Nvidia has license to make Nehalem QPI chipsets

There may be plenty of rumours about Nvidia pulling out of the chipset market, but Nvidia claims that it’s still licensed to produce chipsets for Intel’s future CPUs, which includes Bloomfield Nehalem processors that use Intel’s new QuickPath Interconnect (QPI).

While chatting to UK tech site Bit-Tech, Nvidia’s director of technical marketing for chipsets, Tom Peterson was apparently ‘adamant that Nvidia’s cross-licensing agreement with Intel includes a Quick Path Interface licence, enabling the company to develop chipsets for Intel’s latest processors.’

Interestingly, though, he also added that Nvidia had chosen to focus its efforts ‘on developing DMI chipsets at this time.’ DMI (Direct Media Interface) is a slower CPU interconnect system that’s used in current Intel chipsets, although it’s also rumoured to be the interconnect system in Intel’s forthcoming mainstream Lynnfield and Havendale Nehalem CPU cores. These cores are also said to feature a dual-core DDR3 memory controller, rather than the triple-core memory controller found in Bloomfield CPUs.

Nevertheless, while Nvidia may have a license to produce a QPI chipset, the company has been very quiet about its intentions regarding its own Bloomfield chipsets. The company recently announced that it would allow SLI to be enabled natively on Intel’s X58 chipset, and that it would also supply NF200 chips for some X58 boards. All of this would appear to negate the need for an Nvidia Bloomfield chipset unless it offered another must-have feature.

Nvidia has been previously rumoured to have plans to exit the chipset market, although the company has vehemently denied these rumours. Speaking to Custom PC earlier this month, Nvidia’s PR manager for the UK and Northern Europe, Ben Berraondo, described the rumours as ‘complete fabrication,’ adding that ‘Nvidia is still very much in the chipset business and has no plans to exit, as several exciting new products on the horizon will show.’

Nvidia is currently rumoured to have a new nForce 770i chipset in development, which is said to support DDR3 memory and two-way SLI, so Nvidia may still have plans for future chipsets, at least in the short term.

Should Nvidia produce a chipset for Bloomfield CPUs using QPI, and is there still room for Nvidia chipsets in an industry where an Intel chipset can support SLI? Let us know your thoughts.

Hauppauge HD DVR Review

Recording high definition video to your PC has always been problematic. You can do it, if you invest in an expensive Media Center PC with a built-in CableCard tuner. You can spend money on pricey gear more oriented towards video editing and content creation.

Now Hauppauge delivers a small box that promises to capture component video in full 1080p glory from almost any source. The secret: The Hauppauge HD DVR takes advantage of the analog hole.

Most video that feeds into set top boxes—particularly from premium sources, such as HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime—are encrypted. Even those non-premium channels aren't so easy if you have a non-cable TV source. (Cable TV viewers have been able to capture high def using tuners capable of clear QAM capability—but only non-premium, unprotected content.)

One of the capabilities built into set top boxes, Blu-ray players, and other similar devices is the ability to downscale high definition signals when they're played through analog outputs. To date, we've heard of no set top box or high definition disc that activates this feature. So most content is played through component video at full 1080p, assuming the output device is 1080p capable.

This is the so-called "analog hole." The signal isn't digital, it's analog, and hence is unprotected and capable of being captured. The downside is potential image quality degradation. The signal is converted from digital to analog, then back to digital when it's captured. That's two generations removed from the pristine, original digital content.

Still, even when converted in this matter, high def content can look pretty good. And if you're looking for a solution to archive unlimited amounts of high definition content—provided you've got enough disk space—then the Hauppauge HD DVR seems pretty attractive, especially at its $249 MSRP.

So does Hauppauge's HD DVR deliver? We spent a little quality time to find out.