Nvidia Ends the Discrete Chipset Era

Nvidia is reportedly phasing out its discrete chipset offerings in order to focus on designing chipsets with integrated graphics only. The company's nForce 790i Ultra SLI and SLI chipsets will be the last products of their kind that will arrive without an integrated graphics core.

According to Bryan Del Rizzo, Nvidia's PR manager for platform products, the graphics manufacturer will introduce by default graphics cores in all its chipset products starting with the nForce 700-series of chipsets designed for AMD AM2 and AM2+ platforms. In order to achieve the new chipsets, the company will be using the mGPU for HybridPower.

At the moment, integrated-graphics chipsets are especially targeted at the low-end or mid-range markets, and they are usually associated with cheap products, unable to deliver true performance. Pairing integrated graphics cores with discrete cards is alleged to increase the graphics computing performance and offer low-end card owners the opportunity of playing less-intensive game titles at decent speeds, even if they are using low-end graphics solutions.

However, Nvidia's new shift in the chipset business does not mean that it will only release low-end chips from now on. Instead, the strategy is aimed at enhancing the power-saving features for the upcoming desktop and notebook computing systems.

"For example, the nForce 780a is a high-end motherboard with an integrated graphics core," Del Rizzo claimed.

The new chipsets with integrated graphics will also allow users to connect a display to the computer using the DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort interfaces built directly into the motherboard. The mGPU (also known as the integrated graphics core) will be able to provide more graphics horsepower when required.

More than that, the integrated GPU approach could minimize graphics latencies, as the frame buffer will be located in the same place for all the GPUs installed into the system.