Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor 133
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica writes about current speculation circling around the supposed imminent merger of ATI and AMD: 'Last week at Computex, however, Intel allegedly began telling folks behind closed doors that AMD is planning to acquire ATI. This news came courtesy of Tweaktown, who cited a trusted and reliable anonymous source for the claim. It wasn't clear from Tweaktown's report if Intel itself had heard a rumor to this effect, or if the company was reading the same tea leaves as the RBC Capital Markets analysts in the Forbes article and coming to the same conclusion.'"
they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:1)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:1)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:1)
Any time a public company is rumored to be considering buying another public company, the target's stock tends to go up while the acquirer's tends to drop. This is some pretty basic ass shit.
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:2)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:2)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:1)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:1)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:2)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:2)
Now the Indy XL/O2/320/540 (and some of the Integraph products too, IIRC) are another matter - I'd say those graphics chips were pretty tightly integrated. However, they didn't have their own d
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a field where you must not only have a good product, you must also have a solid market AND a solid marketing team, AND you must avoid bad PR like the plague, AND any major players (like Intel) must not deliberately sabotage efforts to comp
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:1)
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:2)
AMD K8 was designed to be multicore from the start.
Re:they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:2)
FABs were hundreds of millions about 20 to 15 years ago. Today they're billions. Intel's FAB-24A cost $2B I think.
Re:Shut up your ignorant chinaman. (Score:1, Funny)
Heaven? (Score:3, Interesting)
From another source [nforcershq.com]
It would be very interesting to see this merger go thru
Re:Heaven? (Score:1, Redundant)
Cue the Intel bashing.
Re:Heaven? (Score:1, Insightful)
Or it could be very bad for gamers. Remember a few years ago with the Intel Pentium MMX stuff? It would be unfortunate if games started coming out that specifically require an AMD/ATI config in order to play them reasonably. I much prefer today's methodology of having a game that will play on any system (AMD/ATI, AMD/NVidia, Intel/ATI, Intel/NVidia, etc).
Re:Heaven? (Score:2, Insightful)
If that were to happen, why would AMD keep working with Nvidia? What would stop the (Currently fictional) AMD/ATI Corporation from makign Nvidia graphics run poorly in comparison to their own offerings?
A good number of people find ATI's offerings to be lackluster in comparison to Nvidia.
I see this as a bad thing. I like AMD's offerings, I have never liked ATI's offerings. If I get stuck with the graphics of ATI, if I want to keep usin
Re:Heaven? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, I've always liked AMD better than Intel (faster, cheaper, cooler processors), but the reasons for it are fading away with Intel's latest and announced offerings.
I may very well buy an ATIMD/AMDTI/AMT
Re:Heaven? (Score:2)
I have an ATI graphics card plugged into an nVidia motherboard right now. Works perfectly. If either ATI or AMD made their own motherboards, I imagine nvidia would bust its ass to make sure their cards ran just as well in those boards as any other, since it's both nvidia's reputation and marketshare that are still on the line.
Re:Heaven? (Score:2)
Re:Heaven? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you mean "...could mean good things for Windows gamers."
While I don't particularly like nVidia's way of doing drivers for Linux, at least they WORK. I cannot install the ATI drivers for my video card because ATI hasn't kept up with the development in Xorg 7.x, and the Free driver really isn't worth much.
From my perspective, an ATI/AMD merger could be good, IF AMD opens up more of the programming specs for the ATI graphics chips (NOTE: NOT the driver source - the SPECS , as in "To enable texture fill, set register $foo bit $bar to 1.")
However, the more likely result will be even more closed, proprietary, Microsoft® Windows® Vista® DRM only hardware.
A pity - I rather like AMD's processors, but with the way things are going, I may want my next machine to be an Intel - while their graphics chips aren't great, they are much better supported under X.
And for those of you Windows® Fanboies who will say "Suxxors 2 B joo! Run Windows!" - you run what you choose to run, I shall choose to run what I run. BTW - say HI to all the Russian and Taiwanese spammers for me, and make sure you keep their^Wyour computer running.
