As rumoured about for weeks now, with the strongest rumours appearing a few days ago, AMD has bought ATI. “AMD, the world’s second-biggest semiconductor maker, agreed to buy ATI for USD 5.4 billion, adding computer-graphics chips to its product lineup. ATI shares surged. AMD Chief Executive Officer Hector Ruiz is making the biggest purchase in the company’s history to help escalate his challenge to Intel, which dominates the market for semiconductors. “
no really WOW! I didnt think they would do it. Now where it goes from here is the million dollar question that nobody can answer but I am sure we will see them try. Bring it on, cant wait.
I just hope that is not a bad news for us consumers. Only time will tell.
It is. Reduced competition is always bad news for consumers. The only thing worse that can happen now is if Intel and NVIDIA partner up or worse, merge.
It’s not a reduction of competition… It is the same as before…
ATI will still battle NVidia for the Graphic Performance Crown.
AMD will still battle Intel for the Graphic Performance Crown.
However…
We know that Intel didn’t renew their license for the Crossfire Technology. Future Intel Motherboard will not support Crossfire.
We know that ATI-Based Motherboard Chipset disapeared from Intel Roadmaps.
What will happen about the nVidia – AMD cooperation… I sure hope that it won’t crumble to dust.
OOps! Sorry… Made a mistake in a my previous post… I meant :
“AMD will still battle Intel for the Processor Performance Crown.”
instead of
“AMD will still battle Intel for the Graphic Performance Crown.”
That brings me to a OSNews specific question… How does one edit a comment? I mean, I do those kind of mistake often, I just want to correct them… But there is no ‘edit comment’ button.
How does one edit a comment? I mean, I do those kind of mistake often, I just want to correct them…
They don’t. Everyone else is perfect.
There should be one… let me post so I can refresh my memory…
Yep, there is. It’s where the “reply” would go.
Edited 2006-07-24 18:17
The ‘edit’ link never appear, I have to manually edit the URL to be able to edit it… Must some kind of glitch with my Firefox…
Also, there seem that I have a total of 20 minutes to edit a comment, after that, it will be forever frozen like that…
Am I the only to think it’s a shame?
Edited 2006-07-24 18:35
“The ‘edit’ link never appear, I have to manually edit the URL to be able to edit it… Must some kind of glitch with my Firefox…”
I presume you are using threaded mode? Took me a while ot figure that out, too. Click the little link at the bottom-left corner of your post to go to single-post view mode, and the edit link will show up. It makes no sense, but that’s the way it works.
It’s not a reduction of competition… It is the same as before…
However…
We know that Intel didn’t renew their license for the Crossfire Technology. Future Intel Motherboard will not support Crossfire.
We know that ATI-Based Motherboard Chipset disapeared from Intel Roadmaps.
What will happen about the nVidia – AMD cooperation… I sure hope that it won’t crumble to dust.
Thank you for describing the reduction of competition that you denied would happen in the same exact post.
It just mean a reduced cooperation and not a reduce competition. I mean, apart from performance application ( Also known as Game such as Oblivion ), who really needs Crossfire or SLI?
…all start tbecoming the harbingers of doom. Lets just wait and see the end results. There is a greater potential for better things to happen than there are bad things. I am sure these companies did their research on each other and decided on the best course of action. Two of my favorite cmopanies merging together can only result in one super-favorite company! I am a bit worried about the possible outcome of this amalgamation. Nforce platforms are after all quite popular and if Nvidia takes this personally, which I see them taking it that way, ugh…I dont even want to think about it!! I just want to see some amazing new really really fast products come out in the next year or so!
The linux driver will be a high priority for AMD.
…even better would be if they opened specs.
Intel opening theirs already at a good pace, this would really force all others too.
Edited 2006-07-24 17:42
As the proud owner of an AIW 9600XT, I have two words:
HEAR HEAR!
Pete sends…eom
I have an ATI Mobility 9800 256 mb on my laptop and for the desktop a recently purchased asus 1900xt with 512 mb ram and dual core Opteron.
