Intel and Nvidia end disputes

[Jaketh]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Intel Corporation today announced that it has entered into a new comprehensive long-term patent cross license agreement with NVIDIA. The companies have also resolved pending litigation in Chancery Court in Wilmington, Del., ending all outstanding legal disputes between the companies.

Full article here

this belongs in the basement more then anywhere else i think

So Intel and nvidia have stopped fighting and are now working somewhat together, perhaps in the future we will see a Nvidia-Intel partnership, that would spell the end of AMD forever i think

[MathiasOfAthens]

Saw it as a huge bullitin on the Nvidia site... they were announcing the rather large settlement awarded to them.

[mrcrusty]

Full article here

this belongs in the basement more then anywhere else i think

So Intel and nvidia have stopped fighting and are now working somewhat together, perhaps in the future we will see a Nvidia-Intel partnership, that would spell the end of AMD forever i think

Not really.

Both AMD and Nvidia were suing Intel, and both got similar deals. AMD has had cross licensing agreements and a wad of cash from Intel since 2009.

Besides, any CPU/GPU technology that Intel and Nvidia come up with together has to catch up with AMD's Fusion, which is already out. If Bulldozer competes well with Sandy Bridge, then they really set themselves up for the future.

What AMD needs to catch up on it's the smartphones and the HPC markets. Nvidia has set itself up quite well.

What I'm afraid of is that Intel will use the cross licensing agreements to either create an APU to rival Fusion, or their own dedicated GPU. In either case, the thing that scares me would be if Intel tries to push Nvidia out of business, or worse, buy out the company.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

intel makes good products. If they bought out Nvidia I wouldn't be upset. I don't think Nvidia would sell though unless they have a financial crysis.

[mrcrusty]

intel makes good products. If they bought out Nvidia I wouldn't be upset. I don't think Nvidia would sell though unless they have a financial crysis.

Less competition = bad for prices and consumers.

If Nvidia go bust, it leaves a hole in the market, and while AMD gets rich in the meantime, it opens up the opportunity for another company to get into the mix. If Nvidia gets bought by Intel, they'll finally have the means to crush AMD on all fronts. AMD's big money maker and Intel's huge weakness right now is the graphics market.

I'd rather have an AMD monopoly on graphics cards than an Intel monopoly on everything. Sure, they make good products, but they don't play nice. That's precisely why both AMD and Nvidia were suing Intel, using illegal practices in order to eliminate it's competitors from the market. In AMD's case, it was bribing OEMs to use Intel CPUs instead of AMD CPUs, as well as making certain programs run slower on AMD systems. In Nvidia's case, it was Intel trying to declare a contract with Nvidia null and void in order to push Nvidia out of the integrated graphics market.

Intel would've received a mass of bad press and huge legal losses if it were to trial, so they settled with both of them and paid each over a billion dollars + cross licensing and technology sharing agreements to keep them happy.

[Freddie]

I've wondered if Intel might be tempted to buy out Nvidia but what advantages would that bring to Intel? Discrete video cards are in decline, margins are low and the market is has almost run its course. It would be far cheaper for Intel to beef up its exisiting graphics department rather then purchase Nvidia. Heck AMD were going to buy Nvidia back in 2006 but the deal fell through and ended paying a huge premium for ATI, Intel won't make the same mistake.

All this agreement means is Nvidia recongises Intel patents and get $1.5b over 5 years. If this went to court Intel stood lose a lot IP.