NVIDIA-Arm Acquisition Raises "Significant Competition Concerns:" UK Competition Regulator

[maxfly]

Ehhh, not really. Im on my phone and they both look the same. The top one is bigger by a smidge.

 

[Tardian]

Image quality is one of the most if not the most important aspect in graphics cards.

Radeon Settings -> Radeon Image Sharpening:
I recommend that you read more and understand the matters instead of writing empty pro-Nvidia fanboy words in the comments sections of the forums.
It is a well researched area with a lot of information. Just read.

View attachment 213703

It works even in Microsoft's own browser - the Edge:

Edge with Radeon Image Sharpening:

View attachment 213704


Ordinary another browser without Radeon Image Sharpening:

View attachment 213705


Do you see how much crisper the first image is?

Well, that is very similar to the difference between the overall image quality that is rendered on an Radeon and on a GeForce.

On my 32 inch, 4K, calibrated monitor ... it is like the difference between DVD and Blu-ray quality.

 

[Space Lynx]

On my 32 inch, 4K, calibrated monitor ... it is like the difference between DVD and Blu-ray quality.

My LG 42" OLED 4k 120hz next year is going to make your 32" 4k look like VHS tapes at 480p.

OLED was forged by the Gods and Titans working together.

 

[mtcn77]

Image quality is one of the most if not the most important aspect in graphics cards.

Radeon Settings -> Radeon Image Sharpening:
I recommend that you read more and understand the matters instead of writing empty pro-Nvidia fanboy words in the comments sections of the forums.
It is a well researched area with a lot of information. Just read.

View attachment 213703

It works even in Microsoft's own browser - the Edge:

Edge with Radeon Image Sharpening:

View attachment 213704


Ordinary another browser without Radeon Image Sharpening:

View attachment 213705


Do you see how much crisper the first image is?

Well, that is very similar to the difference between the overall image quality that is rendered on an Radeon and on a GeForce.

Oversharpening might bring an image with gradient errors and huge ringing artifacts. You cannot be too careful.

 

[watzupken]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if the deal doesn't get trough, there's nothing that's keeping Nvidia from getting on with it, and making their own custom arm cores ? They don't really "need" ARM, it's more the "desire" to own the company ?

I think this is precisely the point. Non of the ARM SOC users have a part in ARM, and yet still able to deliver a good custom processor. Which makes Nvidia's plan to acquire ARM very suspicious. While it is certainly possible for Nvidia to allow their competitors access to ARM technology, which they have to because it is a clear infringement of "fair" competition, it is likely they may retain certain key technology specific for their own advantage if they own ARM.

To be honest, what is mentioned in this article is nothing surprising. It took them some time to get back with this conclusion just so they go through the motion of validating this claim. I guess their obstacle is probably insurmountable when seeking approval from the Chinese regulator because with ARM being acquired by a US company, any of the Chinese tech companies may be hit with a sanction, leaving them without any ARM chip to use.

 

[R-T-B]

I recommend that you read more and understand the matters instead of writing empty pro-Nvidia fanboy words in the comments sections of the forums.

Right back at you. Other than glorified supersampling tech improvements from AMD (which are platform agnostic) there is no difference.

So my comment stands.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I think this is precisely the point. Non of the ARM SOC users have a part in ARM, and yet still able to deliver a good custom processor. Which makes Nvidia's plan to acquire ARM very suspicious. While it is certainly possible for Nvidia to allow their competitors access to ARM technology, which they have to because it is a clear infringement of "fair" competition, it is likely they may retain certain key technology specific for their own advantage if they own ARM.

To be honest, what is mentioned in this article is nothing surprising. It took them some time to get back with this conclusion just so they go through the motion of validating this claim. I guess their obstacle is probably insurmountable when seeking approval from the Chinese regulator because with ARM being acquired by a US company, any of the Chinese tech companies may be hit with a sanction, leaving them without any ARM chip to use.

Actually, Softbank sold Arm PRC to a local company...

Arm Holdings - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wirko]

Which makes Nvidia's plan to acquire ARM very suspicious. While it is certainly possible for Nvidia to allow their competitors access to ARM technology, which they have to because it is a clear infringement of "fair" competition, it is likely they may retain certain key technology specific for their own advantage if they own ARM.

