Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor 133

Posted by Zonk from the so-happy-together dept.
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.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor More

Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor

Comments Filter:

  • they want AMD's stock to go down (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hxnwix ( 652290 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:00PM (#15524638) Journal
    Intel wants to depress AMD's stock price and piss all over AMD's relationship with NVIDIA. Simple as that.

  • Heaven? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by neonprimetime ( 528653 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:08PM (#15524698)
    We think that an AMD-ATI fusion is a match made in enthusiast heaven
     
    From another source [nforcershq.com] ... could affect ATI's most direct competitor (nVidia) a lot - the merger would create a company who has the capacity to create good CPU's, good chipsets and good GPU's. By combining their resources, it opens things up for AMD and ATI to really take on Intel and nVidia in a big way and increase their market share in a range of different product segments.
     
    It would be very interesting to see this merger go thru ... could mean good things for gamers :-)

    • Re:Heaven? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by vivin ( 671928 )
      Interesting merger if it happens.

      Cue the Intel bashing.

    • Re:Heaven? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It would be very interesting to see this merger go thru ... could mean good things for gamers :-)

      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)

      by cnelzie ( 451984 )
      That's not necesarily true.

      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)

        by espinafre ( 973274 )
        Amen to that, bro. I dislike ATI even more because I run only Linux and FreeBSD. The games I play are those which run on these systems (thanks to iD Software and the brave folks at Bioware). ATI never had good drivers (well, they blame the drivers, but I'm not sure about the hardware as well).
        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
      • Why would nvidia's motherboard division want to sabotage its marketability to gamers, more than half of whom on those very motherboards run AMD? (according to the last Steam survey)

        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.
        • Feh, I think I replied to the wrong thread, but this one's even easier to dismiss: it's easy to sabotage a competitor's product, but even easier to get caught. Besides, imagine the marketing opportunity: "Same card, different motherboards. Let's review some benchmarks on these motherboards and separate the winners from the losers"

    • Re:Heaven? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:21PM (#15524809) Homepage Journal
      It would be very interesting to see this merger go thru ... could mean good things for gamers :-)


      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)

        by Abu Hurayrah ( 953237 )

        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

        • AMD and ATI are the least Linux friendly. Intel is be most pro Linux hardware developer and NVidia a distant second.

        • Re:Heaven? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Compholio ( 770966 )
          AMD is well-supported under Linux and supports Linux rather well (though I imagine it's more on one side than the other).

          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]
      • I also agree, it might not be the best match for gamers in general. Specifically consoles, IBM is making all of the chips for the next gen systems, where ATI is creating specific graphics processors for Nintendo I believe. It seems like it might be good as these companies can 'leveage synergy', however I see an elimination of choices, specifically to mix and match.
      • I don't think you have too much to worry about. A merger like this wouldn't change the existing PCIe/AGP graphics card market very much, in the sence that ATI would still make those cards (and apparently their crappy drivers). Just a guess here, but IF they were to merge, I still think that nVidia's cards would work with AMD CPU's, or at least for the first little while. Besides, you run Linux, you should be used to sub-par documentation ;)

      • Re:Heaven? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Monster_Juice ( 939126 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:57PM (#15525187)
        While I don't particularly like nVidia's way of doing drivers for Linux, at least they WORK.

        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.
        • For what it's worth, I've been using ATI graphics cards since the Radeon VE, and I've never had an issue or complaint about their drivers at all.
          • Then you've not asked much of your hardware or you've been extremely lucky. I've owned a Rage3D, Rage128, and Radeon9600XT, and infuriatingly bad drivers were just par for the course.

            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 .net based control panel in Windows - WTF were they thinking?

            Doesn't matter to me - I went back to Nvidia and have enjoyed just not having to mess with things.
            • They did get somewhat reasonable in Windows towards the end with the Radeon, but then they introduced that insane .net based control panel in Windows - WTF were they thinking?

              that .net is a free-beer environment that the OS author is heavily pushing?

              yeah, that'd be it. .Net is not Passport. Not having .Net on your Windows box is like not having MSHTML or MSI. Sure, it'll work, but you'll keep running into software that presumes that you actually install this sort of thing.
              • I don't mind having .net installed - the point is that if you've actually used the control panel, you'd see that it's incredibly resource intensive and poorly designed.