I dunno. I wonder if the IGP will get better. Could they eventually replace graphics cards? Embedded solutions. Why couldn’t there be a Cell-like situation where there is no graphics card?
Perhaps according to this article : http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33219
There is a lot of ‘If’ inside those type of article, but it has merits.
What makes you think Cell doesn’t need a graphics card? Cell’s SPEs could replace shaders, but a graphics card has tons of other stuff (triangle setup, ROPs, alpha-blending, filtering), without which complex graphics would be quite slow.
I think also, that GPU is more specialized than Cell and can do “shader operations” faster.
mmhh.. the clash with Nvidia isn’t necessarily that bad.
ATI and Nvidia will go on competing for GPU as before…nothing changes there.
As for chipsets… As I see it, AMD could really gain if Ati could start designing for the mobile and servers segments.
Letting Nvidia rule the desktop segment wouldn’t be such a bit loss (well, it has already been ruling the AMD world with the nforce chipsets, right ?)
Now, having a coherent platform like intel does (chipset+cpu+gpu) and later puting some GPU/Physics functionnalities/cores on the CPU in the mid/long term future might be a good thing.
It is kinda funny to see AMD sell Spansion to focus on the cpu business and then to buy ATI and lose that focus. Yet, in the longterm, ATI will complement AMD much more than Spansion ever could.
Lakedaemon
Except that Intel doesn’t have a good GPU solution. I do not remember any benchmarks showing an Intel Graphic Cards as a leader in performance in Oblivion or Quake 4.
So? I don’t think Intel is targetting that market. I think they are targetting the vast majority of users who don’t play computer games all the time, and appreciate the reduction in the cost of a system by not having a high end video card.
I’m taking the optimistic route and hoping that AMD’s excellent history of compatability and reliability rub-off on ATI to some degree. These are two well-respected companies that don’t directly compete with eachother (unlike many mergers, HP-Compaq for one). This prevents any major overlapping product lines, and if intensive collaboration ensues – could create wonderful new ultra-compact silicon packages that can be designed from top-to-bottom by the same group (or at least, with more communication between teams). I’m happy with this news, it makes both companies (or more appropriately, this company) more valuable and innovative…
oh, NO!!! I’ve used the ‘I’ word! (somewhere in Redmond, a twitchy marketing lawyer is reading this for any infringement)
In a nutshell”
“Basically, GPUs are a dead end, and Intel is going to ram that home very soon. AMD knows this, ATI knows this, and most likely Nvidia knows this. AMD has to compete, if it doesn’t, Intel will leave it in the dust, and the company will die. AMD can develop the talent internally to make that GPU functionality, hunt down all the patents, licensing, and all the minutia, and still start out a year behind Intel. That is if all goes perfectly, and the projects are started tomorrow.”
I’m sort of a fan of the old days where everything was just on the CPU. It will make things cheaper.
so AMD bought ATi,
I assume ATi will run faster (and maybe better, too) on AMD boards.
So, if I assume there are about 50% nVidia “users” out there, there are two options:
1) they switch to ATi cards and use AMD boards to get the best performance
2) they are nvidia fanboys and switch to intel, to use nvidia in the future as well.
so maybe this trade could be bad for AMD (and as well for ATi?)
So, if I assume there are about 50% nVidia “users” out there, there are two options:
1) they switch to ATi cards and use AMD boards to get the best performance
2) they are nvidia fanboys and switch to intel, to use nvidia in the future as well.
You forgot thrird option.
If AMD specs will still be as open as they were to NVidia, one can simply buy AMD and NForce and still get as good support as always. This is my current plan, but it is conditioned with how open AMD specs will be.
More specific /*personal*/ result in case of AMD closing on NVidia or NVidia not making NForce for AMD
In case of Intel, AMD I preffer AMD (biased)
In case of NVidia, ATI I hate ATI (highly biased)
But when I would be forced to choose between going with NVidia or AMD, NVidia would clearly win (only thing AMD could do to persuade me go different way is opening graphics specs for ATI)
Edited 2006-07-24 18:42
Yep, I think NVidia/AMD will still have the same support they always have had. AMD isn’t going to want to lock everyone into only ATI cards, because a situation could occur where NVidia performance is superior and gamers would choose Intel even though Athlons were better.
