Nvidia To Silently Kill Chipset Division?

Chicago (IL) - The Internet rumor mill suggests that Nvidia may be cancelling future developments of new nForce media and communication processors, commonly referred to as chipsets. There is no official confirmation from Nvidia and we don’t expect such a confirmation anytime soon. But the sheer number of reports and quotes from industry sources certainly is reason enough to keep a close eye on Nvidia.

A possible shutdown of its chipset division is the last thing Nvidia wants to talk about these days. The company is gearing for its first big developer event, Nvision 08, which will open its doors in San Jose on August 25. PR and marketing is already in full swing and we just learned that the company is preparing some Guinness World record attempt and convinced astronaut Eileen Collins and actress Tricia Helfer to appear at the show. But the Internet isn’t very interested in the show yet and apparently wants to talk about the future of the company’s chipsets.

A sign that Nvidia is at least evaluating what to do with its chipset division comes from The Inquirer’s Charlie Demerjian, who claims to have talked with sources who were at a spicy meeting with Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. Demerjian said that Huang was in a discussion with Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers asking them why Nvidia should keep developing and selling chipsets. Apparently, this question was met with silence. The conclusion : Nvidia chipsets are dead.

Well, not entirely. Nvidia currently sells 12 different chipset models (MCPs) - the 500, 600 and 700 series for AMD- and Intel-based motherboards. Demerjian believes that these MCPs will remain available and even already started chipsets will continue to see an introduction. But early-stage and future developments may be canceled.

We leave it up to you to decide whether this will happen or not. Nvidia already denied chipset-killing rumors and, if the rumors are true, is likely to do so for many months down the road. We are pretty sure that nothing can be squeezed out of Nvidia this month since the company is unlikely to sabotage its own tradeshow.

Common sense applied, Nvidia always said that it is focused on visual computing and wants to be involved in every segment where visuals offer an opportunity. Right now, chipsets may assist the company in driving its GPUs deeper into high-performance and GPGPU computing areas, but if the company believes that it cannot add value to what is already out there, a chipset division may only be a distraction. In the end, the company bets its future on the GeForce GPU, the GPU-based Tesla HPC platform and the mobile Tegra SoC.