AMD to be taken over by Nvidia?????

[Abheek]

Hi everyone,

My dad recently got some clients from ac** computers. I had requested him to ask them their view on processors, i.e., if they prefered AMD or intel.
I am myself a great AMD fan, and he told my dad that AMD is much better then intel, but is on a shaky ground as the might be taken over by nvidia!?!
Quiet surprised and shocked by this news, I decided to google it. Heres what i found -

'Doug Friedman, an analyst with American Technology Research, said that graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. could well acquire x86 microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices in order to “re-architect it”. The acquisition is considered to be useful due to the fact that roadmaps of AMD and Intel Corp. threat Nvidia. The only problem for the graphics giant is that AMD’s x86 license is a non-transferable one.


“We believe AMD [could] face mounting pressure from shareholders, to restructure the company with a focus on a change in leadership,” said the analyst.

Indeed, shareholders of AMD are hardly pleased with the company’s performance in the recent quarters as well as issues with the launch of quad-core microprocessors and the release of DirectX 10 graphics processing units. Nevertheless, late last year AMD managed to secure $622 million from Mubadala Development Company, which means that there are those who believe in AMD.

But despite of the problems that AMD has had, its roadmap of integration graphics cores into central processing units (CPUs) threats Nvidia: not only AMD increases its market share on the market of graphics adapters, but it transforms graphics solutions into commodity, which may potentially affect Nvidia’s revenues going forward.

“The Intel/AMD roadmap of integration of the CPU/GPU could pose a risk to Nvidia, and buying AMD propels Nvidia into a formidable competitor for Intel with the upside coming from Huang’s ability to re-architect AMD’s design,” said Mr. Friedman.

At press time, AMD’s market capitalization was $3.82 billion and it has $1.89 billion in cash. Nvidia Corp.’s market capitalization at press time was $13.01 billion, besides, the company had $1.85 billion in bank.

Perhaps, Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, could re-architect Advanced Micro Devices in order to make it profitable. However, due to the fact that wide cross-licensing agreement between AMD and Intel, which is also believed to cover x86 instruction set, does not allow AMD to transfer any of Intel’s technologies to any third-party. As a result, if AMD is acquired by Nvidia, the new company will not have rights to produce x86 central processing units (CPUs) or utilize any technologies from Intel.

It is uncertain whether Nvidia, or any other company that has no wide cross-licensing agreement with Intel that covers x86 instruction set, is interested in getting AMD and not interested in making CPUs. But what is almost certain is that various antitrust organizations would be against the two suppliers of discrete GPUs becoming one.'


'Nvidia has just finalized the acquisition of physics processing card manufacturer Ageia and seems to
get ready for yet another merger that will change the IT industry forever. Technology analyst Doug Fredman
has estimated that Nvidia is secretly gearing up in order to buy its competitor AMD. Although the scenario might seem like a bad dream for the industry, it actually makes sense.

The situation has been outlined by many more tech analysts than Fredman. They have reached the conclusion that Nvidia chief Jen-Hsun Huang would make a great CEO for Advanced Micro Devices than its actual chairman, Hector Ruiz. This is simply because Ruiz and his suite have compromised the company's credibility as far as Wall Street analysts and the company's customers are concerned. AMD has done nothing but delay its important products; when they reached the market, they would come as immature and unstable products.

On the other side of the fence, back into Nvidia's courtyard, Huang is regarded like a man that keeps his promise. Nvidia is a company that promotes newer technologies and, at the same time, it mercilessly engulfs competition (for instance, the 3dfx is a good example). The new CEO could perform miracles with the ATI technology, such as morphing them for processor direct access. According to Fredman, a joint corporation born from the Nvidia-AMD merger would mean a fatal blow directed at Intel.

