Nvidia to try its hand at x86 chips, then get its pants sued off

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Friday, February 6th, 2009

nvidia-chipWhile Intel is working on taking on the GPU sector (and may just have a deal with Sony to do it), its main rival, Nvidia, is looking to get into the x86 processor business. The video hardware giant is assembling a team from scratch to make a competitor to the Intel and AMD’s CPUs — but doesn’t seem to care that the technology is proprietary and must be licensed from the very companies they’re trying to overthrow.

I’m no legal expert, so I won’t get into any nitty-gritty, but it’s safe to say that if Nvidia does manage to put together an x86-compatible chip, it’ll never see the light of day. Intel will immediately sue them so hard and with such clear legal standing that they’ll be toast before they can come up with a name for the thing. Should be interesting.

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