Ati Is Dead! :(

[ShockG]

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/custompc/news/91589/amd-to-drop-ati-brand.html

AMD is dumping the ATI brand in favor of AMD.
AMD has stated that this is not a merger but a buyout and there's no need to keep the ATI brand.

So there it is, NVIDIA has won! :/

 

[LCBXX]

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/custompc/news/91589/amd-to-drop-ati-brand.html

AMD is dumping the ATI brand in favor of AMD.
AMD has stated that this is not a merger but a buyout and there's no need to keep the ATI brand.

So there it is, NVIDIA has won! :/

Won? AMD is just dropping the ATi brand name. ATi thus becomes AMD, so you will be buying an AMD Radeon XT1400. I like it. Now you can kit your whole mainboard with one single brand!

NVidia won? I think they better pay attention!

 

[killadoob]

ya i agree nvidia should be very worried i think

 

[Toxin]

Nvidia hasn't won. The ATI name won't be used anymore. ATI will now also be AMD. They might still keeping the Radeon name as well. Let's see what happens.

 

[ShockG]

They have won.
ATI has been losing money for some trime now (that's what made the buyout possible) and yes the NVIDIA brand did win at the end. As there's no more ATI.
This is how it starts and eventually there's nothing left. No graphics company has ever been bought and stayed in full production.
S3 sold to VIA = S3 Dead!
XGI sold to SiS =XGI dead!
3Dfx sold to Nvidia =3Dfx Dead!

AMD Radeon X2100 ha ha ha

Can't deny it, NVIDIA has far better marketing and business model than what used to be ATI and have beaten ATI.
It's a single horse race once again (at least soon it'll be anyway)

 

[werner]

the winner is the one who gets the integrated chipset market...the low and middle end stuff...the chips that end up in millions and millions of laptops.

intel.

the high end, gamers et al, fanbois etc...make up around 1-3% of the market.

 

[ShockG]

If only that's how it worked.
Unfortunately oem is high volume but low margin.
NVIDIA didn't even have 1 oem product from TNT1 to GeForce2MX IGP (which had dismal sales) while ATI had intel oem market for years on end.
But look now who is the last man standing?
NVIDIA has been more profitable than ATI for years on end now despite not having volume Intergrated parts.

Mid-range? NVIDIA has been beating ATI here for years and it's unlikely top change.

Think
GeForecFX 5700Ultra >> Radeon 9600XT
GeForce 6600GT >>> Radeon X600/X700/X800GTO (GTO missed the boat)
6800GS >>> ???
7600GS/GT >>> X1600Pro/XT
7900GT vs. ???? (X1900GT is rather late no?)

Now that's since 2003!

Intel makes less money from its IGP part than NV does from its add in parts!
Once again OEM is high volume low margin :/

 

[LCBXX]

the winner is the one who gets the integrated chipset market...the low and middle end stuff...the chips that end up in millions and millions of laptops.

intel.

the high end, gamers et al, fanbois etc...make up around 1-3% of the market.

Very very true. The fact that Intel chases after a chunk of the gaming market amazes me actually. With the majority laptops in the field running their chips, they have no financial gain in getting the 1-3% of high en gamers.

The funny bit: Have you noticed how AMD always make a big fuss when achieving a milestone or something? Big fuss when they 'copied' Intel's hyperthreading, big fuss when they 'copied' dual-core and an even BIGGER fuss when they made a faster processor than Intel. It's the same with ATi.

Intel/NVidia doesn't seem to care. They just make the good stuff. They don't care that their chips are 10MHz slower than AMD's. They don't care that ATi copies their patents and call it diffirent names (SLI/Cross-Fire).
At least Intel and NVidia knows that consumers have no need to 'patch' their games and software to make use of their CPU features like ATi/AMD does.

 

[werner]

I'm struggling to understand your argument really...I know you are referring to $$$ to be made, in which case yes, margins are higher on the top end stuff etc.

But that isnt the whole picture, not by far.
nvidia didnt have any integrated stuff before gf2, true, but they do now. Why? why did they enter that market?

ati had integrated vga chipsets for a while now, and basically branched out from that range into the high-end stuff.