Of course, AMD would not be expected to surrender for a faint price, given the fact that it currently has a $3.7 billion market cap and $3.1 billion in net debt. Nvidia can only cover $1.85 billion in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet, but it has a clean debt slate. Moreover, Nvidia can draw good credit rates and valuable stock, that would pave the road to a part-stock, part-debt acquisition.

The most important obstacle in the merger may be the EU and US regulators, that won't be quite content with ATI and Nvidia joining under the same logo, given the fact that this would lead to a monopoly in the high-end graphics industry.

Although Nvidia seems to be the best thing that could happen to AMD, the chip manufacturer would rather get a proposal from IBM, as rumored some time ago. This is rather likely to happen because IBM has extended resources and deeper roots in jointly developing of technology with Advanced Micro Devices.'

A new logo for AMD??
Analysts-Should-Nvidia-Take-Over-AMD-2.jpg
source-news.softpedia.com
xbitlabs.com

[Gigacore]

nice, but place the source at the end.

[ring_wraith]

Amd Merging with nVidia?????? Then what the hell happens to ATi????

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

Their Technology will be incorporated into NVidia's . and then EU will fine them every month or so for antitrust and monopolistic business

[Abheek]

Originally Posted by ring_wraith

Amd Merging with nVidia?????? Then what the hell happens to ATi????

Thats a big problem, along with the problem tht intel tech wont be usable due to the pact between AMD and intel and also, and the AMD x86 processor tech is a non transferable one. Read about it in the article.

[naveen_reloaded]

for get about 10 series coming any sooner... no competition ... more money... slow road map slow release of product..///

[darklord]

I dont see this happening.

[quadroplex780]

This news is an absolute joke.

[ax3]

nice ..... this year seems 2 b MERGING 1 .....

[nvidia]

No way! This wont happen and this shouldnt be happening..
If nvidia takes over, then even ATI will be a part of nvidia, complete monopoly.

[kumarmohit]

As a matter of fact if the merger slows the way Gfx cards are introed, it would be the best for us who cannot buy a new gfx card every six months.

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

Originally Posted by kumarmohit

As a matter of fact if the merger slows the way Gfx cards are introed, it would be the best for us who cannot buy a new gfx card every six months.

That's what i was thinking too .

This way there would be a Standard Card for atleast a year and this would make it easier for both developers and gamers.

[lywyre]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan Quireshi

That's what i was thinking too .

This way there would be a Standard Card for atleast a year and this would make it easier for both developers and gamers.

Appreciable Perspective

[shantanu]

yeah , well whatever it may be ATi was much better, when it was not a AMD corp. , now as i have seen, it sucks.. So if it merges with NVIDIA, both ATi, Nvidia and AMD can come up as something good. and yes as zeshan said, will be good for gamers as well...

[summit.nayak]

Originally Posted by shantanu

yeah , well whatever it may be ATi was much better, when it was not a AMD corp. , now as i have seen, it sucks.. So if it merges with NVIDIA, both ATi, Nvidia and AMD can come up as something good. and yes as zeshan said, will be good for gamers as well...

i cmpletely agree...
and all of them can create a "tri-fusion" processor+gpu which will give us something to ponder around

[Cyrus_the_virus]

2 Week old news, don't just google, please search the forums before you post something.

http://thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80294

[darklord]

Originally Posted by shantanu

yeah , well whatever it may be ATi was much better, when it was not a AMD corp. , now as i have seen, it sucks.. So if it merges with NVIDIA, both ATi, Nvidia and AMD can come up as something good. and yes as zeshan said, will be good for gamers as well...

Eh ? and how exactly was ATI functioning well before AMD acquired it ?
Infact ironically, AMDs CPU division is down in dumps wheras ATI is doing quite well

[Gigacore]

hey wait, few months back, AMD bought ATi... so if nVidia buys AMD, then it means it also acquires ATi !!!

[darklord]

Originally Posted by Gigacore

hey wait, few months back, AMD bought ATi... so if nVidia buys AMD, then it means it also acquires ATi !!!

