AMD have bought ATI

22BUK · 22 Jul 2006 at 23:59

Without competition CPU's probably wouldn't have broken the 1Ghz barrier by now. Competition is good for the consumer which is why the EU etc try to protect it. If there was only Microsoft, Intel and Nvidia, or even worse MicroInVidia, we would truly be stuck with our trousers around our ankles, and very sore ringers.

Sparky · 23 Jul 2006 at 00:36

Speak for yourself,i wear shorts

silversurfer · 23 Jul 2006 at 01:12

22BUK said:
Without competition CPU's probably wouldn't have broken the 1Ghz barrier by now

I think they would have anyway. Prices would higher, consumers less important and business would still be deciding which technology was released. Graphics and fancy motherboards would less common place, it would be more boring basically

Mongy2130 · 23 Jul 2006 at 04:18

Cyber-Mav said:
what a shame, AMD was going down with the launch of conroe now they gonna take ati down with them.

You sir are an idiot

Gashman · 23 Jul 2006 at 17:25

Mongy2130 said:
You sir are an idiot

i have sneaking suspicion he was being sarcastic...

Thing · 23 Jul 2006 at 21:12

silversurfer said:
I think they would have anyway. Prices would higher, consumers less important and business would still be deciding which technology was released. Graphics and fancy motherboards would less common place, it would be more boring basically

Personally I suspect software would have advanced further to counter it. And it would make the market easier to break into. I'll bet the Pentium Pro was a hell of a lot easier to match than Core 2 Duo is, meaning that sooner or later we'd have a competitor.

Kamakazie! · 23 Jul 2006 at 21:25

locutus12 said:
the only problem is where intel is concearned there is no market its a very uneven playing field AMD are competing on.

i think Intels recent profit warnings/missed forcasts and shoddy share price would say otherwise.
still it is very unfair, if it was a level playing field then AMD would have had the 8 billion net income last quarter and vice versa.
oh well, roll on next year and more competetive pricing and cpu's from AMD/Intel.

cobxx · 23 Jul 2006 at 21:46

silversurfer said:
I think they would have anyway. Prices would higher, consumers less important and business would still be deciding which technology was released. Graphics and fancy motherboards would less common place, it would be more boring basically

The techonology for consumers would be nowhere nere it is now. What pushes the companies is when they're behind (like what intel was) and then push R&D so they can beat their competitor (amd). And that works with prices as well, amd just halved their prices just cause of intel. The military would still have powerful processors and huge advances, but we wouldn't see nearly as much as we are now.

manveruppd · 23 Jul 2006 at 21:54

xtremesystems link comes up with "invalid thread specified"? Have the news been once again debunked as mere rumours and the thread been deleted?
There've been rumblings about this merger for MONTHS, I have no feelings about it either way (although, given nvidia's excellent AMD chipsets I would've thought they'd be a more natural match so I'm slightly puzzled ati is interested instead), but I wish they'd just make up their frigging minds for God's sake!!!! :mad:

EDIT: As if in answer to my post ( :eek:

) confirmation was posted in Dailytech yesterday (ok, so not in answer to my post...

) and the thread the OP linked to has been merged with this thread.

luminous · 23 Jul 2006 at 23:34

Soooo i wonder what this will all mean.
Will amd work with ati to create a new rival chipset for amd mobos?,
Will nforce chipsets only be seen on intel boards?
I`m seeing amd/ati produced boards with onboard ati gpu,chipset,whatever else to maximise profits.
Or is all that up to mobo manufacturors? hmm.I don`t know,thats why i`m asking you lot

Durzel · 23 Jul 2006 at 23:57

I'm not gonna believe a word of it until I see a press release from AMD.

"Reports say", "about to close".. it's still industry speculation at this stage as far as I can tell. Also, there will be some strong questions asked before this goes through as this move could surely be construed as monopolistic?

cobxx · 24 Jul 2006 at 00:38

Yeah, I'm still waiting for a press release...

