Nvidia Trying to Force Its Way onto the Atom Platform

Earlier this month, rumors surfaced suggesting that Intel and Nvidia have been working together to enable Nvidia chipset support for the Atom platform. Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI were each said to be ready to take advantage of the possible collaboration. But the melding of an Nvidia foundation with Intel's Atom processor hasn't yet taken place, and now it appears Nvidia, who previously said it was taking a wait and see approach to the netbook market, is getting antsy to make something happen. According to DigiTimes, Drew Henry, GM of Nvidia's MCP business, recently took a trip to Taiwan in an attempt to convince Taiwan PC makers to support forcing Intel to allow Nvidia's MCP7A and MCP79 chipsets into Atom platforms. Henry acknowledged the high price-to-performance ratio inherent with Atom processors, but said that limiting the chips to 945GSE and 945GC chipsets will stagnate future development. With Intel seemingly in no hurry to bring Nvidia on board, Nvidia is pressuring PC makers into demanding ... (link)