Future of graphics business

[blastingcap]

I wouldn't bet on that - look at some of the buys that happened this summer (including Intel buying McAfee). Stock markets are a bit crazy with all this inflation created by central banks.

On the other hand, as stated previously, Intel absorbing Nvidia doesn't seem likely due to anti monopoly rules.

Point taken, but McAfee is a bit different if Intel wanted to make a splash quickly and start selling bundles of hardware and services or whatever. The way Intel went about designing Larrabee was to hire some brilliant minds like Michael Abrash. Plus I heard a rumor that way back in the day, NV and Intel informally talked about merging, but Intel backed away when JHH insisted that he be CEO of the combined company. If that's still where things are between the companies, Intel would have to stage a hostile takeover rather than a friendly tender merger with NV, and hostile takeovers aren't as easy to pull off. I haven't seen NV's corporate legal structure, but I bet it's full of poison pill clauses and such.

 

[GaiaHunter]

2 or 3 more Fermi releases and AMd will have 40% and Nvidia 10% and will be buyable.
Thats what I'm saying.

BUT

That all could change next year, who knows?

2-3 releases is 2-3 years minimum and most likely 5+.

Of course then Intel would have a monopoly in HPC and GPGPU?

 

[GaiaHunter]

Point taken, but McAfee is a bit different if Intel wanted to make a splash quickly and start selling bundles of hardware and services or whatever.

While there might be (and probably is) a strategy involved in that acquisition, I doubt Intel would have made it if it didn't look in the books for purely stock value purposes, but I digress.

 

[Viditor]

Point taken, but McAfee is a bit different if Intel wanted to make a splash quickly and start selling bundles of hardware and services or whatever. The way Intel went about designing Larrabee was to hire some brilliant minds like Michael Abrash. Plus I heard a rumor that way back in the day, NV and Intel informally talked about merging, but Intel backed away when JHH insisted that he be CEO of the combined company. If that's still where things are between the companies, Intel would have to stage a hostile takeover rather than a friendly tender merger with NV, and hostile takeovers aren't as easy to pull off. I haven't seen NV's corporate legal structure, but I bet it's full of poison pill clauses and such.

A few things...
1. JHH can insist on all he wants, but he is a very minority shareholder in Nvidia (less than 1%) so the point is moot.
2. No merger is possible (friendly or otherwise) due to anti-trust laws
3. Since the corporate bylaws are written by the board and not the CEO, I doubt there are any poison pills...

 

[maddie]

I have always had a sentimental attachment to ATI since the original Radeon days. Had a LE. It's good to see that they can push hard, at least for the next few years.

Maybe if Nvidia becomes the underdog, I'll be buying their high value products in the future.

 

[JAG87]

http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/gtc-2010/item/20288-nvidia-is-65-percent-parallel-company

Jen Hsun Huang had some astonishing news today, something that caught even the knowledgeable people inside Nvidia off guard. He said that today Nvidia is a 65 percent parallel company, some 30 percent visual and the rest I guess goes to mobile aka Tegra. This is not entirely correct as in its previous breakdowns Jensen reminded us many times that Tegra and ARM are Nvidia’s future.

This is how Jensen divided the importance and Nvidia’s involvement in its three pillars of the company; parralel computing, visual computing and mobile. This explains a lot and why Nvidia let the Fermi fiasco happen, as you can see that a lot of engineering and especially software talent nowadays cares more about CUDA and rarallel computing than about games.

This is a huge commitment to something that still has to make some serious money or should we say any serious money. Just to remind you, Nvidia currently lives from its visualisation (Geforce and Quadro) money and the rest of the revenue is quite insignificant to its financial performance, so 65 percent commitment better score some serious results or otherwise Nvidia’s might be in big trouble.

We are sure gamers won’t be happy about it, but this is Nvidia’s long term strategy, that is what the boss is telling us.

I think this should put an end to this thread, and all the other retarded "omg ATI is coming out with HD6000, NV is going out of business" threads.

 

[Genx87]

That's not going to happen as other parts of the mobo need chips. USB, SATA, & NICs are just the big examples. Intel even has a court order saying they have to provide SATA ports for a set number of years.

And while it might not be completely correct many of us refer to the GPU core as IGPs at the moment.

There isnt a reason why any of those(USB, SATA, and NICs cant be done on the CPU.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/gtc-2010/item/20288-nvidia-is-65-percent-parallel-company





I think this should put an end to this thread, and all the other retarded "omg ATI is coming out with HD6000, NV is going out of business" threads.

