AMD and ATI merger

[ryboto]

Well, dunno if you read this, but it looks like Intel isn't too happy with Ati:



Intel pulls ATI bus licence

I expect the same thing that happened with Uli when nVidia bought them, Ati could only use Uli chipsets that were already in stock, as nVidia quickly pulled the plug for the manufacturing of Ati compatible Uli southbridges.

Don't expect any new Ati chipsets for the intel platform (and therefore, for Conroe ) any time soon, in fact, don't expect them at all, unless AMD-Ati pulls the same move Via did when Intel removed their chipset bus license some years ago, and started producing unlicensed chipsets for the P4, Intel took them to court, and now, P4 mobos based on Via chipsets are very scarce, as mobo manufacturers won't touch them even with 50 feet long stick...

Are you sure intel did that because of the merger, or because intel no longer needed ati chipsets in their boards? Intel would rather own all of the components, I don't think they would have initially even had ati chipsets unless they really needed them to fill in for a short period, which they've done.

 

[Ketxxx]

I've got tje opposite

I've been around far longer than you guys know, I know something isn't right about this. If something truely good comes of this, I will be surprised.

 

[Sasqui]

Intel's 965 boards don't support Crossfire due to a missing hardware element that crossfire needs. Peer-to-peer writes if I remember correctly

I'm taking your word for that... and it goes along with 15th Warlock's link to ATI not getting a renewed license from Intel. Once they got wind of ATI letting AMD buy them out, no doubt all bets were off. Hell, do you seriously think Intel is going to support ANYTHING with the AMD brand? They are arch-competitors.

Sheer speculation, but this is the beginning of a market war - none of us will win. Maybe I should leap on the 975x board now, although ATI video drivers will no doubt be written in the future to disable CF on intel based chipsets - don't get your panties in a bunch - that's just speculation.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Wrong, you are only speculating

Really?

We already have 3 choices anyways. (well, more like 5-6 if you include S3 and others..)

Wheres the speculation?

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

The emo's you post about don't even touch on what I posted, LOL

It touched on the points you posted about the disappearing of competition.

Mind actually arguing something, instead of posting bullcrap generalizations, and saying "oh, you're wrong im right because im 1337 like that"?

Emo's? wtf are you trying to make new crap up because "you're cool"?

seriously dude. Mind doing posting information occasionally?

Oh wait nevermind. there isn't any. Spam away.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

I've been around far longer than you guys know, I know something isn't right about this. If something truely good comes of this, I will be surprised.

Its win:win for the CPU market..ish..

AMD Gets their own chipset division, and mobile marketshare.

AMD CPU's can now have their AMD chipsets to go with, much like Intel has used.

If only I had a nickel anytime someone said "intel's strong because their chipsets"...

GPU market could go many different directions.. however..

 

[warup89]

YES YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!, my dream has finally come true!!! OMG now ATI's cards are gonna OWN soooo much!!!!.

 

[Sasqui]

YES YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!, my dream has finally come true!!! OMG now ATI's cards are gonna OWN soooo much!!!!.

Funny... not very many companies who got bought ever owned much of anything after a few years. Let's hope AMD is smart and lets ATI be autonimous in the space they have now, while developing some leapfrog technology.

Personally, I think it's the beginning of a slow, drawn-out disaster, with few small ones right off the bat.

 

[15th Warlock]

YES YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!, my dream has finally come true!!! OMG now ATI's cards are gonna OWN soooo much!!!!.

Don't get your hopes so high I mean, it's not like AMD will disclose alien technology to Ati that will boost the performance of their cards by a factor of 8! Besides, Ati has been working in the R600 architecture for a long time now, so AMD will have no influence on the architecture and performance of Ati cards for at least a year.

The first benefits AMD will get from the merger may be in the notebook market, expect to see newer chipsets with integrated video to compete with Intel's succesful notebook market share.

We may also start to see how things will change in the industry about one year from now, though some changes like Intel pulling Ati's bus license will have inmediate consequences, I mean, I think we might see one last Ati express chipset for the Intel Conroe platform, as it has been in production for a while now, but in the near future, there may not be a Crossfire solution for Intel processors, and it is possible that Crossfire settings will be only available for AMD processors...

AMD had the advantage of having the only SLI compatible mobos for a long time, as the nForce chipset was exclusive ot the AMD platform for many months, so it shaped the configuration of many of the high end systems bought in that period.

