Submitted by AMD, the No. 2 supplier of computer processors, is close to a deal to buy graphics chip maker ATI for USD 5.5 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday. Any such deal would shake up the processor industry, which is witnessing a battle over market share between AMD and rival Intel.
If the rumours actually turn into fact this will either help AMD, or pull them over the edge into the abyss.
In terms of fit and feel you’d have to say nVidia suit AMD better, so there would be work to be done with ATI. However, I doubt whether nVidia’s relationship with AMD would change much. The vast majority of takeovers and mergers end in either catastrophic failure or with not so much as whimper as to what’s happened, and it can take years for the parent company to recover. AMD need to tread cautiously.
“this will either help AMD, or pull them over the edge into the abyss.”
No , this will only help them be more competitive against Intel total solution. Chipset + CPU + Video.
“In terms of fit and feel you’d have to say nVidia suit AMD better”
Wrong , Nvidia does not have the range of product ATI as. ATI as alwys been underated but there portfolio is more diversified then Nvidia.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/products.html
http://www.ati.com/products/index.html
“so there would be work to be done with ATI.”
Nope , AMD and ATI where working on integrating some thechnology already. Thats wher ethis merger Idea come from.
” doubt whether nVidia’s relationship with AMD would change much.”
They are going to be competitor in some segments.
“The vast majority of takeovers and mergers end in either catastrophic failure or with not so much as whimper as to what’s happened,”
Thats a lie based on no real accurate information , take all the current leader and you will see they have made takeovers and mergers to get where they are and the rest of the market does it a lot at a smaller level.
“and it can take years for the parent company to recover.”
Thats another lie , good manager , who know what they are doing can turn around a company in debt to profitability. Most problems come from mixing manager who dont know what they are doing or affecting sales people in development function or the opposite and loosing the good one you had because you cut some dual post and play politics.
“AMD need to tread cautiously.”
The current #1 CPU buy the current #1 GPU maker and other graphic chipset maker.
Console war this turn is ATI victory.
* Xbox 360
* Wii
Notebook war ATI wins
Low end , mid end , high end.
Very few Notebook ship with Nvidia GPU or chipset ( Intel is actually winning on chipset )
Desktop sales are in decline , most Brand name board ship with ATI GPU and chipset when ther enot Intel’s.
Apple Macbook ship Intel 950 and ATI Mobility Radeon X1600.
iMac ATI Radeon X1600 graphics
Nvidia as better products in some category , but they dont ship or get selectionned by brand name and OEM makers.
ATI as always been superior in hardware but where plagued by drivers , now they are acceptable and mostly superior this days.
Just curious but are you a big fan of ATI? I mean it is a great company and all but do you have facts to back up what you claim about ATI having sales all around as you seem to indicate? Dells are almost exclusively Nvidia. Only their 20 inch portable has an ati and that too a measly ati x1800 which seems to be thrown in as an afterthought so as not to eat into their xps machine sales. Then Nvidia has nforce 5 based mobos and also Tyan is almost exclusively Nvidia isnt it? I dont see ATI having that kind of a platform like the nforce from ATI. And in terms of sales and performance, from what I see Nvidia beat ATI the last 2 rounds with products that run cooler and faster. Granted ATI still has the lead on IQ but that still isnt enough. Also in the notebook war how did ATI win?!
“Just curious but are you a big fan of ATI?”
I am a big fan of truth and accuracy.
“do you have facts to back up what you claim about ATI having sales all around”
Yes , look up ATI stock report and there list of partners. Nvidia used to be the only chip for most of ATI current partners , but somehow failed to deliver for some older products , hence the switch to ATI :
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=know…
“Dells are almost exclusively Nvidia.”
No , Dell is almost all Intel on low ends and Ati on mid and high end , exept on a few models.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/desktops?c=us&cs=…
http://www.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs…
It used to be all Nvidia , but not nowadays.
“Only their 20 inch portable has an ati and that too a measly ati x1800 which seems to be thrown in as an afterthought so as not to eat into their xps machine sales. ”
No , but then again , you dont know what your talking about , there is three reasons that can explain why ATI is there :
1) Nvidia was not interested or dont have a product ready for it.
2) ATI total solution was better and working ( Feature , energy saving , drivers. )
3) ATI offered a price and offer Dell could not pass up and Nvidia could or where not interested in matching.
“measly ati x1800”
http://www.ati.com/products/mobilityradeonx1800/specs.html
I will take what you cluelesly call measly any day over
Intel low end or ATI IGP.