Arm technology stays relevant because it evolves. It's possible for Nvidia to allow all the competitors access to 2021 ARM technology but restrict access to new cores, ISA extensions, interconnect logic etc. developed after the takeover. Yes, you can license our old Arm Cortex-A78 and Mali-G78 forever if you want, even if you're AMD. No, you can't have our (green-branded, no longer blue-branded) Cortex-A79, unless <conditions [, more conditions]>, and we've abandoned Mali anyway. Does that sound impossible?

 

[Tardian]

My LG 42" OLED 4k 120hz next year is going to make your 32" 4k look like VHS tapes at 480p.

OLED was forged by the Gods and Titans working together.

We use the current 48 inch 120hz LG OLED as our bedroom TV. Your loungeroom/entertainment room must be tiny or do you watch TV using binoculars? LG does make 83 inch 4K OLED for 16:9 video. For movies JVC makes a fine 8K projector and anamorphic lenses allow you to use all the vertical resolution. OLED is better than a Pioneer Kuro Plasma but to many people not by a vast amount. I have 20:15 vision so I care about the difference. However, all this technology is only as good as your ISP. I live in an area where at parts of the night I experience 1970s Tv quality at certain times of the night. If any uses their phone to watch cat videos we get buffering. This supposedly is in a first-world country: Australia. I now will have to pay to have business quality fiber optic internet just so we can operate as a 2021 family.

Lynx29 I hope you enjoy your 42 inch TV/monitor. My custom-designed furniture would possibly just allow a 42 inch monitor but the bottom bezel would have to be on the bench. I wouldn't enjoy using it because the pixels would be too big for my eyes.

Tardian

 

[Anymal]

Yt videos are sharper on geforces.

 

[Space Lynx]

We use the current 48 inch 120hz LG OLED as our bedroom TV. Your loungeroom/entertainment room must be tiny or do you watch TV using binoculars? LG does make 83 inch 4K OLED for 16:9 video. For movies JVC makes a fine 8K projector and anamorphic lenses allow you to use all the vertical resolution. OLED is better than a Pioneer Kuro Plasma but to many people not by a vast amount. I have 20:15 vision so I care about the difference. However, all this technology is only as good as your ISP. I live in an area where at parts of the night I experience 1970s Tv quality at certain times of the night. If any uses their phone to watch cat videos we get buffering. This supposedly is in a first-world country: Australia. I now will have to pay to have business quality fiber optic internet just so we can operate as a 2021 family.

Lynx29 I hope you enjoy your 42 inch TV/monitor. My custom-designed furniture would possibly just allow a 42 inch monitor but the bottom bezel would have to be on the bench. I wouldn't enjoy using it because the pixels would be too big for my eyes.

Tardian

Nice to see you got some zest to you mate, so many blokes on this site are sensitive as fairy folk on an outing to Candy Land these days.

LOL

On a more serious note though, yes this LG 42" OLED coming next year is perfect size for my giant megadesk I bought at IKEA, 48" is just to a little too much. However, as long as I wall mount it directly in front of my desk, I can sit my desk back just an extra 2 inches (its already a very big desk compared to most, the biggest IKEA sells in fact to my knowledge), it's going to be glorious. I intend to hook up a PS5 to it while I wait to build my Ultima dream rig whenever AM5 socket and next gpu's come out.

 

[dyonoctis]

Image quality is one of the most if not the most important aspect in graphics cards.

Radeon Settings -> Radeon Image Sharpening:
I recommend that you read more and understand the matters instead of writing empty pro-Nvidia fanboy words in the comments sections of the forums.
It is a well researched area with a lot of information. Just read.

View attachment 213703

It works even in Microsoft's own browser - the Edge:

Edge with Radeon Image Sharpening:

View attachment 213704


Ordinary another browser without Radeon Image Sharpening:

View attachment 213705


Do you see how much crisper the first image is?

Well, that is very similar to the difference between the overall image quality that is rendered on an Radeon and on a GeForce.

I feel like filters that aren't part of the app settings can't really be used as an argument for "x brand got a better image quality" some render engines have a built-in sharpening effect going on, adding another layer on top of that might be overkill and look unnatural.

This is how the picture looks on Firefox with my GeForce, BTW. You'll notice that it's sharper than the bottom image that you posted. And without any sharpening from the control tab

 

[jmcosta]

Image quality is one of the most if not the most important aspect in graphics cards.

