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AMD-ATI Merger on the Way?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed May 31, 2006 04:22 PM
from the by-your-powers-combined-i-am-cpt-hardware dept.
Graphics Software Businesses Hardware
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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[+] Hardware: Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor 133 comments
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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  • Why not Nvidia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:25PM (#15439275)
    All I can think is why AMD ins't looking at nvidia instead? If I had my choice of companies to chose from, it wouldn't be ATI.

    • Re:Why not Nvidia (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kimvette (919543) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:41PM (#15439406) Homepage
      Amen to that.

      As far as I am concerned, ATI is evil.

      Their customer service USED to be excellent, better than other video card vendors. Unfortunately when DiamondMM lost the first video card wars and ATI got really huge, their driver quality sank very quickly and their customer service went from the best to quite possibly the worst - worse than even generic video card companies like Jaton. Not only that, they went from being quite supportive of X to being downright hostile (this change took place right around the time they bought up the charred corpse of Diamond) and REFUSED to disclose info to Linux developers, taking on the "proprietary intellectual property" mantra that Diamond used to love to chant. As if releasing "register c8e3 does foo" is going to reveal how you developed your chip mask. Idiots. Just release the map already, okay?

      ATI's drivers have become more stable in the last couple of years on the Windows side, and they've become slightly less evil in the Linux world by releasing (partially-functional - no 3D - WTF? No Radeon 7500 support? WTF!) binary drivers for X and register maps for older products, but they still have an extremely long way to go before I will consider buying any ATI products. Hell, they STILL haven't ever released a driver which will enable the tuner on any of my ATI tuner or All in Wonder cards on Linux. Even worse, the open source driver (on supported cards) significantly outperforms the proprietary driver on several systems I've tested. Also, I've never managed to get GL117 to run on ANY ATI card, but NO problems on NVidia or even Screw ATI.

      If AMD teams up with ATI, not only will I avoid ATI products, but I will also stick with Intel processors. Besides, with Intel's new cores, it's Intel's turn to babystep back into the lead again for a while. I think it's more likely that ATI's evil would rub off on AMD, and ATI would not improve any.

    • Re:Why not Nvidia (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geobeck (924637) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @05:09PM (#15439626) Homepage
      All I can think is why AMD ins't looking at nvidia instead?

      Because nVIDIA isn't a three-letter acronym starting with A*, which is probably this analyst's rationale for starting this pump-and-dump "prediction".

      *A for "analyst", which of course starts with "anal".

    • Re:Why not Nvidia (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chewedtoothpick (564184) <chewedtoothpick AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday May 31 2006, @05:37PM (#15439868)
      Perhaps this is a move by AMD to help NVidia finally rid themselves of their competition from ATI. Given the close relationship that AMD and NVidia have, and AMD's dependancy on NVidia, AMD would want to do everything in their power to help NVidia lorde their power over their competitors.

      That, or perhaps AMD is seeking to relieve themselves of their dependance on NVidia, and it has become quite obvious that VIA is no longer a player in the motherboard battle. AMD Could be looking to expand their performance by making an AMD motherboard that actually is worth the silicon it's made on - just as Intel's best boards use Intel north and south bridges.

  • Uh oh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mcpkaaos (449561) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:25PM (#15439278)
    There goes the amd64 stable keyword...

  • Very unlikely, but... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mobby_6kl (668092) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:27PM (#15439290)
    not completely impossible or baseless, considering that ATI makes some [newegg.com] AMD-compatible chipsets.

    • Re:Very unlikely, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PixelSlut (620954) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:44PM (#15439429)
      AMD has their own chipsets, they're not buying ATI for that. The thing that AMD doesn't make of their own is integrated graphics chipsets. Intel is the largest vendor of graphics hardware (they either beat NVIDIA and ATI combined, or they come close to it). With Windows Vista coming out and requiring a GPU for Aeroglass, it totally makes sense for AMD to start producing integrated graphics solutions.
      • AMD stopped releasing motherboard chipsets some time ago. I don't know if they still design them internally for their own testing purposes but they've otherwise gave up the market to VIA, nVidia, etc. once their chipsets started maturing.

