ATI 4QF05 Conference Call

[MrBond]

I think Dave just touched on this, but perhaps ATI's mark of uniqueness in that statement was that they included chipsets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but up until the 6100 nvidia IGPs were still only DX7 compliant?

 

[Geo]

Logically there shouldn't be any reason why NVIDIA wouldn't be on par sooner or later. I would suggest this is a resource element at the moment - with ATI having DX9 integrated graphics for sometime they obviously felt this would be worthwhile for them now as integrated cycle times at the OEM's are often much longer, so getting good support for Vista now is an active selling point because solutions may SKU's sold now may still be sold when Vista is actually released; now that 6100 is here I expect NVIDIA will be paying more attention to it, especially so when their Intel integrated graphics comes around.

Ah, okay. Not to mention that your average IGP-type user is rarely a driver slut when it comes to hunting down the latest/greatest regularly.

 

[chavvdarrr]

with loss of 100mln$ per quarter.... how much cash they have? Given the low availability of X1 series... i doubt they'll make big profit next quarter.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Quarterly profits/losses don't actually necessarily equate to cash; its common to make a quarterly profit but cash goes down, or a quarterly loss and cash goes up.

 

[Bruce]

with loss of 100mln$ per quarter.... how much cash they have? Given the low availability of X1 series... i doubt they'll make big profit next quarter.

annual profit is still ~17m, next profit should be better because of xbox360 sales start.

 

[thegrommit]

with loss of 100mln$ per quarter.... how much cash they have? Given the low availability of X1 series... i doubt they'll make big profit next quarter.

Latest figures indicate US$644 Million, with less than $30 Million debt.

 

[PurplePigeon]

with loss of 100mln$ per quarter.... how much cash they have? Given the low availability of X1 series... i doubt they'll make big profit next quarter.

When looking at financial statements, there are many non-cash items which can contribute to the loss reported. For example, when the estimated value of your inventory goes down, it doesn't affect how much cash you have in the bank, but it does contribute to your loss. And there are other accounting things which add up, but aren't really tangible. Based on a casual glance at their statements, ATI's actual cash loss appears to be significantly less than $100 million.

 

[Geo]

Some more on X1000 and Vista compatibility, and a bit of "hmm" on where the break is on cards that won't support it entirely.

You guys are announcing that the entire x1000 series is Vista ready and supposedly Vista will be Direct-X 10 so does that mean these cards are Direct-X 10 ready?

No- you cant put out a chip with Direct-X 10 over a year before it becomes available. What we’re saying is that your card wont stop working when Vista comes out and it will also support all of the desktop interface. There is actually an update to Direct-X 9 that will ship with Longhorn and it adds quite a few extra features so not necessarily all the previous chips (will fully work) but anything shipping now or recently will support that. It’s an important point as something that is two years old can’t (be expected to work) and you’ll have to basically go back to the compatibility mode where you run Windows with the older interface.

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?cat=edit&id=408&pagenumber=3

What I want to know --for both ATI and NV-- is where does that "not necessarily all the previous chips" thing happen?