Interview with Derek Perez of NVidia - We need questions !!

[Mac Daddy]

In a week or so I will be conducting an interview with my old friend Derek Perez from Nvidia. Adrian just met him at the Computex conference and he found out as I have know for years Derek is a cool dude

Please feel free to post any questions you have about Nvidia on any topic you wish and I will do my best to make sure all valid questions are included in the interview.

Cheers !!

[iModAMD]

-When you will implement GDDR5 memory on your future cards?

-When you will implement DX10.1 on your future cards?

-How the brought of Ageia PhysiX improved your videocards?

-Do you will make improvements for the SLI platform?

-When will be the next driver release for your videocards?

-If i was an consumer and i need to make an choice why brought Nvidia videocards instead of ATI/AMD videocards?

-What it's the main difference between the 8xxx series and the 9xxx series?

-Next generation of discrete graphics will be compatible with the Hybrid SLI?

-How you see the future of the drivers for linux?


(Sorry for the badspelling of the questions XD is an hard week)

[Midicow]

Will nvidia processors ever get shifted to the 45nm or smaller tech?

[Adrian Wong]

I can already answer no. 2 since I asked an NVIDIA product manager the same thing during Computex. But it's a good question to ask anyway.

[Motoman]

I've always wondered...

"Looking back, was the 3DFX acquisition worth it? Hindsight being 20/20, can you say that it contributed to the success of Nvidia, or would things largely be they way they are without the acquisition?"

"What are your expectations for your partnership with Via? Is there an expectation that the Via CPU/Nvidia chipset/GPU platform might compete for mainstream desktop and/or laptop marketshare - dare we say enthusiast marketshare?"

"Are there intentions for any acquisition or merger of Nvidia and Via? When you look at Via, do you see mainly overlap, or mainly complimentary technologies?"

"Is multi-GPU the way of the future, as it appears to be in the CPU market (at least in number of cores, if not dies)? If so, can we expect more linear scaling in the future? If not, is there a 'ceiling' to the single-core/die GPU technology, or does it seem to be limitlessly improvable?"

"Barely on that topic, what is Nvidia's take on the multi-core madness that has been embraced by AMD and Intel? Is this the 'true way' or should there/could there be a return to smaller numbers of more capable processing cores? And does that matter to Nvidia?"

"There has been some investigation by some parties into the popular Nvidia assertion that the GPU is far more important than the CPU - at least for gaming purposes. At least some of these seem to question that assertion...any comment?"

"Granted the marketplace of today, the consolidation of major players like AMD and ATI, and the acquisition of smaller technology companies by monsters like Intel which allow them to expand into better GPU technology...how would you characterize your relationship with AMD and Intel, and how do those relationships focus Nvidia's attention and intentions for product development and support of Intel and AMD platforms?"

"How do you feel Nvidia competes in the TV tuner market, particularly against ATI and smaller but well-known companies like Hauppage? Is this an important market to Nvidia? Do you see it as a growth market?"

"Not all that long ago, Nvidia chipsets found their way into higher-end server motherboards to support the AMD Opteron. That was the first time that Nvidia had an opportunity to enter the data center. What are Nvidia's intentions and expectations regarding that market? It would appear that Nvidia's hopes for the server room, whatever those hopes might be, are tied to the success of AMD...is that an uncomfortable position for Nvidia, and/or AMD (in your opinion)?"

"Nvidia briefly made waves in the audio market segment with it's SoundStorm technology, but then abruptly seemed to abandon the idea entirely. Does Nvidia have any desires to expand it's products any further, such as to audio products again, or perhaps networking, storage platforms and/or solutions, new telecom and/or mobile technogies, core logic components for advanced infrastructure items like blade centers, etc.?"

"How does Nvidia categorize, prioritize, and generally think/feel about differnent customer categories, such as major OEMs (like Dell, HP, etc.), white-box little guys, boutique builders, the enthusiast build-from-component market, etc.?"

"How important is it for Nvidia to have the 'best' video card on the market at any given time? Does it honestly affect the bottom line in any material way, granted that the vast majority of production and sales come from low-end to mid-range consumer-grade products? Or does it actually 'hurt' if ATI puts out a new monster card that puts up a bigger 3DMark score than your monster card...that can't be produced in any volume and which is far too expensive for the average enthusiast to purchase anyway?"

