ATI+AMD confirmed

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Hard Ball

Originally posted by: sandorski
Great potential for AMD, ATI's future is somewhat an unknown, but I doubt it'll get out of the standalone card market yet. Speaking of Video cards, perhaps the future of them is seriously in doubt? ATI may have seen the writing on the wall and got out early.

Yes, we need to understand that the potential acquistion, first and foremost, serves to garner important technologies which are important for future CPU uarchitectures for AMD; in things such as high bandwidth memory controller, ASMP, highly parallel architectural design; and also critical areas of engineering expertise.

Secondarily, AMD would do this to enhance and accelerate the development of Torrenza and HTT infrastructure in the industry, as well as the development of co-processors. This will also include integrated graphics solutions which are possibly MCM or even on die. And this will result in a much higher level of platform integration and diversification, when it comes time for Direct Connect 2.0 in 07, then 3.0 at some point in 08-09.

Anything else, such as high end discrete graphics, console deals, or embedded components, are icing on the cake; but these certainly are not going to be the focus of the combined company in the future, if the merger comes to fruition.

Nvidia must be seriously pondering their future right about now. I'm sure the video card market has at least 3 years left in it, but if the ATI/AMD merger begins producing Integrated Solutions that are equivalent to Nvidia's standalone cards, Nvidia will need to make a major shift.

High end graphics solutions will be discrete for a while to come, in the form of PCIE, HTX, or an mobo socket compatible coprocessor. Integration into a CPU MCM or die is not likely going to produce state of the art graphics performance in the forseeable future. So essentially, 3 years down the road; this deal will leave NV as the sole producer of high end graphis (barring the entrance of another player, such as Intel, which has been rumoured).

This would be even more important if Intel manages to produce a decent Intergated Video solution. I have the feeling though that Nvidia will soon be talking with Intel. Intel needs some Video Tech, Nvidia needs some future security.

Intel doesn't really need NV, since it already has a robust integrated graphics program. And the only reason that they havn't gone discrete is that they havn't had the need to commit the resources. If CPUs were to take on more geometry processing in the future, they certainly will have the expertise to do so, with or without outside help (unlike AMD). And if they really acquire a graphics company, that means redundancy in their company structure, which must be consolidated; and that would mean losing some of their original investment in purchasing the graphics firm. And especially with the leaner and meaner model and Otellini is espousing; it would be hard to see them make a large acquisition that would be a distraction from their main objective.

If an ATI/AMD merger brings about a PC Platform that is superior overall with Intel's, not only will AMD secure Marketshare despite a weaker(as of now) CPU, but I think it will force intel to take over Nvidia just to compete. In 5-10 years we might all be using Intel or AMD Consoles!

Intel, not really. I think IBM is a much more likely company to acquire Nvidia in the near future, if they were to decide to more fully dive into the console components market.

All good points and quite likely. I think we'll have to wait and see what all happens. The PC Market has almost always been quite exciting, I think we can agree that it will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: sandorski
All good points and quite likely. I think we'll have to wait and see what all happens.

Agreed. Trying to figure out what will happen due to such a merger is like trying to predict what kind of performance gains we'll see out of R600 and G80. No one knows anything, right now it's just speculation.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker
I'm against this merger. A CPU company taking over a GPU focused company can only mean bad things for the future of high end graphics chip releases from ATi. AMD would probably relegate ATi's top engineers to other platforms it considers important and leave ATi with a handful of engineers to produce mediocre midrange graphics cards. No thanks.

Yikes, I agree with Joker

I like things the way they are now. In fact I wish another card company would step up to the plate and compete on the level of ATI and NVIDIA. If AMD sinks ATI's high end business, then NVIDIA will be alone at the top and that won't help us as consumers any at all :thumbsdown:

I know AMD could use the help from ATI to keep up with Intel, but it would be at the expense of ATI's high end development.

 

[Cooler]

AMD will finaly get a good PR team from ATI. This should do wonders for its image.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Great potential for AMD, ATI's future is somewhat an unknown, but I doubt it'll get out of the standalone card market yet. Speaking of Video cards, perhaps the future of them is seriously in doubt? ATI may have seen the writing on the wall and got out early.

Nvidia must be seriously pondering their future right about now. I'm sure the video card market has at least 3 years left in it, but if the ATI/AMD merger begins producing Integrated Solutions that are equivalent to Nvidia's standalone cards, Nvidia will need to make a major shift. This would be even more important if Intel manages to produce a decent Intergated Video solution. I have the feeling though that Nvidia will soon be talking with Intel. Intel needs some Video Tech, Nvidia needs some future security.

If an ATI/AMD merger brings about a PC Platform that is superior overall with Intel's, not only will AMD secure Marketshare despite a weaker(as of now) CPU, but I think it will force intel to take over Nvidia just to compete. In 5-10 years we might all be using Intel or AMD Consoles!

