New ‘x86 RTX’ chips, $5 billion investment and more

This partnership looks set to be far-reaching through both enterprise and consumer computing, so let’s break down what products look set to be made.

First of all, this isn’t just a « one and done » situation, the companies will collaborate to « jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products. » That’s a multi-year joint venture! In terms of the specifics.

Data centers: Intel will build Nvidia-custom x86 CPUs to be integrated into its AI infrastructure for enterprise use.

PC gaming: Most enticing to me is the Intel x86 RTX SOCs. Simply put, rather than Intel’s own integrated graphics on its Core Ultra CPUs, these chips will get Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets instead. That could open the door to a huge performance boost!

This is the most intriguing bit to me, so let’s go into what this could be. Intel’s current CPUs pack both the compute power and the company’s own Arc GPU tech, and they’ve been pretty good.

What this Nvidia partnership will do is essentially perform a GPU brain transplant — taking that Arc GPU out and replacing it with an RTX graphics chiplet. This super tight integration brings huge gaming performance into a package on one chip, which could be huge competition for AMD’s all-in-one chipsets too.

For PC gaming, this could knock it out of the park with access to DLSS 4, neural rendering technologies and more.

And while I could sit here and talk about the Intel x86 RTX SoC itself (and I will when we get more detail), I want to talk about the doors a partnership like this opens.

Handheld gaming has been largely dominated by AMD’s chips like the Ryzen Z2 Extreme in the ROG Xbox Ally X. But the MSI Claw 8 AI Plus has been the one to stick with Intel and see some solid framerates because of it.

Now, with Nvidia DNA, PC handheld gaming could be incredible. DLSS tech has been outstripping AMD’s FSR equivalent for a while now, and I’d just love to see this come to handhelds.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been sharing his excitement over this new deal with Intel. “AI is powering a new industrial revolution and reinventing every layer of the computing stack — from silicon to systems to software. At the heart of this reinvention is NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture,” he commented.

“This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

Heading over to Team Blue, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has also been sharing his excitement for this partnership with Intel (unsurprising given the stock price has shot up over 30% since the announcement)!

“Intel’s x86 architecture has been foundational to modern computing for decades — and we are innovating across our portfolio to enable the workloads of the future,” he commented.

“Intel’s leading data center and client computing platforms, combined with our process technology, manufacturing and advanced packaging capabilities, will complement NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing leadership to enable new breakthroughs for the industry. We appreciate the confidence Jensen and the NVIDIA team have placed in us with their investment and look forward to the work ahead as we innovate for customers and grow our business.”

For more thoughts, I’ve reached out to Paul Alcorn, Editor-in-chief of Tom’s Hardware who originally broke the story. This is a pivotal moment and a real lifeline for Intel, and Alcorn agrees.

« The announcement is nothing short of seismic for Intel, which already counts the United Sates of America as its largest shareholder, and now counts the world’s largest company, Nvidia, as one of its other largest shareholders. »

And in terms of their personal computing aspirations, AMD should be very worried by this announcement.

« Intel’s new x86 RTX CPUs will compete directly with AMD’s APUs by design. For AMD, that means it faces intensifying competition from a company with the leading market share in notebook CPUs (Intel ships ~79% of laptop chips worldwide) that’s now armed with GPU tech from Nvidia, which ships 92% of the world’s gaming GPUs. »

As you know, I’ve been blown away by the AMD Ryzen AI Max 395+ chip found in the Asus ROG Flow Z13. It’s integrated graphics performance is simply mindblowing and can rival a lot of dedicated GPU gaming laptops.

APUs like this have been Team Red’s bread and butter, but to have Intel and Nvidia coming together — two titans in note CPUs and gaming GPUs — to build its own SoCs is going to bring a massively intense competition to AMD.

DLSS4 is already quite a ways ahead of any FSR capabilities, and the game support for Nvidia’s neural rendering smarts is far larger too. This seems like a slam dunk.

At $23.28 per share, Nvidia is now one of the largest shareholders in Intel behind the U.S. Government. Part of me is a little curious about whether there is another intention to this deal — but that will be all dependent on whether Nvidia goes on a shopping spree and buys more. The agreement is clear in exactly how much right now.

As Paul highlights in his report for Tom’s Hardware, this isn’t the first time Intel has joined up with another company for its GPU tech. Back in 2017, there was a Kaby Lake-G chip that was fused with an AMD Radeon GPU chiplet.

This is sort of similar in concept to what you’ll see between Intel and Nvidia, but there’s some significant differences. On paper, it’s the same principal — take Intel’s CPU and put and AMD GPU on the same die.

But in this upcoming SoC, the RTX GPU will be connected by the vastly faster and more efficient NVLink interface, and there will be uniform memory access — meaning the CPU and GPU will be able to access the same stock of memory intelligently.

It’s a tough question. Intel moving into this partnership with Nvidia does bring the planet’s biggest GPU-maker in, and that could be curtains for Arc GPU.