If Crossfire becomes and AMD only solution, and Ati is able to outperform the G80 with their own R600 architecture, the impact of Intel currently having the fastest CPU, may be not as big to AMD sales as it was expected, at least for high end systems.

If, on the other hand, the G80 ends up being faster than the R600, and nVidia continues to push SLI and quad-SLI systems coupled with the faster Conroe systems to get better benchmarks than it's rival Ati, this will have a huge impact on the sale of both high end AMD CPUs and Ati video cards, as ppl looking for the absolute top of the line systems will go with Intel-nVidia solutions, as there won't be (at least in theory) any Ati multi GPU solution available for the faster Intel procs, and you may be limited to Ati single GPU configurations.

After looking at Intell pull the carpet from under Ati feet by negating them from producing Intel compatible chipsets, I think that perhaps I was wrong when I said I expected good things for this merger, as, it seems this will create a huge drift in the market, hopefuly, Ati will be able to renew its bus license (or the fact that they lost it is just a rumor), or we may start see the market divide in two groups.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Don't get your hopes so high I mean, it's not like AMD will disclose alien technology to Ati that will boost the performance of their cards by a factor of 8! Besides, Ati has been working in the R600 architecture for a long time now, so AMD will have no influence on the architecture and performance of Ati cards for at least a year.

The first benefits AMD will get from the merger may be in the notebook market, expect to see newer chipsets with integrated video to compete with Intel's succesful notebook market share.

We may also start to see how things will change in the industry about one year from now, though some changes like Intel pulling Ati's bus license will have inmediate consequences, I mean, I think we might see one last Ati express chipset for the Intel Conroe platform, as it has been in production for a while now, but in the near future, there may not be a Crossfire solution for Intel processors, and it is possible that Crossfire settings will be only available for AMD processors...

Crossfire will probably just be used in intel chipsets. It is already, is it not?
I think the major positive effect for Ati will be FABS.

They will now be able to make their own GPU's. They wont be paying TSMC to make them for them.

Cutting out a middle man = w00t w00t

Plus they get process tweaks AMD is constantly working on within their plant/ with IBM.

 

[15th Warlock]

Crossfire will probably just be used in intel chipsets. It is already, is it not?

All mobos based on the 975x supports it, but not all of them support Conroe, and the new 965 Express based mobos won't support Crossfire unfortunately

Much to our surprise, ATI recently informed all of the motherboard manufacturers that CrossFire is currently not supported on 965 (Broadwater) platforms. Apparently the chipset lacks support for peer to peer writes, which are necessary for CrossFire to function. ATI is investigating if a workaround is possible but for now the only option for CrossFire on an Intel chipset with Conroe support is using the 975X platform.

Source

It looks like if you want SLI or Crossfire with your Conroe, you'll have to count on updated 975X-based mainboards being out by the time Conroe hits the streets later this summer, which I'm certain will happen. (Current 975X-based boards won't do, because they have the wrong voltage regulation module on them.) The downside to this from a gamer's perspective is that the 975X doesn't support 800MHz DDR2. As someone who'd like to put together a Conroe-based gaming system this summer I find the 965's lack of Crossfire support troubling. Gamers need a Conroe chipset that supports both 800MHz DDR and Crossfire.

Source

The only currently available multi-GPU mobos that support Conroe are the mobo's based on the 975x BadAxe Revision 0304 or later, so ppl will have to use mobos based on the 965 chipset (no Crossfire or SLI), some 975x mobos like the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE for SLI and Crossfire setups (no 800Mhz DDR2 support though), the nForce 590 once it's released or even ATi's own RD600, if they manage to release it.

Having access to AMD's fabs may certainly reduce production costs of future Ati GPUs, here's hoping that these costs reductions reaches the final consumer as you say

 

[Sasqui]

As someone who'd like to put together a Conroe-based gaming system this summer I find the 965's lack of Crossfire support troubling. Gamers need a Conroe chipset that supports both 800MHz DDR and Crossfire.

Asus and Abit Claim to support DDR2 800 with their 975x boards

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

All mobos based on the 975x supports it, but not all of them support Conroe, and the new 965 Express based mobos won't support Crossfire unfortunately


Having access to AMD's fabs may certainly reduce production costs of future Ati GPUs, here's hoping that these costs reductions reaches the final consumer as you say

Sadly, the lack of conroe support is purely intel's fault, not Ati's.

