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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techcurious 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.Reply -
lashabane I think it's interested and I wish Nvidia well. The more CPU makers the more competition = win for us consumers/prosumers.Reply -
ImagineTek 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 :)Reply -
joytech22 Awesome news, the more companies making the same product the lower the prices will get bwahaw.Reply
Just wish Intel would give Nvidia a x86 license, but Intel doesn't like competition.. -
apache_lives nvidia products just aren't reliable and stable long term, this is of no interest to me what so ever, no thankyouReply -
juliom 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.Reply -
Juliom, this may interest you:Reply
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-05SOCsupport.mspx -
tmk221 juliomShould they succeed, they will be confined to Linux based systems, I don't think Microsoft will port Windows 7/8 to ARM anytime soon.Reply
actually windows 8 is going to be arm compatibile, there was an article about that here on tom's hardware -
juliom Sorry, did not know about that :P But you still have the issue of ARM compatible applications, not just the OS itself.Reply