Eureka !!!!!
You cracked it man ! the mystery of generations


j/k man

[Gigacore]

^ lol

[shantanu]

i used ati x200 and x1350 and x550 as i guess it, the cards easily beated 6200 and 7300GT on my personal machine , i bought a board for my fathers machine about 2 months back i.e ASUS M2A-VM with x1300 chipset.. the GFx onboard is Ati x1300 and it sucks like hell... it cannot even run most wanted good enough.. while 6200 on board (6100 chipset ) can.. well it gave me a impression that Ati has gone Down in the field of GFX... and now they are going for those X2 cards ,, god help them... no sorry.. NVIDIA help them..
PS : No offense to anyone..

[dOm1naTOr]

just before AMD acquiring ATI, ATI was losing with a mamoth heat engine-the 2900XT. It was by all means inferior to nvidia counterparts 8800 in performance, price, heat, powerconsumption, drivers everythin.

But now after AMD acquired ATI, ATI is getting better day by day. Now even the worlds most powerful single card is owned by ATI and no more driver issues and ahead of nvidia in technologies like 55nm,DX 10.1, 320shader units, DD4 etc.
And even ATI s gonna release HD 4xxx series this june with DDR5, 640 shader units and lower manufactiring process GPU with 512 bit memory.


And also currently AMD gonna release the 45nm range GPUs developed in collaboration with IBM.

[darklord]

i used ati x200 and x1350 and x550 as i guess it, the cards easily beated 6200 and 7300GT on my personal machine

You sure about that ? because 7300GT is much more powerful than all the cards mentioned there.

i bought a board for my fathers machine about 2 months back i.e ASUS M2A-VM with x1300 chipset.. the GFx onboard is Ati x1300 and it sucks like hell... it cannot even run most wanted good enough.. while 6200 on board (6100 chipset ) can

I am sure the 690G was much powerful than the 6100 for sure.God knows why you found it to be crappy

well it gave me a impression that Ati has gone Down in the field of GFX... and now they are going for those X2 cards ,, god help them... no sorry.. NVIDIA help them..

You are judging ATI by all these low end cards that you have mentioned and onboard ? Dude whats wrong with you ?
Seriously, whats wrong with the X2 ? Its a powerful card, FASTEST one money can buy right now,its cheap too. Remember when 8800 Ultra came ? It retailed at around 550-600$
I really dont see what wrong have AMD done since they acquired ATI.
I have been watching ATI since a long time man, since 9800 Pro, 9500Pro days.
They SUCKED big time when it came to launches. After 9800Pro something went wrong, not a single card was launched as announced,reasons for this are best known to ATI.

HD2900 aka R600 was the first high end part ATI released after acquisition.And the delay was because of ATI and not AMD mind you.
If you think ATI is down in dumps, i wonder why all the 3DMark2006 World Records are held by ATI Card ?
Care explaining that ?
For that matter they dominate Single card as well as Multiple card records.

just before AMD acquiring ATI, ATI was losing with a mamoth heat engine-the 2900XT. It was by all means inferior to nvidia counterparts 8800 in performance, price, heat, powerconsumption, drivers everythin.

Wow ! thats a bold statement.
I would have to disagree with you. Agreed that it lost the battle BUT if you have observed the R600 carefully, you will know, specswise its a MONSTER. It had the capabaility of battering the 8800 Ultra,unfortunately it didnt, drivers sucked big time.
R600 showcased memory bandwidth that was never seen before, ever heard of 140 GBps ? R600 did that and even more
ATI Ring memory controller is very very efficient too.
R600 suffered due to 80nm Fab process. It was a complex architecture and the 80nm fab process was not the ideal one for that.
If you observe RV670 Pro and RV670XT i.e 3850 and 3870, they share a lot of similarity with the R600, with 55nm Fab process, they showed their potential.

