Nvidia: "ATI's thrown in the towel"

[CJ]

Exactly the way I'm thinking too, short term outlook won't change much at all, but in the longer run ( 1 year for the graphics industry) just too many loose ends where things can go wrong.

Yeah it is very strange that ATi wanted the merger just seems like they were afraid of something.

Just read the FS interview. Here's what they say about the merger:

FiringSquad: When was this deal first proposed and who approached who first?

Jon Carvill: Talks began late last year, and we approached ATI.
Chris Evenden: Can I elaborate on that? I wouldn’t want you to think that we’d just sleep with anyone (everyone laughs). In terms of going over the timeline, well the ATI board was in the middle of a major strategic review of where the company was going and how to get there. It’s actually occurred over the last 12 months actually. And our overarching goals were to remain number one or number two in all of our technology markets, so the board was looking at ways to maintain those goals.

So the board looked at it, and we could see that we had a clear runway up to two years out and then after that we were looking at ways we could keep growing and growing, and so the board looked at all the options, and we were actually looking at AMD as one of those options and it seemed to be the right one, and then next thing you know they approached us so it worked out perfectly.

Source: http://firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_ati_merger/

So I don't think they were really scared or something. It was just the best thing to do looking at the longer run.

 

[Geo]

Okay, so I'll just copy it in then:

Jon Carvill: Talks began late last year, and we approached ATI.

Chris Evenden: Can I elaborate on that? I wouldn’t want you to think that we’d just sleep with anyone (everyone laughs). In terms of going over the timeline, well the ATI board was in the middle of a major strategic review of where the company was going and how to get there. It’s actually occurred over the last 12 months actually. And our overarching goals were to remain number one or number two in all of our technology markets, so the board was looking at ways to maintain those goals.

So the board looked at it, and we could see that we had a clear runway up to two years out and then after that we were looking at ways we could keep growing and growing, and so the board looked at all the options, and we were actually looking at AMD as one of those options and it seemed to be the right one, and then next thing you know they approached us so it worked out perfectly.

And later:

FiringSquad: How will this merger affect ATI’s discrete graphics plans?

Chris Evenden: ATI is committed to discrete graphics and will continue to blaze a path of customer-centric innovation and market leadership. This merger will only add to our ability to deliver world-class discrete graphics processors.

Again, ATI’s executives and board engaged in a deep strategic review of the company over the past twelve months. We have several overarching goals - >20% p.a. growth, technology leadership, #1 or #2 in all product markets and so on – and we took a long hard look at how we would continue to meet them. Up to two years out we felt that the current path would be successful. But to continue further in the future than that, we realized we needed a big move, a bold move, to be successful. We considered several options, such as making large acquisitions of our own, raising money on the markets to increase investment in R&D and others, and actually decided that an acquisition by AMD was the best fit. So when AMD called, we were already half way to the altar.

So what they were "afraid of" was hitting a growth wall out about two years from now.

 

[Razor1]

hmm seems like in the interview is too perfect, everything seems to read like the AMD/ATi annoucement .

Anyways, I don't see why they would hit a growth cap, they are doing very well in other multimedia growth areas, like in hand helds and lets not forget xbox 360 which in the long run will be more profitable as more games come out.

ATi will be trading top positions with Intel to go with a secondary market position with AMD, which just doesn't bode well, at least with me, there just seems to be more then just a growth cap. I'm wondering if the r600 is going to be the "great" chip its supposed to be. I'm not that impressed with the xenos chip as it is, its a good chip don't get me wrong but it not ultra powerful or anything. I think the x1900 is a faster chip then the xenos also I think the x1900xt is a better over all design then the xenos aswell, better balanced.

 

[Arty]

hmm seems like in the interview is too perfect, everything seems to read like the AMD/ATi annoucement

Just admit it, you wanted them to say "We're afraid of Nvidia".

 

[Razor1]

Just admit it, you wanted them to say "We're afraid of Nvidia".

I think they feel inferior as a company to nV and this is not a joke, even with faster/superior features wise products then nV they haven't been able to do anything to stop nV from taking marketshare from them over 2 years now.

