What will the AMD- ATI aquisition mean for future chipsets??

Ratchet said:
And ATI still exists as a division afterall. Their focus is graphics like it always has been, the only difference now is they got the support and resources of a $7B company.
Except they also have to compete now for the resources of the company as a whole. It's not like AMD is just going to say, "Okay, ATI, you can have all the fab time and money you want. Just write yourself a check."

In the short term, nothing will change, as ATI already has products well on their way to production. But this will inevitably make the new ATI/AMD entity slower to react, and thus slower to put out new technologies, just because there will be additional layers of management to convince of a product's viability.
 
Ratchet said:
That's looking at AMD like it's still a CPU company. It's not. The "new" AMD offers a complete platform: CPU, graphics, chipset. Why would they dilute an advatage like that (one neither NVIDIA or Intel has) by dumbing down one of the key components?

It's not really dumbing it down, just depends on resource allocation depending on whats going on the CPU side, looking at those presentation slides its pretty obvious this new company is more focused on chipsets and cpu's. Or they will focus more in these segements. Just imigine, Intel takes a chunck out of AMD in the near future with conroe, then you have nV seems to always get the marketing advantage and even if the products are close in speed and IQ, nV is able to gain market share. Chipsets will stay the same for some time. This new company will show if its capable of staying as it is now in the next 6 months. Its a bigger company but there is alot more at stake, its kinda like the bigger they are they harder they fall.
 
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Chalnoth said:
Except they also have to compete now for the resources of the company as a whole. It's not like AMD is just going to say, "Okay, ATI, you can have all the fab time and money you want. Just write yourself a check."

People in ATI had to compete for engineering and monetary resources anyway. You think the people in ATI chipsets, graphics cards or mobile divisions were allowed all the fab time and money they wanted? You think they were allowed to write their own cheques?

Difference is that now they can draw on the resources of AMD too, and will no doubt in a few years have their own fab time too.

Chalnoth said:
In the short term, nothing will change, as ATI already has products well on their way to production. But this will inevitably make the new ATI/AMD entity slower to react, and thus slower to put out new technologies, just because there will be additional layers of management to convince of a product's viability.
You're just guessing here. There ATI offices in Toronto and California are not disappearing, Orton will still be at the top as a VP, reporting directly to the board of AMD (or on the board directly) in much the same was as he did at ATI, and ATI will still be a distinct division. There's no reason to think that any significant additional layers of management will be added or that they will somehow stall all GPU development in a market which both ATI and AMD understands requires a fast pace of development.

AMD bought ATI to build themselves up. ATI allowed themselves to be bought in order to build themselves up. Neither companies want to start tearing down the qualities that make them worth joining together.
 
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Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
People in ATI had to compete for engineering and monetary resources anyway. You think the people in ATI chipsets, graphics cards or mobile divisions were allowed all the fab time and money they wanted? You think they were allowed to write their own cheques?
Right, and now that they have AMD management there to make some of the decisions, you can bet that the distribution of funds is going to be reshuffled somewhat from the way things were when ATI was alone. Specifically, it's pretty darned obvious that AMD is more interested in chipsets and integrated video technology than the high-end standalone GPU sector.

AMD bought ATI to build themselves up. ATI allowed themselves to be bought in order to build themselves up. Neither companies want to start tearing down the qualities that make them worth joining together.
I'm not saying the new entity won't bring benefit to both, because in many ways I think it will. I just think that the high-end GPU sector will suffer.
 
Chalnoth said:
Right, and now that they have AMD management there to make some of the decisions, you can bet that the distribution of funds is going to be reshuffled somewhat from the way things were when ATI was alone. Specifically, it's pretty darned obvious that AMD is more interested in chipsets and integrated video technology than the high-end standalone GPU sector.

How do you know that means ATI is going to get less resources, and not more resources?

Have you read what they've said in the interview at Voodoextreme? They specifically went out of their way to say that this does not mean the death of the discrete graphics card. Why would ATI agree to this buyout if it means less resources, and less ability to compete? Orton is not a stupid man, he is not taking the money and running away, he's there to make a better ATI that makes better products.
 
Chalnoth said:
I imagine that you're talking about IMG Tech here, and they haven't shown any desire to enter the high-end GPU market since the first days of 3D graphics acceleration.

Not specifically, might as well be a stroke of genious at S3/VIA, or even some completely new player. Or someone licensing IMGTech's tech and pimping it up.
 
Oh, I'm certainly not saying that ATI's suddenly going to stop producing discrete graphics cards, or even high-end ones. What I am suggesting is that there will be a difference in terms of what products are emphasized compared to what ATI is doing today. Thus I suspect that we'll see delayed high-end GPU launches, likely starting with the first high-end GPU ATI is set to release after, oh, March of next year (whatever that may be).

And since delays are so bad in this industry, ATI will fall behind in marketshare, and eventually shrink back from the high-end GPU market, emphasizing other product lines instead.

I think it'll be very, very interesting to come back in a year and re-evaluate how things are going :)
 
But thanks to that, you'll also have nV slowing down since the pressure won't be as big as it is now. Some compensation at least.
 
_xxx_ said:
But thanks to that, you'll also have nV slowing down since the pressure won't be as big as it is now. Some compensation at least.
That's a distinct possibility, but it won't happen very quickly. nVidia's too used to breakneck product launch schedules, so it'll take a fair amount of time on the top for them to get lazy about it.
 
