Google’s pursuit of a gaming Chromebook has hit another setback as the company’s plans to bring Nvidia GPUs to Chromebooks have been canceled. The collaboration with Nvidia promised to deliver powerful gaming capabilities to ChromeOS, coupled with the introduction of Valve’s Steam platform to the operating system.
Google’s code “Herobrine,” “Hades,” and “Agah,” which were believed to be codenames for Chromebooks with Nvidia RTX GPUs, have been scrapped, leaving Chromebook fans disappointed. The integration of Nvidia’s high-performance GPUs would have required significant changes in size, power, and cost, detracting from the Chromebook’s original concept as a budget-friendly, portable device.
However, not all hope is lost. Speculations suggest that Google’s interest in gaming performance may shift to technology similar to that of Asus’ ROG Ally or AMD’s Ryzen Z1 chipset. These options offer impressive gaming capabilities, rivaling desktop Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics cards, and may be more appealing to Google than Nvidia’s ray-tracing GPUs. Additionally, Intel’s new mobile GPU, Intel Arc, shows potential for future improvement, making Intel a significant player in the mobile gaming space.
Despite the setback, it remains uncertain if Google has completely abandoned its pursuit of a true gaming Chromebook. However, this development indicates that the company’s plans have encountered obstacles along the way. ChromeOS gamers may need to come to terms with the fact that a gaming-focused Chromebook may not be on the immediate horizon.
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