If ya remember the Chicago Bulls of the early 90's and late 90's they had a air of confidence in them that no team can beat them, and the other teams felt that they couldn't beat them. I think ATi's managment feels the same way. It took longer to gain market share on nV (5800, 5900, 5950) then it took nV to reclaim it with products that are slower in the current games of that time (gf 6), and then less features and equal performance and less IQ (gf 7). Actually the reclaim of marketshare happened right at the end of the 6800 series and beginning of the 7800 series, so in 1 year nV was able to gain back much of what it had lost in 2.

ATi just can't throw money at their tech and expect a great product to over come nV, I think they thought the r520 and r580 would walk over anything nV could offer, in a way they did, but it was execution and nV's marketing that hurt them. Not being perfect on every front from technology to launch to supply to marketing is what hurt ATi, and this wil continue to hurt them, I have not seen ATi as a company diliver as a well oiled machine, something is always missing.

Being beaten repeated from the ages might be getting into thier heads a bit. When you are fighting a company that can change the rules of engagement at a whims notice it can and will hurt not just the bottem line, but the moral of the company, namely the management.

Added to this I think the average consumer at some unconcious level thinks nV is the technology leader no mater what happens, and everyone else is second best. Was talking to a guy that worked at EB last week, and it was the funniest conversation but to make it short the guy wouldn't buy another product unless the price was much lower then a 7950 just because the 7950 was made by nV and that was reason he gave me.

 

[RobertR1]

This is exactly what I was talking about!

"Feagus Urquhart: Co-founder Obsidian Entertainment (Neverwinter Nights 2)
It has seemed over the past couple of years that the PC Processor market has moved much more slowly. I am pretty sure we bought a Dell computer that had a 3.6GHz processor in it about two years ago. Processors with higher clocks are available and Dual Core of course, but the impact on playing a game doesn't seem to be huge."

It's just too hard to get gamers who are the high end CPU/GPU buyers to cycles out their CPU's often since the gains are minimal.

Even if they don't do a true CPU/GPU integration, they could develop a hybrid of sort where the GPU can benefit from a faster CPU. Having a partner that understand GPU's well could give them good insights on how to go about doing this. If the CPU can scale well with a discrete GPU and the GPU is quite good in it's own right, it's an easy win/win.

 

[mito]

Rahul Sood says "Hi".


AMD could (and likely will) eliminate the cut throat competition between ATi and Nvidia (which is actually a good thing – cut throat competition is NOT good for consumers).

Why exactly???

 

[Rollo]

Most of that Intel marketshare is not really consumer based in the sense that the purchaser of those systems is "buying Intel". Most of those consumers are buying "Dell", "HP", etc.

I don't think there is any question that AMD is entering a rough patch, tho I think they can fight it off with pricing appealing to folks who are in a position to upgrade with an existing AMD ecosystem. For awhile, anyway. But by the time they are ready to compete strongly at the top again, they will also have a platform to do it with that is going to appeal to the Dell's and HP's more strongly than it has, and that equates to marketshare.

It seems very clear to me that when Ruiz kept saying "customers are demanding" (and I don't remember how often they said it, but it was alot) yesterday, he did not mean enthusiats who buy boxed AMD CPUs. Not in the least. He meant the Dell's and HPs of the world. And that's what will drive marketshare, even if it takes a year or two.

I agree with all this.

 

[Fox5]

It does look like Intel chipsets/IGPs will be a loss for ATI. The loss of laptops is, I think, where the big loss comes from.

Uh, I don't recall ever seeing an Intel laptop that didn't ship with an Intel chipset. Maybe VIA or SIS for the extreme low end ones.
ATI's pretty much been the only game in town for AMD laptops, in fact I wouldn't be surprised to see if that was where the majority of their chipset sales came from. While AMD and Nvidia went hand in hand on the desktop stemming from nvidia's success in the nforce2 days, ATI has been doing almost a repeat of the nforce2 days for AMD laptops.

AMD could (and likely will) eliminate the cut throat competition between ATi and Nvidia (which is actually a good thing – cut throat competition is NOT good for consumers).

Oh yeah, competition is such a bad thing, especially among overpriced PC builders.

Have they said anything in public? "Neiner, neiner we don't care! We'll kick your butts anyway!" or the like?

Only a few comments within the last few years as it became obvious the Athlon 64 was a superior processor and notably impacting Intel's bottom line and market-share, and they needed some kind of explanation. (I recall 2 or 3 comments from them among the lines of "The Athlon 64/Opteron is currently a stronger offering than ours, but we plan to overcome it with our upcoming chip.")

