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Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor

Posted by Zonk on Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:57 AM
from the so-happy-together dept.
AMD Graphics Software Businesses Hardware
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.'"
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[+] Technology: AMD-ATI Merger on the Way? 215 comments
miketronics writes "Forbes.com is reporting the possibility of a merger between industry heavyweights AMD and ATI. This is largely based on a 'prediction on recent checks in the PC food chain' by industry analyst Apjit Walia. A move like this might give AMD some leverage over Intel, who has been slashing prices lately to compete with a major surge in AMD popularity in both the home and server markets. Despite AMD's recent gains Intel still has a dominant market share and consumers have high hopes for their upcoming Conroe processors."
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Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor 50 Comments More /

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

    by hxnwix (652290) on Tuesday June 13 2006, @11:00AM (#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, @11:08AM (#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 :-)
    • 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
      • 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, @11:21AM (#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.

      • 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.
        • 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]

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

        by Monster_Juice (939126) on Tuesday June 13 2006, @11:57AM (#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.

      • 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.

      • 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
      • 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]).


    • 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.

  • Packaging? (Score:5, Funny)

    by general scruff (938598) on Tuesday June 13 2006, @11:13AM (#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, @11:17AM (#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.
  • 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.
    • > 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, @11:19AM (#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, @11:26AM (#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.

  • 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, @11:39AM (#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.

  • if it doesn't result in better Linux drivers, BFD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Locutus (9039) on Tuesday June 13 2006, @11:41AM (#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

  • 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...
  • 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

    • 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

  • 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.

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

    by Pandishar (172163) on Tuesday June 13 2006, @12:18PM (#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.
  • 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
  • AMD's HyperTransport + ATi graphics chipset = massive fucking amounts of bandwidth to GPU. Can we say "Fuck you, PCI Express?"

  • New Company Name (Score:3, Funny)

    by TED Vinson (576153) on Tuesday June 13 2006, @02:04PM (#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

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