Chalnoth said:
Oh, I'm certainly not saying that ATI's suddenly going to stop producing discrete graphics cards, or even high-end ones. What I am suggesting is that there will be a difference in terms of what products are emphasized compared to what ATI is doing today. Thus I suspect that we'll see delayed high-end GPU launches, likely starting with the first high-end GPU ATI is set to release after, oh, March of next year (whatever that may be).
I'm suggesting that won't be the case, that ATI will be able to use extra resources from AMD, continue their discrete GPU products in line with what that market demands (in terms of execution), and will enter new markets with AMD such as on-die GPUs, more closely intergrated chipsets. They will also be looking at the market five years from now, where GPUs/CPUs/Chipsets will be much more closely tied together, and with the advantages of having expertise, processes and space from one of the worlds most advanced fabs and CPU manufacturers.

Chalnoth said:
And since delays are so bad in this industry, ATI will fall behind in marketshare, and eventually shrink back from the high-end GPU market, emphasizing other product lines instead.
I think it's likely that the smaller companies that try to remain independent are the ones that will shrink back, we've already seen the likes of ArtX, Gigpixel, UMC, SiS, Bitboys all get subsumed so the larger players can get access to interesting tech, IP, engineers, markets and regions.

Nvidia has a market because Intel and AMD needed them to provide chipsets and GPUs to round off their product offerings. That may not be the case in another few years.

Chalnoth said:
I think it'll be very, very interesting to come back in a year and re-evaluate how things are going :)
Yes, but I think one year is too short. I think we're seeing the beginning of changes (both in a technology and business sense) that will make the market we see five years from now very, very different from today.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
I'm suggesting that won't be the case, that ATI will be able to use extra resources from AMD, continue their discrete GPU products in line with what that market demands (in terms of execution), and will enter new markets with AMD such as on-die GPUs, more closely intergrated chipsets. They will also be looking at the market five years from now, where GPUs/CPUs/Chipsets will be much more closely tied together, and with the advantages of having expertise, processes and space from one of the worlds most advanced fabs and CPU manufacturers.
There aren't going to be any extra resouces. AMD's going to have to do some belt tightening in its CPU sector over the next few months due to competition from Conroe. If anything, ATI's going to be lucky if they don't end up working with less total operating capital than they have now. And sharing of technology between the companies is still some years off.

Yes, but I think one year is too short. I think we're seeing the beginning of changes (both in a technology and business sense) that will make the market we see five years from now very, very different from today.
Well, within a year we'll have a much better understanding as to what the new company's strategies are, even if we don't see that much change yet. Hell, the merger isn't going through for nearly six months, so we certainly won't see any change before the end of the year.
 
AMD bought a business that generates fairly consistent revenue streams. The bulk of ATI's revenue comes from discrete graphics. It seems AMD would be foolish to just cut that off through neglect, ceding the high margin market share to NV. Strange things happen when acquisitions take place, but IMHO it is the large diverse companies that make those mistakes. AMD is narrowly focused in their product line. The acquisition gives them access to another market with the possibility of combining products to compete better in the processor market. ATI is going to lose some short term revenue streams in the chipset business. I think AMD is gambling that it will offset this by increasing it's future market share at Intels expense.
 
Well assuming Intel junks Ati, which it will do as soon as possible I think, and nvidia slowly withers on the vine as far as AMD are concerned then I doubt too many people at nvidia will think that is a bad swap.

Similar to the past 12 month upgrade cycles to nvidia products Intel now seem to have settled on 2 years with very well sign posted roadmap and what looks like killer products that will probably always be first to a smaller process as well. In regards to market share I do not think that bodes badly.

Also, probably slightly in the wrong thread but I am also worried about Dave Orton not being in total charge anymore. Both Dave and Jen0Hsun have driven their companies over the years and new Dave might be held back by the AMD bean counters to some extent ??
 
From what I understand ATI is a more nebulous organisation then Nvidia, so you can't really say Dave was the sole driver, certainly no where near how it works at NV. I don't think it will affect the situation much. I'm pretty sure AMD has a similar corperate dynamic.
 
The CEO of VoodooPC is claiming that their as well as a number of other's new Conroe based PCs that are scheduled to be shown at an upcoming event were originally supposed to feature ATI cards but Intel is now removing ATI from the event entirely.
 
I find it very interesting how many people decide to assume AMD will kill off at least some of ATI's products. I also find it very surprising that anyone would suggest that somehow ATI and AMD have to compete for resources, and the net effect will be less ability to compete. This is the exact opposite of reality.

One thing that IMO cannot be ignored, is if AMD/ATI start producing discreet cards in their own foundries. This will be huge. It will give them a manufacturing edge that the bulk processes of the pay as you go foundries will not be able to match. And more importantly, it will reduce costs significantly. NVIDIA should be very worried about this. NVIDIA should also be worried that they don't have a path to begin producing a CPU/GPU hybrid, which I think is inevitable. Not to say the discreet card will go away. It won't. For the foreseeable future, the high end is going to be a discreet part. But IMO we are going to see more and more computers, devices etc. with hardware accelerated pixel capabilities. And the idea device for this is a CPU that can push out pixels.

Natrually, a lot of the above is something to expect in 2-3 years, maybe more. But it will happen. Yes a lot can change in 3 years, and NVIDIA is a smart company and will no doubt adapt. But honestly NVIDIA must be scratching their heads, trying to map out a path for the future.
 
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