    • I don't know why you feel it's unlikely. Not only does it seem likely, but it also seems to be a very smart move. Even with their chips lagging behind AMD(or at least until the full Core lineup is released), Intel's biggest strengths are in it's full platform solution with chipset and all. ATI would give AMD the same advantage and level the playing field even further.

      • The only problem with that is that the only people who care what kind of video they have are gamers and most gamers have gotten too pissed off at ATI to even fuck with them again. I decided to give them a try after literally years of never even considering an ATI card - the last ATI-powered card I had was a Mach64CT. But, I went ahead and bought a Radeon 9600XT AGP8x and BOY DO I REGRET IT. My system was fully patched, and I downloaded the very latest drivers from ATI, installed them, and bluescreened. So,

  • quick question (Score:5, Funny)

    by friedman101 (618627) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:30PM (#15439321)
    At what percentage of market share am I supposed to stop liking AMD?

    • Re:quick question (Score:4, Funny)

      by glsunder (241984) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @07:06PM (#15440547)
      51%

      • Re:quick question (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Fallingcow (213461) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @05:02PM (#15439564) Homepage
        AMD has had me as a customer ever since I went shopping for a budget chip a few years ago.

        Celerons sucked so much (they were still PII-based at that time, IIRC), but I didn't want to shell out for a real Pentium... then along came Duron, a line of chips that not only outperformed the Celerons by a large margin (and often at much lower clock speeds!), but were also FAR cheaper. Hell, there was a year or so there when one could buy a high-clocked Duron that would benchmark higher than many of the actual Pentium chips, and at budget-chip prices!

        Since Intel has yet to really exceed AMD in the price/value ratio since that time (though they are supposedly closing the gap when it comes to high-end chips), I've stuck with AMD. I imagine that they won over lots of other people at that time, as well--especially those who pay attention to these kinds of things (geeks).

  • this merger would throtle Intels sales because... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brit_in_the_USA (936704) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:31PM (#15439328)
    ... Intel is very dependant on ATI at the moment to supply intel CPU compatible chip-sets/Motherboards to help Intel move it's stock pile of CPUs. As Intel has a chip-set shortage which means it can not shift CPU's as fast as it would likes. (almost every new CPU requires a new MB).

    *IF* AMD bought ATI they could immediately can the ATI Intel motherboard line and deliver a big blow to intel's profitability for the next quarter or two.
    • That would also open them up to lawsuites for anti competitive acts. because well it is jsut so damn obvious.

      now if they bought ATI and canned them completely .. that they could get away with.. (i would hope they wouldn't though)
      • Why would this be anti-competitive? ATI and AMD merge and the new company says they are phasing out their intel chipsets and will now be producing AMD chipsets only. Intel doesn't produce AMD chipsets so why should ATI/AMD make chipsets for Intel? And there are many other places you can go for both a AMD or Intel chipset (SiS, VIA, nVidia, etc). I don't see how there is anything wrong with that plan.

        I actually see it as a smart move. I know ALOT of people who don't take AMD seriously because AMD doe

  • Doesn't make sense (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DeafDumbBlind (264205) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:31PM (#15439331)
    AMD doesn't need ATI's tech or headaches. The best chipsets for AMD's systems currently come from Nvidia; why would AMD want to piss them off?
    Nvidia's founder worked at AMD in the 80s and the 2 companies have a pretty close relationship. I can see a merger with Nvidia making sense, but buying ATI would be a blunder.
    • amd wants ati's mobile chipsets, if anything at all.

        amd sees a strong perspective in the mobile market and that's where ati rocks right now with their new chipsets and integrated or dedicated graphics chips.

        if amd really is planning this move, then there's far more to it than "oh ati makes great graphic cards" or "let's now bash intel with it". it's a multi billion dollar business and nobody makes decisions based on "oh"-s. maybe amd knows something about ati that we don't ?