What I think we’ll see is:
*Possibly better performance using ATI/AMD than any other combination, by using HT buses, etc. I doubt this will happen any time soon, though.
*An AMD platform like Centrino, using ATI chipset and IGP.
*NVidia still getting equal treatment from both Intel and AMD, although they may be at a slight disadvantage compared to both companies own products.
Or else they could just…ummm…use AMD and Nvidia as they are currently doing…
As a dedicated Linux user, this has the potential to be my worst nightmare. Plain and simple, i love AMD chips, but we all know ATI doesn’t even try to hide their lack of concern for creating a Linux Driver worth using.
This means that in the best case senario, ATI’s Alternative OS drivers are almost over night about to get significantly better, or a whole lot of Linux users are about to rediscover their love of Intel based chipsets. That could be an expensive endevor.
The laptop market is about to get a mojor shakedown, and what is Apple going to do. Could we indeed see AMD chips in the next macbook (not likely); ahh, more like Nvidia is about to become the chip of choice for all future embedded and Dessktop products.
Laptops are about to be flooded with Intel Chipsets for graphics, unless you buy a high end laptop, which will feature an NVidia card.
This is unbelievable!
1) I doubt AMD will shed any tears if the vast hordes of Linux users world-wide quit buying stuff from them LOL
2) Apple could probably just put an ATI card from AMD into the next MacBook. I can’t see AMD no longer shipping PCI-e graphics cards that are compatable with Intel, considering Intel dominates the market. Apple will be just fine, I assure you.
3) Why exactly will laptops all of the sudden all feature Nvidia and Intel chipsets, but not ATI? Could you elaborate?
You must not have seen the other hammer that dropped today with Intel pulling the license plug on ATI making itegrated chips for Intel boards. Your next laptop may have an intel chip in it, but it won’t have both an intel chip and amd ATI video card.
This is turning into a bad situation, because who knows what AMD will do with ATI, and even though you’ll still be able to drop an ATI card in any PCIE card slot, who knows what type of performance your going to get if you have an Intel MB. Also, what will happen between AMD and NVidia. I love NForce products,but I think those day are quickly comming to an end wth NVidia’s number one rival setting roost in AMD hen house. In the short term, NVidia’s stock is going to shoot up becuase they’ll grab all the Intel high end clinets (Apple for example), but over the long haul, Intel is going to focus more on their own grafic ventures and NVidia is going to find a vastly smaller market that they’re going to have to compete in. AMD and Intel with fight fercely with their integrated chipsets, with AMD having a good performance lead for a while (with ATI now in their pocket), while NVidia will be begging for somone to give them some business.
Why does everyone think that AMD and Intel are going to make their motherboards incompatible with NVidia/ATI cards? ATI and NVidia simply have too much market share to do that. Apple will continue using ATI video cards and Intel processors, and no one will be able to notice any difference. Not even Apple, as they were already using Intel IGPs when they didn’t have a video card.
I’m not sure whether this merger will end up being a good thing or a disaster, but what I am sure about is that ATI/NVidia will continue on as usual for the next several years. You aren’t going to be forced into one platform or the other, any more than you are forced to use Intel graphics now if you buy a P4.
If AMD really loved Linux I’d be booting off my new on board Nforce SATA raid instead of a third party pci ata raid card.
Every large company we’ve seen like ATT, Bellsouth, Intel, and many other companies have bought other companies in the past. Each of these companies have innovated much of the technology we use today. We’re coming to a new age of technology and innovation. As these companies grow, so does the technology.
Hopefully this buy will allow AMD to grow even further, as their technology is just superior quality. I’m hoping they will improve their ATI cards even further, software, and be able to put out wickedly awesome cards in the future.
Go innovation!