Radeon Settings -> Radeon Image Sharpening:
I recommend that you read more and understand the matters instead of writing empty pro-Nvidia fanboy words in the comments sections of the forums.
It is a well researched area with a lot of information. Just read.

Nvidia has a similar tech that brought to the gamers years before AMD did, for games and other 3d applications giving nearly the same result.
also that built in sharpening effect doesn't always improve the image quality, it can highlight pixels even more and to unwanted applications for example steam overlay which becomes absolute crap with extreme crispness .

 

[medi01]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if the deal doesn't get trough, there's nothing that's keeping Nvidia from getting on with it, and making their own custom arm cores ? They don't really "need" ARM, it's more the "desire" to own the company ?

What are you even asking? Whether someone could design ARM CPUs without purchasing Arm Holding? Like, seriously?

Imagination Technologies and Newport Wafer Fab

Those world superpowers at semiconductor design and manufacturing, chuckle...

Nvidia has a similar tech that brought to the gamers years before AMD did

That was what NV claimed when Radeon Anti-Lag was rolled out.
They literally claimed that they both "already have it" and "need time to look at it".

NV did roll out own copypasta of Radeon anti-lag several month later though.

 

[Ravenas]

Acquisition not happening. There is no logical defense behind it; it's a borders and nationalism political issue.

UK wants to protect its businesses from acquisitions across the spectrum, especially in terms of what they refer to as "national defense".

 

[dyonoctis]

What are you even asking? Whether someone could design ARM CPUs without purchasing Arm Holding? Like, seriously?

Sheesh, I know that they can because Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, etc... have been doing it for years , but thanks for taking the time to ridicule me.
I'm just seeing lots of people who are painting that acquisition as a "do or die" situation for Nvidia, when acquiring them shouldn't have any consequence if they ever planned to make a serious ARM CPU/SoC

 

[sith'ari]

"We're concerned that NVIDIA controlling Arm could create real problems for NVIDIA's rivals by limiting their access to key technologies, and ultimately stifling innovation across a number of important and growing markets. This could end up with consumers missing out on new products, or prices going up,"

1. I suppose all these concerns can be easily addressed with certain contracts between nVIDIA and ARM licencees , ensuring that nVIDIA will mentain Softbank's current terms for licencees.
Jensen Huang has publicly pledged for that , so i'm 100% confident that such contracts can be signed.
If nVIDIA can ensure such thing , then those companies who are "screaming" against the deal , they could be using such an excuse out of pure malice intentions in order to limit/damage nVIDIA ,since for their own reasons they could probably wouldn't like to see nVIDIA evolve.
If i was in nVIDIA 's place i would probably sue those companies for using malice practices although contracts can easily ensure that Softbank's current business model will be maintained for those licencees.

2. Also ARM isn't a monopoly in the CPU sector. If certain licencees have "confidence" issues against nVIDIA ,although as i said ,contracts can be signed and easily prevent those "confidence" issues , they can always turn to Risc-V , or even x64 solutions. unlike nVIDIA , certainly Intel

won't limit access to key technologies and ultimately stifling innovation across a number of important and growing markets.

 

[Bomby569]

at most they will ask for some measures to aliviate concerns, i doubt anyone will stop this

 

[thesmokingman]

Raises? BS, they were concerns from the beginning but Wall Street ignored the tech side implications because they don't really understand the technicals. If anyone thinks Nvidia is gonna play this like Switzerland... facepalm.

 

[chodaboy19]

Just some points to consider when critically thinking about this acquisition:

The vision for Nvidia is to be like intel and own IP in the CPU space. Intel has tried to block everything and everyone from accessing x86. The only other companies with access to x86 are/were AMD, Cyrix/VIA/Centaur.

In the data center there is little competition vs. x86 (intel/AMD). The reasoning is that Nvidia can inject money and R&D resources into ARM to make it a viable competitor to x86 in the future. There are reports that ARM's financials are not in great shape and even an IPO would actually value ARM at much lower levels than the current $40 billion USD offer.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Just some points to consider when critically thinking about this acquisition:

The vision for Nvidia is to be like intel and own IP in the CPU space. Intel has tried to block everything and everyone from accessing x86. The only other companies with access to x86 are/were AMD, Cyrix/VIA/Centaur.

In the data center there is little competition vs. x86 (intel/AMD). The reasoning is that Nvidia can inject money and R&D resources into ARM to make it a viable competitor to x86 in the future. There are reports that ARM's financials are not in great shape and even an IPO would actually value ARM at much lower levels than the current $40 billion USD offer.