  • Can't see it happening... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RayDude (798709) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:34PM (#15439353)
    IMO this is pretty silly. AMD would be backhanding NVIDIA by doing this. And this would encourage NVIDIA and Intel to merge in response. You really don't want Intel and NVIDIA working as the same company do you? Talk about stiff competition. And this could eliminate some choices we have as consumers on chipsets and video processors. All in all this would be very bad for consumers. I can't see this happening, no matter what the analysts say. Raydude
    • If such a merger would finally kill Intel Intergrated Graphics, I'd be all for it no matter what the other implications would be.

      That said, I think an AMD/NVidia merger would far more likely if such a thing ever were to occur, as they seem to function in a similar manner.
    • Even if ATI and AMD merged nVidia would still be making the most popular, most proven, most feature-rich AMD chipset out there. nVidia makes a fucking ton of money off the nForce chipset, so I wouldn't count on them throwing a hissy fit and ending production just because AMD got in bed with ATI.

      Neither AMD nor ATI have been known for their ability to make chipsets that don't Totally Suck, and being the leader in a particular market isn't something that a company will just let go of because of a grudge.
  • If AMD owned ATI then this might affect certain consoles. Nintendo and Microsoft both have ATI in their consoles.
  • Given the bad reputation ATI's drivers have (I have had first-hand experience with relatively recent versions of Catalyst), I can't see this as being good.
    Secondly, with many decent AMD motherboards using nForce chipsets, this sounds rather doubtful and could, if it goes through, potentially cause all sorts of competition/anti-trust issues.
    • Current catalyst drivers today are perfection relative to what they were like a couple of years ago. They're a vast improvement.
      • They are still complete shit. Catalyst Control Center bluescreened my system, but it works 100% great without it. We're talking about the utility that's supposed to come with the driver crashing the driver here. Admittedly, this was months ago... I'm planning to sell that PC, and work is getting me a Core Duo laptop (a vaio) with an nvidia graphics card. I mostly play console games anyway these days, so I won't be missing anything.

  • What's with all the "Merge with nVidia instead" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OzPhIsH (560038) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:37PM (#15439380) Journal
    I don't want ANY of these companies to merge. I want more houses out there designing chips, pushing the limits, and enabling us to have more and more powerful rigs at a cheaper price. I don't want less competition in the sector one bit. We already only have really 2 choices for CPUs, and two different choices for GPUs. I wish there were a lot more to choose from. What I don't want is to be locked into a specific video card chipset based on whether I have an Intel or AMD CPU.

  • Pump and dump... ATI up 9% on the rumor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DeafDumbBlind (264205) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @04:40PM (#15439402)
    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ecn?s=ATYT [yahoo.com]
    Looks like the analyst needed to justify his price upgrade so he started the rumor.
  • Not very often, but people STILL listen to them. This is just so much bullshit. Consumers have high hopes for Conroe? More bullshit. Most of the people who will/may buy one don't even know what it is.

    This is just so much crap by people wanting to ride the gravy train, and people who want to be able to point to analysts' reports because they are afraid of being accused of making a wrong decision.

    The relationship between analysts and people who pay for their conclusions is like mutual masturbation...
    • Consumers have high hopes for Conroe? More bullshit.

      Everything I have personally read on every tech/hardware/overclocking/etc site about Conroe has been about the chips slaughtering AMD's top FX chips. The core line has got a LOT of people excited. Intel's finally given up on Netburst, Intel is finally fighting back against AMD, Intel is ready to reclaim the desktop, etc. People who, you know, actually read all that stuff are consumers too you know. Tech is one of the most popular and active subjects on

      • I think that the point is, Intel's going to sell millions of conroes, but only a few thousand people will have bought them because of the merits discussed in technical magazines. All the other sales will be because that's what Dell put in the box.
        • Well, if my friends who know nothing about PCs are buying a comptuer, they'll look to their tech-inclined friends. I'll say get a Mac, but when they decide to go PC, I might say, get this line over that line, these Intel chips are better. Tech people have an influence in their non-tech friends/relatives purchases
  • it's not the devil who changes.
  • I'm pretty sure the analyst just liked typing ATI and AMD together. I mean I imagine he thinks they do almost the exact same thing... they both begin with A right?
    • You're being glib. There are more similarities between AMD and ATI than just the starting letter. For example, both are 3 letters long. As if that weren't enough, the middle letter in each one is a consonant! These firms were clearly made to be together.
  • 99%+ of consumers could not tell a Conroe series processor from a Coppermine series processor, in fact 99%+ of consumers could not tell a Conroe from a Katmai if you hit them in the head with it.

