NVIDIA Designing New Sony GPU

Graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. said on Thursday that aside from creating the new RSX graphics processing unit (GPU) for the upcoming PlayStation 3, Nvidia has also been commissioned by Sony to create a new, unspecified GPU, to be completed in 2007, that will pay more than it earned for creating the graphics processor for the PlayStation 3 video game console.

Nvidia is expected to have revenues of about $2.8 billion this year, so the new design work would be just a small slice of its overall business.

Since the new GPU is not going to be finished until 2007, it means that we won't see it in the PS3. Whatever the use, Nvidia refused to comment on what the new GPU's purpose was. "We have a contract to do engineering work for them. I don't think I should discuss what that product is," Nvidia's chief financial officer Marv Burkett said.

Nvidia's main competitor is ATI Technologies Inc. of Canada, which makes the graphics chips for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 game console that went on sale last November.