AMD-ATI Merger Likely

[James]

"The synergies of this seem consistent with the recent announcements by AMD to significantly increase capacity over the next few-years," wrote analyst Apjit Walia in a note to investors Wednesday. "We believe ATI is a rare-buy in the semiconductor space right now given the near-term tie-up dynamics."

Source

 

[Darth Garth]

Heck just imagine a ATi GPU connected to the CPU using the HyperTransport bus .

 

[mic_y]

uuum, if this does happen what is going to happen to the whole A64 chipset market. AMD will have a direct interest in keeping nVidia out, while at the same time be scared since nVidia is the largest supplier of A64 chipsets ATM.

This could lead to some very interesting developments for AMD, ATI and nVidia...

 

[lilDeath]

mehtinks it will be an intersting combo...
ATI need to get back in the gfx scene with NVIDIA and AMD with Intel...
gonna be a very interesting thing if it happens, very interesting
I would actually partner ATI with INtel, but ye

 

[BTTB]

I merged ATI and AMD in my machine long ago.

 

[ShockG]

Will quote from what I said when this was posted at nvnews earlier this week.

Oh please. AMD and ATI together, no ways.
Nothing worse than speculation based purely on numbers and not the underlying relationship between two companies.

You all here know very well that AMD owes a lot of its success to nVIDIA chipsets since AXP days. Also to add NV CEO was once an AMD engineer.
Currently NV makes better chipsets for AMD's platforms than ATI.

Now why would AMD go and partner up with Number2 if anybody?

AMD is not VIA, who without fail buy all the rubbish companies in computing.
That Cyrix and S3 are under the same banner most certainly did not help anybody, least of all VIA. I would like to think AMD smarter than that.

Also AMD can't afford to buy anything useful right now nor could they at any other time, least of all ATI.

 

[mic_y]

Also AMD can't afford to buy anything useful right now nor could they at any other time, least of all ATI.

Nobody is talking of a buyout... A merger is a bit different... Though I agree with you on the topic of AMD most probably going with nVidia rather than ATI. This would also be a big boost for them, after nVidia's recent aquisition of ULi which will promote their chipset development sector. nVidia is in a very powerful position atm...

 

[ShockG]

Merger is the polite term. The smaller company gets screwed always in which case it would be ATI (usually the better company) But I suppose you right.

 

[killadoob]

Will quote from what I said when this was posted at nvnews earlier this week.


Also AMD can't afford to buy anything useful right now nor could they at any other time, least of all ATI.

how do what amd can and cannot afford, do you do their books

as far as i know amd is making a kuk load money off its cpu's for the last couple of years

 

[nGAGEd55]

killa, AFAIK, and I might be wrong, AMD has only recently really started making profit

 

[ShockG]

killa, AFAIK, and I might be wrong, AMD has only recently really started making profit

Thats right.

AthlonXP only allowed AMD to recover R&D costs and mostly cost them money. They needed the AXP to gain market share and that's what happened.

A64 pricing is a direct result of this. That's why on average now AMD CPUs cost more than Intel CPUs, they are reconvering from AthlonXP even today.
That is also partly the reason why they haven't really changed A64 since 2003. They are going to ride out thie EV6 bus and DEC RISC tech until the last second.

You can't just buy ATI, you'd have to justify to the holders why this would be a smart move. And make no mistake about it, the numbers may make sense, but that will only be now. If there is no technology to be developed from this, then you will lose money.

At this point, there can be no useful cross pollination of technologies between ATI and AMD. They can't share core logic at all which is what this merger would be about if it hoped to make any of them money.

ATI can't use the fabs that AMD has, Neither of these companies can spare the engineers, and even if they could. To get a team that was working on a 80M logic ASIC and moving them to a RISC based 300M+ US-A chip will take longer than the products life cycle and also the other way round.

 

[freeek]

AMD is still cheaper than intel!!!

 

[ShockG]

No they not. You seen the R12K tag for the FX-62?
R6.5K for 4800+?
eg.
Intel's cheapest DC CPU is less than half the price of AMD's chip.
$120 vs $287 :/

 

[nGAGEd55]

Yet the AMD's cheapest dual core chip performs a whole lot better than Intel's cheapest.

But since Intel recently lowered their prices, they've been cheaper, but I guess it's all because of Core 2 Duo that's coming.

 

[ShockG]

Yes, sure its faster but from a pricing POV its just too much.
Could be wrong, but AMD just seens to be greedy.

 

[pupa]

Yes, sure its faster but from a pricing POV its just too much.
Could be wrong, but AMD just seens to be greedy.

AMD lost their marbles, Their costs did not stay with future requirements!They screamed foul for to long and did nothing, now Intel caught up and sneaked past them with the 65mm and the new platforms coming in the next 12 months. Me think AMD have a hard time coming therefore the interest in ATI to boost the range, but NV will be master as they sneaked past ATI so we have a interesting development ahead!

 

[ShockG]

True.
Number 3 merging with number 4 will in no way make either of them number1. but then again this rumor has already fizzled out do thats not going to happen.

As far as rubbish ideas and general insanity goes every IHV has their time to go through such.

Intel = P4 (All of them)
AMD = AM2, 4x4
nVidia = GF:FX
ATI = Everything prior to 2002,