The simple fact is that without the low end, OEM stuff, a graphics company cannot really survive.

Sis and via are obviously profitable, and they dont even touch any of the high end products....just potter along selling millions of chips per quarter, remaining profitable, and yet we dont even pay them lip service.

you wouldnt think of intel as a graphics card manufacturer, yet I would bet on a poll of 1000 random machines that intel vga is in around 60% of them.

so, the low end stuff is the bread and butter of a company...without low end you cannot afford to spend the r+d money (risky business) on trying to make flashy high end.

yes, in this context nvidia has won, as ati (as a name) are no more.
but in terms of total graphics chips shipped year on year, it would probably be
intel
then via/sis
then nvidia.

re: the low margins. sure, there isnt a bazillion to be made in shipping igp, however, at least your fabs stay at full production, and order books are full and everybody is happy. make 5c on a million parts is a pretty good deal at the end of the day, ...if it wasnt then the whole OEM market is flawed, dont u think?

not disagreeing with you really, just clarifying the question "who has won"

 

[Vrotappel]

Very very true. The fact that Intel chases after a chunk of the gaming market amazes me actually. With the majority laptops in the field running their chips, they have no financial gain in getting the 1-3% of high en gamers.

The funny bit: Have you noticed how AMD always make a big fuss when achieving a milestone or something? Big fuss when they 'copied' Intel's hyperthreading, big fuss when they 'copied' dual-core and an even BIGGER fuss when they made a faster processor than Intel. It's the same with ATi.

Intel/NVidia doesn't seem to care. They just make the good stuff. They don't care that their chips are 10MHz slower than AMD's. They don't care that ATi copies their patents and call it diffirent names (SLI/Cross-Fire).
At least Intel and NVidia knows that consumers have no need to 'patch' their games and software to make use of their CPU features like ATi/AMD does.

If it wasn't for AMD you would still be using a Pentium 2. Competition did wonders for the CPU market.

 

[ShockG]

That's harsh...

The funny bit: Have you noticed how AMD always make a big fuss when achieving a milestone or something? Big fuss when they 'copied' Intel's hyperthreading, big fuss when they 'copied' dual-core and an even BIGGER fuss when they made a faster processor than Intel. It's the same with ATi.

Intel/NVidia doesn't seem to care. They just make the good stuff. They don't care that their chips are 10MHz slower than AMD's. They don't care that ATi copies their patents and call it diffirent names (SLI/Cross-Fire).
At least Intel and NVidia knows that consumers have no need to 'patch' their games and software to make use of their CPU features like ATi/AMD does.

1. How did AMD copy hyper threading?

2. Dual Core CPU's have been used in other systems for some time now. AMD was first with X2 range and intel only followed later. If anybody is copying anyone its rather intel copying AMD no?

3. AMD make a fuss? Not really. AMD doesn't have an INtel INside campaign so they are hardly in your face all the time. Making a fastere CPu than the nuymber1 semiconductor company in the world?
I would think that's somethign to shout about no?

4. Multi-GPU graphics is not an nvidia technology. 3Dfx was first in the consu,er class to bring SLI back in '98. Even before then Silicon Graphics was running multi-gpu clusters for years on end.
====================

I am not bashing ATI (they have had the superior technology for some time now) just saying it's almost or at least its looking like its going to be over for them unless AMD makes good on its promise to stay competitive.

 

[LCBXX]

If it wasn't for AMD you would still be using a Pentium 2. Competition did wonders for the CPU market.

Also a very valid argument. Pity that we can't have this class of competition in out local telecoms sector!

I'm ot trying to run AMD down at all. I've been a avid user of their products since my very first PC and switched to Intel because I wanted a nForce4 chipset board at the time.

 

[killadoob]

the only reason ATI has been making a loss is because their cards are more expensive than nvidia's cards

just like intel loosing to amd because of their high prices and poor performance

amd is going to kick nvidia ass very soon , why would you buy ATI just to shut it down?

doesnt make sense

 

[ShockG]

Werner:
That's where thwe graphics market differes from others.
NO other market has as quick a turn around or cycle time.

