Intel to Buy ATI?

[Stuperman]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31730

This follows in the tracks of rumours that intel wants to get back into the GFX game, and would probably be cheaper than starting from scratch. But it is the Inq, and that say it's a rumour at that so I'd say it's a coin toss at this point.

edit: should read Intel to buy ATI as title, I am only halfway through 1st coffee, sorry.

[amrgb]

You almost scared me to death. You have Intel to buy AMD? Please change it before someone's heart stops to beat.

[Movieman]

There is so much animosity between AMD and Intel that I don't think the AMD guys would sell out if they were offerred 100 Billion for the company!

[Cooper]

Thread title fixed

If Intel will cooperate with ATI it`s gonna be very good for us

[Stuperman]

Thanks Cooper.

If this goes through, how long would it be till we see GPU's on 65nm process? how would this effect ATI's chipset business? especially the AMD chipset business.

[Cooper]

ATI bought few companies aiming at mobile electronics market. Perhaps Intel wants to get larger piece of this market share.

[Hicks]

Would this be a good thing? I think ATI have come a long long way sice the 7000. A lot more than Nvidia have.

[XS Janus]

Maybe it's a sign of some sort of manufacturing alliance?? any way whoever makes the better overall product (heat/price/performance) gets my money, as always.

OT: in the article it says "fag paper away" and that it's NOT what I think it is I'm sure!
English is not my 1st language, what does this mean??

[Thorry]

Uhm... well this is kinda strange?

Intel has been the leading graphics producer for many many years. Almost all office desktops use the Intel integrated card.

Why would they need to get back into the graphics game when they've already got such a strong package?

Only the Geforce 6250 series even came close?

It does make more sense if they buy Ati instead of nVidia, Ati has been second with a 25% market share (Intel has something like 40%)


Edit:

More recent data:

Market share for both integrated and discrete graphics:

Intel - 32%
Ati - 24%
nVidia - 23%
Via/S3 - 11%
SiS - 9%
Others - 1%

Discrete graphics:

nVidia - 52%
Ati - 47%
Others - 1%

[DilTech]

Thread title fixed

If Intel will cooperate with ATI it`s gonna be very good for us

Actually, it'd be very bad for us....Very bad indeed cooper.

With ATi's engineering teams, and Intels fabs, there's no humanly possible way NVidia would be able to keep up. Not because of products, but because of cost. With intel owning their own fabs, and already being on 65nm, it'd cost them almost HALF what it costs NVidia to produce a card in volume. This will give intel/ati the choice of either throwing twice as much into each card and matching NVidia's price, or matching NVidia performance at about $100-$200 cheaper. This would last a few years, and would be GREAT at first, but after awhile....This would lead to NVidia going under, and that would lead to a monopoly on the high end.

One company without competition = we all lose. :slapass:

[onewingedangel]

Intel have a lot of 90nm facilities going free now, since graphics are always a generation behind cpu's it may be a case of where intel uses spare capacity to make GPU's.

[r3w4]

If a monopoly was created out of this, the government would intervene and control Intel.

[Starscream]

You almost scared me to death. You have Intel to buy AMD? Please change it before someone's heart stops to beat.


@Stuperman
:slapass:
Ud had been responsible for my death if i had read this thread before it got edited.

[[XC] itznfb]

Actually, it'd be very bad for us....Very bad indeed cooper.

With ATi's engineering teams, and Intels fabs, there's no humanly possible way NVidia would be able to keep up. Not because of products, but because of cost. With intel owning their own fabs, and already being on 65nm, it'd cost them almost HALF what it costs NVidia to produce a card in volume. This will give intel/ati the choice of either throwing twice as much into each card and matching NVidia's price, or matching NVidia performance at about $100-$200 cheaper. This would last a few years, and would be GREAT at first, but after awhile....This would lead to NVidia going under, and that would lead to a monopoly on the high end.