Puh-lease, an integrated solution would never approach the performance of a discrete. At the very least, AMD would need a large cache for their gpu to get decent performance, and then offload the rest to system ram.
And the ATI merger probably won't be complete for at least another 6 months. It has no short-term consequences.
What would be more threatening to nvidia would be if AMD and Intel start producing Cell like cpus. Then they could do an integrated simple rasterizer just to handle things like filtering and outputting the image backed up by enough power from the cpu.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: gersson
NO!!!!!

Man just when I was hoping for a high end RD600 Core2Duo Mobo

I know same here. I literally have my C2D 6600 ordered and ram already arrived and just waiting to make a decision on a motherboard

WOW nice. I want to do the same but have to sell my parents PC first...I'm having a hard time making people pull through :-(

 

[Praxis1452]

DAMN!!! I WANT MY RD600 MOBO that overclocks ='(. goddamn screw amd I want my chipset.

 

[emilyek]

My pet theory is that this move is also to counteract Intel's highly-secretive upcoming move into the enthusiast GPU market.

First Bad AXE, then CoreDuo GPU's.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: sandorski
Great potential for AMD, ATI's future is somewhat an unknown, but I doubt it'll get out of the standalone card market yet. Speaking of Video cards, perhaps the future of them is seriously in doubt? ATI may have seen the writing on the wall and got out early.

Nvidia must be seriously pondering their future right about now. I'm sure the video card market has at least 3 years left in it, but if the ATI/AMD merger begins producing Integrated Solutions that are equivalent to Nvidia's standalone cards, Nvidia will need to make a major shift. This would be even more important if Intel manages to produce a decent Intergated Video solution. I have the feeling though that Nvidia will soon be talking with Intel. Intel needs some Video Tech, Nvidia needs some future security.

If an ATI/AMD merger brings about a PC Platform that is superior overall with Intel's, not only will AMD secure Marketshare despite a weaker(as of now) CPU, but I think it will force intel to take over Nvidia just to compete. In 5-10 years we might all be using Intel or AMD Consoles!

Puh-lease, an integrated solution would never approach the performance of a discrete. At the very least, AMD would need a large cache for their gpu to get decent performance, and then offload the rest to system ram.
And the ATI merger probably won't be complete for at least another 6 months. It has no short-term consequences.
What would be more threatening to nvidia would be if AMD and Intel start producing Cell like cpus. Then they could do an integrated simple rasterizer just to handle things like filtering and outputting the image backed up by enough power from the cpu.

Never say "never".

 

[Hard Ball]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Puh-lease, an integrated solution would never approach the performance of a discrete. At the very least, AMD would need a large cache for their gpu to get decent performance, and then offload the rest to system ram.

That's true for the current situation, which pegs the max amount of SRAM on a reasonably sized die at about 12MB at 65nm (simply a die filled with 6 transistor SRAM, no core logic). But such implementation of GPU in mobo socket is likely to appear in 08 at the earliest (maybe later 07). By then, you maybe talking about 45nm process with Z-RAM being mature enough to be placed in one package with a GPU die (which now it is not nearly there yet); and given that Z-RAM capacity is approximate 5X that of SRAM on SOI, this would bring the capacity of such a "cache" to >100MB. While that won't be very impressive amount for VRAM at that time, but when combined with relatively low latency system DDR3 system RAM, you would have a very competent system that would run most graphics applications well, except for high end gaming or CAD work. Integrated, if implemented correctly with the right interconnects, could become pretty formidable in performance-mainstream segments, leaving the enthusiast class to high end discrete graphics (where 1-4GB of low latency and high bandwidth VRAM would be necessary to run the games of that time).

 

[humanentity]

now we will have one less bunch of stupid fanboys faction.

I can imagine the face of nvidiots who where also amd fanboys, or intel ones who where on the ati side.

For the rest of us, average ppl who decide on performance and price those are not great news cause we will have bigger companies and less price fight, good for shareholders, not for consumers.

 

[Cruise51]

This is bad for consumers.

 

[Cookie Monster]

I really miss the old days.. 3DFX, SGI, Maxtor, NV, ATi, etc..

The sole survivor is NV..

VERY BAD NEWS!

 

[vanvock]

It's the same everywhere, banks etc., the big fish eat the little ones. the way it's going it wont be long untill there's just a few huge corporations running everything. I don't see why this has to mean the end of ATI, they could keep on doing what they're doing just with more resourses.

 

[Hard Ball]

Originally posted by: vanvock
It's the same everywhere, banks etc., the big fish eat the little ones. the way it's going it wont be long untill there's just a few huge corporations running everything. I don't see why this has to mean the end of ATI, they could keep on doing what they're doing just with more resourses.

I think that should be less resources.

AMD acquired ATI precisely for a chunk of those resources to be put toward CPU and infrastructure development. And we know where the focus of the combined company would be, and we certainly know where the best engineers and other personelle resources are going to be allocated.

It is very likely that after the merger, the PC discrete graphics group at ATI may be a skeleton of its former self. In the short run, things won't change much with R600, since much of the innovation has come from Xenos' unified shaders; and maybe even R680, since that would be not much more than a 65nm shrink of R600. But much beyond that, I think that given the new focus, the discrete PC graphics development will certainly take a back seat to CPU uarchitecture, DC infrastructure & coprocessors, integrated solutions, I/O chipsets, and possibly console deals. In the long run, it is unlikely that AMD/ATI would be able to keep up with NV's discrete graphics cards.