“Then Nvidia has nforce 5”
Wich as fallen behind compared to where nforce 2 – 3 -4 where.
“Tyan is almost exclusively Nvidia isnt it?”
I dont follow Tyan , but based on your previous false comment I would have to say no.
http://www.tyan.com/support/html/drivers_support.html
look at Embedded VGA
“I dont see ATI having that kind of a platform like the nforce from ATI.”
http://www.ati.com/products/integrated.html
They ship in most brand name computers when its not Intel …
“And in terms of sales and performance, from what I see Nvidia beat ATI the last 2 rounds with products that run cooler and faster.”
cheaper , faster , better , more energy saving.
I dont recall the cowdunk bulshit false information from the suryad FUD and lies consultancy to be of any value to me , or anyone living in 2006 and in the real world , sorry , its not personnal , its all about truth and accuracy.
” Granted ATI still has the lead on IQ but that still isnt enough. ”
ATI is like GNU/Linux and Open Source , it dominate in everything exept a few market where its second or third , but ( insert bad adjective here ) people like you concentrate on very specific details out of there control. Driver , hardware and Intelectual property and innovation dont grow by itself over time or on tree even do you believe otherwise.
“Also in the notebook war how did ATI win?!”
Try finding actual notebook that ship with NVIDIA GPU and chipset.
I am impressed by the fact you know two company ( Dell , Tyan ) that make hardware , no , wait I was joking here.
Do some real fact finding and cheking , for a change , marketing and publicty and your friends are always wrong or border line lies and not accurate source.
Hehe looks like you took it personally. All I know is when one starts attacking other people personally, they are not worth a retort. Go look up any benchmark or review and you will see that in terms of power draw, Nvidia is most efficient. Alienwares ship with Nvidia and ATI but according to you you said “Try finding actual notebook that ship with NVIDIA GPU and chipset.”
http://www.alienware.com/product_pages/notebook_all_default.aspx
More on desktops and SLI and Nforce platform:
http://www.alienware.com/product_pages/desktop_all_default.aspx
Anyway Dells sell Nvidia here:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xps_m1710?…
Isnt the XPS one of their bestsellers?
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=11345
Scroll down to the power consumption section.
In terms of workstation mobos:
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/opteron.html
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/xeon.html
No ATI yet…
I am not saying ATI is bad or anything. It just seems they are a bit behind Nvidia. Also if you go read forums and so on the general consensu is that while ATI is very impressive, most people when building computers as a general choice are going for the nforce mobo and the sli or single nvidia combination. ATI mobos are great but the southbridge issue left a bad taste in people’s mouth I guess. I am building a new computer…or buying one…and I am getting it from VoodooPC and it is going to be an all ATI system. I like ATI and I like ATI Crossfire. It still has a bit of rough edges around it but that I can deal with.
All I can say is I didnt personally attack you and so you shouldnt be personally attacking me. But whatever…I guess people like you are why wars and so on exist even in this day and age! Relax man and take a chill pill.
“Hehe looks like you took it personally.”
Because you made it personnal , when someone question your integrity and call you a fanactic who discard fact , when that very person is the one who does that , yes Its personnal , but its not like I would really have been any nicer to you anyway. I aint a nice person.
“Go look up any benchmark or review and you will see that in terms of power draw, Nvidia is most efficient.”
Not on the newer cards , but the deal maker is not there , ATI is crushing Nvidia , on support and price. Put yourself in the shoe of one company who order 100 000 cards at 400$ + per card ( Thats a 400k Deal ) , both are roughly the same in feature , exept ATI as some inegration with new hardware because of its larger partner base outside video cards and offer you more support for the same price , and then they say to win the contract , only for you where going to drop the price at 300$ per unit for ATI branded cards and give you the branding and marketing support for free ( little sticker that say ATI , etc … ), Nvidia being only a chip maker and not a card maker , cant or dont choose to compete.
“Alienwares ship with Nvidia and ATI but according to you you said “Try finding actual notebook that ship with NVIDIA GPU and chipset.” ”
First of all Alienware is a High price gamer niche player , but then I am man enough to say when I made a msitake in not being precise enough , so yes your right Alienware ship Nvidia more then other company , I never meant they dont ship or dont exist , but when you go across the leader and the one that follow them :
Dell
HP
Acer
Lenovo
Gateway
etc …
You see that Some Nvidia models are shipping , not all of them , but that ATI ship 10 time more , you also see that on lower model its almost all Intel.
