Why is NVIDIA in Wired top 40 (or why ATI isn't)

I just read Wired Magazine's Top 40 companies of the year. NVIDIA ranked 21, up from 24 from last year. ATI on the otherhand is not even on the list. Why is this?

Consider the two companies. They make the same products. They have roughly the same market share. Both have about $2Bn in revenue per year. Both power console(s) of the current and next generataion. It seems little differentiate them.

So, which company is more innovative and important, NVIDIA or ATI?
 
ATI is primarly canadian.
NVIDIA makes a lot more profit.
They've grown in the past year, not shrunk.
Their stockmarket capitalization is twice that of ATI.
They're entering new markets, not just consolidating in them.

Is that enough for you to justify Wired's "choice" yet? ...
Same revenue doesn't mean anything, stockmarket-wise.


Uttar
 
Uttar said:
ATI is primarly canadian.
NVIDIA makes a lot more profit.
Their stockmarket capitalization is twice that of ATI.
Okay, that's cool.

They've grown in the past year, not shrunk.
ATI has grown immensely since Dave Orton took over. If we look at growth in the last five years, I think ATI is doing better.

They're entering new markets, not just consolidating in them.
Like what?
ATI has managed to break into the DTV/set top box market. NVIDIA is blank there. Both companies are doing okay in Cell phones. ATI still leads in mobile, though NVIDIA is much stronger there than a few years ago. ATI has powered three consoles, NV has one and one more coming.

I do think on the whole, NV is stronger than ATI. But not in the day and night difference you seem to be arguing for.

I'm really more interested in which company has had more impact on 3D graphics. NVIDIA started shaders. That's important. ATI, well, they seem to have more flair in architecture, though probably not as 'efficient'.

But I think ATI ought to be commended for turning themselves around. If they followed their 'mid-range' philosophy as with prior to R300, they probably would be irrelevant today.

And _xxx_, does your post actually contain any information?
 
What you say is totally true - in the last 5 years, I'd tend to believe ATI's growth is more impressive than NVIDIA's (although ATI tends to work in phases - they were a fair bit bigger than they were 5 years ago, if you look even further back, unlike NVIDIA which was a much newer company).

I'd tend to believe, however, that these kinds of lists emphasize on the last 1-2 years. Correct me if I'm wrong of course. If we want to talk about the last 5 years, things are very different indeed :) And what I meant wrt markets was that NVIDIA is now entering the markets ATI entered 3 to 5 years ago.


Uttar
 
Uttar said:
What you say is totally true - in the last 5 years, I'd tend to believe ATI's growth is more impressive than NVIDIA's (although ATI tends to work in phases - they were a fair bit bigger than they were 5 years ago, if you look even further back, unlike NVIDIA which was a much newer company).
Yeah, ATI is truely an oldie. They are probably the oldest that's still alive. But NVIDIA came along, new, burning with energy and wiped out pretty much everybody. Then they sat on their ass, Geforce FX came and went, Richard Huddy quit saying ATI is now the company NVIDIA 'was'. But as said in another thread, it's good that NVIDIA stumbled. They picked themselves up again and really refocused. I think their last two products, 7800 and 7900 GTX, are fantastic.

I'd tend to believe, however, that these kinds of lists emphasize on the last 1-2 years. Correct me if I'm wrong of course. If we want to talk about the last 5 years, things are very different indeed :) And what I meant wrt markets was that NVIDIA is now entering the markets ATI entered 3 to 5 years ago.
Since it's a yearly list, then it sure makes sense to concentrate on the last year. But even then, I can't see how NVIDIA's performance as being much more impressive than ATI's.

Let's take the console case. Out of PS3 and XBOX 360, I think ATI got the better contract. I don't know who will get paid more in the end, but just from observation it seems that ATI won the XBOX 360 deal from the get-go, designed it with close collaboration with MS and came up with a very compelling (and original) architecture. This deal has allowed them to experiment and produce a unified shader part early. This experience will come in very handy when they make unified PC GPUs.

With NVIDIA on the other hand, it seems like Sony went to them. Cell is awesome, but a GPU it ain't. So NVIDIA landed a deal with Sony not so much to design a next gen console GPU but to provide the IP for the G70, some 3D tools and know-how. Now the G70 is a great chip and NVIDIA has an awesome inventory of IP: Cg, gelato, shaders, patents etc, but they didn't really strive to get this deal. And as a result, it doesn't help them strategically the same way the XBOX 360 deal helps ATI.

If we look at the last two years, where NVIDIA has really done well is with SLI. They thought that up nice and early and today, they clearly have the better implemention in the market. And also with their last generation, the G71 is definitely doing better than the R580 in efficiency per watt or per transistor. But ATI has done plenty of good stuff in the mean time as well. So in the end, I just still feel a bit queezy about their choice of NVIDIA as #21 and ATI as a nobody.
 
Nvidia kicked butt with SLI and took advantage of ATI while ATI had problems getting out R520.
 
#1, which year? 2005? NV had a helluva 2005. ATI stumbled in spots, tho you'd hope XB360 would have helped there a lot.

And, Uttar. . . "ATI is primarily Canadian"?? What exactly are you saying about Wired's criteria there? Was it a US only list?

Tho I'd want to know what Wired said about NV justifying their presence. I'm sure they didn't just plop a list of 40 down to be slap-the-forehead self-evident what their thinking was to all readers.

Btw, here's the May 2005 list, with NV at 24 and no ATI: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/wired40.html?pg=1&topic=wired40&topic_set= You'll note it includes Samsung, TSMC, Nokia, etc, for you "ATI is primarily Canadian" fans!
 
ATi is struggling in certain aspects of their business. Primarily in the chipset aspect and it is killing their margins.

They also fumbled the last couple of launches and didnt really have impressive launches like they did with the R3.xx series of cards.

Maybe R600 will turn them around. Right now Nvidia's financials are looking good and they are securing markets they havent before(mobile) and have a GPU nearly half the size of ATI while delivering similar performance.
 
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