AMD Talked to NVIDIA Before Acquiring ATI: Report

[btarunr]

According to a Forbes report which cites former AMD employees, AMD approached NVIDIA for a merger, before going on to acquire its rival ATI. Well before 2006, AMD's CPU designers envisaged the basic concept of an APU, where with advancements in silicon fab processors, chip-designers could add other components to a processor, such as an integrated GPU that's reasonably powerful. AMD lacked an integrated graphics chipset of its own, back then. These were some of the prime-movers of AMD's hunt for a GPU company, which was then much healthier, as it then had a promising and competitive CPU lineup.

According to the Forbes report, AMD first approached NVIDIA with the idea of a merger. Back then, AMD and NVIDIA had extremely cordial relations, as NVIDIA had a large market-share in motherboard chipsets for AMD processors. Apparantly, NVIDIA's boss Jen-Hsun Huang insisted on going on to become the CEO of the proposed AMD-NVIDIA combine, an idea that didn't fly too well with AMD's Hector Ruiz. AMD then went on to acquire NVIDIA's cash-strapped rival ATI Technology, which went to make AMD's Graphics Products division before being restructured and fully amalgamated with the rest of AMD.

The report provides a fascinating insight into the paths AMD and NVIDIA each followed, how their paths crossed at one point, and how the two went on to follow two entirely different ones. Forbes notes AMD going on to work on ever more powerful GPUs, while NVIDIA works on highly-competitive mobile processors. NVIDIA declined to comment on that story.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[nickbaldwin86]

LOL


I am very glad AMD didn't get in bed with NVIDIA...

ATI and AMD make a great couple, both are failing companies that I could careless about other then to create competition for NVIDIA and Intel.

I personally wouldn't/couldn't run a GPU without CUDA and can imagine running a CPU other than Intel

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Classic.

The arrogance of Jen-Hsun never ceases to amaze.

 

[joyman]

LOL


I am very glad AMD didn't get in bed with NVIDIA...

ATI and AMD make a great couple, both are failing companies that I could careless about other then to create competition for NVIDIA and Intel.

I personally wouldn't/couldn't run a GPU without CUDA and can imagine running a CPU other than Intel

Lord have mercy!

 

[BlackOmega]

LOL


I am very glad AMD didn't get in bed with NVIDIA...

ATI and AMD make a great couple, both are failing companies that I could careless about other then to create competition for NVIDIA and Intel.

I personally wouldn't/couldn't run a GPU without CUDA and can imagine running a CPU other than Intel

AMD a failing company? BWAHAHAHA! You couldn't be more wrong. Their stock has gone up from $4.30 ~ November to well over $7.00 now with no end in sight. And there's talks that the new Xbox is going to be powered by an AMD (ATi) GPU.

Not to mention AMD is dominating the APU market.

You sir are very misinformed.

 

[yogurt_21]

we knew this back in 2006. Amd wanted to buy nvidia but nv said no, let's merge instead, AMD bucked and bought ati instead.

That's why a few years later when AMD was buckling under the weight of the competition from intel combined with the massive debt aquired with ATI, Jen-Hsun mocked AMD and said "we could buy them [AMD] now"

At the time Nvidia's market cap was close to 20 billion and AMD's was close to 6 Billion.


When the merger was proposed NV was ~ 15 billion and AMD was at its record high 40 Billion or just under it.

 

[btarunr]

Classic.

The arrogance of Jen-Hsun never ceases to amaze.

IMO, it was Hector Ruiz that was arrogant. AMD+NVIDIA would have gone on to crush ATI and later invest more on CPU R&D to take on Intel. In the end, it didn't end too well for Hector, while Jen-Hsun went on to be CEO of the Year (Forbes), runs a bigger company than AMD, and still good prospects looking into the future.

 

[sanadanosa]

AMD a failing company? BWAHAHAHA! You couldn't be more wrong. Their stock has gone up from $4.30 ~ November to well over $7.00 now with no end in sight. And there's talks that the new Xbox is going to be powered by an AMD (ATi) GPU.

Not to mention AMD is dominating the APU market.

You sir are very misinformed.

I think he was talking about both companies at the time of the acquisition. AMD fail the first generation of Phenom and ATI losing war against Nvidia

 

[Red_Machine]

Uhh...mobile processors? Tegra? NVIDIA spent the last two big occasions talking more Tegra than GeForce. It's serious about Tegra. There are more smartphones and tablets being made than gaming PCs.

Whoops, I didn't consider them. Especially with all the talk about AMD focusing on laptop CPUs.

 

[yogurt_21]

IMO, it was Hector Ruiz that was arrogant. AMD+NVIDIA would have gone on to crush ATI and later invest more on CPU R&D to take on Intel. In the end, it didn't end too well for Hector, while Jen-Hsun went on to be CEO of the Year (Forbes), runs a bigger company than AMD, and still good prospects looking into the future.

yeah while all mergers/buyouts of companies are messy as hell it seems like nvidia would have been a much better deal for amd.

AMD in 2006 was a very strong company except for it's business side. Sure when the money was rolling in, they looked like they knew what they were doing, yet when the money train slowed, so did their business capabilities.

Nvidia on the other hand has been able to weather many storms and still come out on top.

You can argue innovation, product lines, etc. But Nvidia simply knows how to run a business better than AMD does. This i primarily why Jen-HSun insisted on being CEO. He knew his company in the hands of Ruiz spelled doom. So he wouldn't back down and the merger failed.

AMD tanked for quite while afterwards, Nvidia got stonger then took a few hits and leveled out just about where they were before.