If AMD continues a price war with Intel, the state of mind may leak over to the Ati side, assuming they actually use their fab for GPU's.. We should atleast see a major decrease in the BoM for GPU's.. which in turn will creep its way down to consumers, because OEM's such as Asus, Abit, etc love to undercut eachothers prices

 

[Nyte]

...you know how AMD integrates their memory controllers on their CPU? Well, they're looking to integrate much more than that... ahem.

 

[Casheti]

It makes me sick to see that ATi have stooped so low... *tut tut tut*. F*ck AMD, put little miniature conroes on each new board.

 

[infrared]

Wow, who would have thought that this is true!
Perhaps we see someday a cpu with a gpu integrated

That would limit the choice so much... i hope it never happens :shadedshu

 

[pt]

It makes me sick to see that ATi have stooped so low... *tut tut tut*. F*ck AMD, put little miniature conroes on each new board.

AMD and ATI rules

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

That would limit the choice so much... i hope it never happens :shadedshu

It wont be like having a 7900 integrated into the CPU.

It will be a simple IGP like intels GMA950, etc integrated.. add in cards are definatly not going to die off soon

Intel was demoing CPU's with the video built in, which would be excellent for laptops.. lower power consumption, lower heat output.

 

[15th Warlock]

On the aftermath of this merger, the biggest players in the industry have some rather intersting commentaries to make:


AMD's CEO:

"We will move from being neighbors to being a family"

Interview of Ati's Chris Evenden by Firing squad:

FiringSquad: How will this affect ATI’s relationship with Intel? ATI’s RD600 CrossFire chipset for Core 2 is in its final stages of development and is set to hit the market in just a couple of months. Will this project be canned or does ATI still plan on releasing RD600 for Core 2?

Chris Evenden: No, we’ll still launch that, we have customers who want to see that. The chipset is ready, it’s ready to go, the performance is excellent so we’re going to launch it and we’re very pleased with the overclockability and features. So we’ll still carry on with working with Intel, and we’ll still allow CrossFire to work on 975X going forward. But beyond that it’s really up to Intel.

The whole company, well the new company wants to give as much choice to its customers as possible, so if you want an Intel CPU with an ATI GPU then great, we’ll be happy with that. If you want an AMD CPU with an NVIDIA GPU then we’ll be very happy with that as well. Basically we want them all to compete equally and make sure that we give the best product to our customers. So really the onus is on Intel to show that they want to provide choice to their customers as well. If they want to allow a choice, then we’ll certainly continue to serve that market.

FiringSquad: Does ATI plan to continue to provide CrossFire support for use in Intel’s own chipsets?

Chris Evenden: Yes, we plan to continue that absolutely.

nVidia's own CEO Jen-Hsun Huang:

"I thought it was just impossible to get a gift like this,"
"Ati is basically throwing in the towel, leaving us as the only stand-alone (graphics chip) company in the world."

NVIDIA's Derek Perez

"So if you think about it, it’s kind of like ATI’s thrown in the towel right? Getting beat on both ends, looking for a way out, a little bit like 3dfx a few years back."

When asked if AMD motherboards would still use NVIDIA core logic, Richard replied "I surely hope so, absolutely." In an interview with Bytesector, Perez also assures us "We will continue to work with AMD to bring our brands to our mutual customers," but warns "We are now Intel's best GPU partner."

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy on the use of Intel's front bus license by Ati

"We are evaluating the deal, and have got a lot to figure out how it would fit in with our existing agreements with both ATI and AMD,"

Source

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

nVidia's own CEO Jen-Hsun Huang:



NVIDIA's Derek Perez

Nvidia seems awefully confident Ati is going to poof.

Somethings fishy...

Although that statement with them "being Intel's best GPU partner" is complete crap.. Crossfire gets you an Intel chipset... no gay Nvidia drivers... >_>

 

[wazzledoozle]

Nvidia seems awefully confident Ati is going to poof.

Somethings fishy...

Although that statement with them "being Intel's best GPU partner" is complete crap.. Crossfire gets you an Intel chipset... no gay Nvidia drivers... >_>

In what way have Nvidia drivers had homosexual relations with other Nvidia drivers?

 

[Solaris17]

In what way have Nvidia drivers had homosexual relations with other Nvidia drivers?

through homosexual digital intercourse naturally geez wazz wtf?:shadedshu

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

In what way have Nvidia drivers had homosexual relations with other Nvidia drivers?

not Nvidia drivers, other programs