"Oh yeah?!? Well my lawyer costs more than yours!!"

Here's the reality. If nVidia is not allowed to manufacture chipsets (motherboards) that support Intel's future CPUs it takes a lot of options away from us, the consumer. Granted nVidia doesn't make the best motherboards for Intel chips currently, but it removes the option from consumers, and potentially takes a very large chunk of nVidia's revenue away.

If nVidia couldn't make SLI supporting Mobos for Intel CPUS, that would mean Intel's own chipsets which only support X-Fire would dominate, thus giving ATI/AMD a good edge.

I think it's better for all of us that nVidia wins this case.

Why would this even have to be a lawsuit? Lets say Intel is right (Though my opinion says otherwise) and Nvidia did a no-no. Its sounds more like a misunderstanding than anything and could simply be resolved by making a new and updated contract that both companies can come to a agreement.

That would require Nvidia paying Intel some more money, to buy the license for something Nvidia believes it already paid for before..i think

If intel wins this one ,there will no longer be any fun with the ati/nvidia war.ATI would kick nvidias ass because nvidia would lose most of the budget that it makes with the intel chipsets.

"No I didn't"

"Yes you did."

"No I didn't!"

That's why there is a lawsuit. Because they couldn't agree. The article says they've been trying to work this problem out for a year. Since they haven't come to an agreement and are still fighting over it, now Intel is going to sue and let a Judge decide who is right.

nVidia does(at least planed) to support SLI on Intel X58 chipset. "Nvidia backtracks to authorize native SLI technology support on Intel X58 motherboards (http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20080828VL200.html)"

The real reason is that Intel is losing chipset market shares to NVIDIA. At minimum, they lost the Macbook segment to NVIDIA. They also is about to lose some of their netbook segment market share to NVIDIA's Ion. Apple is reportedly going to go with NVIDIA for the new iMacs too. So, Intel is arguing that newer CPUs are different than the previous ones and therefore the license doesn't apply, in order to stop NVIDIA from competing with them in the chipset market. I doubt that Intel wins, but this lawsuit may cost NVIDIA the iMac win, because the new iMac is going to use the new Intel CPUs and the uncertainty may force Apple to change their plan to use NVIDIA chipset.

Isn't the solution obvious? Intel needs to make better chipsets.

Evga has an X58 intel chipset that supports SLI. Doesn't that mean that Intel has chipsets that support SLI? I think the chipsets that don't support SLI are intel's socket 775 ones. But yeah I agree, I'm happy with my nvidia 790i and it would take options away from consumers. Although.. I probably would have bought an intel chipset if it had lifetime warranty, did not want to go back to Asus with their 3 year warranty and them hiding their silly RMA page.

If Intel's chipsets weren't shit, they wouldn't have to play noncompetitive.

Hooray super win for AMD if Intel succeeds. Just the boost AMD needed. Intel shooting themselves in the foot so the only way to play on a PC with nVidia is to get an AMD machine, or use an AMD GPU.

think people. how did intel make an integrated chipset? they used nvidia patents to help develop their own tech. so intel has received there fair consideration, now nvidia still has theirs

nVidia should just turn around to AMD/ATI to stay in the business, no law suites and money will still flow.

For years, Nvidia refused to license SLI to Intel. In 2004, they decided that they wanted to make better MB chipsets, hence the cross-licensing. Now Nvidia wants to license x58 chipsets, and Intel says 'new chipset, new license'. Paybacks are a b1tch...

Intel sucks, never buy something from Intel, they want to ruin the PC market.

Yeah, everyone ignores the fact that Nvidia pulled the same stunts on licenses.