Nvidia will build new processors that are targeted squarely for the desktop and server market. Code-named Denver, the announcement comes as a bombshell to an industry used to a Wintel-dominated market. According to Nvidia, the CPUs will be based on the ARM architecture, and will be supported by the ARM-based version of the Windows OS--also just announced by Microsoft this week.

In an email message to Computerworld, Nvidia's chief scientist Bill Dally alluded to the historical baggage of the x86 platform, writing that "Denver frees PCs, workstations and servers from the hegemony and inefficiency of the x86 architecture." No details of the architecture were offered at this point, though it was mentioned that the Denver project has had a team of CPU architects working on it for some time now. For now, it is probably not far-fetched to assume that the Denver family of CPUs will attempt to combine Nvidia's expertise in creating graphics processor cores with traditional ARM CPU processors in a highly power-efficient package.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld
- check out this article at Ars Technica

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