Come now Dave....you shouldn't be asking questions - you should be providing answers

Like the answer to "If AMD decides it needs to cut employees from ATI, how do you feel about your job security?" Would really suck to be let go after only recently being hired.

On the other hand, AMD has already said they are committed to supporting the Intel platform, chipset and GPU wise, so long as Intel lets them.

I don't think ATI chipsets have had very good sales in the Intel market, and it takes quite a bit of R&D to enter the Intel market, so I could see AMD just not producing future chipsets for the Intel market is sales are too low.
Of course, if AMD gets known as the "gamer's company", Intel could capitalize on that with "The speed of an Intel processor, with the power of an AMD." and turn AMD into a VIA.

nForce 4 - 65.2%
nForce 3 - 19.9%
ATi Express - 5.2%

Do you honestly think AMD, whose core business is selling CPUs, is going to alienate the company that builds the chipset for 85% of their customers? And force them to buy the chipsets chosen by 5%?

Wouldn't ATI Express be the mobile chipset, thus meaning they didn't even get to choose the chipset?

I haven't seen anything that the most basic solution couldnt handle. There's minimal overdraw and very simple polygons - nothing near a gaming workload.

For whatever reason, Intel's GMA900 doesn't support it, though their GMA950 does. I'd guess GMA900 either can't support Vista because of a choice by Intel, maybe because it offloads vertex processing to the cpu (which I think gma950 does as well) but was also paired with many cpus that are way too slow.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

hmm seems like in the interview is too perfect, everything seems to read like the AMD/ATi annoucement .

Well come on, they've said what they said. You can't say "there's a load of ambiguity about their discrete business, all they talked about was intergrated". Now they've gone on record at a couple of web-interviews saying they have no plans to stop doing high end discrete. People have been the voice of doom and speculated that ATI will stop doing discrete, and ATI have publicly said this isn't the case. I think people at ATI are more likely to have better info on that than people handwaving in a forum.

Now you can say things may change in the future, but you can say that about any company for any market at any time. It wasn't that long ago that ATI pulled out of the high end retail market and stayed out for many years.

 

[Fox5]

Well come on, they've said what they said. You can't say "there's a load of ambiguity about their discrete business, all they talked about was intergrated". Now they've gone on record at a couple of web-interviews saying they have no plans to stop doing high end discrete. People have been the voice of doom and speculated that ATI will stop doing discrete, and ATI have publicly said this isn't the case. I think people at ATI are more likely to have better info on that than people handwaving in a forum.

Now you can say things may change in the future, but you can say that about any company for any market at any time. It wasn't that long ago that ATI pulled out of the high end retail market and stayed out for many years.

ATI didn't really attempt to enter it until 1998, withdrew in 2000, and reemerged in 2001. Staying out for a year isn't really a long time. Maybe it was a bit over a year, if Radeon was leased in late 1999 instead of 2000.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

ATI didn't really attempt to enter it until 1998, withdrew in 2000, and reemerged in 2001. Staying out for a year isn't really a long time. Maybe it was a bit over a year, if Radeon was leased in late 1999 instead of 2000.

ATI has been around for a lot longer than just 1998. They were formed in 1985, and became quite a player in the graphics (then framebuffer) fields for a number of years before leaving to concentrate on OEM low power, low end graphics. They were out of the mainstream for a number of years concentrating on intergrated solutions before coming back into the new gaming/3D arena just as 3DFX and Nvidia were beating each other up.

There's a full milestone chart at the ATI website.

 

[Patric]

Finally, some good ol' B$ from NVidia. Can't believe it took so long.

Jawed

Hear hear

Now that I'm no longer in the middle of all that mess, I must admit that I enjoyed reading Mr Perez' analysis. I was a bit disappointed for it not being even more aggressive, but comparing ATI to 3Dfx was still pretty neat

I wish I could have been an outsider already three years back and had an equally sincere laugh at the 3DMark03 lab report.

 

[Arty]

Razor, I was just kidding. The wink was supposed to give that away. :|

 

[Razor1]

Razor, I was just kidding. The wink was supposed to give that away. :|

I know . Thats why I said I wasn't joking about my opinion

I just doen't see why ATi would want to make such a drastic change with a fairly good future at hand. If they thought they were going to hit a growth cap in 2 years, you would think nV would be worried about that too. ATi has only 40% of the discrete market share, they have along ways to go to hit a growth cap in that segment, and if they hit a growth cap from ATi's point of view it would be nV stopping ATi from getting more marketshare, not a growth cap. By saying what that interviewee said pretty much ATi has no confidence in increasing their discrete marketshare in 2 years.