 

[Gstanfor]

I think the whole chipset situation has panned out strangely lately anyway.

While I will definitely enjoy having ATi further weakened by the merger/buyout, that wasn't really necessary. nvidia would have won that war on their own anyway eventually.

WHat should have happened IMHO is AMD should have purchased ULi and used the merger funds to refurbish FAB18 and drive VIA out of the marketplace. Any extra slush funds AMD felt were burning a hole in their pocket should go toward establishing more FAB capacity and developing their already existing strategic alliance with nvidia. nvidia's "intel like tendencies" are a good thing here since AMD tends to be too soft for their own good in the corporate wars.

EDIT: For those looking at this from an integrated GPU point of view, PowerVR (or whatever they call themselves nowadays) would be a far better target. They are a cheaper buyout and have experience in the area through their Intel integrated GPU collaboration.

There is is also the delicious sidepoint that this would seriously piss Intel off (since AMD would then control some of the IP Intel uses in its chipsets, and that would force Intel to work much harder at its chipset game.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
nvidia would have won that war on their own anyway eventually.

What makes you so sure?? You think NVidia would have run ATI out of business??

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
While I will definitely enjoy having ATi further weakened by the merger/buyout, that wasn't really necessary. nvidia would have won that war on their own anyway eventually.

Talk about flame bait. We don't know if this will really weaken ATI nor uplift it. It's not like ATI was exactly weakening to begin with (Xbox 360, ring-bus memory, GDDR4, X1900's, first scheduled unified shader DX10 card) I really think that it's just silly to try and guess why or what made this happen or what may become of this merger. We (the consumers--minus a select few who probably have shares/stock purchases) just have to do what we always do, wait and see.

Just try for once to seem a little less biased in your posts. I'm sure everyone is tired of red vs. green. (Of coures now I guess it would be red/orange vs. green)

 

[Gstanfor]

Just look at the current situation with with G7x series vs ATi's X1xxx series. nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank at the moment, despite the performance of x1900 and x1800.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Just look at the current situation with with G7x series vs ATi's X1xxx series. nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank at the moment, despite the performance of x1900 and x1800.

:roll: :laugh: Okay boss.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Cooler
If this is a merger then what will be the new name? ATMD?

DAMIT

LOL! I just saw this when I was scrolling down and realized I was on the wrong page. That is a pretty good one actually.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Just look at the current situation with with G7x series vs ATi's X1xxx series. nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank at the moment, despite the performance of x1900 and x1800.

:roll: :laugh: Okay boss.

It's a trend thats been in place ever since nv40 launched. Ati's R300 glory days are long gone. It' been one big slide downhill for ATi ever since. Thing is, someone forgot to tell that to the ATi fanoi's.

One more thing too, fanboi mindshare doesn't magically pay the companys bills, as 3dfx found out...

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Well, what's the worse that could happen?

AMD and ATI could merge. It could be a bad idea. Both companies could cease to exist in 12 months!

It will be especially important for ATI, given the tight 9-month product launch schedule, that they do not allow this merger to delay R&D/rollout. They could easily fall one generation behind from nVidia.

Actually one of the reasons why my company merged a few years back was because of our strong pipeline and the other company had a lot of money. Though this seems more like motherboard integration than anything else.

 

[josh6079]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

Originally posted by: josh6079

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Just look at the current situation with with G7x series vs ATi's X1xxx series. nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank at the moment, despite the performance of x1900 and x1800.

:roll: :laugh: Okay boss.

It's a trend thats been in place ever since nv40 launched. Ati's R300 glory days are long gone. It' been one big slide downhill for ATi ever since. Thing is, someone forgot to tell that to the ATi fanoi's.

Nice, more biased flamebait. What does that have to do with ATI merging with AMD? The fact that you think the R300's were the last thing ATI did well is really sad considering several modern Nvidia products compete with modern ATI products. In fact on a GPU/GPU comparison, they are both very close.

One more thing too, fanboi mindshare doesn't magically pay the companys bills, as 3dfx found out...

:thumbsup: Whatever you say G-man. I am impressed with your logic. I'm sure you know exactly how ATI was/is planning to conduct their business. You can try to philosophize about fanboys and business practices, but the reality is you and I nor anyone else here have any clue as to what this will do. It's just not worth it to start saying, "See, I told you they sucked" or "Ha! Nvidia is still independent and doesn't need a CPU manufacterer to be their other half" when the results of the meger have yet to be seen.

I say, sit back, relax. If ATI goes under the deep end, then they go under the deep end. Word has it nothing but more companies are going to be in the ring for DX10 (S3, Intel) and the consumer market will continue to be very interesting.

 

[Gstanfor]

You and Thilan are the only ones in this thread doing any flame-baiting. My posts have been in direct response to that flamebait.

You may find it educational to listen to the companies conference calls on earnings and future direction sometime Josh. Also try listening to investor analysis of the two companies...