AMD & ATI: The Acquisition from all Points of View
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 1, 2006 10:26 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Our Thoughts
Obviously each of the four companies we talked about today had their own take on the merger and no one here can really predict where things will go. On the one extreme, this deal could completely change everything; the combination of AMD and ATI could result in a powerhouse finally able to really compete with Intel while at the same time taking serious market share away from NVIDIA. On the other extreme, the combination could be a mess, resulting in a bloated company that is not much better off than before, with Intel and NVIDIA standing to reap the greatest rewards. It's far too early to tell and with the deal not even closed yet, there's no sense in counting any chickens.
That being said, there are some points we feel are worth discussing, and some analysis that can help give perspective to the whole merger. A lot of what we've presented so far is the company line from the four major CPU/Chipset manufacturers, and clearly there is going to be some bias in how each views the situation. It's far too easy to look at only one side of this story, so the following is designed to help examine the pros and cons of a handful of the facets of this merger.
Integrated Graphics is about to get Better
There's one definite outcome from the AMD/ATI deal, and that is an increase in the quality of integrated graphics. Currently, Intel is relatively unchallenged when it comes to integrated graphics solutions; independent GPU manufacturers like ATI and NVIDIA offer better integrated graphics solutions, but at much higher prices to keep their margins high. If AMD acquires ATI, we could in theory see an AMD platform with integrated graphics that would significantly outperform a similarly priced integrated Intel platform - hopefully this will force Intel to improve its integrated graphics.
Taking things one step further: if AMD puts a small ATI graphics core on-die or at least on-chip, the performance expectations for integrated graphics solutions would go up once more. Remember that one strength consoles have is the extremely low latency, high bandwidth interconnect between the CPU and GPU; a highly integrated CPU/GPU combo would be able to deliver that same performance advantage on a relatively low end PC.
Cool Stuff is Coming
On the investor call where AMD officially announced its plans to acquire ATI, a common theme discussed was AMD's Torrenza strategy. As AMD announced at its analyst day back in June, AMD plans on openly licensing its coherent HyperTransport bus allowing for companies like ATI or NVIDIA to develop GPUs and other co-processors that would plug into a Hyper Transport slot on a motherboard. The benefit is a very low latency, cache coherent interface between the CPU and any other device that it needs to feed large amounts of data to. With ATI operating under AMD's wing, AMD effectively guarantees that we'll see GPUs take advantage of Torrenza.
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johnsonx - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
Yep, you two are both old. Older than me. Heath H8? I didn't think selling candy bars would pay for college. You actually had to build candy bars from a kit back then? Wow. ;)Mostly the 'kids' comment was directed at your esteemed CEO, and maybe Kubicki too (who I'm well aware is with Dailytech now), and was of course 99.9% joke. Anand may be young, but he's already accomplished a lot more than many of us ever will.
Gary Key - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
where is the edit button... led toPrinceGaz - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Well according to ATI's investors relations webby and also Wikipedia, they were founded in 1985 and started by making integrated-graphics chips for the like of IBM's PCs, and by 1987 had started making discrete graphics-cards (the EGA Wonder and VGA Wonder).Yes, they quite obviously do predate the 3D revolution by many years. VGA graphics date from 1987 and no doubt the VGA Wonder was one of the first cards supporting it. I imagaine that EGA Wonder card they also made in 1987 would have had the 9-pin monitor connection you mention as that is the EGA standard (I've never used it but that's what the Wiki says).
All useless information today really, but a bit history is worth knowing.
johnsonx - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Yep, I stuck quite a few EGA and VGA wonder cards in 386's and 486's back then. They were great cards because they could work with any monitor. Another minor historical point: Monochrome VGA was common in those days too - better graphics ability than old Hercules Mono, but hundreds of $ less than an actual color monitor.yacoub - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Your comment should get rated up b/c you correctly state that ATI has been around for some time. Let us also not forget that NVidia bought 3dfx, 3dfx did not simply disappear. And Matrox, while mostly focused in the graphic design / CAD market with their products, has also survived their forays into the gaming market with products like the G200 and G400. Perhaps something about basing your graphics card company in Canada is the trick? :)johnsonx - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Well, 3dfx was dead. NVidia was just picking at the carcass. Matrox survives only because they make niche products for professional applications. Their 3D products (G200/G400/G450, Parhelia) were hotly anticipated at the time, but quickly fell flat (late to market, surpassed by the competition by the time they arrived, or very shortly after).mattsaccount - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
>>NVIDIA also understands that dining with Intel is much like dining with the devil: the food may be great but you never know what else is cooking in the kitchen.The food in Intel's cafeteria is actually quite good :)
stevty2889 - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Not when you work nights..it really sucks then..dev0lution - Thursday, August 3, 2006 - link
But the menu changes so often you don't get bored ;)NMDante - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Night folks get shafter with cafe times.That's probably why there's so many 24 hr. fast food offerings around RR site. LOL