Also If you take one GPU or chipset and look the numbers of partner and shipping product , even do Nvidia as the better Benchmark , on number of partner and product shipping and selling , ATI is in front 10 to 1.
“Anyway Dells sell Nvidia here”
I showed you the full home user range , you show me one model with the higher end card , thats what I meant by “but ( insert bad adjective here ) people like you concentrate on very specific details out of there “
“Isnt the XPS one of their bestsellers? ”
No , it used to be , when other where no match but people like chatting over gaming and thats why there missing there target this turn around , no integrated webcam , the low end model that you pay 15$ in monthly payment is their bestsellers.
“Scroll down to the power consumption section.”
Thats , someone one the net using default setting , ATI as included powersaving setting in its driver.
“Now I am very disappointed. The driver installation seems to be very unstable. Also it seems nobody tested these cards on an ASUS board, where you have to change a BIOS setting to get the cards stable. The performance is absolutely not what you would expect from a “technology leader”, “best of CES” product. In some benchmarks two ATI video cards were a great deal faster, even at the high resolutions which NVIDIA says are the key benefits of QuadSLI.”
“In terms of workstation mobos: … No ATI yet… ”
Again targetting very specifics and not the full range , on your term , I showed you the driver pages with ATI drivers. You say it was all Nvidia. But wait I dont follow Tyan , means I dont go looking for below top 20 hardware maker overclocker gamer niche market player , I know of them , there not shipping enough numbers to be of any consequence , your not likely to find them in any other company computer or brand name computer , I could be wrong , but its an Intel , ASUS and MSI world.
“It just seems they are a bit behind Nvidia”
Look you need a reality check :
Microsoft windows is shit compared to Mac OS X and GNU/Linux , yet its the one that get shipped the most as default on computer maker hardware , GNU/Linux beat the number of boxe sold by Microsoft in stores globally a long time ago ( Microsoft is one vendor , with GNU/Linux any twit with the knowledge can ship the OS rebranded ), but more people buy turnkey computers , Mac OS X even do it can run on all hardware is scrapped and kept only on APPLE hardware costing them billions in sales.
Porsche , Lexus , BMW , Ferrari , Lamborghini are all better then honda , most people drive honda.
ACER 8200 beat the Dell XPS and Apple MacbookPro ( Mac OS X and its software is not going to affect most best hardware looking people choice. Yet XPS beat Mac on paiement pricing 1000 time over 1 and MAc Beat everyone else on MArketing and publicity , most people dont know the Acer exist.
Its not always the best thechnology that wins. ATI as always had better hardware , but there driver where shitty , now this days they have decent drivers , and its Nvidia who as problem shipping on high numbers ( they dont have the FABS , neither does there partners).
“most people when building computers as a general choice are going for the nforce mobo and the sli or single nvidia combination.”
Yes , but those are people who cant be swayed by a couple of grand to take on another brand , they know what they are doing and whant the best , with Brand name and OEM and big number white OEM its another mather , save them 100k , and they will pick your offer. Your talking about a niche market that dont make up the entire market its a very very small percentage of people.
I aint nice with everyone equally , it was not personnal or affecting for me , you made it personnal , I joined you on your terms , Sorry , I can dish dirt and take it , if you cant , then , dont.
“I guess people like you are why wars and so on exist even in this day and age”
Your probably right , but not in the way you think , but then its the story of my life I believe others to be better then me at doing the job , turns out most of the time I was fooled by incompetent.
Take. A. Chill. Pill.
Sheesh, it’s like your first born son was ATI, and later he married a beautiful girl named AMD, and you are an overly protective father with a shotgun and a bad attitude.
See what I’m saying?
Me neither.
Great long post! Didnt read it all but I did not make it personal. Please reread my original post where I just asked if you are a big fan of ATI. That is a normal simple question. I am a big fan of ATI but I am well aware of its drawbacks. You just painted a great picture of ATI that I felt was not correct. Thats all. Never did I make it personal or call you a fanatic. The Internet is a place to exchange information in a calm and professional manner IMHO. Obviously you misunderstood me. But whateveer.
ATI as always been superior in hardware but where plagued by drivers , now they are acceptable and mostly superior this days.
Only superior if all you do is play Direct 3D games. NVIDIA’s OpenGL stack continues to be miles ahead of ATI’s.
“Only superior if all you do is play Direct 3D games.”
No , try more then Quake 3 like benchmark for a change.
“NVIDIA’s OpenGL stack continues to be miles ahead of ATI’s.”
Thats driver , and no its not mile ahead and ATI as made great improvments lately.