I could probably come up with more soul-searching questions if you like.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Motoman

I've always wondered...

"Looking back, was the 3DFX acquisition worth it? Hindsight being 20/20, can you say that it contributed to the success of Nvidia, or would things largely be they way they are without the acquisition?"

"What are your expectations for your partnership with Via? Is there an expectation that the Via CPU/Nvidia chipset/GPU platform might compete for mainstream desktop and/or laptop marketshare - dare we say enthusiast marketshare?"

"Are there intentions for any acquisition or merger of Nvidia and Via? When you look at Via, do you see mainly overlap, or mainly complimentary technologies?"

"Is multi-GPU the way of the future, as it appears to be in the CPU market (at least in number of cores, if not dies)? If so, can we expect more linear scaling in the future? If not, is there a 'ceiling' to the single-core/die GPU technology, or does it seem to be limitlessly improvable?"

"Barely on that topic, what is Nvidia's take on the multi-core madness that has been embraced by AMD and Intel? Is this the 'true way' or should there/could there be a return to smaller numbers of more capable processing cores? And does that matter to Nvidia?"

"There has been some investigation by some parties into the popular Nvidia assertion that the GPU is far more important than the CPU - at least for gaming purposes. At least some of these seem to question that assertion...any comment?"

"Granted the marketplace of today, the consolidation of major players like AMD and ATI, and the acquisition of smaller technology companies by monsters like Intel which allow them to expand into better GPU technology...how would you characterize your relationship with AMD and Intel, and how do those relationships focus Nvidia's attention and intentions for product development and support of Intel and AMD platforms?"

"How do you feel Nvidia competes in the TV tuner market, particularly against ATI and smaller but well-known companies like Hauppage? Is this an important market to Nvidia? Do you see it as a growth market?"

"Not all that long ago, Nvidia chipsets found their way into higher-end server motherboards to support the AMD Opteron. That was the first time that Nvidia had an opportunity to enter the data center. What are Nvidia's intentions and expectations regarding that market? It would appear that Nvidia's hopes for the server room, whatever those hopes might be, are tied to the success of AMD...is that an uncomfortable position for Nvidia, and/or AMD (in your opinion)?"

"Nvidia briefly made waves in the audio market segment with it's SoundStorm technology, but then abruptly seemed to abandon the idea entirely. Does Nvidia have any desires to expand it's products any further, such as to audio products again, or perhaps networking, storage platforms and/or solutions, new telecom and/or mobile technogies, core logic components for advanced infrastructure items like blade centers, etc.?"

"How does Nvidia categorize, prioritize, and generally think/feel about differnent customer categories, such as major OEMs (like Dell, HP, etc.), white-box little guys, boutique builders, the enthusiast build-from-component market, etc.?"

"How important is it for Nvidia to have the 'best' video card on the market at any given time? Does it honestly affect the bottom line in any material way, granted that the vast majority of production and sales come from low-end to mid-range consumer-grade products? Or does it actually 'hurt' if ATI puts out a new monster card that puts up a bigger 3DMark score than your monster card...that can't be produced in any volume and which is far too expensive for the average enthusiast to purchase anyway?"

I could probably come up with more soul-searching questions if you like.

Nice!! Derek's going to have his hands full! Feel free to add more though!

+rep!

[Chai]

Those are some tough questions! Especially the first one!

[Mac Daddy]

Thanks for all the questions and sure Derek will have no problem with them.

I will start organizing and filtering through the questions for duplication and perhaps give Derek a holler early next week.

Keep em coming

[Motoman]

"With the announcement that AMD/ATI is teaming with Intel to support the Havok physics engine, how does that impact Nvidia and it's recent purchase of PhysX? Are 2 physics engines too many for the market to support, such that one will 'win' and one will 'lose' (say, similarly to DirectX vs. OpenGL) or does Nvidia feel that there is sufficient compelling benefits for developers to keep both physics engines alive and well in the marketplace? Will Nvidia be compelled to consider supporting Havok because of this?"

"How does Nvidia expect the global PC market to evolve over the forseeable future? Are desktop sales dropping while laptops become more important? Are emerging markets a key interest for Nvidia? How about MID and other recent form factor developments?"

[Mac Daddy]

Thanks again for the great questions I will be working on this over the weekend here. I am planning on conducting this interview early next week so post them questions up