ATi is new to the handhelds, they have along way to go there. Chipsets, very new in that and they are doing well and a big growth factor too.

 

[Arty]

I know . Thats why I said I wasn't joking about my opinion

Aha! You were indeed looking for the "We're afraid" comment.

I just doen't see why ATi would want to make such a drastic change with a fairly good future at hand. If they thought they were going to hit a growth cap in 2 years, you would think nV would be worried about that too. ATi has only 40% of the discrete market share, they have along ways to go to hit a growth cap in that segment, and if they hit a growth cap from ATi's point of view it would be nV stopping ATi from getting more marketshare, not a growth cap. By saying what that interviewee said pretty much ATi has no confidence in increasing their discrete marketshare in 2 years.

ATi is new to the handhelds, they have along way to go there. Chipsets, very new in that and they are doing well and a big growth factor too.

I dont know much about future trends in all these sectors but the long term outlook by some analysts for Nvidia is also the same. :|

 

[Razor1]

Aha! You were indeed looking for the "We're afraid" comment.


I dont know much about future trends in all these sectors but the long term outlook by some analysts for Nvidia is also the same. :|

That is true, there is alot of uncertainty now with this buyout. Alot more uncertianty on AMD's side. If that Intel hostile take over bid is real then its a bit more secure though.

 

[WaltC]

Sour Grapes?

Wow... The merger announcement seems like it's shocked nV right down to its socks and skivies. It's been a long time since I've seen so much spite and venom dripping from Perez's commentary. He's exactly right, though--I haven't heard him talk like this since 3dfx was kicking nVidia's butt around the block several years ago... Hoo-eeee...there have been some nerves hit inside nVidia, if Perez's comments are typical of the attitude there. Brings to mind nothing so much as a forlorn and pitiable expression of sour grapes..., and so I have to respond to Derek.

FiringSquad: What is NVIDIA’s official reaction to the proposed merger between AMD and ATI?

Derek Perez: We look at today’s news as a positive for the company and there’s a couple of reasons why. Ultimately this leaves us as the only GPU and platform company that will be able to support both AMD and Intel. That’s huge. There’s no other GPU company, no other chipset company that’s going to come close to what we’re offering and that puts us in a really good position right off the bat. If you look at those two pieces of business, GPU and platform technology we’ve got four strong brands, SLI, GeForce, Quadro, and nForce which we’re all right now winning versus ATI everywhere across the board and I think you guys will agree with that.

Heh... I particularly like the "...and I think you guys will agree with that." Hopefully, the interviewers all nodded their heads so as to provide Derek with the positive reinforcement he was looking for...

But it strikes me that, AFAIK, the lion's share of nV's chipset business over the years has been in AMD support and that nV's Intel chipset support has come late and at a cost per bus license [not to mention the direct chipset competition with Intel that nVidia didn't face with AMD], and that comparatively nV's Intel core-logic business to date is fairly small potatoes. In fact, JHH himself used to boast as to how clever nVidia was to avoid Intel's bus-license fees by not supporting Intel with nV core logic.

Boom. On Sunday, here was nV grabbing the lion's share of AMD's core-logic business while having to pay Intel a bus-license fee and compete with Intel's own core-logic at the same time, and on Monday ATi and its own AMD core-logic designs are snatched up for integration inside AMD. That's just got to hurt, considering the Intel-market alternative for nV. As for SLI and Quadro, surely Derek knows that these are small-potato brands in the greater scheme of integrated 3d graphics and discrete single-slot PCIe and AGP 3d card production.

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.

"...ATI’s thrown in the towel right?" Again, the almost pitiful plea for agreement by his interviewers...

But, this is where the sour grapes become evident.... What a silly remark this was. 3dfx was in fact bought by nVidia, and it was 3dfx that did 3dfx in, far more than nVidia did them in. Basically, all nVidia had to do was to sit back watch 3dfx implode through its many poor management decisions at the time. I mean, I'm wondering where Derek read that because of being bought by AMD there'd be no more 3d cards or chips coming out of AMD/ATi...? Indeed, all public comments by the mergered companies indicate the opposite.

