Nvidia: "ATI's thrown in the towel"

[Geo]

Well, I think that misses the OEM AMD/NV business, tho that is largely one of the "growth" opportunites that both sides are pointing at here. So in that sense it maybe doesn't "hurt" NV as much as it will Intel. NV won't get that business, but they don't have all that much of it today anyway (because the OEM AMD/NV business is not that big).

The Dells/HPs/Gateways, etc of the world.

I think it's unquestionable that ATI is going to be a considerably higher volume GPU seller than NV two years from now. By quite a bit. Can they also get past Intel? Time will tell on that. Probably not in two years tho.

Edit: One of the really interesting parts of the deal, to me, is what a huge "get out of jail free" card this is for ATI chipset margins. AMD doesn't care so long as it is an AMD cpu riding it. That is why they kept pounding the $300M per 1% of marketshare point, over and over. ATI may have heard their last "why are your chipset margins so crappy?" whine from financial analysts.

 

[allnighter]

Oh boy! What a great thread.
Let me chip in with a few short ones.
So, according to some of you good folks here nV had no clue and most probably has found out about this by reading the all-knowing Fudo of the Inq? Now they're cowering in the corner, frantically strategizing, making phone calls, hell, even sending smoke signals from the roof top, hoping Otellini will see them from across the street.
On the other hand, we have the "ATi is dead/going to die, can't you people see!? WHT! Can't you add?!"
I'm not going to comment at all. Just wanted to summarize.

Oh hell, of course I will: "What you see here is the advent of "Doom of Intel" in the forming. It's a big anti-Intel coalition in forming, spearheaded by AMD, of course, but there are other players behind the curtains too, nV, IBM, Sun and numerous others. Believe you me they're all pissing in the same bucket. You just wait and see."
/end
/takes today's pills

 

[Razor1]

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.

I think it will only effect thier integrated sales. Power requirements for integrated chips have to be limited so over all graphics power will be limited aswell unless Intel is making a discrete solution that will be the only way it would have affected ATi and nV in a terminal way.

 

[Razor1]

Well, I think that misses the OEM AMD/NV business, tho that is largely one of the "growth" opportunites that both sides are pointing at here. So in that sense it maybe doesn't "hurt" NV as much as it will Intel. NV won't get that business, but they don't have all that much of it today anyway (because the OEM AMD/NV business is not that big).

The Dells/HPs/Gateways, etc of the world.

I think it's unquestionable that ATI is going to be a considerably higher volume GPU seller than NV two years from now. By quite a bit. Can they also get past Intel? Time will tell on that. Probably not in two years tho.

Edit: One of the really interesting parts of the deal, to me, is what a huge "get out of jail free" card this is for ATI chipset margins. AMD doesn't care so long as it is an AMD cpu riding it. That is why they kept pounding the $300M per 1% of marketshare point, over and over. ATI may have heard their last "why are your chipset margins so crappy?" whine from financial analysts.

Good points Geo, but building up the AMD/ATi chipset integrated OEM business will take time, and in a time where AMD processor buyers will be switching over to conroe. OEM's will less likely to advance order AMD parts because of this. So I would say more like in 2 to 3 years they would start thier charge to compete with Intel in a top to bottom system.

 

[digitalwanderer]

One day Intel is going to get their graphic chips right

Only if they're forced to, Intel hates graphics.....look at their IGP.

 

[dizietsma]

Rahul Sood says "Hi".

In fact he's gone on to the other extreme end saying:

"AMD and ATi just planted the seeds to a Tsunami that will most certainly change the landscape of the market."

"ATi + AMD = a go big strategy that will shake the very foundation of our industry."

He's also saying ATi are not at the Conroe launch now

http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/

"So, there’s an upcoming launch event for Conroe as many of you know. We’re very excited to launch our Conroe systems at the event – and we were supposed to have a system on stage with ATi. Apparently this isn’t happening anymore – ATi has been removed from the event and I suspect that Intel is changing the configurations of all the machines based on the feedback I’ve been hearing. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this - because we all know that ATi Crossfire works on the 975 chipset and there’s no doubt in my mind that we will sell a ton of Crossfire configurations with Intel Core 2 Duo. ATi will continue to make chipsets for Conroe configurations (at least for the current generation) so it’s too bad it had to end like this"

 

[Fox5]

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.

Ooops, I thought you were just referring to the 3d graphics market.

 

[trinibwoy]

He's also saying ATi are not at the Conroe launch now.

