This is all the more surprising when one can see the line that connects nForce's lineage to the Xbox, which uses an Intel Pentium III 733 MHz CPU, not an AMD processor. Yet, Nvidia has successfully managed to dodge the single most damning prospect of partnering with Intel - Intel will keep the biggest profit margins for its CPUs and sacrifice everything else. NVIDIA has developed a strategy that allows the company to do a number of things:
AMD throws its support behind NVIDIA
nForce is a premium product, even if it weren't for its audio capability, and integrated communications interfaces, it still delivers GeForce2MX class performance on 3D graphics. NVIDIA can kill its own value 3D-chip products, but they get to go after market share at a bigger level, the PC platform itself.
Not only does nForce give NVIDIA a premium product, allowing the company to price its chipsets above that of its competitors, but by partnering with AMD, NVIDIA can at least hope to provide an overall platform solution that is faster, and cheaper than comparative products from Intel and VIA. After all, AMD's processors don't carry the same sticker price as those of Intel.
NVIDIA now offers a solution in every segment of the PC business. An nForce motherboard can cross the gamut of system prices from a sub-$1,000, or perhaps even as low as a sub-$500, PC, to a high-end system using one of its own GeForce3 add-in boards instead of the integrated graphics.
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