NVIDIA Could Release Its Own CPUs In The Near Future

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Sep 16, 2020.

  1. H83

    H83 Ancient Guru

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    But Nvidia could push the envelope like Apple did with their custom design, they didn´t had to wait for ARM to bring something better.

    So i can´t see how this improves Nvidia´s chances of doing a better CPU unless i´m seeing this the wrong way.
     
  2. schmidtbag

    schmidtbag Ancient Guru

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    I think the underlying concern is Nvidia didn't want ARM to crumble and they didn't want it in the hands of someone who would possibly make things worse. Someone needed to take up ownership, and Nvidia would have a lot of potential to lose had someone like Foxconn or Apple bought it.

    So, it's not really a matter of Nvidia increasing their chances of doing a better CPU, but rather, it decreases their chances of a crappy future.
     
  3. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    Owning ARM isn't going to allow NVidia to compete with Intel and AMD in the CPU market directly. They'd be competing against x86 as a whole. The ability of NVidia to design and sell processors hasn't changed at all. They've been able to design custom ARM processors. They've basically just gained control over the entire smartphone/tablet market where they failed to get any traction before due to pricing.
     
  4. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    I wouldnt be so absolute, afterall cyrix managed to get a license, and not only that but x86_64 patents are going to expire soon.

    If there was any company that could do it , it would be nvidia , they have alot ,
    invested in the x86 ecosystem.

    That said they might go the openPOWER route since they are part of the openPOWER foundation and routinely work with ibm(power9 with nvlink ect.)
     

  5. Fediuld

    Fediuld Master Guru

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    Patents are different than licences.
    Cyrix had the licence from the dark ages. So does VIA still to this day.
    Why NV doesn't buy VIA then with the x86 licence? Because x86 license is not transferable. And AMD will never licence x86_64 to VIA/Nvidia. Not even when then Sun starts burning Helium and Earth is engulfed and destroyed in 5 billion years from now.

    Have you seen how ARM operates? Is not different than buying any licenced software like Maya or AutoCAD
    https://www.arm.com/why-arm/how-licensing-works

    NV is bad news buying ARM because it is going to stop anyone and his dog getting a licence trying to corner the mobile market.

    And Intel/AMD can care less as they can move to different RISC arc with minimal effort, however Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Marvel, Broadcomm, DEC will have serious issues as they cannot spend the money to design their own CPU/GPUs. (Except Apple maybe)

    That ofc if the British Government agrees ARM to be sold. There is still a lot of discussion given is a strategic company for the UK interests.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  6. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    Cyrix earned their license, they did not have it to start with , the only reason they have it is because they did a clean implementation from scratch, intel tried to sue them and lost, (cyrix still died however due to the legal costs effectively with the scraps inherited by VIA when the aquired national semiconductor)

    What does arm have to do with x86? Not much but if you are trying to reverse engineer an architecture or build a new one, buying arm, an r&d company certainly makes sense


    May not be good for the ecosystem, but i think it would be hard to argue anti-trust since arm isnt directly responsible for all the arm chips, it sells designs not chips, nothing prevents those companies from modifying those designs afaik, which they already do quite heavily, I suspect it will have little effect on most companies since established deals/licensing, gives them all of the access to ips that they need to continue building and improving their own chips for a while at least, by which time they should already have an exit plan.
     
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  7. Ne1l

    Ne1l Active Member

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    3DFX was dead before Nvidia bought them, they just came in an bought up the IP before they went bankrupt.

    Ageia - Who wanted another component in their PC - even with nvidia's market penetration Physx never took off, how would some newbie have influenced the market?

    Nvidia are buying ARM as every GPU compute node they make needs an x86 CPU, be it Intel or AMD for $5000+ sometimes 2 or even 4 CPU's -- why give someone else a piece of the juicy pie if you don't need to?
     
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  8. Venix

    Venix Ancient Guru

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    As far i am aware via's x86 license is not transferable meaning if you buy via the x86 license gets lost ... They will have to work "together" with via and the cpus get released under the via's name !
     
  9. Ne1l

    Ne1l Active Member

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    DEC -- (Digital Equipment Corporation) The one bought by Compaq? They designed the best CPU ever (in my opinion) the Alpha CPU was light years ahead, then they gave the Alpha IP to Intel and they put it into Itanium and neglected it. Until 'Mark Herd' left HP and killed it and the BCS business totally by 'leaking' Intel intended to end of life the CPU.

    BCS to HP was a $8+ Billion a year 'golden goose', VMS is still far more secure than Linux will ever be. How Herd got away with the leak to drum up more server sales for Oracle I'll never know.
     
  10. Dribble

    Dribble Master Guru

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    They won't, ARM's value is in the fact everyone uses it. It is steadily taking over from x86 which is both inefficient and locked down so companies can't make their own variants. The best way to kill ARM would be to lock it down too, and Nvidia aren't stupid. Btw nvidia does license their gpu tech already, it's just expensive. I suspect we'll see more licensing not less - all sorts of variants with gpus, AI, fancy networking, decoders/encoders.