Re:Heaven? (Score:2, Insightful)
I find this comment to be rather naïve - how could this merger, if it happens, be a bad thing for the Linux market? AMD is well-supported under Linux and supports Linux rather well (though I imagine it's more on one side than the other). Developing drivers for Linux has always been an issue of balancing available resources, and the resources AMD could potentially provide for this purpose would be invaluable.
If anything, a merger like this should really push the Linux desktop forward and challenge t
Re:Heaven? (Score:2)
Re:Heaven? (Score:3, Informative)
They're not just well-supported, AMD actively works with the community! That's the only reason we have Linux support for the x86-64 processors, not because Intel was being a nice processor overlord or people spent the last decade hacking support: http://www.x86-64.org/ [x86-64.org]
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
Re:Heaven? (Score:4, Interesting)
The same could be said about Windows drivers. ATI drivers have never been up to par for Windows. If they cannot keep up with a driver that works in Windows it would be crazy to think they could keep up to date on more than one platform.
I have purchased AMD since the 386 days and will continue to do so until I have a strong reason to go with someone else.
I purchased ATI one time and will continue to buy anything but ATI until every other company is out of business. Heck I would buy an Intel card before I purchased another ATI card. At least I can expect to get get drivers that work from Intel.
ATI Drivers (was: Re:Heaven?) (Score:2)
Re:ATI Drivers (was: Re:Heaven?) (Score:3, Insightful)
Their Linux support has always been sub-par.
They did get somewhat reasonable in Windows towards the end with the Radeon, but then they introduced that insane
Doesn't matter to me - I went back to Nvidia and have enjoyed just not having to mess with things.
Re:ATI Drivers (was: Re:Heaven?) (Score:2)
that
yeah, that'd be it.
Re:ATI Drivers (was: Re:Heaven?) (Score:2)
For something that only requires the simplest of option panels, they instead have a themed window with video previews that is clunky and only gets in the way of what people actually want to do in driver control panels. I'm hardly the first person to complain about it.
Re:ATI Drivers (was: Re:Heaven?) (Score:2)
2: I wonder of ATI's control panel appelet is anywhere as bloated as Nvidia's "NView" widget.
Re:ATI Drivers (was: Re:Heaven?) (Score:2)
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
ATI & X7.x (Score:2)
Re:ATI & X7.x (Score:2)
I was astonished myself, but the stock DRI in debian supports my x800 in 3d, and multihead 3200x1200.
Re:ATI & X7.x (Score:2)
I didn't use the Kubuntu packages for the ATI drivers, but downloaded the complete package off of ATI's website (again, don't have the version in front of me, but it's whatever the latest version was last week). Used ATI's crazy program to create Ubuntu packages which I then installed. Ran the aticonfig program but had to rework the xorg.conf file (nothing major, the aticonfig duplicated the device and screen sections
Re:Heaven? (Score:2)
Nvidia is just better to its customers than ATI. In addition to linux support, nvidia has also supported stereo 3d gaming and simulation with pretty good stereoscopic versions of its drivers. I know the market segment for stereo 3d is relatively small, but it shows nvidia's willingness to respond to its customers needs.
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
There are things hardware vendors will share with closed source shops that they just don't want to make free to the world for their competitors to see.
Xi make a nice X server: http://www.xig.com/ [xig.com]
Re:Heaven? (Score:2)
So given the man years
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
Well, the cost to worthlessness ratio holds true.
But, they are giving it away. What can you expect? If money was actually made/spent developing it, I am sure there would be a better product.
I can play pong online for free, but it isn't worth much. WoW actually has much better entertainment value.
Free drivers. (Score:2)
But, at least there IS some free-as-in-speech DRI driver effort [sf.net] for ATI gfx boards (as do also Intel)
The same cannot be said for nVidia gfx boards (at least not yet [freedesktop.org]).