“Hopefully this buy will allow AMD to grow even further, as their technology is just superior quality”
Superior? Equivalent is more appropriate in this case. I have seen no proof that AMD CPUs are inherently superior to their Intel counterpart… They both do their job well!
With the AMD Price drops, it like it’s 1999 again when the K7 first got out. It was cheaper than it’s Intel Competitor!
As for the main subject… The AMD-ATI will surely bring great technology… I just hope there is no backstabbing that would benefit nobody (Especially us, the consumers)
I can easily imagine some backstabbing having AMD/ATI Video card incompatible with Nvidia/Intel Chipset or NVidia Video Card incompatible with ATI/AMD Chipset, etc…
I just hope that I am wrong…
the only backstabbing I might be worried about is AMD and Apple fighting. Nvidia completely obliterated any chances of getting their chipset in any future apple products. Apple uses ATI and Intel in all their computers. My worry is if AMD controls ATI, who says they’ll still keep the arrangement with Apple? Maybe they’ll come out and say, “Use our chip, or we’ll stop supporting you”
Just a thought. I hope this doesn’t happen.
actually, right now every single x86 mac is running Intel integrated GPUs…
The only chance for an outsider to gett in will be when the x86 based Powermacs(or whatever they’ll be called) come out.
CPU performance: Well, I have no preferences other than raw performance for the price, and right now Intel has it, and will likely hang onto it for at least a year. AMD’s price drops have logn since been warranted, and Core 2 Duo forced the issue.
Intel & GPUs: IMNHO Intel could use all the helpt hat they can get on their GPUs as they just aren’t very good performers, and aren’t likely to be without some good outside help…
Conglomerations & “innovation”: Sorry to burst your bubble, but we haven’t seen any real innovation in quite some time now. We’re living in a world of play-it-safe evolution, and mergers of largish companies into even larger ones only re-inforces the evolutionary trends and also tends to slow down those evolutionary changes(if the merger works out, ow one ocmpany disappears totally).
nVidia bought out ULI earlier in the year, potentially with an eye to cutting off ATI chipsets, now AMD has been bought by their best supported platform manufacturer. I’d hazard it’s highly likely that Intel will buy them, or they’ll focus primarily on Intel products, which will, essentially, limit competition. It’ll be interesting to see if future AMD/ATI chipset support nVidia SLI modes and vice versa.
Intel: licensed crossfire? I was always under the impression that they just set up the mb bus links and the ATI software was able to make use of them as if they were a purposefully designed crossfire setup.
AMD: AMD is in trouble, and they know it. They needed better mb chipsets, integrated gpu mbs, etc. along with a K8L that can at least match Core 2 Duos. Without most of these things, they were done for, or would have had to gone back to eking out a living selling flash memory…
actually, right now every single x86 mac is running Intel integrated GPUs…
Well, apart from the iMac (the first x86 Mac) and the MacBook Pro (the first x86 Mac notebook); i.e., only the budget models (Mac Mini, MacBook) have integrated GPUs.
Intel & GPUs: IMNHO Intel could use all the helpt hat they can get on their GPUs as they just aren’t very good performers, and aren’t likely to be without some good outside help…
It’s not about ability; it’s about motivation. Intel has no reason to try to compete in the niche high-end graphics space where profits are thin, especially since it dominates the overall GPU market.
This merger may in the (distant) future produce benefits for GPU-based proccessing offloading. If the GPU and the CPU are manufactured by the same company, there may be a trend to converge the technologies, pushing the GPU towards more generic processing to relieve the CPU. I’m aware this is already happenning in some ways, I mean hat this may be even more of an incentive for this path.
Edited 2006-07-24 19:28
There goes any hope of laptops/notebooks with Intel CPUs and ATI video…
🙁
I don’t think it’s possible. They have licensed IP from their parterns, so opening specs may be subject to the IP’s licenses.
oh please, that is a nonexcuse.
“Hey company we licensed stuff from, we want to open source our driver… you have no control over this to begin with, but even if you try to fight it, we cancel our agreement and go license from your competitor”
People forget that Ati also makes the GPU for the Xbox 360 and for the Wii…so AMD can do something with that… maybe for the next generation, mobile computing and for HTX cards.
