NVIDIA Complains About Intel Atom Chip Pricing
Category: ManufacturersPosted: May 19, 2009 04:02PM
Author: jammin
NVIDIA and Intel hardly appear to be best buddies, at least if the recent history of license disputes and claims that the GPU is essentially the future of computing are to be believed. It therefore doesn't come as much of a surprise that NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang has been calling the pricing of Intel's Atom CPUs "pretty unfair". The argument is that the Atom CPU, which NVIDIA uses in its Ion platform, costs $45 as a stand alone item, but once you purchase it combined with an Intel northbridge and southbridge (the parts the Ion platform replaces) that price drops to just $25. While on the surface that does seem to be a pretty major price discrepancy, it may be somewhat understandable when you consider that the Atom three-chip package (with the CPU itself generally soldered to the motherboard) has become a ubiquitous part of many netbooks and similar systems. That means it has been shipping in large volumes. I'll leave it up to you to decide if the price difference is a fair one (after the recent EU fine, it may be easy to accuse Intel of similar practises elsewhere). An Intel spokesman responded to the claims with the following statement:
We compete fairly. We do not force bundles on any computer makers and customers can purchase Atom individually or as part of the bundle. If you want to purchase the chip set, obviously there is better pricing.