You forgot quite a few actually, although most stopped at 486 level technology, since Intel changed their licensing after that.

List of x86 manufacturers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I guess you've never heard about the POWER range of high-end server CPUs from IBM then?

IBM Power microprocessors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

By now, there's also a handful of ARM licensees that are making server grade CPUs, with the most successful company being Annapurna who got bought out by Amazon and makes all their server chips. Just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean that there's no competition, although you are correct as far as Intel having a huge market share to date, but it seems like even that is slowly changing.

As for ARMs financials, wouldn't that also be SoftBank's financials? SoftBank has done a lot of bad investments in the past few years, such as WeWork, various strange investments in the PRC and so on. It's impossible to keep tabs on all the weird investments SoftBank has done, as it ranges from power plants in India to dog-walking startups...
So yeah, ARM is unlikely to be doing poorly, but its owner has been suffering badly from flawed investments.
This is why they want to offload ARM, so they can get a big fat paycheque in the mail so to speak, to cover all the bad investments.

 

[Tardian]

Nice to see you got some zest to you mate, so many blokes on this site are sensitive as fairy folk on an outing to Candy Land these days.

LOL

On a more serious note though, yes this LG 42" OLED coming next year is perfect size for my giant megadesk I bought at IKEA, 48" is just to a little too much. However, as long as I wall mount it directly in front of my desk, I can sit my desk back just an extra 2 inches (its already a very big desk compared to most, the biggest IKEA sells in fact to my knowledge), it's going to be glorious. I intend to hook up a PS5 to it while I wait to build my Ultima dream rig whenever AM5 socket and next gpu's come out.

I want a PS5, but it is seeming like an impossible dream. How are you obtaining one? I want one for GT7 when it is released next year. I bought a used copy of GT Sport for PS4 to play on the PS5 in the interim. IMNSHO PS5's are being acquired in bulk for cryptocurrency mining. I have never seen one and know no one who has. A few forum members "claim" to have one but never post photographs.
One small negative comment about the 48 inch OLED. With one streaming service, it has a lip-synch problem that is really annoying. The image quality is superb. It scales really well. The new LG remotes are better. They have pause and play buttons down the bottom.
Right back at you on the thick skin issue. I was bullied at school but never on the internet. Trolls hate being ignored or exposed/reported.
I also want to build a new gaming rig for my son. However, I just can't bring myself to pay 3-5x the proper graphics card price. His GTX 1060 3GB rig is three years old but in Australia, they want $1000-$1500 for the 3060 card and silly money for anything better.

 

[Space Lynx]

I want a PS5, but it is seeming like an impossible dream. How are you obtaining one? I want one for GT7 when it is released next year. I bought a used copy of GT Sport for PS4 to play on the PS5 in the interim. IMNSHO PS5's are being acquired in bulk for cryptocurrency mining. I have never seen one and know no one who has. A few forum members "claim" to have one but never post photographs.
One small negative comment about the 48 inch OLED. With one streaming service, it has a lip-synch problem that is really annoying. The image quality is superb. It scales really well. The new LG remotes are better. They have pause and play buttons down the bottom.
Right back at you on the thick skin issue. I was bullied at school but never on the internet. Trolls hate being ignored or exposed/reported.
I also want to build a new gaming rig for my son. However, I just can't bring myself to pay 3-5x the proper graphics card price. His GTX 1060 3GB rig is three years old but in Australia, they want $1000-$1500 for the 3060 card and silly money for anything better.

I'm just going in person to stores hoping to get one in person. I'm not even going to bother trying to beat the bots online anymore.

I'm just hoping companies wise up and start shipping more directly to stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

I went to Costco this morning to check right when they opened and no luck.

I'm hoping before winter I will get lucky. Cause I hate the cold weather, and I just want to sit back and game all winter, while the world continues to go crazy.

 

[Audioave10]

Control of technology and control of prices and availability goes together with Nvidia. They do this even without ARM.

 

[Tardian]

Sad to hear about your Dad. I would be earning double if I had changed my superannuation investment plan at the right time. I just happened to be sick and missed the 4 corners program that outlined the problem. IMNSHO the world got a lot meaner in 2008. If you can get another PS5 I will buy it from you as long as the margin/shipping isn't enormous.