Nvision of the future

The GPU and CPU giants certainly haven't been shy of taking a verbal chunk out of each other in recent months. Probably the rowdiest of the three has been Nvidia, where even CEO Jen-Hsun has been more than happy to indulge in publicly slamming his rivals, Intel and AMD.

While much of this can be put down to simple corporate rivalry combined with media outlets eager to represent – and in some cases exaggerate the various controversies – Nvidia itself certainly has a solid reason to be bolshy at the moment.

Its Nvision event taking place in San Jose, California from August 25th to 27th (see page 5) is a genuinely impressive venture. Ambitious doesn't quite describe its scope – arrogant might be better placed; in a good way.

The graphics firm is keen to highlight the fact that though it is organising the event, the scope is much wider than just what the company can offer. The entire extravaganza is designed to push the idea that graphics, in particular parallel processing and GPUs, is set to become much more important to many more people than those simply interested in high-end gaming.

 Nvidia's Roy Taylor, vice president of content and developer relations, thinks CPUs – the basis of AMD's (aside from the acquired ATi) and Intel's business – have pretty much advanced as far as they need to, and real progress in the future will be through graphics technology.

"For 20 years [Intel and AMD] have dominated serial or sequential processors. We're in parallel now. Now what they're trying to do is add parts to a place it never was. Their main purpose is to run Windows and Office. Neither of them are parallel tasks. Graphics, physics, AI, data mining: those are parallel tasks. We're really good at them.

"They're struggling because they're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. That's the challenge, that's why they're not doing anything and running out of steam. That's why they've stopped marketing megahertz, because there's no need for them.

"Effectively, their job is done. In the same way that there was once a billion dollar market for soundcards, once you got to a certain point the task was done. Where we're at today is that for sequential serial processors, there's an important part of the box has pretty much done its task. The only expansion is in parallel processors."

Clearly, its rivals would agree with at least some of this, since the acquisition of graphics firm ATi by AMD and Intel's Larrabee initiative are clear moves to tap into the graphics area. While Nvidia shows chip giant Intel respect, it does make the fair point that there's not a lot to actually see of Larrabee yet. Meanwhile, it's far more dismissive of AMD completely, as Taylor exemplified when asked if its rival's graphics push was making Nvidia's job harder.

"It's definitely not made our job harder. AMD's acquisition of ATi has certainly made our job a lot easier. In terms of the future we certainly don't underestimate Intel. Larrabee right now doesn't exist, it's a PowerPoint slide, it's an idea, it's a concept, as and when it turns up and becomes real, then we're going to have to compete with it.

Until it does, it's hard to try and fight something that doesn't exist; it's like trying to fight a ghost. It's not here. We have lots of respect for them and take them very seriously.

"The other guys [AMD], well. This is the only country in the world that still talks about them. I think is the whole British 'rooting for the underdog' thing."

Tags: This article has no tags