One company without competition = we all lose. :slapass:

thats not really true. IF it were to become a monopoly obviously everyone would loose out except intel. but.... intel would have no intentions on puting nvidia out of business, or making strides that would leave nvidia in a position were their business would suffer. i think intel just wants to put a small hurtin on nvidia since nvidia has been giving intel so much crap about sli.

Additional Comment:

if ati and intel were to join forces, there would be very little change. i'm guessing both companies would opperate independantly and continue to progress as they currently do. intel would just now have the advantage of incorporating things such as crossfire directly into their desktop and laptop boards.

[r3w4]

I could see them bringing nvidia down to 22% market share.

[Stuperman]

@Stuperman
:slapass:
Ud had been responsible for my death if i had read this thread before it got edited.

:eek: glad it got fixed in a timely manner:D :toast:

[[XC] itznfb]

Market share for both integrated and discrete graphics:

Intel - 32%
Ati - 24%
nVidia - 23%
Via/S3 - 11%
SiS - 9%
Others - 1%

Discrete graphics:

nVidia - 52%
Ati - 47%
Others - 1%

if these numbers are right.... i highly doubt nvidia would fall to 22%. i think the worst you would see is those discrete numbers flip.

[Sumanji]

I'd really like to see and AMD/nV merger or an IBM buyout of AMD. Anything to give them more financial muscle to challenge Intel.

[gillll]

i think this deal is bad for us the consumers.

i am sure by now that both ati and nvidia had developed their own "cpu section" based upon their learning over the years of the "old cpu manufactures" aka intel and amd.

u can see by now that both gpu and cpu have alot of similarities in terms of die size , complexity, number of transistors.

so ati and nvidia say for sometimes why not ?

intel reads the map well and is/will gain over a major player out of 4 and will have the upper hand when all companies will begin to manufacure both cpu and gpu.

[aMp]

I'm about to geek out based on some stuff I picked up in an Antitrust class last year. By all means tune out now.... :rolleyes:

---------------------

I can't imagine this merger would be approved. Just a quick look at the Federal Trade Commission's Merger Guidelines:

Market concentration is a function of the number of firms in a market and their respective market shares. As an aid to the interpretation of market data, the Agency will use the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index ("HHI") of market concentration. The HHI is calculated by summing the squares of the individual market shares of all the participants.

If the Inq's market share numbers are correct, the overall graphics market is currently at 2331 (32^2 + 24^2 + 23^2 + 11^2 + 9^2). What does that mean, according to the Guidelines?

Post-Merger HHI Above 1800. The Agency regards markets in this region to be highly concentrated. ... Where the post-merger HHI exceeds 1800, it will be presumed that mergers producing an increase in the HHI of more than 100 points are likely to create or enhance market power or facilitate its exercise.

So the current market is already "highly concentrated." Post-merger, combining the market shares of Intel and ATI, the HHI would be 3867, more than twice what the FTC considers highly concentrated. That'd also be an increase of 1536, or 15 times more than what the Guidelines are worried about.

[irev210]

I think it would be a good thing.

[nn_step]

Ah :banana::banana::banana::banana:.. there goes the balance...

[mursaat]

If a monopoly was created out of this, the government would intervene and control Intel.That's even more scary than Intel eats AMD or Intel eats ATI :D:D

I'm agree this is good news at first and bad news in the end. What's after Intel buying ATI? Intel and Microsoft merge? You can pack Monsanto, MacDonalds and Enron and you have the mother of all companies.

[[XC] itznfb]

as aMp said, i don't think it's legally possible

[Ubermann]

If this happens then maybe Nvidia and AMD go to bed also..

[Drunner611]

If this happens then maybe Nvidia and AMD go to bed also..
Now that would be something to see.

[onewingedangel]

gpu directly on ht bus....

[mursaat]

Why HT bus and not CPU die? Multicore/multipurpose cpus? :D

[Sentential]

ATi may not have a choice (ie not a friendly buy out). If Intel really decides to come out swinging in the discrete market and actually decided to make a high end GPU I have every confidence that it would easily overshadow both ATi and nVidia both in mass and peformance.