This deal is potentially useful and potentially dangerous for both companies. This move definitely is related to Intel’s Core Duo victory over anything AMD could offer. I wished the merger have happened between AMD and nvidia instead. nvidia is way much more advanced than ATI in drivers programming obviously seen from their driver’s stability and features over almost all kind of OSs.
Anyway, time will tell if this is a good or bad thing; but in general any merge will translate to being more bad to consumers and market than the opposite, simply because it narrows if not kills competition.
This move definitely is related to Intel’s Core Duo victory over anything AMD could offer.
Right….. And where do you get this idea from? I don’t see how ATI is related.
The Core Duo has only just arrived, and it’s really debatable whether it provides a real performance advantage over anything AMD currently has, already out in the world today, in the way Intel are suggesting. This is particularly true when comparing server chips like the Opteron. Personally, I’d be waiting to see what happens with AMD’s four core and when they get their current architectures over to 65 nm for a comparison.
Edited 2006-07-23 10:50
———–and it’s really debatable whether it provides a real performance advantage over anything AMD currently has————–
Actually, there’s little debate there. I’ve been an AMD person for the longest time and got alot of fun out of giving heck to Intel users over the K7 and K8 chips, but Intel truely has a winner here.
The benches are almost all in Intel’s favor. They also have the advantage with power usage.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795
It’s gonna come down to price. But if you want the absolute fastest on the block regardless of the price, it’s intel. That hasn’t been true for a really long time.
nvidia is way much more advanced than ATI in drivers programming obviously seen from their driver’s stability and features over almost all kind of OSs.
I prefer ATI drivers under Windows, so you can’t say that nvidia is “way much more advanced.” They simply put a lot more effort into the alternative OSs.
I do think ATI has a lot to gain from this merger – I’m not certain exactly why AMD would want it, though.
——–nvidia is way much more advanced than ATI in drivers programming obviously seen from their driver’s stability and features over almost all kind of OSs.————–
The last time this rumor popped it’s head up(And trust me, I’m *NOT* holding my breath) I had mentioned that I hope AMD will take the proper steps and open source some of the specs for older ATI chips.
I realize we won’t see OSS drivers for that whiz bang new R700 family of chips, but it’s time that something more than R200 was OSS’ed.(I’d love to get my hands on an R300)
AMD seems to be alot more friendly with the open source crowd than ATI have been.
Just a thought………………
This move definitely is related to Intel’s Core Duo victory over anything AMD could offer.
And your logic behind this is?
>>I do think ATI has a lot to gain from this merger – I’m not certain exactly why AMD would want it, though.
Very simple. ATI is providing the chipset for the XBOX360 and other OEM deals. This would be a in for the next console, to use AMD based processors.
Dano.
Very simple. ATI is providing the chipset for the XBOX360 and other OEM deals. This would be a in for the next console, to use AMD based processors.
I’m not sure how relevant this is.
The XBox had Nvidia graphics in it, and was swapped for ATI.
There is no reason to believe that this swap would not happen in the future.
Though, having a CPU and graphics chip from the same company could be very tempting.
Who are the most loyal to AMD?
– Gamers.
Don’t forget the other big group of AMD supporters.
-Linux Users
And big server companies….Sun loves the Opteron and so do IBM and HP. AMD been mmaking them a lot of money lately.
I think IBM should just set up a Cell processor computer with Lenovo, like Playstation 3, as it doesn’t need any graphics card and is fully Physics capable; open source, as well as running on Linux PROPERLY.
But maybe this will help ATI’s support for *NIX better. Since AMD seems more *NIX friendly. I think it’s for the better to eliminate these barrons all together from controlling the graphics industry. Break it up.
IBM does not control Lenovo. The cell is not a PC processor. No large consumer market (i.e. Lenovo customers) cares about doing physics calculations or graphics on linux. What else? None of these chip manufacturers or graphics cards manufacturers see Linux as a worthwhile investment in the desktop space. They think it’s valuable in servers, but the market just isn’t large enough to devote serious efforts to. And the graphics market requires advanced chips which pretty much rules out small players and leaves us in the oligopoly we have now.
One plus of this merger: ATI has access to more advanced fabbing technology than it did before.
Seeing as AMD make the only serious modern embedded x86 chip, the Geode, maybe they could make a system-on-a-chip with an ATI GPU?
Would be good for UMPC’s, tablets, etc.
Seeing as AMD make the only serious modern embedded x86 chip, the Geode, maybe they could make a system-on-a-chip with an ATI GPU?