Maybe Derek's asking his interviewers whether or not ATi's "thrown in the towel" hoping they will tell him:

"Yes, Derek, ATi has thrown in the towel. AMD is going to bury ATi just like you buried 3dfx when you bought it, so now you can relax." Heh...

We’ll continue to work with AMD on the processor side, they’re a very valued processor partner, we’ve been working with them for a few years, so we’ll continue to work with them on nForce. And of course this has an interesting affect where we can look at this as an opportunity to accelerate our technology to market and kind of extend that lead over ATI. By now being the only GPU provider to be able to work with Intel and AMD gives us an incredible opportunity. So in a nutshell that’s kind of how we look at it.

Uh, gee, Derek--does this mean that since AMD and ATi are merging that suddenly the AMD/ATi 3d-cards manufactured and sold henceforth somehow will stop working in Intel PCIe/AGP slots? You don't have to have an Intel cpu-bus license to design a PCIe 3d-card that *works* in an Intel system, as that would sort of defeat the entire purpose of the PCIe bus in the first place, wouldn't it? Of course, since nV 3d cards have always worked in Intel expansion-bus slots long before nV bought an Intel bus license to support Intel cpus with nForce, this is something nV already knows, isn't it? I am also a little perplexed as to how you imagine you might extend your core-logic lead over ATi when it's ATi's core-logic that will be inside the future AMD/ATi platforms that are the purpose behind this merger.

One of the things that I said to John, you know it’s funny that right now in the PC industry’s most competitive landscape you’ve got this complex merger which can be a distraction for two of the biggest, you know the two biggest number two players in the market. So it will be interesting to see how that goes for them.

Huh?... Ah, the subtle digs at both ATi and AMD... I guess the refrain in the future within nVidia is going to be: "Intel's our buddy, Intel's our Pal; We love those juicy bus-license fees, 'cause we know Intel is just aiming to please!"...?

FiringSquad: Did you guys have any plans for Torrenza prior to this announcement that have now been affected by the merger?

Derek Perez: No I don’t think any of our product support plans have been changed by this merger, not right now. So when it comes out we’ll support it, but not much has changed on the product side in the past 24 hours.

I think the question was with what do you plan to support Torrenza? Good question.

FiringSquad: One thing ATI has touted as a result of this merger is that their GPU development may actually benefit from this merger, as they’ll have access to AMD’s engineering and manufacturing facilities. What do you make of this assertion and could this lead to NVIDIA perhaps working with IBM again at some point in the near future?

Derek Perez: The question is when? I think the AMD engineers are a bit tied up right now trying to figure out how to repond to Conroe and Woodcrest, and AMD won't have any n-1 capacity for at least two years.

Well, Derek, if you're really bothered by the question of "when," why not shoot the defunct-towel-thrown-in ATi an email, through one of your trusted AMD contacts, and ask them? I feel confident that after a year of looking at the issue closely both ATi and AMD could supply you with an answer. But is it ever evident how you feel about this with your "...AMD engineers are a bit tied up right now trying to figure out how to repond to Conroe and Woodcrest..." comments. If that's not classical sour grapes I have a hard time imagining what would be.

In summary, several of the AMD comments I've read recently indicated that AMD had been looking for a major acquisition partner for awhile now, and that ATi turned out in the end to be the "best fit." This implies that ATi was not the only company AMD was looking at, certainly. Now, I wonder if it just isn't barely possible that one of the other acquisition possibilities for AMD was in fact nVidia. If so, then that might explain nVidia's attitude a lot more fully, to say the least. If so, that's gotta's hurt--first it was Microsoft, and now...AMD? If so, I wonder what it is precisely that nVidia seems to be able to do that often alienates its closest partners.

 

[thatdude90210]

I think they were more afraid of Intel. One day Intel is going to get their graphic chips right, and then most of ATI and Nvidia's low to mid-end oem business would vanish.

 

[Razor1]

Wow...The merger announcement seems like it's shocked nV right down to its socks and skivies. It's been a long time since I've seen so much spite and venom dripping from Perez's commentary. He's exactly right, though--I haven't heard him talk like this since 3dfx was kicking nVidia's butt around the block several years ago... Hoo-eeee...there have been some nerves hit inside nVidia, if Perez's comments are typical of the attitude there. Brings to mind nothing so much as a forlorn and pitiable expression of sour grapes..., and so I have to respond to Derek.