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
Is it the more likely result? Seeing as AMD is the bigger company, and also the more generous of the two when it comes to source (and more accepting when it comes to linux), it seems to me that the more likely result would be that ATI would be in a tight spot not to release their code/specs. AMD has a good track record for releasing documentation/specs (at least to my knowledg
Re:Heaven? (Score:2)
It would be very interesting to see this merger go thru
For this VERY reason, it's a bad idea. AMD already has the hearts and minds of gamers. But that market is small, and in the grand scheme of things, insignificant. What AMD needs is to prove itself as a computing powerhouse more capable then Intel. This means producing servers, corperate desktops, supercomputers etc.
ATi is a company that makes good gaming cards that make for shitty content development platforms.
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
I cringe at the thought of this.
AMD and Nvidia do a lot of mutual back scratching now, by creating good products that play well with others. Why would AMD want to ruin that by trying to create a company that competes at every level, and hence has no real allies? This works fine for Intel, since it is by far the biggest dog in the pack, but it would kill a company like AMD.
If nothing else, this would just drive Nvidia into the arms of Intel, or maybe even provoke it to make it's own foray into CPUs. It's
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
ATi is a debt free company with $600+ million in cash on hand
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
Re:Heaven? (Score:1)
Bah... forgot the HTML on that...
ATI ... (ATYT)
Total Net Income
Fully Diluted EPS
Other Stats
I will admit that I somehow pulled the piles of debt out of my ass... ATI only has ~$25 million in debt, whi
Packaging? (Score:5, Funny)
Not so impossible (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing is for sure: when Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and ATI fight, we customers win.
when Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and ATI fight, we custome (Score:1)
Re:Not so impossible (Score:1)
Re:Not so impossible (Score:1)
One thing is for sure: when Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and ATI fight, we customers win.
Nvidia and ATI are quite much equal competitors at the moment. If AMD and ATI merges, that could tilt the competition to ATI's favour. That means less competition in the graphics sector, and customers loose. On the CPU front AMD is already gaining on Intel, they don't really need this.
OTOH, it would be nice to see a "low-end" on-board graphics card with a FOSS driver on AMD boards, similar to what Intel offers. That wou
FTC may not allow it (Score:2, Interesting)
Is anyone afraid that this could lead to fewer choices in the video card market?
Re:FTC may not allow it (Score:2)
Re:FTC may not allow it (Score:1)
Re:FTC may not allow it (Score:2)
Don't forget VIA+Cyrix+S3.
Re:FTC may not allow it (Score:1)
Neither AMD nor ATI have that issue. I believe they are both beat by Intel and nVidia in their respective busiensses, atleast in terms of marketshare.
Re:FTC may not allow it (Score:2)
Cite please?
Re:FTC may not allow it (Score:1)
AMD CPU with NVIDIA GPU? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AMD CPU with NVIDIA GPU? (Score:2)
Yeah maybe 2-3% gain on 10-15% of games/apps
Wonder what the FTC thinks (Score:3, Insightful)
Would certainly piss me off enough to release the lawyers if I were AMD.
Wonder what the FTC thinks? maybe not (Score:1)
Maybe they havn't released the laywers because there are merger talks...
If they arn't trying to cover it up or anything it may be because they are actually talking about merging and are close to doing it.
Maybe this would make crossfire take off more too.
Re:Wonder what the FTC thinks? maybe not (Score:1)
Seriously, this is almost criminal behaviour. Perhaps it even is.
Re:Wonder what the FTC thinks (Score:2)
Decent combination of analysis (Score:1)
AMD - ATI and nVidia (Score:2)
AMD-ATI not a good fit (Score:5, Insightful)
The Biggest thing I'd hate to see is the Alt OS support.. AMD banks real money on Alt OSes, where ATI views them as trouble... in that respect nVidia would be a better match because AMD would provide Fab allowing costs to be lower. Lower costs mean better support for OSS, combine with AMD chips it could provide a complete solution off the shelf.. just add OSS.
The only thing I see is that ATI has the inside contracts already... AMD desperately wants into the "big leagues" of the computer world. Customers that already use ATI video and like ATI's business (remember, OEMS don't care about performance or drivers as much as bottom line and buzzword compliance) would be heavily leaned upon to try out AMD chips with a good discount. ATI also has some interesting patent agreements with Intel and Microsoft that AMD & nVidia got cut out of in the last 5 years or so... but that means AMD would be planning to "roll over" or "sell out" to the Wintel homogney rather than keep fighting... very sad.