That’s a shame — especially given the huge gains the company has made in this space (particularly with the Intel Arc B580), but given how far ahead Nvidia actually is, this wouldn’t be a surprising conclusion.

You’ll know that name as the analyst who is usually pretty bang-on with Apple rumors and leaks! But the attention has been turned to this Nvidia-Intel deal. Here’s what we’ve learned from this analysis:

Nvidia N1X is up in the air: Nvidia has been rumored to be working on its own ARM processor, but that now « carries high uncertainty. » Intel was facing « rapidly enhancing competitiveness in the GPU sector, » so to tie these two together makes the world of sense.

High synergy for enterprise: Intel has the distribution channels for x86 servers, while Nvidia holds all the cards technologically (AI chips, NVLink and CUDA to name only 3), so to bring them together makes for a huge opportunity to « significantly benefit from substantial potential demand »

TSMC remains unaffected for now: There is the question of using Intel’s foundry for producing more chips in this partnership. But with the « advanced process advantage » of TSMC chip making expected to « persist at least until 2030, » this agreement doesn’t look set to rock the boat here. More importantly though, it could impact the market share of competitors like AMD and Broadcom.

So it’s been no real shock that Intel’s been struggling in recent months — reception to CPUs has been tepid as rivals move ahead. The financial results and redundancies prove this.

But this Nvidia partnership has been such a lifeline for the company, as the stock price jumped up by over 30% before opening, and is now at a 26.8% increase over its previous price.

So I’ve talked about this being a lifeline for Intel’s hopes of competing on the world stage of chip production, but what will Nvidia get out of this deal? Put simply, in my opinion, it’s the license to build x86.

AMD’s Strix Halo (Ryzen AI Max 395+) is in a world of its own in terms of an uber-powerful APU with integrated graphics that runs on the x86 platform. Nvidia doesn’t have an x86 license, so they have to make their own Arm CPUs. The biggest example of this is definitely the Tegra chip you see in the Nintendo Switch 2. Another example is the DGX Spark mini AI PC.

But now the tie up with Intel is happening, Nvidia has the chance to create a DGX Spark-like product with an x86 CPU — that is a significant tectonic shift in the chipset market.

Hey, all! Tony Polanco here to take over this blog for the next few hours. That means I’ll be posting during the event, which, as we’ve said before, is audio-only.

As stated before, this news is easily one of the most significant for all of tech. It’s not every day that two giants of the industry have a partnership like this. The fact that it’s the world’s biggest CPU maker and the world’s biggest GPU maker makes it all the more monumental.

We likely won’t see the fruits of this partnership for some time, but the prospect is exciting nonetheless. You don’t want to miss a minute of the presentation, so make sure you stay here for all the latest updates.

In just 15 minutes, the CEOs of Nvidia and Intel will be conducting a webcast press conference. Again, we’ll be listening in and posting what’s discussed, so you definitely want to keep it locked in here!

It’s almost time! Again, this is going to be an audio-only press conference. But don’t fret, as I’ll make sure you don’t miss any of the important details.

Here we go! The CEOs of Nvidia and Intel have begun the press conference.

Jensen Huang begins by discussing the history of computing. This includes Nvidia’s involvement with developing the world’s first GPU.

Huang then discusses the partnership between Nvidia and Intel, which aims to push the industry forward. This will bring x86 into Nvidia’s systems and thus fuse the best aspects of Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan expresses his excitement in building « a new era » for both companies, a « game-changing » moment.

This collaboration builds on the core strengths of each company. Tan says this collaboration will be good for the entire tech industry. Customers will also benefit thanks to this partnership.

CNBC’s Jim Kramer is the first person to ask a question.

When asked how this partnership will benefit Intel and Nvidia, Jensen Huang says that for Nvidia, having access to x86 gives the company the flexibility to scale its supercomputers further than it could on its own.

As for the gaming market, the companies hope to create an SOC that fuses the two processors (CPU and GPU) to create a new class of integrated laptop chip. Tan reiterates how these chips will have the best aspects of the company’s respective technologies.

Kramer then asked if Nvidia will use Intel’s foundry, but Huang said today’s news is about CPUs, not exactly how (or where) these chips will be manufactured. Nvidia says it will become a large buyer of Intel chips, as long as a supplier.

Bloomberg’s Ian Cain asks the next question, which is about when we’ll see devices that utilize the companies’ chip. Huang didn’t say specifically, though he stated his announcement.

Another question is about the Trump administration’s involvement, to which Huang said the American government has no involvement with today’s partnership. Huang then stated his admiration for TSMC and what it has done for the industry with its chip manufacturing.

Huang says today’s announcement is purely about the custom chips Nvidia and Intel will produce. This involves chips for data centers and laptops.

Yahoo Finance’s Laura Bratton asks about the manufacturing process the chip will use.

