At first glance, NVIDIA and Intel might appear to be very different companies going in very different directions, but most of us know that NVIDIA is various forms of trouble.  This editorial over at The Inquirer details some thoughts on whether NVIDIA might be planning on work MORE closely with Intel or planning a direct attack on Intel’s upcoming Larrabee GPU architecture.  This is definitely a good read so check it out.

Now, other newer rumours say that Nvidia is trying to threaten Intel with possible GPU-related lawsuits to block Larrabee take-off. That by itself may be problematic since Intel did get quite a hold of graphics patents too, not to mention some nice people from companies like 3DLabs who knew how to do high-end 3-D equal, if not better than, NV.

On top of possible Chipzilla IP counter-attack in this case, the Graphzilla could also face Intel’s deeper – temporary at least – support for the ATI RV700 GPU family as a “complementary” solution to Larrabee. It’s only a step further from the current in-built Crossfire preference, anyway. And, it helps Intel keep its main competitor “afloat” to stave off any monopoly investigations.

However, why not try the “middle path”? After all, if Nvidia doesn’t make unnecessary trouble, Intel could extend them the QPI license – maybe for chipsets only, not for GPUs. It’s not as if Nvidians may make full use of it: they just missed essentially dominating the high-end workstation and gaming market if they did the above mentioned dual-FSB Xeon Nforce chipset. That might even be positive for Nehalem platform-level diversity.