Nvidia graphics

Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors (GPUs).

Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Technologies (formerly ATI Technologies) have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles.

Nvidia's best known GPU product line labeled "GeForce" is in direct competition with AMD's "Radeon" products.

More recently, Nvidia has moved into the mobile computing market, where its Tegra processors power phones and tablets, as well as auto infotainment systems.

Nvidia's product portfolio includes graphics processors, wireless communications processors, PC platform (motherboard core logic) chipsets, and digital media player software.


The community of computer users arguably has come to know Nvidia best for its GeForce product line, which consists of both a complete line of discrete graphics chips found in AIB (add-in board) video cards and core graphics technology used in nForce motherboards, Microsoft's original Xbox game console, and Sony's PlayStation 3 game console.

Due to the success of its products, Nvidia won the contract to develop the graphics hardware for Microsoft's Xbox game console, which earned Nvidia a $200 million advance.

In 2000, Nvidia acquired the intellectual assets of its one-time rival 3dfx, one of the biggest graphics companies of the mid- to late-1990s.
December 2004 saw the announcement that Nvidia would assist Sony with the design of the graphics processor (RSX) in the PlayStation 3 game console.

This practice contrasts with Nvidia's business arrangement with Microsoft, in which Nvidia managed production and delivery of the Xbox GPU through Nvidia's usual third-party foundry contracts.

On December 14, 2005, Nvidia acquired ULI Electronics, which at the time supplied third-party southbridge parts for chipsets to ATI, Nvidia's competitor.

In December 2006, Nvidia, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which had acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics card industry.
Nvidia does not publish the documentation for its hardware, meaning that programmers cannot write appropriate and effective open-source drivers for Nvidia's products (compare Graphics hardware and FOSS).

Some Linux and BSD users insist on using only open-source drivers, and regard Nvidia's insistence on providing nothing more than a binary-only driver as wholly inadequate, given that competing manufacturers (like Intel) offer support and documentation for open-source developers, and that others (like ATI) release partial documentation and provide some active development.

According to a survey conducted by market watch firm Jon Peddie Research, Nvidia shipped an estimated 33.00 million graphics chips in the first quarter of 2010, for a market share of 31.5%.