AMD did what ATI couldnt do for so many years, Hard Launch on time and at reasonable price point. the 3870 was Out Of Stock for a long time with many popular US Etailers, clearly indicating their popularity.

These cards again gave people the option of having excellent performance for less money.
This is where Nvidia had been ruling for so many years. AMD hit the sweet spot of strong mid end segment sales with 3850 and 3870.

Also the R600 based FireGL cards used in Workstations are so powerful that whatever Nvidia does, it does not have anything to counter it.
2600XT softmodded into FireGL give performance that can put some 500-1000$ Quadros to shame.

AMD offered mind blowing performance with R600 based FireGL at a price much much lower than Nvidia
Also the brute force of the R600(FireGL) had got Nvidia worried.

I guess this is sufficent to convince you that acquisition of ATI infact helped them.AMD got some lazy asses moving and bring out some very good products that ATI had developed.
So i dont think ATI is down in the dumps.

Just my opinion though.

[dOm1naTOr]

ATI did 55nm on GPU easily which nvidia cudnt achiev till date.
But AMD failed to achieve 45nm on CPU which Intel did with ease.

AMD cud atlest use 55nm for CPU. And why are they limiting the phenom at 2.6GHz??? I think current 65nm is enuf to buckle atleast around 3.4Ghz.

Its better if IBM acquire AMD than nvidia....Atleast the copetition wud last which favours us-'the end users'

AMD is thinkin to launch 22nm CPu by 2016. Im an AMD fan, but now on hearing this i have only one word "God help them untill 2016"

And ya, the 2900XT was much ahead of 8800 in paper with massive memory bandwidth, 320 procesing units and ring bus.
But the holy architecture was put into 55nm wafer after AMD got ATI.
I think AMD thinks/thought that inorder to hold the market, putting money on GPU research wud be more productive. So they produced gud GPUs at cost of underpowered CPUs.

And news bout the fuzion nd torenza? i think they said phenom was first step towards fuzion.

[darklord]

switching architectures of GPUs is comparitively easier.
Its not as easy as you think to move to 55nm from 65nm till 45nm is ready or so.
They are FORCED to limit the Phenom at 2.6GHz
Problem is that the Phenom is a huge die and achieving good yields is a big problem for such complex chips.
Trust me, its a very very complex chip.This explains all the delays and scaling issues.
theit 65nm fab tech isnt perfect either.
The Phenom is quite sensitive chip.
You know, passing 2.2v vdimm on a phenom platform, is good enough to kill the chip.
That sent a shiver down my spine as i am used to pushing 2.4-2.6V through DDR2 modules

[nvidia]

Originally Posted by dOm1naTOr

But now after AMD acquired ATI, ATI is getting better day by day. Now even the worlds most powerful single card is owned by ATI and no more driver issues and ahead of nvidia in technologies like 55nm,DX 10.1, 320shader units, DD4 etc.

Soon, nvidia will be doomed(I'll have to change my user name again then)

And even ATI s gonna release HD 4xxx series this june with DDR5, 640 shader units and lower manufactiring process GPU with 512 bit memory.

Awesome!! Can you provide some links with more info regarding this?

[darklord]

Its called R700 if i am correct

[x3060]

so in the end someone please explain , who is going to own ati?

[darklord]

Originally Posted by x3060

so in the end someone please explain , who is going to own ati?

AMD owns ATI...end of discussion

[Abheek]

I dont really think this will happen. After reading all this stuff, its not likely that nvidia or ibm will take over AMD. IBM has been trying to pull out of the consumer product market for ages and I see no reason why they would compete against CPU giants AMD or intel, and neither do they want to take over AMD as it is currently in loss. Nvidia wont be allowed for the same old reason, they will also acquire ATI and have complete monopoly. Also the x86 processor stuff is untransferable and so is the intel tech lease agreement. Everything might remain just as it is.

Also, AMD announced that they are going back into the profit region by the second half of this year so they might not want to sell out!!