    What we will also see is much better software + support - that's perhaps the biggest reason why Nvidia do so well, e.g. it's the CUDA software that made Nvidia dominant in super computers more then the hardware. Intel + AMD can make the hardware but fail at software. With that will obviously come substantially higher prices...

    If they play their cards right and JHH is pretty good at doing that they will be come our new overlords, all bow to the jacket!
     
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  11. Elfa-X

    Elfa-X Member Guru

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    This is what I could find about Windows 10 limitations of ARM:

    • Only ARM64 drivers are supported. Windows 10 on ARM can run x86 apps, but it can’t use x86 drivers. That shouldn’t be a problem for most hardware, but if you have some older peripherals then it’s likely that driver support won’t be available. Windows 10 on ARM driver support will be more limited, and similar to what Windows 10 S provides.
    • x64 apps are not supported. This is something we’ve known, but Windows 10 on ARM does not support emulation of x64 apps. Microsoft is planning to support these in the future at some point, though.
    • Certain games and apps don’t work. Microsoft says that games and apps that use a version of OpenGL later than 1.1 or that require hardware-accelerated OpenGL won’t work on Windows 10 on ARM. Games that use anti cheat technologies also won’t run on Windows 10 on ARM.
    • Apps that customize the Windows experience may not work correctly. Apps like assistive technologies or input method editors won’t work properly on Windows 10 on ARM. Also, apps that include shell extensions (icons and right-click menus in File Explorer) like Dropbox may fail. These apps will need to be compiled natively for ARM.
    • Apps that assume that all ARM-based devices are running a mobile version of Windows may not work correctly. Some apps that have been coded for Windows Phone won’t work correctly and could appear in the wrong orientation or have UI layout problems. This won’t be a huge amount of apps, though.
    • The Windows Hypervisor Platform is not supported on ARM. You won’t be able to run virtual machines using Hyper-V with Windows 10 on ARM.
     
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  12. ACEB

    ACEB Member Guru

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    Lots of thoughts like this myself like looking at AMD when they were about $5 lol. I also started mining Bitcoin for about 2 days but decided I wanted to play games more, this was when they first came out. The problem is ordinary people even with good info just don't have the spare cash to spend most of the time. The Nvidia stuff was guaranteed though so had no issues blowing all my money on that lol
     
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  13. Stormyandcold

    Stormyandcold Ancient Guru

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    There's some hope in the future for the license transfer situation.

    "We see some company releasing x86 compatible chip like Zhaoxin. But most of these chips saw the light of day after the FTC forced Intel to allow other companies owning x86 IP to undergo mergers and joint ventures. Hence disseminating, under specific conditions, the capabilities to build x86 compatible chips."

    https://www.blopeur.com/2020/04/08/Intel-x86-patent-never-ending.html
     
  14. Mufflore

    Mufflore Ancient Guru

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    Good luck with that, you have to mfr them before they can be bought.
    Atm they arent doing so well with GPUs!
     
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  15. Venix

    Venix Ancient Guru

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    Zhaoxin is a Chinese company and released cpus for the Chinese market only :p and well the ip laws do not apply in there .... Was another one that did joined venture with via but i do not remember who was it ... Except if it was zhaoxin :p
     

  16. sykozis

    sykozis Ancient Guru

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    Except that AMD has already licensed "x86-64" to VIA....more than a decade ago, actually. VIA released their first CPU supporting x86-64 back in 2008.

    No single company should be able to control any industry. Currently, Qualcomm has near total control over the smartphone industry. Someone needs to break that control.

    All of those companies could easily transition to RISC-V or even MIPS. Broadcom and Apple have experience designing custom RISC based processors. I'm not sure Broadcom would be affected in any way since their business seems to revolve around networking and I/O controllers/hubs.... It doesn't look like they sell CPUs.... Marvell is also into networking and I/O controllers/hubs. DEC hasn't actually existed for more than 2 decades now.... Not even sure Texas Instrument would be affected....
     
  17. Stormyandcold

    Stormyandcold Ancient Guru

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    I agree, selling out in 2mins is bs. There should've been much more stock available.
     
  18. undorich

    undorich Active Member

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    'cause you could boil an egg on them and therefor useless. they never mng to sort that prob
     
  19. PrMinisterGR

    PrMinisterGR Ancient Guru

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    Buying ARM doesn't magically make the CPUs they produce better. They just want control over the largest CPU ecosystem that exists. No, they cannot touch Apple, as Apple has perpetual rights to the designs by investing early in ARM.

    Since NVIDIA is notorious for souring their relationship with every single partner they have, them controlling an organisation like ARM should ring alarm bells in a lot of places in the world. It also moves the most popular CPU architecture from the UK to the US, with all the jurisdictional issues that creates for Chinese companies, so I would say that's a plus.

    I believe this is the time that people will start looking much more seriously at RISC-V.
     
  20. Ne1l

    Ne1l Active Member

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    You want bleeding edge then you need to have cooling for bleeding edge -- my MB never had an issue with the chipset overheating so I still fail to see the 'disaster' -- in my book a disaster is akin to the solder-gate. Anything else is perhaps overZealous expectations (aka 3080 = 2x 2080Ti performance) but not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination.
     

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