It would lead to an interesting consolidation of the chip market and could have horrible implications for TSMC and UMC (since their cheif clients would dissappear).

It would probably force AMD to buy Nvidia since AMD relies so heavily on nVidia for chipsets as it is (and it would give them an excuse to go back on the market).

It would be very interesting but it would be bad for prices. If this were to happen and the chip industry were to considate it would seriously put GFX peformance back alot. It would make more sense for them to release products with new chipsets (1 year instead of 4 month cycles).

In addition they'd have no reason to change any designs until they update the existing platform which would lead to revamped products stretching 3 year spans (similar to what we saw with geforceFX and the 7900 series)

Overall something like this would be very bad I hope it does not happen

[Entity_Razer]

You almost scared me to death. You have Intel to buy AMD? Please change it before someone's heart stops to beat.

THats would be charles' heart :D

And I resent the idea to be honest unless ATI has full controll of products but intel as the financial backend.

Although... there are some neat ideas but a Nvidia and AMD lovechild'd be cool also

[[XC] Lead Head]

If a monopoly was created out of this, the government would intervene and control Intel.


Sure whatever you say, You can defiently see that the government is controlling microsoft!

[situman]

It would probably force AMD to buy Nvidia since AMD relies so heavily on nVidia for chipsets as it is (and it would give them an excuse to go back on the market).



I think you mean Nvidia buying AMD. Then again, who would want to buy AMD what with its heavy debt load?

[ahmad]

Nvidia is too large for AMD. Nvidia however could buy AMD... that would be crazy.

[Pinnacle]

Nvidia is too large for AMD. Nvidia however could buy AMD... that would be crazy.

I heard about this before, but I found news way to "wacky" to post :p:

[[XC] leviathan18]

amd and nvidia could joint venture.... rather than buy it

[RPGWiZaRD]

Would be pretty interesting to see what they could achieve if Intel joined alliance with ATI while AMD would join alliance with Nvidia for 1 year, starting 2007.

Who would you place the bets on? :D

[Cobalt]

If there is any truth to this it has probably been misunderstood (possibly on purpose ;)) by the inq. It is more likely that Intel want to pursue a joint venture with ATi to produce chipsets. ATi have already started to step into that role and a deepening of that relationship would not be unexpected.

[BSill]

Well with Intel's new conroe core coming out and ATI leading the gpu industry with the x1900xtx I belive they would be a force to be recogned with if they teamed up dont ya think?

[[XC] hipno650]

if it happened the performace between ati card and intel chips would be amazing because they would be made for each other.

[nn_step]

THats would be charles' heart :D

And I resent the idea to be honest unless ATI has full controll of products but intel as the financial backend.

Although... there are some neat ideas but a Nvidia and AMD lovechild'd be cool also
I think that love child might be in the works already.. a Graphics card that can plug directly into the HTT bus with Coprocessor suppport..:slobber:
Now that LoveChild is going to be on sexy babe :slobber:

[aMp]

I think that love child might be in the works already.. a Graphics card that can plug directly into the HTT bus with Coprocessor suppport..:slobber:

Sounds like a console.

[iddqd]

If a monopoly was created out of this, the government would intervene and control Intel.
Ha! You keep thinking that. :slap:

[aMp]

Originally Posted by r3w4
If a monopoly was created out of this, the government would intervene and control Intel.
Ha! You keep thinking that.

True that. In no case will the government "control" a corporation's operations. The most it'll do is forcibly restructure the company, and in the last two decades it's been hesitant to do that except in the most extreme cases. The "solutions" to Microsoft's abuses are a case in point.

I don't know where this breed of socialism paranoia comes from.

[crackhead2k]

ATI+INTEL = ATINTEL
AMD+NVIDIA = NVIDIAMD

Now we got some major competition ;)

So what now graphics integrated with cpu and 300+ watt load multicore with gpu insane thingamajig ... no more sli and cross fire all in one chip :)

Now wheres my life time supply of LN2?