ATi already makes such a thing – the Xilleon
it’s based on the Mips ISA, but this fact is of minor relevance, as in the embedded sector resident software is most often custom compiled and built
Edited 2006-07-23 13:39
There are some interesting issues here that will be interesting to watch play out. ATI is by far the biggest leader in Mobile graphics chipsets, they have been a long time leader in providing a low power high quality chipset for notebooks/laptops etc. AMD could really gain from bringing that company on board to learn and gain the experience and market place that ATI have in the mobile community. I think that is one of the major areas where Intel has absolute dominance, even with the introduction of the Turion etc by AMD its still maybe 5% of the market and I think that could even be an exageration. I personally use Turion X2 chips in my home computers and love them, but i struggle to find any decent laptops or notebook computers that run them. When I recently looked to purchase a new notebook, i struggled to find many systems, often the AMD based desktops would have smaller battery life not because the chips are more power hungry but because the batteries that the vendors are supplying in those systems have fewer cells etc than the direct competiting model with an intel processor. In some cases I found that the batteries could be swapped between the intel and amd models to improve the battery life of the system, That is what I ended up doing for my new system. Battery life is now 30% longer than it was with the standard version.
I really don’t like mergers, they are never ever good.
Instead of merging the two companies should do more cross licensing and co-develop chips rather than becoming 1 entity.
Hypothetical situation:
With the advent of multi-core chips, the R&D labs at AMD have been experimenting with the next logical step: 1 CPU core and 1 graphics core. Their acquisition of ATI is a direct result of this groundbreaking new design. AMD doesn’t have their own graphics core however, so they must buy someone who does.
I can envision a brand new arhitecture being created by ATI/AMD with only one Processing Unit for both graphics and general purpose computing. Interesting if true…
… I think the next logical step is two CPU cores and 1 graphics core, IMO.
I don’t think you’d be able to fit enough video RAM on a single chip, though … heheh …
True, 2 CPUs and 1 GPU would probably be the next step. Maybe even have one CPU, one GPU, and one hybrid.
The GPU of video cards (at least the ones I’ve seen) don’t have RAM on-die either so I don’t see that as being a hindrance.
Ram definately wouldn’t be a problem for a CPU/GPU hybrid chip from AMD since their CPUs already have an onboard memory controller. I can see there being either shared memory, or motherboards with 3 ram sockets on them. Two system (dual channel) and one for the GPU.
look at the future HT 3.0 spec sometime and you will see how AMD’s coherent hypertransport will support domain-specific processors, such as GPUs.
I think this is less about nvidia vs ati vs duo core, and more about Mr.Vista..Everyone seems to be neglecting to consider that is they can squeeze a 128mb ati card into a laptop. Imagine what they could squeeze onboard a full size MB. Can you say “Vista Ready” onboard graphics cards…The majority of onboard video in OEM machines are Intel, to run full blown Aero, i gather it will take alot more juice that the current say Intel 915 chip has to offer, but I’d put good money on a ATI onboard chipset that could handle it with no problems…I say its a strategic move that has more to do with the upcoming vista than anything else…
to run full blown Aero, i gather it will take alot more juice that the current say Intel 915 chip has to offer, but I’d put good money on a ATI onboard chipset that could handle it with no problems
The 915 (GMA 900 series) is a very old solution (available to the mass market two years ago, in fact). Yesterday’s GMA 950s and today/tomorrow’s [X]3000 chips provide more than enough power to run Aero Glass without a hitch.
LOL, 950 is same old 915 overclocked a bit
X3000 as being based on PowerVR core is (hopefully) much better
And if they opensourced the driver, and really went to work investing in improving it, pushed their production facility to the max, to provide atleast 85% of the performance of ATI/Nvidia top of the line hardware, at 1/10 of the price, Intel could use economies of scale to force Nvidia and Ati to open themselves up or get squashed by mass produced, good enough graphics chips.
Gosh I wish there were more graphic languages.
was there not some talk a while ago about amd and ati playing around with the idea of putting a GPU into a hypertransport socket?
if that works, i think it may even top the idea of a mxm module for laptops
anyone know of many cheap laptops that are mxm-module enabled?
“nvidia is way much more advanced than ATI in drivers programming obviously seen from their driver’s stability and features over almost all kind of OSs. ”
Could be, but nVidia is very-very protective about their IP – therefore there’s only effective support of the OS’ that nVidia personally seems fit to support, namely MS-Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. Otherwise you’re forced to rely on reverse engineered drivers. Not even under NDA will nVidia deliver newer specs to third party developers.
