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The head of BFG Technologies, a well-known Nvidia-exclusive supplier of graphics cards, admitted in an interview that Intel Corp.’s highly anticipated code-named Larrabee graphics processing unit (GPU) would change the market of graphics processors, however, he still said that Nvidia would be able to remain on top.
“Next year we’re going to see a completely different competitive landscape and it will change how people buy graphics cards,” said Scott Herkelman, the president of BFG Technologies, said in an interview with Hexus web-site.

View: The full story @ Xbit Labs

Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia Corp. and Via Technologies have not yet started development of their own next-generation universal serial bus (USB) controller as they cannot get specifications of the bus from Intel Corp. The latter denies any wrongdoing or intention to affect competitive positions of AMD, Nvidia and others as well as claims that the spec is not finalized. “The challenge is that Intel is not… giving the specification to anybody that competes with CPUs and chipsets,” a source close to AMD who is familiar with the dispute between chipset developers and Intel is reported to have said by News.com web-site.
While retaining full backward compatibility with USB 1.0 and USB 2.0, devices that feature USB 3.0 will be able to transfer data at up to 10 times higher speed compared to USB 2.0, or at 4.8Gb/s, meaning that a file as large as 600MB could be transferred in just a second in the best case scenario. In addition, the USB 3.0 specification will be optimized for low power and improved protocol efficiency. USB 3.0 ports and cabling will be designed to enable backward compatibility as well as future-proofing for optical capabilities.
View: The full story @ Xbit Labs

nVidia and AMD are looking to wrest control from Intel over the specification for USB 3.0.
USB 3.0 is the next-generation high-speed connection standard due out next year that is expected to offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0.
At issue is that Intel is allegedly not giving the specification to competitors in the CPU or chipset markets. Intel responds that it is “working hard to get the complete spec” to the industry. One source close to Intel alleges that nVidia and Intel are seeking the “host controller “specification that Intel says is beyond the USB 3.0 specification.
View: CNET: nVidia, AMD vie with Intel over USB 3.0

VIA Technologies held a launch party to officially announce its new VIA Nano processor (Isaiah) and a new standard for small form factor motherboards, Mini-ITX 2.0. Nvidia’s general manager of MCP business, Drew Henry, appeared at the show lending weight to previous reports the two companies will be teaming up on a new CPU-chipset platform in the near future.
The Mini-ITX 2.0 standard aims to set minimum specifications for future Mini-ITX boards in order to encourage makers to design platforms that are capable of meeting current market demands such as for high-definition video and gaming, said VIA.
View: The full story @ DigiTimes

NVIDIA’s been on a hyper-competitive tear lately, and while the latest rumor isn’t quite on par with Roy Taylor saying that the Intel CPU is “dead,” it reinforces the company’s new win-at-all-costs attitude. Seems ATI’s upcoming RV770-based Radeon HD 4800 might threaten NVIDIA’s  dominance of the high-end graphics market, and that’s just not acceptable — so the company is planning on pushing up the release of the GeForce 9900 to July. That’s one billion transistors and GDDR3 memory, if you haven’t been memorizing rumored graphic card specs — we’re guessing that blue screen of death will render mighty fast on that rig. [VR-Zone via Engadget]

Nvidia Corp., the world’s largest developer of graphics processing units (GPUs), may be interested in acquisition of Via Technologies, a minor developer of x86 central processing units and core-logic sets, Taiwan-based press has reported. Given that Nvidia already has chipset business unit, the only product family in which Nvidia may be interested in is x86 chips by Via.
A news-story at DigiTimes web-site claims that Nvidia and Via had discussed three possible scenarios, including a strategic alliance, acquisition of Via’s processor division, or the acquisition of the entire company. The parties have not reached any agreement so far, but the negotiations may be re-opened up soon as financial situation for Via is not showing any signs of improvement, whereas Nvidia may truly need its own x86 platform to broaden market segments it could address.
View: The full story @ Xbit-Labs

Doug Friedman, an analyst with American Technology Research, said that graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. could well acquire x86 microprocessor maker Adv anced Micro Devices in order to “re-architect it”. The acquisition is considered to be useful due to the fact that roadmaps of AMD and Intel Corp. threat Nvidia. The only problem for the graphics giant is that AMD’s x86 license is a non-transferable one.
“We believe AMD [could] face mounting pressure from shareholders, to restructure the company with a focus on a change in leadership,” said the analyst. Indeed, shareholders of AMD are hardly pleased with the company’s performance in the recent quarters as well as issues with the launch of quad-core microprocessors and the release of DirectX 10 graphics processing units. Nevertheless, late last year AMD managed to secure $622 million from Mubadala Development Company, which means that there are those who believe in AMD. [Xbit-Labs]

According to current plans, Nvidia plans to introduce its Geforce 9 series high end part codenamed G100 around march 2008. We don’t know many details, but we do know that the chip should end up faster than two G9 2 D8E dual PCB card which is scheduled for launch in late January. It will be on time to launch with G96 which is a mainstream part. [Fudzilla]

AMD reached its lowest share price for more than four years last week and, as a result, its market value dropped to around US$5 billion – that’s $400 million less than it paid for ATI in July 2006.
Intel, AMD’s major competitor in the CPU business, has been on a roll for the past 18 months and is now worth around US$162 billion, which makes the chip giant more than 32 times the size of AMD in monetary terms.
Even worse for AMD is that its partner-cum-archrival, Nvidia, has a market cap of around $19 billion, which makes it almost four times as valuable as the struggling platform company.
It’s fair to say things haven’t been going well for AMD since the middle of last year, as its two major rivals launched products that remain largely uncontested even today. Neither the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 nor the GeForce 8800 GTX have been truly surpassed in terms of performance yet and it’s not going to happen until next year. [Bit-tech.net]

nVidia is certainly planning on make lots of hay this Christmas, rolling out revisions to its mid-range GeForce 8 series and raking in the cash on the technology it has spent the last few years developing. But one thing is noticeably absent from the firm’s Christmas lineup - any signs of GeForce 9. Earlier on this year, Nvidia’s senior management were telling press in behind-the-scenes briefings that the plan was to stick to the GeForce 7 and 8 launch schedule - a new high-end part for Christmas, and mainstream spin-outs in Q1 and 2 the following year.
This hasn’t happened for GeForce 9. Why? Well, because it hasn’t had to. The various re-spins of GeForce 8 are plenty powerful enough to keep Nvidia at cruising speed through the holiday season, without pulling out the big guns - after all, the competition this year has been barely worth looking at so the green team has had the market to itself. Well, now Digitimes reckons that GeForce 9 is on track for a February 2008 release date. It seems feasible, but there is nobody at Nvidia who will confirm this either way, not least because the company is notoriously wishy-washy when it comes to rumours. [The Inquirer]

View: Story at Digitimes