Is Nvidia vulnerable to takeover?
Nvidia to drop something massive in SeptemberIt’s fair to say that AMD is still dealing with the challenges of merging two such demanding technological firms into one, and even now the road maps that are emerging show that real results of the union are still some way off (the Fusion technology, the major crossover between graphics and CPU technology on one die, won’t be seeing the light of day until 2009). But nonetheless, it’s the mere potential that a unified AMD and ATI posesses that continues to loom as a threat over the market, and helps generate an ongoing amount of tittle-tattle.
And let’s face it: the sector in which Nvidia operates isn’t awash with other competitiors. The likes of VIA and Matrox snare small amounts of market share each, but when it comes to graphics, it’s a three way split between Nvidia, AMD and Intel. Most commonly, Nvidia is compared to AMD, against whom it’s made market share gains over the past year. However, perhaps the real threat in the short and longer terms is Intel. And that’s the name we’ll be coming back to shortly.
NVIDIA has something big coming, according to its own estimates something about the same size as SLI when it launched. It's not the introduction of the rumored Radeon HD 4870X2 killer, the 55nm G200b core. That would be a bit too weak. There is a new PhysX driver that will enable PhysX on all CUDA-capable GPUs that will launch soon, but it should arrive sooner than that. Instead, the bang comes from updated CUDA support and improved drivers.
SLI will be updated, connectivity will be updated, CUDA looks like it will go commercial, and better quality and performance overall. The last part may also include improved scaling in various SLI configurations. Whether it will have the same impact as SLI had remains to be seen. More news should follow as we approach the next Big Bang.