I think it will come down to AMD and Intel deciding on what they as separate companies want to do.
Intel has the brain power of legacy Linux, meaning they have the people who have been working with Linux since or near to its inception. As Linux becomes more stable, more advanced, more pervasive Intel has the people who know the ins and outs of the older code and advance their projects either building on to or renovating the previous.
AMD is playing catch up and making great strides. Like Intel, and not nVidia, AMD is both CPU and GPU and the bridges in between. CPU and video have always had this dance of either folding processes together or offloading discreet processes to the separate processors. But with AMD, they have to ramp up their Linux specialists. And from their viewpoint they can either build upon GEM and make their own ATI-to-GEM interpreter or go their own route. It may be a while before they feel confident that they know enough of Linux core to do their own memory manager. But it is certain that the Northbridge and Southbridge days of old are numbered as the interaction of multi-core CPUs and GPUs become more intertwined and the bridges expected to do more than traffic cop work.
Because they will always be the kid in the hallway, nVidia will always be the one to react to design changes of Intel and AMD. Even if Intel and nVidia share an exclusive development track, Intel will always lead.
Intel has the brain power of legacy Linux, meaning they have the people who have been working with Linux since or near to its inception. As Linux becomes more stable, more advanced, more pervasive Intel has the people who know the ins and outs of the older code and advance their projects either building on to or renovating the previous.
AMD is playing catch up and making great strides. Like Intel, and not nVidia, AMD is both CPU and GPU and the bridges in between. CPU and video have always had this dance of either folding processes together or offloading discreet processes to the separate processors. But with AMD, they have to ramp up their Linux specialists. And from their viewpoint they can either build upon GEM and make their own ATI-to-GEM interpreter or go their own route. It may be a while before they feel confident that they know enough of Linux core to do their own memory manager. But it is certain that the Northbridge and Southbridge days of old are numbered as the interaction of multi-core CPUs and GPUs become more intertwined and the bridges expected to do more than traffic cop work.
Because they will always be the kid in the hallway, nVidia will always be the one to react to design changes of Intel and AMD. Even if Intel and nVidia share an exclusive development track, Intel will always lead.
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