                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.
      • Hmmmm. While I will readily admit that they suck, I'm running ATI's binary drivers under X.org 7 right now.
        • OK, what distro? What kernel? Give me details, because I know that I cannot get the fglrx drivers to work under FC Rawhide.
          • Debian unstable with a linus kernel.

            I was astonished myself, but the stock DRI in debian supports my x800 in 3d, and multihead 3200x1200.
          • Kubuntu Dapper Drake, stock kernel (I think it's 2.6.15-something, I'm at work right now).

            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

      • 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.

      • If you really want performance out of X windows on Linux, but a commercial X server. I may cost you a few $$, but its well worth it.

        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]
      • I agree that ATI and nVidia should open up their spec, at least enough for someone to implement an independent driver. However can you fathom what a momumental amount of work that would give ATI? Not only do you have to release a somewhat complete and updated spec, it has to be free from any NDA / patentable information. So you can't just release whatever you have inhouse, you have to produce a separate document. These ducuments must also be updated with new chips, new revisions etc..

        So given the man years
      • ... and the Free driver really isn't worth much.


        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.
      • the Free driver really isn't worth much.


        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]).

      • However, the more likely result will be even more closed, proprietary, Microsoft® Windows® Vista® DRM only hardware.

        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

    • It would be very interesting to see this merger go thru ... could mean good things for gamers :-)

      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.

    • 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

      • ATI is only profitable every few years, and carries a big pile of debt.

        ATi is a debt free company with $600+ million in cash on hand

        • ATI ... (ATYT) Total Net Income 2005 - 16,929,000 2004 - 204,799,000 2003 - 35,229,000 2002 - -47,465,000 2001 - -54,205,000 Fully Diluted EPS 2005 - 0.07 2004 - 0.80 2003 - 0.14 2002 - -0.20 2001 - -0.23 Operating Margin = -3.82% Net Margin = -3.04% Return on Common Equity = -6.41% Return on Invested Capital = -6.24% Return on Assets = -3.77% I will admit that I somehow pulled the piles of debt out of my ass... ATI only has ~$25 million in debt, which is more than covered by the ~$185 million in cash o

        • Bah... forgot the HTML on that...

          ATI ... (ATYT)

          Total Net Income

          • 2005 - 16,929,000
          • 2004 - 204,799,000
          • 2003 - 35,229,000
          • 2002 - -47,465,000
          • 2001 - -54,205,000

          Fully Diluted EPS

          • 2005 - 0.07
          • 2004 - 0.80
          • 2003 - 0.14
          • 2002 - -0.20
          • 2001 - -0.23

          Other Stats

          • Operating Margin = -3.82%
          • Net Margin = -3.04%
          • Return on Common Equity = -6.41%
          • Return on Invested Capital = -6.24%
          • Return on Assets = -3.77%

          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)

    by general scruff ( 938598 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:13PM (#15524738) Journal
    So, does this mean that ATI packaging will look just a bit more reserved, or can we expect more scary disturbing pictures of spikey metal heads of increasing size and complexity depending on the speed of the processor we get?

  • Not so impossible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Solder Fumes ( 797270 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:17PM (#15524776)
    My first reaction was to laugh and think about all the nForce motherboards out there, but ATI has done some very interesting things with AMD chipsets recently.

    One thing is for sure: when Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and ATI fight, we customers win.
    • I agree in the short term we will win. What happens down the road when ATI are the only cards you can put in your AMD box and nvidia cards are the only thing that you can put in your intel box. Surely this won't happen, but the common interface (PCI-E or whatever comes after it) will offer less performance. I doubt that nvidia would produce a card for the AMD/ATI slot until after the market is shown to be viable, and if that happens nvidia will be at a disdvantage since ATI won't have to pay to license the
    • One thing is for sure: when Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and ATI fight, we customers win. Don't be so sure. I have been a long time fan of AMD and NVIDIA. I use Windows as a desktop and Linux on severs. I enjoy tinkering with Linux and BSD. I would also like to move my graphical work (both 2D & 3D) to Linux and eventually my desktop. While I am not completely satisfied with Nvidia's support of Linux, it is my understanding that support is better than what ATI has to offer. Sure I could switch to Intel for my

    • 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)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 )
    Remember when Intel started to make video cards and motherboards? The FTC forbade them from doing it. ATI + AMD would present a similar situation. Now, at the time, Intel was dominating the market much more than they are now, but it still presents a similar risk.

