Would it be legal for Intel and AMD to do this?
- Thread starter skilzygw
- Start date
Well, NV has bought licenses to manufacture intel CPUs, and I have to assume they wouldn't sit quietly if those were revoked... I'm sure some similar arrangement exists with AMD.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
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skilzygw said:
Depends totally on the terms of the licence. I doubt there is a clause in there that allows AMD/Intel to just cancel within the timescales of the licence for no reason (Nvidia wouldn't have signed such an agreement), but there will be clauses that allow both parties to cancel for various reasons and probably with associated penalties.
It's always possible that Intel/AMD might elect to not renew Nvidia's licences when the current deal comes up for renewal, but again that depends on the details of the contracts.
Well, I've noted elsewhere, Intel at least usually extracts cross-licensing of patents to go along with the bus license. So the motivations and implications of cancelling those things would be a lot more complex than most people think, in my opinion.
AMD has just flat out said they aren't going to go there. I see no reason to question that.
AMD has just flat out said they aren't going to go there. I see no reason to question that.
INKster said:
This is true, and besides this, nVidia totally dominates the AMD chipset market.
For AMD to cut them at a time when they've gone 2.5 billion into debt AND their competitor who already has 80% of the cpu market has just released superior products AMD has no answer for would probably be the best thing in the world that could happen to nVidia.
Why?
Because they'd be buying AMD and ATI next summer after AMD goes broke trying to shove the chipset only a small minority of buyers purchase voluntarily down it's markets throat, coupled with cpus that are a generation behind.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80860
When your competitor has a $339 cpu that beats you $850 cpu across the board, it's not a good time to do things like alienate a huge chunk of your market by saying "No SLi or nForce for you! You'll take Crossfire and like it!"
Likewise, if you're Intel and you have the fastest cpus on the planet and some of them are actually reasonably priced, why would you cut off SLi from your customers?
I can guarantee this: AMD CPUs with SLi will be faster than ANY Conroe without it.
So as you can see- AMD and Intel need nVidia as much as nVidia needs them.
INKster said:
Imagine Nvidia gets locked out of the chipset market. Imagine Intel chipsets don't allow for SLI to work on them. Imagine all future AMD chipsets don't allow for SLI to work on them. Imagine AMD-ATI's cards work on any dual PCI-Express board. Now how important are chipsets for Nvidia?
BRiT said:
That's simply not going to happen.
Are they screwed on IGPs? Probably yes, but even that will turn out to be their own choice (for margin reasons), rather than forced on them. That might take as much as 1/2 (or more?) of the total market out of play in the long run. But that's the part of the market that they aren't hot to have anyway, quite frankly.
Intel can't afford to shut them out on SLI, even if they wanted to --and the fact is it is NV's choice that has closed SLI off from Intel mobos, not the other way around.
And as for the rest, you have to presume that AMD/ATI were lying thru their teeth on Monday. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, rather than pre-supposing it.
Oh, I completely agree that will never happen. I wanted to point out the value of contributing and controlling the features of the platform that your biggest business volumn requires. The ability of doing SLI or having such increased performance or imagequality of SLI carries over into the lower markets. The typical "Company X has the fatest item out there, therefore this other item made by Company X must also be good." mindset.
Ah, there is some truth there, I think. NV clearly helped move the markets with SLI from a position of strength with nForce in the first place. That is going to wane a bit, relatively speaking. But I still see them as aimed squarely at the high-end, value-add, high-margins, all the bells and three sets of whistles mobo maker. I didn't see anything on Monday that would close them off from that role. And that will still give them some leverage.
So far as chipsets go, I really see Monday as severely limiting their growth potential rather than much of an actual reduction. How much that impacts them long term is going to depend to some degree on how far up the foodchain AMD/ATI can drive integrated graphics over time. They are clearly about 10x more serious about it than Intel has been up until now (that I can see, anyway). :smile:
But certainly one of the questions over the next 18 months is going to be can AMD/ATI and Intel deliver IGPs that can really deal with Vista for the general (non-gaming) user. That is going to impact all of these calculations over that time frame. Beyond that the answer is almost certainly "yes", but over the next 18 months I don't think anyone really knows. Jen-Hsun certainly said he didn't know in a recent interview.
So far as chipsets go, I really see Monday as severely limiting their growth potential rather than much of an actual reduction. How much that impacts them long term is going to depend to some degree on how far up the foodchain AMD/ATI can drive integrated graphics over time. They are clearly about 10x more serious about it than Intel has been up until now (that I can see, anyway). :smile:
But certainly one of the questions over the next 18 months is going to be can AMD/ATI and Intel deliver IGPs that can really deal with Vista for the general (non-gaming) user. That is going to impact all of these calculations over that time frame. Beyond that the answer is almost certainly "yes", but over the next 18 months I don't think anyone really knows. Jen-Hsun certainly said he didn't know in a recent interview.
BRiT said:
I can also "imagine" a second anti-trust legal fight against Intel if that was to be the case.
Even VIA ended up settling the dispute, with Intel finally granting them their license.
Having a mildly strong 2nd or 3rd party is essential for them too, just like AMD.
No competition means higher prices, therefore, less desireable products (chipsets) for consumers, leading to slow or no growth at all of the pc market.
Besides, since Intel will be out of Crossfire options soon, getting rid of SLI support (even on a third party chipset) would severely impact their market in the high-end/enthusiast arena for the foreseable future.
That, in turn, would mean less sales of high-end CPU's, like the E6700 or X6800 and future "Extreme" sucessors.
And, once again, the only Dual-GPU on a single card/slot that i know of right now is 7950 GX2.
ATI hasn't come up with a similar concept (yet).
I'm waiting to see it come to fruition anxiously, though.