"I don’t understand the reasoning behind this - because we all know that ATi Crossfire works on the 975 chipset and there’s no doubt in my mind that we will sell a ton of Crossfire configurations with Intel Core 2 Duo. ATi will continue to make chipsets for Conroe configurations (at least for the current generation) so it’s too bad it had to end like this"

I'm not sure what he doesn't understand. Why would Intel spend marketing dollars to promote their competitors products? If this thing happens every ATi card sold is an AMD card sold and Intel isn't going to let AMD ride their Conroe coat-tails.

 

[Arty]

He's also saying ATi are not at the Conroe launch now.

And that had to do with what I pointed out?

 

[Razor1]

I'm not sure what he doesn't understand. Why would Intel spend marketing dollars to promote their competitors products? If this thing happens every ATi card sold is an AMD card sold and Intel isn't going to let AMD ride their Conroe coat-tails.

I'm sure this is just the beginning, Intel isn't going to make it easy for them

 

[Nelsieus]

I think it's unquestionable that ATI is going to be a considerably higher volume GPU seller than NV two years from now. By quite a bit. Can they also get past Intel? Time will tell on that. Probably not in two years tho.

If it's unquestionable, then perhaps I'm missing something? Aren't we uncertain if ATI will even be a GPU seller in two years, much less be able to enjoy such a high demand that would benefit from access to a greater supply?

I think your scenario is just one out of many possibilities that could take place, but I'm more inclined to believe some of the others, atleast at this point in time (and no, I'm not solely basing it on nV's current rhetoric in response to all of this).

-Nelsieus

EDIT: By "GPU seller," I'm referring to the discrete market

 

[Skrying]

AMD/ATi has gone on record that they will continue doing the discrete GPU business. And in two years? Far to short, ATi is probably 90% of the way done with the parts coming out within that time.

 

[Geo]

gpu includes IGP, so that prediction looks pretty safe to me. How do you think Intel got to be the biggest one today? The beautiful thing is we only have to wait two years to find out. See you on the other side. :smile:

Edit: Well, I wasn't. Hence the reference to Intel in the quote you selected, right?

 

[Geo]

AMD/ATi has gone on record that they will continue doing the discrete GPU business. And in two years? Far to short, ATi is probably 90% of the way done with the parts coming out within that time.

For what, to pull significantly ahead of NV by volume? Mmm. Maybe. Maybe it will take three. I guess we'll see. I don't think the initial packaging of AMD & ATI chips for OEMs is necessarily going to take new designs to start being felt volume-wise thru the OEM market. It's more of a marketing/packaging thing, I think. But it will certainly pick up speed as they can start to impact designs as well.

 

[Nelsieus]

AMD/ATi has gone on record that they will continue doing the discrete GPU business. And in two years? Far to short, ATi is probably 90% of the way done with the parts coming out within that time.

I'm not so sure, though, atleast at this time.

Perhaps the answer, though, is that it's premature right now to decipher if in fact AMD will continue in the discete GPU segments. I personally think the success, or lack thereof, of
R600 may impact that decision somewhat.

But there remains to be uncertainty on this issue, atleast imo. And it certainly doesn't help with nVidia jumping to conclusions (like they have), unless they know something we don't?

-Nelsieus

EDIT: Hmm, and now this is posted - http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3524

 

[Nelsieus]

gpu includes IGP, so that prediction looks pretty safe to me. How do you think Intel got to be the biggest one today? The beautiful thing is we only have to wait two years to find out. See you on the other side. :smile:

Edit: Well, I wasn't. Hence the reference to Intel in the quote you selected, right?

Ok, well then I somewhat agree about IGP. Also, I presumed the reference to Intel was perhaps taking into consideration their "secret weapon GPU" (granted that speculation is actually true.)

-Nelsieus

 

[Geo]

Well, NV are great showmen and self-promoters. It's part of their charm. If this deal falls apart without being finalized they'll have a take on how that helps them too. :smile:

 

[Razor1]

Well, NV are great showmen and self-promoters. It's part of their charm. If this deal falls apart without being finalized they'll have a take on how that helps them too. :smile:

LOL true, but if the deal falls though ATi is out a good deal of money that would hurt them enough I think

 

[KimB]

AMD/ATi has gone on record that they will continue doing the discrete GPU business. And in two years? Far to short, ATi is probably 90% of the way done with the parts coming out within that time.

Two years? Er, no. An architecture set to release two years from now would be planned out by now, but with most of the work yet to do. Two years is more than enough time to completely revamp a product, too.

 

[INKster]

NV50 was "cancelled" less than 2 years ago, IIRC