Interesting. But a brief article by some barely-literate hack in desperate need of an editor is no reason to end a thread discussing the "future of the graphics business".

And yeah, the ridiculous "omg ATI is coming out with HD6000, NV is going out of business" sentiment is worthy.

 

[Madcatatlas]

Interesting. But a brief article by some barely-literate hack in desperate need of an editor is no reason to end a thread discussing the "future of the graphics business".

And yeah, the ridiculous "omg ATI is coming out with HD6000, NV is going out of business" sentiment is worthy.

+1
my thoughts exactly



And i didnt even know this was about Nvidia going out of business. thx JAG87 for the headsup.
I thought it was about AMD and Nvidia facing stiffer and stiffer competition from the big machine called Intel.

Not because Intel will release a sick discreet card or achitecture, but because Intel is very aware of the fact that most people will use a standard comp which meets their most basic needs. And with stuff like Sandybridge, things are looking worse and worse for both AMD and Nvidia discreet series.
Both AMD and Nvidia make most of their money on lower, more volume selling, parts and this territory is turning more and more blue (not red or green...) for each year that passes.

 

[maddie]

+1
my thoughts exactly



And i didnt even know this was about Nvidia going out of business. thx JAG87 for the headsup.
I thought it was about AMD and Nvidia facing stiffer and stiffer competition from the big machine called Intel.

Not because Intel will release a sick discreet card or achitecture, but because Intel is very aware of the fact that most people will use a standard comp which meets their most basic needs. And with stuff like Sandybridge, things are looking worse and worse for both AMD and Nvidia discreet series.
Both AMD and Nvidia make most of their money on lower, more volume selling, parts and this territory is turning more and more blue (not red or green...) for each year that passes.

Yes, Intel has been winning the last race, but I would imagine the advent of Fusion chips will introduce much needed new variables in the competition. This benefits AMD, but the problem for Nvidia is they are apparently shut out.

 

[RussianSensation]

http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/gtc-2010/item/20288-nvidia-is-65-percent-parallel-company

I think this should put an end to this thread, and all the other retarded "omg ATI is coming out with HD6000, NV is going out of business" threads.

I was trying to convey the idea that NV wasn't just developing Fermi for games in my "Understanding of Fermi" thread. NV wasn't simply creating a parallel cuda architecture that probably cost $1-2 billion so that Johnny could get Crysis 1 to run at 45 fps instead of 30 fps. While NV will still continue to produce discrete graphics cards, it's pretty clear that they are understanding the big picture - one where discrete graphics is going to be threatened not just due to competition from AMD.

While AMD has APU (i.e., embedded graphics processors) market in its sights, NV doesn't have this option. Since NV has limited resources, they have to design a card that's not only good at gaming because let's face it, the roadmap for discrete graphics doesn't look so promising.

Along with APUs, the iPad and smartphone devices are like to cannibalize traditional notebook/netbook, PC sales. This means even more competition for traditional discrete notebook graphics.

It seems between NV and ATI, there is only 1 company which is at least attempting to explore other opportunities for the sake of long-term survival. Regardless how much people hate CUDA, Tegra, or the idea of general purpose GPU, NV can't strictly focus on graphics as ATI does since this won't appease investors.

 

[v8envy]

One more thing to keep in mind. Intel doesn't need to buy all of nvidia to get access to nv's patent portfolio and people.

It's possible to buy *assets* of a company without buying the liabilities. This typically happens after the company is defunct, and people in charge of closing up shop try to extract as much value out of the remains as possible. Such purchases aren't subjected to the same kind of regulatory oversight as mergers.

In other words, *if* (and this is a huge if) NV finds itself a non-viable entity with no takers for the whole company then its assets could be sold off to the highest bidder. If Intel bought the patent and product portfolio they could simply offer an Intel GT Extreme 470 video card. By then most if not all employees are typically laid off, so picking them up isn't a problem either.

Buying assets and leaving a bankrupt, debt-ridden corporate shell is somewhat rare but it does happen. Not saying it's at all likely -- but in the unlikely case of utter nv failure including liabilities far exceeding the value of assets it could become a remote possibility.

