As if Intel doesn’t have enough to worry about, Nvidia may be about to enter the PC processor market
- New report that Nvidia may enter the consumer CPU market
- It would most likely be Arm’s base
- Chips could be announced in 2025 and launched in 2026
Intel and AMD currently have a stranglehold on the PC processor market, as the vast majority of consumer PC processors come from these two manufacturers. But if this latest report is true, that duopoly could soon be called into question.
According to a new report from DigiTimes (reported by PCGamesN), Nvidia could be planning to enter the consumer processor market by developing a new Arm-based CPU. Currently, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips have exclusive rights to Windows on Arm; However, according to Arm CEO Rene Haas, that will change in 2024 with the recent news that the deal is expiring. There’s also the possibility that comes from Arm threaten to revoke Qualcomm’s weapons licensenot to mention the rumors about Qualcomm may buy Intel.
While there is no definitive answer as to when this processor will be launched, Digitimes’ report states that an announcement of the Nvidia chips could take place in September 2025, with a possible launch date of March 2026.
How much further can Nvidia push it?
It sounds like a smart move by Team Green, as it could use its huge reputation in the PC world to further enter the PC processor market and give Intel and AMD some much-needed competition.
However, the lack of an x86 license could pose a problem for Nvidia. There is a chance that it could be acquired through Qualcomm, if the two manufacturers work together and the rumors of Intel’s acquisition become reality.
Then there’s also the possibility that Team Green could enter the gaming processor market, which would be a good fit for the already dominant graphics cards. Of course, such an undertaking would require quite a bit of investment, as Nvidia would have to devote a lot of resources to porting games to the Arm architecture.
And while performance itself has proven to be well-optimized and impressive, Windows on Arm is still not natively supported by most PC software and games, a hurdle that also holds back gaming on Macs. But if Valve could get a large number of PC games to support Linux via SteamOS for the Steam Deck, then there’s certainly a chance that Nvidia could achieve the same for Arm.
