From the way it looks, while they'll be more buddy-buddy, Intel likely won't buy nVidia. Why would they? If they really wanted to do a GPU, they would. Intel tried the GPU market years ago with the i740 and that never really took off. They don't need chipsets, since they produce what is argueably some of the best chipsets out there. nVidia isn't crap, but Intel has a longer history. nVidia still has some software issues to work out in their chipset arena...although they certainly are getting there. What I would expect to see is SLI support come around for Intel chipsets. I don't hate Intel or AMD, but I sure do hate fanboyism. On the hardware side, ATi has a lot more finesse than nVidia, who tends to take a brute strength approach. What nVidia tends to have over ATi is in their drivers. ATi is vastly improved over where they were several years ago, but they're still haunted by driver issues of the past. Until the Core 2 Duo came out, AMD was recommended because they offered better performance for less money. Now that C2D is out and the initial kinks are pretty much worked out, it only makes sense to recommend them. AM2 was not and is not intended to compete with C2D. It's there to get on the DDR2 bandwagon as it's more prolific. If you have Socket 939, you're an idiot to move to AM2. Why? Unless you have to have the FX-63, you'll get more power jumping to an E6400 or E6600 for a midrange chip that beats the pants of AMD's top-end.
But I still HATE Intel!!! But I'm starting to like therir new logo... P.S. Woodcrest is a lousy and stupid name for CPU...
That's just a codename for the 51xx series Xeon. Much like Conroe is the codename for the Core 2 Duo. There may be multiple core codenames for a single processor brand. Northwood, Wilamette, Prescott, Paxville...these are all codenames for the Pentium 4/Pentium D CPU. The codename should have little to no relevance on your choice of CPU. Performance should. Anyway, Intel's official name for their server/workstation-class CPU is Xeon. Their mainstream performance CPU is the Core 2 Duo. People are confused enough about the CPU brands as is. Intel, nor AMD, wants to confuse people by selling a product by the internal codename. Look at AMD now. We all know the Opteron is their server/workstation class CPU. But they also debated Meteron and one other one. Most people joked about them sounding like a robot off Transformers. This wasn't a codename, it was an actual product name. Why do you hate Intel? Codenames are a silly reason.
PLS, I hate Intel because... I just... HATE IT!!! Everyone must addmit those ''codenames'' are very very very very very ummmm STUPID!!! They should hire a better codenamer... Whatever... Edit: Wooden crest... Even chickens don't have it... It is a stupid name for everything not just for CPU...
hmm i moved to AM2 because of the 500 series chipset and all its nice features. Which i really like thank you. And bye the way stupid wouldn't a very good way to put that considering you hate fanboys
ok bullcrap aside, i don't think this will actually go through, Intel is huge and even then this is some kinda of last minute ditch to get out of loosing almost everything.
As a performance jump going to AM2 from Socket 939 is basically nil. The nForce 500 is basically a beefed up nForce 4, so nVidia didn't really reinvent the wheel there. It's more a progressive evolution for the nForce series. Fanboyism irritates me because guys on either side are only willing to root for the Red team or Green team rather than go for the better technology. The question should be 'who has the best performing hardware, drivers, and support?', not 'why does company A rock the crap out of company B? Because company B sux0rz!!!1111!!!!! They made crappy drivers and hardware 5 years ago...I'll never forget that, data be damned!" Being brand loyal keeps people from going with the best hardware. Now I'm not saying just because someone always buys Intel or AMD or ATi or nVidia is strictly a fanboy. If you use Linux, ATi's drivers and their close-source drivers make it a pain to deal with, so if you're going to use nVidia drivers so you can game, a Radeon is going to be more of a hassle. Who gives me the best bang for my money, that's what I'm interested in. I wont' blindly follow a company just because of it's status. For all the crap I've heard about ECS and Soyo boards, they've worked fine in every case I've seen them. Documentation, particularly on Soyo's part, did leave something to be desired. Do ya get where I'm going with this? As for the nVidia Intel buyout, I don't think it's going to happen. Intel, while they've lost some steam, is still a much bigger company than AMD. Add to that they produce what are arguably the best chipsets for an Intel CPU-based system. You also have to consider that many people do not game on their computer. For Intel, they have people buying their CPU's and chipsets, many of these sales come with integrated graphics. The gaming graphics aren't needed because of what they have in the basic system. nVidia is targeting a smaller market of people, whereas Intel casts a wider net. Intel doesn't need nVidia, and while they probably will be much friendlier with each other due to the AMD ATi buyout, if Intel really wanted the high-end GPU market, they could develop it. I'd give more merit to Intel wanting to buy Hynix, Infineon, or some other RAM manufacturer out, since that's a required part of any PC. A separate graphics card is not.
I've liked AMD for a long time, and still prefer them to Intel. But you may get the wrong impression if you look at my avatar. While I do want AMD to do well against a monopoly that is Intel, I don't like to make bad recommendations. The reasons are that its plain wrong to influence other people's decisions because of my bias. The second reason is that my reputation is at stake if I make a bad recommendation, simple as. I used to recommend AMD products, not just because I liked them, but particularly the Venice/Manchester cores of the Athlon64 were superb. It just made sense to go for the CPU that gave the most performance, least power output and most value for money. That time is gone, now it is the Core 2 Duo which rules the performance market. AMDs best CPUs just don't compete at the moment, and that will be reflected in my current recommendation as the best value for money CPU. Kudos for the Israel team of Intel for raising the bar. I still have my avatar set as the AMD logo, I see no reason to change it. Mainly because of lazyness. Back on topic, I don't think Intel would buy nVidia, they seem to share too much of the chipset market to make an aquisition. If they did, it would be bad for the customer. We would have the monopoly of the CPU market with a graphics giant merging, effectively making it AMD/ATI versus Intel/nVidia.
