I think Nvidia will do it, too, starting with Tegra 6 (Denver/Maxwell) and beyond, but in mobile devices. I think ARM can already share the memory between Cortex A15 CPU's and their Mali T600 line of GPU's right now (ARM is also part of the HSA Foundation).
That's a good point. I was thinking about this in terms of the traditional x86 fight between Intel and AMD. I could see Nvidia going beyond mobile with it though. Consider this playbook for Nvidia:
1)Build an ARM 64bit chip with the latest GPU tech (not the generations behind stuff they've been using on mobile), and unified addressing with the memory controller on die.
2)Stick a bunch of fast ram, some fast flash for storage and a gigabit chip to build a blade server.
3)Start selling these to people that today have GPGPU type loads. This should easily be cheaper and more power efficient than the equivalent Intel solution.
4)As 64bit ARM becomes more performance competitive with x86 (is that happening?) and people get used to developing for ARM, move to take over more traditional CPU workloads.
It would make sense for them as they've already tried to enter the x86 market with their motherboard/chipset business before and been mildly successful. Back then they were just trying to build a better x86 and got squeezed by Intel, here they'd be using the classic Innovator Dilemma strategy of coming from a lesser product (ARM) to dominate the market.
One of the most interesting points in Ars previous articles about AMD was that before they decided to buy ATI they were actually considering Nvidia but the sticking point was that Nvidia's CEO wanted to be CEO of the joint company. It makes you wonder what could have come out of AMD+Nvidia with Jen-Hsun Huang at the helm.
>As 64bit ARM becomes more performance competitive with x86 (is that happening?)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there are actually any 64bit cores available for consumers yet. A quick google suggests they are just getting these cores into ICs now:
Interesting, I'd not seen that before thanks. Not clear to me if I can actually buy one yet, there contact page doesn't list the 64bit servers which is weird. Anyway I've pinged them for more information would be interested in playing with one.
http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/08/19/hc_cohere_small.jpg