Lip-Bu Tan says that’s something they will discuss at a later time. As Huang previously stated, today’s press conference is about discussing the partnership. He also says Nvidia is committed to ARM. The company’s ARM roadmap isn’t affected by Intel and Nvidia’s partnership.

Reuters inquires about the investment side of the partnership.

Jensen Huang says Nvidia is delighted to invest in Intel and thinks it will be « fantastic » for Intel. Lip-Bu Tan says he wants to strengthen the company’s balance sheet and that the partnership will benefit both Intel and Nvidia.

When once again asked how the chips will be manufactured, Intel’s Tan reiterates that today is about discussing the partnership. As far as which sector these chips will primarily focus on (enterprise vs. consumer), Huang said both are important.

Bloomberg asks about the economics of x86 architecture. Jensen Huang says CPUs are sold as separate servers that are then fused with Nvidia GPUs in its data centers. Now, the company can buy the CPUs from Intel and integrate them. Nvidia will sell its GPU chiplet in a passthrough way with Intel or to Intel. He says this will expand the market for both Nvidia and Intel.

Regarding the culture at Intel after today, Tan says there will be a lean and fast-moving culture within Intel. He wants to match Nvidia in that regard.

When asked about how this partnership will affect Nvidia’s ARM plans, Huang once again says nothing is changing on that end.

Regarding customers, Huang says the x86 architecture is still large, so today’s partnership will allow the company to produce more chips for both enterprice and consumers. Since the majority of enterprise is x86-based, they’ll benefit from Nvidia’s AI technology in the upcoming Intel/Nvidia chips.

Jensen Huang once again reiterates his excitement for today’s partnership with Intel and how it will drive the industry forward. Lip-Bu Tan says it thanks Nvidia for its trust and support, and says this collaborating will deliver a new compute platform that opens new doors.

We didn’t hear a lot of information that we didn’t already read in Tom’s Hardware’s report. Several reporters asked about how and where Nvidia and Intel plan to manufacture their chips, but were denied an answer every time. It’s also unclear when we might see products utilizing this chip, though I wasn’t expecting a solid answer.

Today’s presser was really a chance for the CEOs of Intel and Nvidia to share their excitement about the partnership.

Like I said, we didn’t get any announcement of potential devices that will utilize Nvidia and Intel’s SOC. While that’s not surprising, it’s somewhat disappointing that we didn’t get word about partners.

I know it’s entirely too early to discuss that, no doubt, since deals are probably being inked, but knowing that manufacturers like Lenovo, Asus, MSI, or others would use the new SOC would’ve been nice. I guess we’ll just have to wait a little longer for that news to drop.

Even though we didn’t get word on which devices would use Nvidia and Intel’s chip (it’s still weird writing that!), it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the SOC will power laptops. That, in turn, opens the door for handheld manufacturers to use this chip.

Right now, AMD rules the roost when it comes to processors for handhelds, with devices like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X using Team Red’s chips. In the future, we may see handhelds that utilize Nvidia and Intel’s chips.

This would be huge, especially since the Switch 2 is the only handheld that uses an Nvidia chip. And in a strange twist of fate, Intel, which hasn’t had a great track record with its Arrow Lake CPU in handhelds, could gain serious ground in this market via this partnership.

If you’re a fan of handhelds like I am, then the prospect of a chip to truly rival AMD is huge.

One of the big questions about Nvidia and Intel’s chip is who will manufacture it. Both CEOs declined to answer every time they were asked, but it’s a safe bet that this is something they’re discussing behind closed doors.

Intel has long fabricated its own chips, though it had begun partnering with TSMC in recent years. The latter is currently the leading chip manufacturer for companies like Samsung and Apple (among many others). When asked how Nvidia and Intel’s manufacturing plans could interfere with TSMC, Jensen Huang was quick to state his admiration for TSMC.

So, will Intel produce the new chips, or will it be TSMC? It’s hard to say at this time, but the potential for a true TSMC rival in this field would be massive.

Jason discussed this earlier, but it’s worth bringing up again since it’s so crucial. Intel’s latest CPUs have the compute power and the company’s Arc GPU tech, which have made their latest Intel Core Ultra series generally good.

However, if Intel chips effectively ditch the Arc GPU and replace it with an RTX graphics chiplet, it would spell the end of Intel-based graphics tech like XeSS. However, given how Nvidia is far ahead of everyone when it comes to GPUs, perhaps this loss won’t be as devastating. Having DLSS on an Intel chip would certainly be interesting.

I’m wrapping up my posts for the day, but before I go, I wanted to discuss one last thing. And that is that the Intel x86 RTX SOCs for the PC gaming market can’t be understated.

As we’ve said before, Intel’s integrated graphics have improved, especially with the latest Core Ultra chips. That said, Nvidia has led the charge on GPU performance. Because of that, Nvidia’s partnership with Intel is very intriguing. In short, this chip will combine an Intel CPU and an Nvidia RTX chiplet for gaming performance.

Combining these two into one SOC could make this a major rival to AMD’s APUs that also pack compute and graphics.