Well Brit I guess we could go around pretending unlikely events will happen like you seem to want to, but I think it would be better to consider the facts?
I don't think Intel is going to go nuts for Crossfire anytime soon, the Wall St Journal Online had an article in their July 26 edition that stated they pulled the plug on displaying any computers with ATI parts in them at their Conroe launch, and SLI based computers were prominently displayed on stage.
(also noted at the Inquirer, for those who don't get the WSJ)
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33287
And of course when you factor in that ATI was making 80% of their chipset revenue from Intel, and that is now on the way out as Intel is dropping their licensing?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33238
What about ATIs new friends at AMD?
Well, they are traditionally account for 15-20% of the market, and most of that is at the high end running on nVidia motherboards.
Wait- it gets better- Intel has launched $330 cpus that beat anything AMD will have to offer till next spring or summer.
Uh oh.
So lets recap-
If you're ATI:
80% of your chipset business is on the way out the door as Intel freezes you out.
You've got a lock on doing business with your new owners, AMD, but most of their business is enthusiasts, who seem to overwhelmingly prefer your competitions motherboards and multi card solutions.
Worse yet, your parent companies enthusiast parts have become second best across the board with margins dropping by the day as debt rises.
Then factor in that the mindset of Joe America/world is that Intel PCs are more stable and generally "better" for the huge mainstream market that AMD has yet to penetrate with any success.
Uh oh again!
Do not get me wrong- I love AMD and have been using AMD only since the Athlon XP was launched. I just got another A8N 32 SLi board today for my son's computer.
I even like ATI and think they make good products and hope they continue to do so as competition drives innovation and keeps prices better for us. (anyone else remember when Pentiums were the only chip to have how much they cost?)
But you guys sitting around here postulating "Wouldn't it be great if all of the sudden huge corporations acted like kids on a forum rooting for their favorite brand and started cutting their own throats to freeze out nVidia?" just isn't going to make it happen.
The only company getting frozen out in this will be ATI, by Intel, because they were bought out by Intel's competitor.
AMD/ATI has a long road ahead, and instead of posting "Curse teh nVidia, what if Intel would be our hatchet men!" you guys should be in church praying for AMD. They've spread themselves thin in a pretty risky move and now have to integrate a very large corporation into their business model/infrastructure which is going to produce reduced efficiencies for all concerned.
I don't think Intel is going to go nuts for Crossfire anytime soon, the Wall St Journal Online had an article in their July 26 edition that stated they pulled the plug on displaying any computers with ATI parts in them at their Conroe launch, and SLI based computers were prominently displayed on stage.
(also noted at the Inquirer, for those who don't get the WSJ)
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33287
And of course when you factor in that ATI was making 80% of their chipset revenue from Intel, and that is now on the way out as Intel is dropping their licensing?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33238
What about ATIs new friends at AMD?
Well, they are traditionally account for 15-20% of the market, and most of that is at the high end running on nVidia motherboards.
Wait- it gets better- Intel has launched $330 cpus that beat anything AMD will have to offer till next spring or summer.
Uh oh.
So lets recap-
If you're ATI:
80% of your chipset business is on the way out the door as Intel freezes you out.
You've got a lock on doing business with your new owners, AMD, but most of their business is enthusiasts, who seem to overwhelmingly prefer your competitions motherboards and multi card solutions.
Worse yet, your parent companies enthusiast parts have become second best across the board with margins dropping by the day as debt rises.
Then factor in that the mindset of Joe America/world is that Intel PCs are more stable and generally "better" for the huge mainstream market that AMD has yet to penetrate with any success.
Uh oh again!
Do not get me wrong- I love AMD and have been using AMD only since the Athlon XP was launched. I just got another A8N 32 SLi board today for my son's computer.
I even like ATI and think they make good products and hope they continue to do so as competition drives innovation and keeps prices better for us. (anyone else remember when Pentiums were the only chip to have how much they cost?)
But you guys sitting around here postulating "Wouldn't it be great if all of the sudden huge corporations acted like kids on a forum rooting for their favorite brand and started cutting their own throats to freeze out nVidia?" just isn't going to make it happen.
The only company getting frozen out in this will be ATI, by Intel, because they were bought out by Intel's competitor.
AMD/ATI has a long road ahead, and instead of posting "Curse teh nVidia, what if Intel would be our hatchet men!" you guys should be in church praying for AMD. They've spread themselves thin in a pretty risky move and now have to integrate a very large corporation into their business model/infrastructure which is going to produce reduced efficiencies for all concerned.
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I think the question for NV is a long term one, and that is where does their growth come from 3-5 years down the line? Do they become a "mature" company trying to sell better razorblades every year with more or less constant volume?
My guess is if they want to remain a high-growth company that unless they really want to get in bed with Intel --which I absolutely don't see-- then the answer is most likely on the consumer side with Sony, Apple, etc.
My guess is if they want to remain a high-growth company that unless they really want to get in bed with Intel --which I absolutely don't see-- then the answer is most likely on the consumer side with Sony, Apple, etc.
Skrying said:
If you think Intel is going to renew licenses with their direct competitor, I guess that is your perogative.
I don't see it happening, they have no reason to. Their own chipsets rock, and nVidia delivers the market leading high end chipset. (while not being owned by their direct competitor)
ATI guys are saying "Nothing to see here" about their relationship with Intel because they need to maintain market confidence.
geo said:
Yeah the discrete graphics market will get stagnent in a few years if a) ATi comes back big b) nV takes over or c) it becomes a dead lock between the companies anyway you look at it, it will slow down, and diversification is really the only way nV would be able to grow, they have a good deal with Sony it should be perfect unless one of the parties screws up. Interesting you mention Apple, right now Apple is going with ATi, wonder how Intel likes that
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