Re:AMD-ATI not a good fit (Score:1)
This wouldn't apply for ATi somehow? Just because ATi doesn't have good Linux support now, does that mean that they would refuse to provide better
Re:AMD-ATI not a good fit (Score:1)
Re:AMD-ATI not a good fit (Score:1)
What does this mean to me? Anything?
All I really want is a vendor to make a STABLE release of their drivers for my 500 PC's. I hate having to figure out which driver worked best with a certain video card. Unified driver, my ass.
if it doesn't result in better Linux drivers, BFD (Score:3, Insightful)
LoB
A change in the way AMD works? (Score:1)
Remember, AMD pulls out of the chipset market any time they can to make room for the partners.
Even though this story seems to have "lots of legs", I still do not see it.
But... (Score:2, Insightful)
From a Gamer (Score:2, Insightful)
Granted, nvidia is slightly evil (their Software Product Manager goes by the name of Andrew Fear) but that just makes them badass, and gamers couldn't care less for their association with MS. Try
What's with the headlines though? Sounded lik
Re:From a Gamer (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, ATI is much more in bed with Microsoft than nVidia is at this point.
Traditionally, ATI has given their best support to their DirectX implementations, whereas nVidia has always paid close attention to OpenGL.
Further, this generation of consoles has seen Microsoft and Nintendo choose ATI, while Sony has nVidia in their PS3.
I think nVidia has been a much better member of the community (re. their Linux and OpenGL support) than ATI has ever been.
C
Re:From a Gamer (Score:1)
Support for DX 9.
Support for Pixel Shaders 1.4 over 1.3.
Looks like they will be first with proper unified shaders.
256 bit memory bus.
But you're right (*sarcasm*) they lag way behind and are stupid because they didn't have 3.0 FIRST!
Re:From a Gamer (Score:1)
And from a user/developer standpoint nVidia supports the community (the WHOLE community much more than ATI does. I choose nVidia hands down.
Well... Look how well that worked for 3dfx and STB (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well... Look how well that worked for 3dfx and (Score:1)
Paging the SEC (Score:2)
Re:Paging the SEC (Score:2)
Beacuse two targets are better than one... (Score:1)
Here's a hint... (Score:1)
AMD+ATI Why not add SGI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SGIs already on our team (Score:1)
Competition (Score:1)
Bullshit? (Score:2)
An alliance with just one would go against everything they hoped to accomplish with their open platforms.
Of course I'm not part of the "need to know" crowd so don't take my word for gospel...
Tom
Sounds good (Score:1)
Of course, this does all revolve around that evil marketing hype word, Synergy..
I hope this is just a rumour (Score:1)
My take on this... (Score:2)
Sweet Secrets (Score:1)
New Company Name (Score:3, Funny)
Appropriate, since that's what many people yell when the graphics lock up in the middle of a good game...
The merger would totally make sense (Score:2)
1. Multicore processors (and Moore's law)
2. Highly specialized co-processors - hardware solutions are at times orders of magnitude more efficient than software for the same problem.
ATI is a company that knows just about everything there is to know about one kind of highly specialized vectorized processors - GPUs. Their expertise could no doubt be expanded to things like array processing, audio/video encoding in real time, matrix calculatio
You misspelled "Exploiting" (Score:1)
Sorry, but this is just Intel taking advantage of the rumor to try and get nVidia pissed at AMD. Until I hear this directly from AMD, I will consider it FUD.
Inverse more logical (Score:1)
nVidia releasing the nForce 2 chipset for the AthlonXP was the best thing that had ever happened to AMD. Then AMD enjoyed continued support with nVidia's nForce 3 and nForce 4 chipsets. Sure there's an nForce 4 for Intel but its sales are exceptionally small even while its the most common chipset now being sold for AMD. Even with the new AM2 socket from AMD, nVidia's new chipsets have already taken a vast lead over any other.
On the ot