    Is anyone afraid that this could lead to fewer choices in the video card market?
    • The only place there's likely to be less options is in the AMD chipset market. I could easily see nVidia giving up on AMD if this happens. It would reduce the number of AMD chipsets with integrated nVidia graphics, which I don't give one tenth of one shit about, since that's low-end graphics anyway.
    • Remember when Intel started to make video cards and motherboards? The FTC forbade them from doing it. ATI + AMD would present a similar situation.

      Don't forget VIA+Cyrix+S3.
    • I'd think that the only reason why that was the case was that Intel had an essentially legal monopoly in the processor business, and by making other peripherals (presumably to be sold cheaper than the competition, or that would work better with intel chips) they would be using their monopoly position to hurt competition.

      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.
    • > Remember when Intel started to make video cards and motherboards? The FTC forbade them from doing it

      Cite please?

  • AMD CPU with NVIDIA GPU? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheGSRGuy ( 901647 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:19PM (#15524793)
    Will ATI GPUs perhaps get some advanced optimizations? What if I want to use an NVIDIA GPU with an AMD/ATI CPU?
    • Will ATI GPUs perhaps get some advanced optimizations? What if I want to use an NVIDIA GPU with an AMD/ATI CPU?


      Yeah maybe 2-3% gain on 10-15% of games/apps :) Well, isn't that what enthusiasts consider as 'major advantage'?

  • Wonder what the FTC thinks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pslam ( 97660 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:26PM (#15524846) Homepage Journal
    Even if it's true, I wonder what the FTC thinks about a public company spreading merger rumours about a rival. Isn't that downright illegal?

    Would certainly piss me off enough to release the lawyers if I were AMD.

    • Not to spread rumors but...

      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.
    • RTFA. Intel is merely telling its customers and potential customers exactly what it would mean if the rumors that were reported by OTHERS actually came to pass. Others in this case being Forbes. Since Intel can point to this article, exactly what kind of complaint would the FCC have?
  • It's nice to see technical and financial analysis combined in the same article. It's a lot better than "we heard this over dinner at a Taiwanese hotel" anyway.
  • I wonder if a merger between AMD and ATI would cause adverse side effects with the AMD / nVidia relationship. many people claim that the nVidia boards are amoungst the best for the AMD chip (i have no experience using them personally except in the Sun x2100 server which has a _seriously_ crap second interface in it). However I am sure there could be some adverse side effects which would potentially hamper one of AMDs biggest alternative chipset providers.

  • AMD-ATI not a good fit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mabhatter654 ( 561290 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:39PM (#15524971)
    It doesn't make sense for AMD to do this. nVidia has been their premier partner for years, why would they go ATI now after ATI just signed on to the VIIV deal with WinTel? nVidia would be better for the future. Both companies are mavericks in the industry, both have been bitten heavily by WinTel holding them back. AMD + nVidia could make the next Apple... or better! end-to-end PCs completely outside the WinTel homogeny... ATI is just a lackey to whatever agenda MS & Intel are peddling.

    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.

    • 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.

      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

    • It's because AMD can't afford NVIDIA. Read the article, dude.
    • Lets see. All my Compaq/HP servers have embeded ATI video cards and run Intel chipsets. My HP desktops run AMD chipset, and have embeded ATI video cards. All my clones have ASUS and AGP nVidia video cards.

      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)

    by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @12:41PM (#15524996)
    I've got a Radeon Express 200M in a laptop where an old ATI driver worked great with the 128MB of onboard RAM but later versions of the driver are crap. Newer versions of the ATI driver require setting both Video Sideport+UMA memory to 128MB each! And 3D performance was cut in half while also losing 128MB of system memory. So if this merger is true, if it does not mean better GNU/Linux drivers, I'll stick with Nvidia cards thankyou. And that might mean I go back to Intel CPUs if AMD forces the ATI video systems on equipment makers.

    LoB
  • I think AMD would have to be feeling very insecure before they pulled this move. They have always been very good at leaving room for partners, and not squeezeing them out.