    Ike

    • Re:Consumers Don't care (Score:5, Funny)

      by lostchicken (226656) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @05:26PM (#15439769) Homepage
      Pretty sure I wouldn't be able to either. I mean, the Katami, being a much earlier chip probably has about half the number of pins that the Conroe has and might be lighter, but the Conroe uses BGA, so it'd probably hurt less, being less spiky. In the end, though, Conroe, Katami or 6502, I'd mainly just be pissed that you hit me in the head with one.

  • AMD is great (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Britz (170620) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @05:27PM (#15439779)
    Even if you only buy Intel, because the competition finally woke up Intel and made them throw out their horrible netburst design. Companies that don't have any competition deliver mediocre products at best. Look at Microsoft. If Intel didn't have AMD on their tail we would still be stuck with the shiny new 5 Ghz Pentium 4 coming out in 2008 with a fraction of the computing power per cycle compared to the current P4 design (every desktop design since the P3 had less bang for every single cycle, but Intel made up for it by clocking them up so high that the new processor was faster overall).

    The Pentium M OTOH has a very good design. Thanks to that Intel still dominates the portable market. Maybe they can revive their strength on the desktop side as well now.

  • A CPU for GPGPU? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vegan Pagan (251984) <[ten.knilhtrae] [ta] [sanaed]> on Wednesday May 31 2006, @05:48PM (#15439964)
    Lately, ATI has been pushing non-graphical processing on the GPU (AKA GPGPU), and AMD is looking for ways to grow without imitating or directly competing against Intel. If GPGPU software design becomes mainstream, then much of the CPU may become redundant, such as SIMD and multiple cores. Maybe ATI and AMD will coordinate which functions go onto which chip. Intel has always disdained other companies' co-processors (and sells integrated graphics to reduce demand for them), so they're not likely to do this.

  • I want to be an analyst! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RelliK (4466) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @06:15PM (#15440166)
    Being an analyst is awesome! Think about it: you make up wild speculation all day and people pay you for it. Next up: Amazon to buy RedHat and sell it on eBay!

  • ati revenge (Score:3, Interesting)

    by codingh34v3n (962705) on Wednesday May 31 2006, @06:24PM (#15440228)
    ATI drivers suck ?

    i dont know why people talk so bad about ati products, meanly at these times.

    I allways had nvidia boards and yes , i liked it because their support on linux started very well (easy install), but their prices now, start to grow against their quality.

    so, a few months ago i buyed a cheap ATI and tried to install it, downloaded the drivers from the website.

    At the time, there are many tutorials about how to install 3d on ati chips and if you see well, the procedures are very similar to nvidia chips installation.

    on debian based systems, with a few apt commands only, in a few minutes you have 3d acceleration on X.

    in my case, the 3d performance on games even outperform the equivalent nvidia chipsets. So, where is the complication?

    and if you do a "lsmod | grep fglrx" you realize the driver itself use only 1/2 MB of memory against the several MBs of nvidia driver.

    so where is the relation quality / performance / price here?

    If ATI join AMD, they could put the gfx cpu inside amd cpu and even make a custom main board for their specific product. There are a lot of choices.

    http://www.codingheaven.net/ [codingheaven.net]Computing Resource
      • Investors empty your pockets as the gentlemen with the checkbooks and investment portfolios take you for a ride that will leave you penniless.

    • The way I see it though, NVidia will never act first, and they shouldn't. NVidia's excellent software drivers have led them to become the undisputed favorite graphics card chipset for Linux users. The hardware performance (atleast in Windows) between the top level ATI and NVidia cards is pretty similar. So NVidia has a distinct advantage over ATI in this regard, and they won't want to give it up.

      I'm confused.

      How does documenting a register map, or even opening the source for drivers even, reveal the chip ma

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