Heh... I particularly like the "...and I think you guys will agree with that." Hopefully, the interviewers all nodded their heads so as to provide Derek with the positive reinforcement he was looking for...

But it strikes me that, AFAIK, the lion's share of nV's chipset business over the years has been in AMD support and that nV's Intel chipset support has come late and at a cost per bus license [not to mention the direct chipset competition with Intel that nVidia didn't face with AMD], and that comparatively nV's Intel core-logic business to date is fairly small potatoes. In fact, JHH himself used to boast as to how clever nVidia was to avoid Intel's bus-license fees by not supporting Intel with nV core logic..

Lion's share of AMD's success also

Boom. On Sunday, here was nV grabbing the lion's share of AMD's core-logic business while having to pay Intel a bus-license fee and compete with Intel's own core-logic at the same time, and on Monday ATi and its own AMD core-logic designs are snatched up for integration inside AMD. That's just got to hurt, considering the Intel-market alternative for nV. As for SLI and Quadro, surely Derek knows that these are small-potato brands in the greater scheme of integrated 3d graphics and discrete single-slot PCIe and AGP 3d card production.

As small as they are developer's are using those platforms and graphics cards to produce games on more then ATi products which has a direct result on game compatibiliy and performance.

"...ATI’s thrown in the towel right?" Again, the almost pitiful plea for agreement by his interviewers...

But, this is where the sour grapes become evident.... What a silly remark this was. 3dfx was in fact bought by nVidia, and it was 3dfx that did 3dfx in, far more than nVidia did them in. Basically, all nVidia had to do was to sit back watch 3dfx implode through its many poor management decisions at the time. I mean, I'm wondering where Derek read that because of being bought by AMD there'd be no more 3d cards or chips coming out of AMD/ATi...? Indeed, all public comments by the mergered companies indicate the opposite.

Maybe Derek's asking his interviewers whether or not ATi's "thrown in the towel" hoping they will tell him:

"Yes, Derek, ATi has thrown in the towel. AMD is going to bury ATi just like you buried 3dfx when you bought it, so now you can relax." Heh...

In a way ATi did throw in the towel, even though AMD approaced ATi, ATi was looking for it. The reason why they were looking for it is still very uncertain.

Uh, gee, Derek--does this mean that since AMD and ATi are merging that suddenly the AMD/ATi 3d-cards manufactured and sold henceforth somehow will stop working in Intel PCIe/AGP slots? You don't have to have an Intel cpu-bus license to design a PCIe 3d-card that *works* in an Intel system, as that would sort of defeat the entire purpose of the PCIe bus in the first place, wouldn't it? Of course, since nV 3d cards have always worked in Intel expansion-bus slots long before nV bought an Intel bus license to support Intel cpus with nForce, this is something nV already knows, isn't it? I am also a little perplexed as to how you imagine you might extend your core-logic lead over ATi when it's ATi's core-logic that will be inside the future AMD/ATi platforms that are the purpose behind this merger.

Both nV and ATi were focused on premium core logic this won't affect nV's standing with nforce, its foolish that AMD would try to hurt the nforce platform.

In summary, several of the AMD comments I've read recently indicated that AMD had been looking for a major acquisition partner for awhile now, and that ATi turned out in the end to be the "best fit." This implies that ATi was not the only company AMD was looking at, certainly. Now, I wonder if it just isn't barely possible that one of the other acquisition possibilities for AMD was in fact nVidia. If so, then that might explain nVidia's attitude a lot more fully, to say the least. If so, that's gotta's hurt--first it was Microsoft, and now...AMD? If so, I wonder what it is precisely that nVidia seems to be able to do that often alienates its closest partners.

AMD barely got ATi without bankrolling thier entire company, they don't have enough to take nV. Even if they looked into it, it wouldn't have mattered. Thats why ATi was the "best" fit, since they could buy them out and they have top end graphics market foot hold.

Looking at it both ways, both interviews show + + from both companies, the only negative impact nV will be facing in the short and long term is if they screw up like they did with the fx. Other then that they are sitting pretty. High end chip sets, high end GPU's is where nV's business is, AMD trys to hurt the nforce platform, they will screw themselves over big time. So nV in all likely hood is fine.