why enter at all? That's nonsense. It’s not as if NVIDIA was going to say “damn, we *really need* to beat Intel now” and pull an X86 chip that will beat Core i7 or Atom from its… pocket.

I don't even mention the (potential) legal ramifications if NVIDIA was to use the X86 instruction set. It is also clear that Intel has a lot more ways to hamper NVIDIA in the processor and chipset markets than it has with discrete GPUs, supercomputers and handheld: the three markets that Jen-Hsun Huang mentioned.

Intel plans to go head to head with NVIDIA in graphics computing with its own GPU. Some think that it is the end of the GPU as we know it, but I think that things willl end up somewhere in the middle.

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