Can't see nvidia abandoning amd quite yet. They make a huge amount out of chipsets, and if/when amd buy ati, it will still be a while til we start seeing anything different. More likely just to boost performance with patents that they couldn't previously use, but I can see intel wanting to still use ati and visa versa.

Gashman · 24 Jul 2006 at 00:52

luminous said:
Soooo i wonder what this will all mean.
Will amd work with ati to create a new rival chipset for amd mobos?,
Will nforce chipsets only be seen on intel boards?
I`m seeing amd/ati produced boards with onboard ati gpu,chipset,whatever else to maximise profits.
Or is all that up to mobo manufacturors? hmm.I don`t know,thats why i`m asking you lot

a good argument, but i think it ATI stop supplying intel chipsets its gonna leave intel to turn to nvidia (there rival), and competition is good for business, however i can see improved performance between future AMDs with ATI chipsets and maybe even a joint GPU effort between the two. there was rumours floating around that AMD were going to enter graphics market while back, seem to have died mind but this might be the right time to do just that. it'll definately be interesting to see AMD/ATI new chipset/CPU combo see how it performed in competition against intels core 2 duo, i don't think it'll hurt overall componants, i think there'll still be nvidia AM2 boards as well as ATI LGA775 boards, its good for business to maximise the amount of the market your presant in

either way it'll be good for the future IMO

james.miller · 24 Jul 2006 at 00:58

it would be foolish for ati to stop producing intel chipsets if amd did take them over. IT's foolish to stop anything if they are making a profit on it

Gashman · 24 Jul 2006 at 01:06

exactly, ATI are still in hot competition with nvidia, but i can see them definately making nippy AMD system together, but with conroe, woodcrest and merom it would be inconcievably stupid for them to snub intel all the sudden, ATI chipsets are getting better so there gonna be digging into nvidias turnover all the time, better for ATI and even better for AMD

manveruppd · 24 Jul 2006 at 02:12

I think all we'll see is some low-end Ati graphics integrated onto motherboards in an effort to compete with Intel graphics solutions.

james.miller · 24 Jul 2006 at 02:52

manveruppd said:
I think all we'll see is some low-end Ati graphics integrated onto motherboards in an effort to compete with Intel graphics solutions.

we have that already

Gashman · 24 Jul 2006 at 10:37

the only thing i see it adding is better compatibility between ATI and AMD hardware, how about higher end graphics cores onboard and such like, perhaps even CPU/GPU on one die even. thats more optamistic but completely doable

bbreezeuk · 24 Jul 2006 at 10:58

if its true then does this all mean that the nforce chipset will not be seen on amd boards anymore, or is it up to motherboard manufacturers to decide on the chipset

Azza · 24 Jul 2006 at 11:10

AMD-ATI: A Done Deal

'The official AMD-ATI announcement is still three hours away (AMD sent the newswire out a few hours early for some reason), but we will be bringing you coverage live during the briefing. For those still in doubt, occasional DailyTech blogger and T-Break Editor-In-Chief Abbas Jaffar Ali was able to sneak an image from the conference already; and a picture is worth a thousand words.

AMD announced the deal is valued around $5.4B USD: $4.2B in cash and 57M shares of AMD common stock will be used to purchase the ATI in a takeover bid. A little more than half of the cash to be used from the transaction will come from a $2.5B USD loan from Morgan Stanley, which was the bank quoted Saturday when the news of this story first broke. This is in addition to the 5.8B USD the company plans to invest in Dresden, Germany over the next three years and the $3.5B USD slated for a new semiconductor facility in Luther Forest, New York.

AMD's press release also claims that the combined company would have had approximately $7.3B in sales over the last four quarters and more than 15,000 employees.

The new company keeps the AMD headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and the previous ATI headquarters will act as a business hub for part of the company. ATI's previous CEO Dave Orton will act as executive vice president of the ATI division and report directly to Hector Ruiz and Dirk Meyer.'

Dailytech Link

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3468