This AMD+ATI could bring some an interesting laptop solution, a competitor to Centrino.
Well, if this actually happens, I will never buy an AMD ever again. I love AMD for their design; personally I believe that they understand computing better than Intel (at least AMD doesn’t make your living room roast when the pc is on!)
But AMD buying ATI… ATI still to this day has yet to make decent drivers. And by decent I mean that the new drivers should not add MORE bugs/issues than the previous fixes… AMD buying ATI for me, personally, means that AMD is not realising just how unprofessional AMD is.
Intel, I may return to you!
AMD has some great software people working for them and have been very good about making specifications available. Hopefully these will carry over to ATI now that they’re one.
I hoped that, but I work with ATI all day (I’m a games tester) and believe me, I have heard better lies come out of a three-year old.
We explain to them that a particular game feature (can’t name because of obvious reasons…) was not working because of their drivers. Here is a “snapshot” of the conversation:
– Us: This game feature does not work because of your drivers.
– ATI: How do you know it’s our drivers?
– Us: The feature works with nVidia… current AND legacy.
– ATI: Then it’s your code!
– Us: No, because we digged in the debug code and “explained ourselves”
– ATI: You’re lying, anything to make nVidia sound better! (this was the guys actual comment…)
A month later, the game is released and ATI released a patch in their drivers to fix their flaw. Nice to know how “professional” they are.
“- ATI: You’re lying, anything to make nVidia sound better! (this was the guys actual comment…)”
Actually AMD is a hardware maker, *NOT* a software designer. From a HW point of view, AMD products, as ATI products are just impressive. To the coders (the people you makes the SW) to make their part of the work. If these people are not good enough, release crappy code, then fire them, and switch for decent coders…
As the guy who gave the silly reply just above. This one should be trashed first in example ! It’s not the first time ATI prooved they own bad SW guys, but this one is worse, he cannot even recognize things are to be improved on his side.
Kochise
Edited 2006-07-24 12:31
“…means that AMD is not realising just how unprofessional AMD is”
huh?
Thanks for modding me down (I assume you did?)
Look at my previous reply for why I used the word “unprofessional”; although I could’ve explained it before, I did use the word “personally” for a reason…
I think he was more confused with the “…means that AMD is not realising just how unprofessional AMD is” comment. Surely you meant “…means that AMD is not realising just how unprofessional ATI is” ??
I think this may also be a way for AMD to get their chips sold in ‘media center’ machines like Xbox, or other consoles. By locking into a GPU maker, AMD has an established video interface they can optimize for, and hopefully make their all-in-one devices even better. ATI has a working implementation of TV-out-ready hardware, and AMD can provide the remaining CPU and chipset – so essentially, they have control over the entire hardware system much like the Sony, Toshiba, IBM Cell/PS3 project. If they take a similar approach to the STI group, AMD may incorporate new GPU-like features into their Opteron (or next phase) cores like the Cell does – that would be terrific.
A Silicon Valley slugfest between Intel and AMD should serve up some bargains for computer buyers
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060716/24chips.htm
just about every AMD motherboard has a ATI video chip on it if it has video on board, this means AMD makes a bit more proffit off the motherboards.
Does ATI have relationships and contracts or own one with chip fab plants. AMD can’t expand if they can’t mae enough chips.
tighter intergration with the GPU faster benchmarks. I saw at least one website benchmark gaming on AMD vs. Dual cores and there were no diffence because the GPU was the bottleneck or possibly just the link between the GPU and CPU.
patents that AMD wants or needs.
maybe they want to do lowend cpus with intergrated graphics.
ATI has some problems making decent chipsets for AMD. Now if AMD buy ATI, I think that ATI will finally get enough support to offer AMD more self integrated chipset that can compete with Intel’s Centrino offering.
Also the HyperTransport bus and the new ATI Ring shaped bus are really close. So I guess a new kind of GPU that will be 100% HyperTransport compatible would follow and interconnect in a multiprocessor (Athlon, Opteron, …) configuration as a new calculation node.
With new physic drivers relying on the GPU (instead of a specialized processor), a better integration in the calculation process (HyperTransport vs AGP/PCI-X), I think AMD+ATI will blast everything currently existing
Kochise, Xfingers (crossing finger)
Just read on http://www.hardmac.com that the deal between AMD and ATI is done for 5.4 Billion US dollars. You can check the news at http://www.hardmac.com and also at http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/about/amd-ati.html.