Really???
Really???
It doesn’t work…
Now they can introduce 2 sockets on motherboards, one for CPU and another one for GPU. I guess that GPU is even more important than CPU where most modern OSs are using greatly the GPU to render its eye candy, money generating new trend in OS industry. Good examples are Apple OSX, windows vista.
I have recorded CPU usage in at least 20 computers for normal customers where I have found the usage of CPU (called Average Load Of CPU / Day) was around 2%.
For gaming I would prefer Console than computers, for stability reasons mainly.
I don’t understand why industry didn’t introduce the 2 sockets model which will reduce the price of manufacturing and the prices on customers. Even memory will be sharable between the two processing beasts. and upgrading memory will improve the performance of both Graphics and Integer processing.
For me, being a diehard Linux user this merger does confuse me some. To me Intel has always looked as the bad company for the extremely high prices, the inherent lack of innovation in there cpu’s and chipsets and the blue and white colors :/ uhg
AMD for me was always the good company cause of decent prices, especially when compared to performance and nvidia leading the way with them with there chipsets. Btw, AMD’s colors suck imo aswell.
I have always bought nvidia gpu’s and chipsets for the excellent support they provide in Linux. I never ever though about ATI cause of there well known lack of support but even more obvious is there lack of performance especially in a pure opengl environment.
What I am afraid of is if nvidia doesn’t pay as much attention to the chipsets for AMD performance wise or stops making them for AMD completely. Since I know I absolutely have to have an nvidia gpu for my OS depending on performance in my games Intel cpu’s on nvidia chipsets just became a whole lot more interesting to me. We all know using an nforce5 chipset with an nvidia gpu = instant stable OC’s because of the new technology they are using. I know there hasn’t been much of a performance boost in real terms, but nvidia imo is setting up an unbeatable combination for themselves wich will take some time for an AMD ATI setup to catch up with, especially under Linux.
nothing will happen; ATI will keep doing just as they did. NVidia as well.
Intel and AMD will continue to battle for the markets (Mobile, DEsktop and Server)…
Stop speculating… wait and see. They probably didn’t even transfer the money yet
via and S3!!! This is the model AMD wants to follow.
CPU manufacturer and integrated solution manufacturer. Now, I hope to see Matrox go with IBM on Cell and Silicon Motion with BLX. No space left for abominable closed driver 3DLABS.
All the news are good but any news about my beloved XGI? I have a 3Vxt.
OH the PS3 does have a GPU. Oh I feel stupid now.
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/playstation-3/playstation-3-full-specs…
Although,
http://gametomorrow.com/blog/index.php/2005/11/30/gpus-vs-cell/
‘now that two top notch core hardware components are powering our products…’
Looks like AMD bought the wrong company here. It’s nVidia that makes the really competitive chipsets for AMD processors, not ATI. (At least on my own experience ATI also seems to have generally more buggy graphics drivers than nVidia, but that doesn’t necessarily have to continue.) Buying ATI and probably driving nVidia into the arms of Intel looks like a pretty counterproductive move for AMD, at least on face value. If Intel and nVidia get into bed together how likely is it that nVidia will continue to produce top-rank chipsets for AMD processors?
There may be another angle to this but at the moment I can’t see it. Combine this with Intel’s new Core 2 processors and nVidia’s superior chipset and graphics driver capabilities — where are the benefits for AMD?
I have to wonder about the impact on Intel here. Seems to me like they just got more dependant on Nvidia so this deal might actually turn out favourably for Nvidia as well.
Maybe this strengthened Intel-Nvidia dependancy was one of the motivations for AMD as well, weakening their main competitor by a “side effect”.
Maybe there’s some hope for GPL ATI drivers now that they have a bigger “mother company” and don’t have to worry about their precious IP so much.
But only time can tell, you never know what kind of drugs those managers took back in business school ;P
I hope that this merge will change their attitude. See this post by Dave Airlie: http://airlied.livejournal.com/31180.html