LordHawkwind
New member
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but this is simply a graphics IP licensing deal. Some 5 years ago Intel lost an IP case with Nvidia and instead of messing about signed a 5 year deal with them worth about $1.5billion over 5 years. In that time Intel built ZERO iGpu's with Nvidia. It is this deal that is up for renewal. Here is a quote from Forbes;
"...With the complexity of PC graphics, it’s impossible to build a graphics processor without infringing on any number of patents from both AMD and NVIDIA, because the two companies dominate the PC graphics technology. […] As such, Intel lags on graphics IP and in order to build integrated graphics, Intel has no choice other than to infringe on a number of existing graphics patents. As part of the 2011 legal settlement with NVIDIA, Intel took the opportunity to sign a patent license agreement within NVIDIA to cover graphics processing. If Intel now signs a patent agreement with AMD, Intel could let the NVIDIA license agreement expire and be replaced by this new AMD agreement."
For AMD this would appear to be a win-win because they will get paid a big chunk of change for very little effort and it will not affect Zen or Vega or their own iGpu efforts. The big losers of course will be Nvidia as this contract is meant to be worth 6% of their gross revenue...OUCH.
"...With the complexity of PC graphics, it’s impossible to build a graphics processor without infringing on any number of patents from both AMD and NVIDIA, because the two companies dominate the PC graphics technology. […] As such, Intel lags on graphics IP and in order to build integrated graphics, Intel has no choice other than to infringe on a number of existing graphics patents. As part of the 2011 legal settlement with NVIDIA, Intel took the opportunity to sign a patent license agreement within NVIDIA to cover graphics processing. If Intel now signs a patent agreement with AMD, Intel could let the NVIDIA license agreement expire and be replaced by this new AMD agreement."
For AMD this would appear to be a win-win because they will get paid a big chunk of change for very little effort and it will not affect Zen or Vega or their own iGpu efforts. The big losers of course will be Nvidia as this contract is meant to be worth 6% of their gross revenue...OUCH.