Intel, Nvidia Out Of Sync On Penryn; HP Gaming Waits It Out

Hewlett-Packard's gaming unit is holding off on launching systems based on Intel's new Penryn processor, saying that while the 45 nm chip is reliable on Intel chipsets more work needed to be done for the CPU to work with Nvidia's SLI.

Rahul Sood, chief technology officer for HP's gaming unit, said on his web log Wednesday that his company received information last week - - which he declined to specify - - that kept it from launching gaming products with Penryn. Sood later clarified his remarks to say Intel's CPU itself was not unreliable, but that as a platform additional work needed to be done with third party chipsets.

"We haven't launched Intel's 45 nm processor as planned," Sood wrote. "We, like many, were hoping that it would work flawlessly on certain chipsets -- and well, unfortunately it doesn't -- not yet anyways." He said that "the bottom line is we're working on a solution for Nvidia SLI, but at the moment there isn't one."

Later on, Sood added, "it's not an issue of Intel's chip reliability, it's an issue of platform stability on certain non-Intel chipsets."

HP is the world's Number 1 PC maker, and last year it acquired Sood's company, VooDooPC. That organization is now primarily responsible for HP's gaming PC business.

"I don't want to get into the details, it's not a pretty situation," Sood wrote. "There is much confusion surrounding this launch -- it's somewhat unbelievable."

An Intel spokesman lashed out against any characterization that Penryn is flawed, and said the processor "works as intended with Intel chipsets." He declined to say whether Penryn works with any third-party chipsets.

A spokesman for Nvidia said his company was not invited to take part in Intel's Monday launch event, and that its SLI chipset does not currently support Penryn. He said Nvidia will launch its next-generation technology next month, and that it planned for its SLI to support Intel's 45 nm Yorkfield-Penryn technology at that point. The Nvidia spokesman said his company remains excited about prospects for the Intel CPU.