"The challenge for Nvidia was to come up with a good processing core to migrate their PC technology into the mobile space," McCarron said. "We're looking at something that is very focused on the mobile and high portability space."

TI and Qualcomm on the other hand are coming to Windows 8 on ARM from the smartphone market, and may offer advantages in areas such as always-on and connectivity capabilities, analysts said. Qualcomm has said Windows 8 devices will take advantage of the integrated 3G/4G radio in S4 chips.

Nvidia's graphics experience in x86 will be essential in differentiating the company from its ARM competitors, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. The company may have a leg up on supporting DirectX 11 capabilities that are being built for better graphics in Windows.

But there are questions related to driver and application compatibility that may hamper overall adoption of Windows 8 on ARM, Brookwood said. The popularity of Windows 8 on ARM devices could be determined after some of these issues are resolved.

For example, some old printers or scanners for x86 machines may not work on ARM PCs or tablets unless separate drivers are written. Also, resource-intensive applications such as Adobe Photoshop may likely only run on x86 laptops.