    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)

    by gripen40k ( 957933 )
    Why would Intel be saying this? I would like to know what Intel people have to gain by spreading rumors like this, 'cause this type of rumor mongering isn't really hurting anyone's impression of AMD or ATI (not that intel would want to ruin ATI's image). When you think about it, it only makes you want to look to AMD in the future, and away from Intel's new line of 2-core processors. Hmmm, I'm not saying that a merger like this would be bad, I just really want to know what some of the Intel guys are up to...

  • From a Gamer (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Frightening ( 976489 )
    As an enthusiast I would not like to see this go down. AMD is great, but not everyone likes ATI. Buggy drivers, slow to catch on tech development(only recently got Pixel Shader 3.0) and relatively sensitive boards(personal experience)..these phrases are what come to mind.

    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)

      by CompSci101 ( 706779 )

      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

    • slow to catch on tech development(only recently got Pixel Shader 3.0)
      You do know that ATi was the first to have:

      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!

      • I agree with you that ATI seems to get the technology on their chips faster but they seem to have trouble more often getting those features to work correctly right off the bat. Does it matter if they have Pixel shader 1.4 on their chips first if I can't use it reliably?

        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)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @01:02PM (#15525246)
    Those two made a great team. Right?
  • A rumour is just a rumour, of course, but if anyone wasn't "reading tea leaves" and was passing this info on, then there is a very serious leak of inside information that could move markets. I am not a lawyer, but it's just this sort of crap that makes me think our markets are in need of some serious changes in the way information is spread.
    • I wonder what happens when some crazy Internet speculation turns out to be accurate? I mean what if Apple bought Nintendo next week (or vice versa), would the SEC investigate? Of course not, unless someone mysteriously invested a ton of money in one company or the other right before the merger. You can't be fined for idle speculation.
  • in the crosshairs. Intel could crush AMD and ATI in one shot if they started executing correctly.

  • It's a rumor, folks. Can you say, "sabotage" ? No need to spell it out; you just read it.

  • AMD+ATI Why not add SGI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pandishar ( 172163 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @01:18PM (#15525406)
    If AMD wanted to really shock Intel, why not just buy SGI too. Move Altix from Itanium to Opteron and cripple Intel even more. I just don't understand why this has not happened yet. It would be the death blow to Itanium in my opinion.
    • I think letting Intel carry on thinking there is just a bit of hope for the Itanium while it sells its miserable few Itaniums through SGI is working quite nicely at crippling it. Just keep pumping tons of R&D into that dead end!
  • If AMD did have the resources to aquire ATI, it would at least heighten the competition between AMD and intel, and ATI and gForce.
  • From their outward actions AMD seems to work with Nvidia, VIA and ATI all alike.

    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
  • I think a merger between these two can only work out well.. It means that I can probably expect much cooler desktop solutions (especially high-end/gamer solutions) from ATI/AMD, and if nothing else it pushes Intel and NVidia to be a little more competitive as the two rivals ramp up and combine their relative technologies to provide cheaper, more powerful hardware solutions.

    Of course, this does all revolve around that evil marketing hype word, Synergy..

  • I hope this is just a rumour (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Honestly, I know everyone has their own opinions and I don't want to incite an ATI vs. nVidia flamewar but I've had absolutely nothing but trouble with ATI kit, every single time I've tried it or been forced to use it at work the drivers have been horrible and buggy. I really just do not like ATI, frankly if ATI and AMD will merge despite being an avid AMD supporter I'd just have to switch to Intel/nVidia, frankly I really do dislike ATI kit that much, it's just always been so problematic for me and simply
  • AMD's HyperTransport + ATi graphics chipset = massive fucking amounts of bandwidth to GPU. Can we say "Fuck you, PCI Express?"
  • Wouldn't it be wonderful if the announced apples with intel chips was just a stepping stone for an AMD/ATI system.

  • New Company Name (Score:3, Funny)

    by TED Vinson ( 576153 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @03:04PM (#15526626)
    AMD + ATI = DAAMIT ???

    Appropriate, since that's what many people yell when the graphics lock up in the middle of a good game...

  • Think about it, AMDs official plan for world domination is two fold -

    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
  • Exploiting^H^H^H^H^Hring the ATI/AMD Rumor
    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.
  • I think the inverse of an AMD/ATI merger would be more logical.

    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

Slashdot Top Deals

UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn

Close