Nvidia proves that the best innovators in the world combined with average buniness sense can't hold a candle to decent innovators combined with great business sense.

 

[Cheeseball]

Aww, this would've meant that a successor to the nForce 780a chipset would've been made.

(980a is just 780a with DDR3 slots.)

 

[PopcornMachine]

Since AMD CPUs have gone on to run hotter and be less power efficient, it seems like NVIDIA did take over AMD.

 

[joyman]

Nvidia proves that the best innovators in the world combined with average buniness sense can't hold a candle to decent innovators combined with great business sense.

This is because business is something other than logic, other than morale and other than honesty. It is all about the profit, the solely and only target to achieve. No customer satisfaction, no business ethics, no morale, nothing - just profits. If you care of other things more than profit you cannot keep with the sharks. And because of that I never supported the sharks. We have enough of them, and I got sick of them. The whole system is piece of crap.
And still I think AMD made the smarter move even if they didn't do it on purpose. And all of that benefited us, the customers more than if they would go with Nvidia.

 

[xaira]

if amd merged with nvidia and were able to pool their resources, ati would have gone bankrupt and my apu would be able to use cuda...the world would be a better place, except for the fact that any discreet gpu would cost an arm and a leg

 

[Super XP]

Absolutely not, ATI was the better choice. The only thing about NVIDIA is there ability to push there products & technology out in an aggressive manner. Though IMO, NVIDIA's current CEO would have driven AMD into the ground if he won the CEO seat.
ATI on the other hand were moderate in pushing its products out, though did a good job. They always had the ability to innovate unique technology.

ATI's CEO would have been a better choice IMO at that time taking over both AMD/ATI.

 

[btarunr]

The only thing about NVIDIA is there ability to push there products & technology out in an aggressive manner.

And that's exactly what AMD needed (and still needs). Every company needs a pushy CEO, Jen-Hsun is one. Jen-Hsun knows when to be a step back and let hierarchy take over, and when to micro-manage, when to be classy, when to be rural. No wonder he took NV to Forbes Company of the Year. A LOT of people high-up in AMD, when it was doing well with CPUs, got extremely complacent and snobbish. And paid for it. When Core 2 was launched and Barcelona was taking shape, you should have seen the way some of them were acting ("nah, we gon smoke Intel with K10").

 

[xenocide]

I agree bta. AMD needs someone who is more assertive and a little more methodical. They have a lot of great products, but god damn is their marketing team atrocious...

 

[insane 360]

i still like where things have gone, amd is lining up to make so serious cash thanks to its apu and gpu's for the upcoming consoles, big rumors that all three are going to run something of AMD

 

[FordGT90Concept]

AMD barely had enough money to buy ATI. They would have likely been filing for Chapter 13 if they went with NVIDIA instead.


To this day, I still think it was a dumbass move. They basically forced Intel into technology they already have a leg up on at a time when AMD was (and still is) sliding. AMD should have put that $5 billion (or whatever the final cost was) towards making a better processor instead of breaking into another market.

 

[NC37]

NV hasn't made the smartest moves in the last decade. I can't taunt them for building good GPUs, but screwing over M$ on the Xbox was a hit that carried over to Sony and the PS3. Now all consoles are going to be AMD branded. Think NV needs to think for once that maybe, just maybe, its them that is at fault.

Their CEO wanting more in this just shows that NV needs a change of leadership.

 

[RejZoR]

AMD a failing company? BWAHAHAHA! You couldn't be more wrong. Their stock has gone up from $4.30 ~ November to well over $7.00 now with no end in sight. And there's talks that the new Xbox is going to be powered by an AMD (ATi) GPU.

Not to mention AMD is dominating the APU market.

You sir are very misinformed.

There are misinformed people and there are fanboys...

 

[1Kurgan1]

IMO, it was Hector Ruiz that was arrogant. AMD+NVIDIA would have gone on to crush ATI and later invest more on CPU R&D to take on Intel. In the end, it didn't end too well for Hector, while Jen-Hsun went on to be CEO of the Year (Forbes), runs a bigger company than AMD, and still good prospects looking into the future.

AMD (CPU maker) + NV (GPU maker) would have gone on to crush ATI (GPU maker, the smaller one at that), is that really a shocker?

 

[Wile E]

This is because business is something other than logic, other than morale and other than honesty. It is all about the profit, the solely and only target to achieve. No customer satisfaction, no business ethics, no morale, nothing - just profits. If you care of other things more than profit you cannot keep with the sharks. And because of that I never supported the sharks. We have enough of them, and I got sick of them. The whole system is piece of crap.
And still I think AMD made the smarter move even if they didn't do it on purpose. And all of that benefited us, the customers more than if they would go with Nvidia.

That's a load of crap. You can't turn profits if you don't make your customers happy. Unhappy customers buy your competitors' products. It's a very fine balancing act.

And I think AMD/nV would've been better, at least if the graphics division of nV followed the same path they have since. Imagine the AMD apu with CUDA backing it instead. It would be a lot further along already.

 

[MilkyWay]

One thing you can say is that even though AMD CPU have been sliding the graphics division is doing well, so you can see why ATi did okay by selling up to AMD. The integration of ATi was painful.

AMDs higher management is always shuffling around.

 

[Kreij]

AMD's purchase of ATI was a great move. I think that to have merged with Nvidia might have caused all kinds of problems for AMD (ie. The two CEOs having a different vision of the future).
But because it didn't happen, it's just pure speculation.

AMD has one VERY major flaw ... they don't market their products worth a poop.
Intel : "Intel Inside" (with a four note jingle everyone is familiar with)
Nvidia : "The way it's meant to be played."
AMD/ATI : " ??? "