With an IGP, you have to sell a brand new computer everytime. This is not the case with add in graphjics chips. You can sell to the same customer 4 times (four generations) without having to get a new customer.

If however I bought a PC with an IGP this year, I'm not likley to buy one next year. I am though likely to buy a GFX card (assuming it does have a PCIU-e or AGP slot)

GPU Scaling:
One high end ASIC like the NV49 or G71 rather serves as a basis for the entire line. A GeForce 7200 is still a GeForce 7900GTX design. things are removed, some turend off etc... there is no wastage.

This is not the case when all you make is IGPs. The revenue generated from there will never afford you the money needed to invest into R&D for a high end part which you could scale the same way.
This is why S3's DeltaChrome, GammChrome, MuliChrome, XGI Volari Duo etc.. never did work. Cycle time for such companies is much longer than that of Nvidia and ATI.

If you look at the time between TNT2, GeForce256, DDR and GeForce2 GTS it was all within the same year! 15million to 27 millin gates within 12months (.25proc to .18proc) is not something any other IHVs could do at the time. And at this time NVIDIA had absolutely no OEM share at all.

Why NV want OEM so bad (MCP61 due out soon, is an integrated Northbridge, southbridge and Graphics part on one chip! )
is that they can stretch their investment even farther. With DX10 out now, there's no need for them to invest as much as they used to in feature sets which cost silicon space; hence money. All they have to concentrate on is speed and that's it! That leaves them moere revenue to invest into IGP, mobile devices etc.. where performance isn't the number1 factore, but battery power and price.

Right now 6100 doesn't have to sell well (it would be greatly appreciated though!) in order to recover costs. There are virtually no costs to nVIDIA since this is 2004's NV40 chips stripped etc...
Once all their parts are shifted to DX10 (that's why they'll be all over everybody's face saying they have the first DX10 integrated part!) it'll be even cheaper for them in the long run to make IGP.

It's the Halo effect. Use your highest performaing part to sell everything else in your line up.

 

[ShockG]

Killadoob:
Because AMD wants to provide inhouse chipsets, which means more OEM sales (which are by far more important in the CPU sector than GPU)

Think why Gateway would buy more Intel than AMD?
Well, intel provide you with a motherboard, with graphics and south and northbridge. a complete system from one manufacturer. One support team to deal with etc...

This is not the case with AMD, where they would up until now would have had to get the CPU from AMD, motherboard from SiS/VIA (under performers) and a cheap gfx card from either NV or ATI. Just a hassle for Gateway etc...

So with AMD having ATI they can provide an entire system to these companies. AMD will not be pouring more money into ATI R&D . By having ATI use their fabs (if there's space) that would be reducing costs for ATI which would indirectly give them more funds for R&D.

 

[LCBXX]

I think we are deviating from the thread here. We are discussing which is best between ATi and NVidia instead of discussing what the takeover means for consumers.

 

[Elfreako]

Must I change my nik to AMD now???

 

[Darth Garth]

If it wasn't for AMD you would still be using a Pentium 2.

You got your history a bit wrong here.

Intel was competing tooth and nail against the technically superior RISC designs like the DEC Alpha, PowerPC and to a lesser degree SPARC and MIPS to determine who will rule the roost while AMD was still making their rather mediocre K5 piece of junk.

Remember the ARC platform and the Microsoft designed MIPS Jazz hardware architecture which was intended for Windows NT 4.0 ???.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Computing_Environment

And the irony of it all was that the much improved AMD K6 was designed by ex-Intel people that had formed NexGen which was then bought out by AMD when their K5 fizzled and that the K7 Athlon was designed by ex DEC Alpha folks .

I guess AMD has a history of not inventing anything decent .

 

[LCBXX]

Must I change my nik to AMD now???

LOL! Ja I suppose hey. Perhaps it's a good idea to wait and see what AMD calls its graphics department...

 

[Raithlin]

... the K7 Athlon was designed by ex DEC Alpha folks .

...ex DEC Alpha folks working for AMD. Sounds like good business sense to me. Hire the best to create the best.

I guess AMD has a history of not inventing anything decent .

Hm, would that include the 64 bit processors that Intel licensed from AMD?