Nvidia's ''Project Denver'' is to Make a PC CPU
Nvidia is making a desktop CPU.
Nvidia's known to all of us as a graphics specialist, but there's been constant talk that it wants to get into the CPU business. For a while there were rumors of the company looking into making an x86-compatible processor, but at CES today Nvidia announced that it will be entering the processor market through a different standard – ARM.
Nvidia plans to build high-performance ARM-based CPU cores, known internally under codename "Project Denver". While thus far the ARM technology has been confined to smartphone and tablets, Project Denver is designed for heftier applications for PC, servers, workstations, and supercomputers.
"ARM is the fastest-growing CPU architecture in history," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. "This marks the beginning of the Internet Everywhere era, where every device provides instant access to the Internet, using advanced CPU cores and rich operating systems.
"ARM's pervasiveness and open business model make it the perfect architecture for this new era. With Project Denver, we are designing a high-performing ARM CPU core in combination with our massively parallel GPU cores to create a new class of processor," he said.
Nvidia will create a CPU running the ARM instruction set and integrate it with a GPU. This will put Nvidia in direct competition with AMD's Fusion CPU/GPU combos and potentially even against Intel with its integrated graphics in its new Core and upcoming Atom processors.
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But... I don't understand what ARM CPU technology has to do with an "Internet Everywhere" era... Can't such an era develop just as easily without ARM CPU's? And wouldn't a successful ARM based CPU integration with nVidia graphics be useful in many other sollutions too? I just don't see the relation between the two points. Perhaps I do not understand what Internet Everywhere really means.
I think it's interested and I wish Nvidia well. The more CPU makers the more competition = win for us consumers/prosumers.
I wouldn't worry about not understanding the thinking of Jen-Hsun Huang, trust me you're in good company. He could just purse his lips and move his finger over the top of them for all the sense he seems to make sometimes, it seems to work for Steve Ballmer very well
Awesome news, the more companies making the same product the lower the prices will get bwahaw.
Just wish Intel would give Nvidia a x86 license, but Intel doesn't like competition..
nvidia products just aren't reliable and stable long term, this is of no interest to me what so ever, no thankyou
Should they succeed, they will be confined to Linux based systems, I don't think Microsoft will port Windows 7/8 to ARM anytime soon.
Juliom, this may interest you:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass [...] pport.mspx
Should they succeed, they will be confined to Linux based systems, I don't think Microsoft will port Windows 7/8 to ARM anytime soon.
actually windows 8 is going to be arm compatibile, there was an article about that here on tom's hardware
Sorry, did not know about that
But you still have the issue of ARM compatible applications, not just the OS itself.
ARM needs a significant boost in performance before it can compete with x86 CPUs.
this will be good for a portable console, or a phone, but arm is severly under powered for anything else, sadly
I guess when you get run straight out of the chipset business, where else can you go?
AMD was really smart buying ATI. Now we know Intel would have just shut them out like they did Nvidia.
Looks like somebody's getting froggy.
interesting combine say a 4 core /8 core arm cpu and a gf580 and let the graphic card do most calculation and it will be interesting ,isn´t Amd planning something like that to?
"While thus far the ARM technology has been confined to smartphone and tablets,"
actually, ARM was initially designed for PCs, a long time ago (google Acorn Risc Machine).
Sorry, did not know about that But you still have the issue of ARM compatible applications, not just the OS itself.
You din't watch the Microsoft keynote yesterday...
they demonstrate Windows 8 on ARM (and others) technologies. Office 2010 need to be recompiled to support this CPU, but there are other applications working without any change.
And its fast!!!!
Allow me to translate. Internet Everywhere is code for, hey everyone likes that Internet right? Well you're going to love this CPU! It's similar to how a salesman who's wiping out will ask if you would catch a life saver if your were drowning just to get you in agreement again. I'm guessing he must be a much better engineer than a marketer. That aside, I'm very excited to see Intel having a prospect of competition. They've been dragging their feet far too long. Where's my 5Ghz already?
Windows 8 will run on ARM processors – a natural home for Silverlight?
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3572 [...] light.html
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass [...] pport.mspx
Wow this is some serious not news!
Anyone know what Tegra is? Oh wait that's right, an ARM based CPU!
Let me know when they start making games for ARM. Till then this is no more news than Motorola making a PowerPC CPU.
Potentially? With competition in the cpu market gradually rising again, I wonder if Intel will kick Nvidia out from being in their products for a while.
I begin to wonder if Intel/AMD/Nvidia are going to the same meeting, it's exactly like Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony with their motion mechanics. Although Nintendo had more time spent with it, they still managed to upgrade the controller with a 'second generation' before Microsoft and Sony released their motion controls. Just the same, Intel has had integrated graphics in their cpu line, but managed to make a second generation before AMD and Nvidia can release their line of new gpu/cpu technology.
Either this is just pure coincidence, a race to achieve the best tech, or a plot.
You din't watch the Microsoft keynote yesterday...they demonstrate Windows 8 on ARM (and others) technologies. Office 2010 need to be recompiled to support this CPU, but there are other applications working without any change.And its fast!!!!
Don't forget Nvidia was one of the companies that Microsoft said they were working with for their ARM compatibility.
But... I don't understand what ARM CPU technology has to do with an "Internet Everywhere" era... Can't such an era develop just as easily without ARM CPU's? And wouldn't a successful ARM based CPU integration with nVidia graphics be useful in many other sollutions too? I just don't see the relation between the two points. Perhaps I do not understand what Internet Everywhere really means.
Probably has to do with ARM's low power consumption, which allows it to fit in almost any electronic device ranging from desktops, to laptops, to netbooks, to tablet pc's, to smartphones, and even to regular phones.
ARM needs a significant boost in performance before it can compete with x86 CPUs.
1- that's what Nvidia is doing,
2- Especially when they combine their GPU's with the ARM CPU, some sort of cuda technology, that will be blazing fast on multi threaded app.
Single or dual threaded apps will be limited to the ARM CPU speed, but once we're talking about multithreading apps with 16, 32, perhaps 196 threads, these programs will fly, even on a smartphone!
Well, they could probably make a pretty sweet tablet with it.
It should also have some pretty good crunching power with the right amount of CUDA cores supplementing the ARM processor.
nvidia products just aren't reliable and stable long term, this is of no interest to me what so ever, no thankyou
Yes it is. You commented.
I think this could work. Arm is a leaner platform, instruction set wise, which means less coding assuming you can port or design what you need to give users the experience/performance they want. I can see this working well in the usual (consoles/phones/etc) but also in the server market where some people are promoting physicalization over virtualization or in some cases a combination therof to increase throughput and parallelism without raising TCO, still many issues in that sector, but i`m still excited to see what is actually brought to fruition.
Ugh no edit! theres also the efficiency and smaller pipeline in addition to that first sentence, just got to work so i`m tired! XD
But... I don't understand what ARM CPU technology has to do with an "Internet Everywhere" era...
Flip your thinking around. ARM does not drive the internet, but the internet drives ARM. What do people care most about today in computing? Getting to the internet. Symbian, Windows, OSX, Linux, Android matter, but not like they used to. The OS has become a checkbox of your preference, not the driver of your purchasing decision. ARM had a big roadblock in no Windows compatability, but the Internet wormed it's way around the roadblock.
Yea!
I don't see a lot of payback for they're efforts for some time since building a CPU from the ground up is not cheap. I would prefer Nvidia put their efforts into building something they are good at like processors for graphics processing in other devices like cameras, camcorders, TV playback devices or game consoles.
Also a good project for Nvidia is working on power efficiency for their GPU's since GPU power consumption is getting out of hand! (AMD as well)