 

[T2k]

+1
my thoughts exactly

+2

 

[exar333]

Actually, they didn't expect AMD to survive the merger (JHH said as much) which means that fusion wasn't nearly as imminent as. But that point is moot...the only real death knell for them vis a vis chipsets was the Intel (80% of the market) lawsuit in Feb last year. I suspect that this was when they actually started planning "for realz".

I disagree. NVidia was always strongest as a chipset maker for AMD. Name their best platforms, Nforce series for AXP and A64, hands-down. Most Nvidia solutions for Intel were always relatively crappy, and the only real reason people got them was (1) cheap (2) SLI. Intel's chipsets have always been the enthusiast choice for performance and reliability.

AMD now makes some decent chipsets. I guarantee if they didnt make good chipsets, NVidia might still be making them (up until Fusion).

 

[Viditor]

I disagree. NVidia was always strongest as a chipset maker for AMD. Name their best platforms, Nforce series for AXP and A64, hands-down. Most Nvidia solutions for Intel were always relatively crappy, and the only real reason people got them was (1) cheap (2) SLI. Intel's chipsets have always been the enthusiast choice for performance and reliability.

AMD now makes some decent chipsets. I guarantee if they didnt make good chipsets, NVidia might still be making them (up until Fusion).

I think we are in violent agreement...
Until AMD had developed their own chipset division to it's present level, Nvidia was the obvious choice. However, Intel has always been fairly poor at IGP, so Nvidia was also the choice for on-board Intel graphics chipsets as well...
Nvidia sold far more Intel chipsets than AMD chipsets only because OEMs sold far more Intel systems, and they used Nvidia because it was much less expensive.

 

[T2k]

It seems between NV and ATI, there is only 1 company which is at least forced to explore other opportunities for the sake of long-term survival. Regardless how much people hate CUDA, Tegra, or the idea of general purpose GPU, NV can't strictly focus on graphics as ATI does since this won't appease investors.

Fixed it for ya'...

 

[RussianSensation]

Fixed it for ya'...

hhe fair enough! :thumbsup:

 

[T2k]

OK, so it seems Charlie reached the same conclusion about the future I did a year ago: http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/10/05/why-nvidia-killing-their-partners-branded-cards/

 

[RussianSensation]

OK, so it seems Charlie reached the same conclusion about the future I did a year ago: http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/10/05/why-nvidia-killing-their-partners-branded-cards/

It's funny that his blatant bias has resulted in him failing to comprehend that the "NV's competitive threats" are related to the whole discrete GPU market. However, for some reason his beloved AMD is immune to the same market forces.

 

[extra]

Random thought...what if windows 8 or whatever is also compiled for ARM? What is many programs come in dual binary format for both x64 and arm? (Sort of like intel/ppc binaries for os x)...just saying. What if that were to occur? It might not be too far fetched. . .Tegra's future could be very bright if that were to occur. *shrug*

 

[T2k]

Random thought...what if windows 8 or whatever is also compiled for ARM? What is many programs come in dual binary format for both x64 and arm? (Sort of like intel/ppc binaries for os x)...just saying. What if that were to occur? It might not be too far fetched. . .Tegra's future could be very bright if that were to occur. *shrug*

Pretty much out of question - it's not about porting an OS though it's big enough by itself but also the entire cosmos around it: dev tools, apps etc...


...ain't gonna happen unless MS buys ARM.

 

[T2k]

BTW these latest news about NV dropping prices due to very serious pressure by the incoming ATI 6xxx-series means it's going to be a very painful Christmas season for Nvidia...

 

[n0x1ous]

BTW these latest news about NV dropping prices due to very serious pressure by the incoming ATI 6xxx-series means it's going to be a very painful Christmas season for Nvidia...

yeah...raking in huge profits on Quadro and Tesla, while having a little less on Geforece is really going to make them lose a ton of sleep....

 

[T2k]

yeah...raking in huge profits on Quadro and Tesla, while having a little less on Geforece is really going to make them lose a ton of sleep....

How about getting a clue first about how this business works?
HINT: look for the word R&D...

 

[n0x1ous]

How about getting a clue first about how this business works?
HINT: look for the word R&D...

What does R&D have to do with income for either vendor over the Christmas season? Your point was that its going to be bad for Nv because they are dropping prices so that must mean they aren't making any money.

My point is, unlike AMD, Nv actually makes money in other markets besides the consumer GPU market.

I realize you don't like Nv but that doesn't change the fact that they have 88% share in Pro where the big profits are. those profits can be used for R&D as well....