New Intel gaming CPUs will feature integrated Nvidia GeForce RTX GPUs

In an industry-shaking announcement, Intel and Nvidia have just announced that they're collaborating on future CPUs with Nvidia iGPUs.

Intel and Nvidia have just made a surprise announcement, stating that the two companies are currently collaborating on making Intel CPUs with integrated Nvidia GeForce RTX GPUs. We're not just talking about AI data centers here, either - the two companies have also announced that they're working on these chips specifically for personal computers.

Currently, AMD is in the unique position of having a license to produce CPUs based on the x86 architecture - the set of instructions used by most modern gaming PCs - while also having an established GPU business, which dates back to when the company bought ATi in 2006. Nvidia, on the other hand, doesn't have an x86 license, while Intel doesn't have a particularly strong GPU business.

With Intel now planning to make CPUs with integrated Nvidia GPUs, this status quo is about to be upset in a serious way. As a result, there's a strong chance we could see some big changes in not only our best gaming CPU guide, but also our best gaming handheld guide in the future.

"For personal computing, Intel will build and offer to the market x86 system-on-chips (SOCs) that integrate Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets," said the two companies in a joint statement. "These new x86 RTX SOCs will power a wide range of PCs that demand integration of world-class CPUs and GPUs." These GPUs will be integrated in the form of chiplets, whereby the CPU isn't produced in one single silicon chip - as used to be the case for most CPUs - but will instead use several smaller dies housed in a single CPU package, with one of those dies being the Nvidia GPU.

Of course, one of the big wins for Intel here will be access to Nvidia's AI tech. Currently, Intel Arrow Lake CPUs have a limited built-in NPU rated at 13 TOPs, but that number could increase massively with the help of Nvidia's Tensor cores. Heck, a future Intel CPU could even run DLSS without needing a separate graphics card.

Meanwhile, this deal gives Nvidia an inroad into the x86 CPU market that it has so far been missing. Nvidia's current CPUs are based on the Arm architecture, rather than x86, and while Arm CPUs can be massively powerful today, while also being power-efficient, there's no getting away from the fact that most PCs still use the x86 architecture.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described the deal as a "historic collaboration," adding that the two companies will now "expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing." It's certainly not good news for AMD, which currently rules the roost when it comes to x86 CPUs with integrated GPUs - its chips are used by both the current PlayStation and Xbox consoles, as well as most handhelds, but this new deal could completely change the game.

The two companies are due to conduct a webcast press conference about the deal today at 10am Pacific time, when we hope to see more details about what could be inside these new chips.

What will be the impact of this deal on the CPU industry, and should AMD be worried? Let us know your thoughts in our community Discord server.