Yet another manufacturer drops ATI...

V

vnet

Newcomer
After Hercules and Terratec droping the graphics card business (both were ATI partners), it seems that Creative is joining in too : it appears they want to ditch ATi but still sell nV cards, according to The Inquirer :
And now it seems that Singapore giant Creative Labs is also feeling miffed, at least with one vendor of graphic card chips.
We understand that Creative won't use ATI technology - at least not this generation - or as a source told us it wants to "wind down their ATI business".
Creative Labs will continue to use Nvidia chips, it appears.
Click to expand...
Could this be a pattern of manufacturers desperately trying to run away from ATi? You have to admit it is too big a coincidence, all in a row. Which will be the next manufacturer to join them?

Flee, flee while you still can...
 
My personally opion is I think ATI oversold thier product and their expectations of the card weren't what finally came and the board makers got burnt and are trying to get out the situation.

But to be honest I dunno.
 
AFAIK creative only made ati cards for the asia market. Terratec was also nvidia partner
 
vnet said:
Could this be a pattern of manufacturers desperately trying to run away from ATi?
Click to expand...

"Desperately"???

Well, I guess it COULD be a sign, if you're a blind NV fan.

You have to admit it is too big a coincidence, all in a row.
Click to expand...

Hm, why would I have to "admit" that? Hercules was dismantled, what, months ago now?

Really, you sound like a screaming "the sky is falling!" madcap, probably because you WANT the sky to fall (for ATi, at least).
 
I'm really not into this kind of things..but if a relevant group of gfx cards producers try to shift from an IHV to another one could it be that is due to the fact they have some insight on future products that we don't have?
 
Let me clarify my statement.
My question is not about this specific case but it's a general question.
I first thought about that when more than a year ago a lot of card manufacters shiftwed away form nvidia..way more time before the geforce fx debacle was clear to us all.

ciao,
Marco
 
tEd said:
AFAIK creative only made ati cards for the asia market. Terratec was also nvidia partner
Click to expand...

Creative operate as three separate entities - Asia, Europe and Ameria. They effectively operate as separate companies and manufacturers deal with them as such (Note, that the US division dropped out of graphics entirely).

During the GF4 era Asia noticed that Creative Europe were getting preffered prices on NV parts when they weren't - Creative have one of the best distribution capabilities in Europe, which its why its so important, jence NV were giving Europe premium prices. Naturally Asia got PO'ed at this and turned to NV and said "We want Europes prices", which got rebuffed by NV, so they said "Well, we'll get our chips through Creative Europe", which also got rebuffed. Eventually Asia issued an utlimatum that stated "if we don't get better pricing we'll go with ATI". So, for the 8500 and 9700 timespan Asia went with ATI, whilst Creative Europe stuck with NV. More recently Europe started selling ATI alongside NV.

Given this report appear to talk about Singapore, I would assume that they are talking about the Asia division, so that might not impact Creative Europe. I suspect that this could be a role reversal of what we saw last time - ATI keen to keep Creative Europes distribution capabilities and so they are getting better prices than Creative Asia (and so they go back to NV).
 
nAo said:
Let me clarify my statement.
My question is not about this specific case but it's a general question.
I first thought about that when more than a year ago a lot of card manufacters shiftwed away form nvidia..way more time before the geforce fx debacle was clear to us all.

ciao,
Marco
Click to expand...

but nobody is really shifting. hercules and terratec droped out completely and not shifting to another IHV and creative doesn't shift either as they were always more nvidia than ati partner.
 
tEd said:
hercules and terratec droped out completely and not shifting to another IHV and creative doesn't shift either as they were always more nvidia than ati partner.
Click to expand...
Sorry but that's not related to my question. Why has everything to be seen as an attack or defense of some kind of entity on this board?
I'm NOT talking about this specific case
 
nAo said:
I'm NOT talking about this specific case
Click to expand...

Then you may have a point - but also observe that these decisions are oftentimes more influenced by various business policies then the predicted succes of the cards themselves (as suggested by Dave's example).
 
nAo said:
tEd said:
hercules and terratec droped out completely and not shifting to another IHV and creative doesn't shift either as they were always more nvidia than ati partner.
Click to expand...
Sorry but that's not related to my question. Why has everything to be seen as an attack or defense of some kind of entity on this board?
I'm NOT talking about this specific case
Click to expand...

having info of future products may be a reason for a board manuf. to shift to another IHV but not the only one. It has probably to do with chip prices also as DaveB. pointed out and some other buisness stuff(brands,new markets)
 
I think the most interesting shift was gigabyte. I think most of the board makers are now willing to do business with both Nv and Ati.

But it doesn't sound good for Ati strategy, since it seems that they were willing to focus on Asia and East Europe markets. Losing Creative in Asia is not a good point for them.
 
Evildeus said:
I think the most interesting shift was gigabyte. I think most of the board makers are now willing to do business with both Nv and Ati.

But it doesn't sound good for Ati strategy, since it seems that they were willing to focus on Asia and East Europe markets. Losing Creative in Asia is not a good point for them.
Click to expand...

yeah gigabyte was quite interesting. They dropped Nvidia completly and went with ATI.
After a short period of time they joined the Nvidia bandwagon again and stated that they will concentrate more on Nvidia products.

Don't know how this creative story pans out but it seems that ATI is not in the position anymore they were over the last months.
Their new generation products (i really wouldn't call it a new generations because there is only few new.) are not really faster and offer less technology wise than the competition.
Could be pretty hurting in the mainstream segment. Depends on how good Nvidia can penetrate with their mainstream und low end products into the market and how fast they can start shipping them.
 
I think the most interesting shift was gigabyte.
Click to expand...

Gigabyte has a 40% stake in GeCube, which is ATI only, so I'm not sure how telling that move is. Given the reports of MSI "definitaly" sticking with NVIDIA after JHH visit, MSI's dual move is probably more significant - I'd think they believe the market dynamics over the course of time is going to be much closer.

Anyway, this isn't necessarily just about technology these day, especially when they are close. One thing you have to wonder on the new high end parts (where the board vendors get the best margins) is which is going to offer the board vendors the best margins, so even if one doesn't have technical superiority over another, dependant on the market situation the drive can also be about the margins the vendors believe they can get of one or another board. That also goes hand in hand with the supply of the chips, and you can bet that when the volume starts, ASUS and MSI will be getting the majority.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

R
Halp Plez... Serious New PC Woes.
2
Replies
24
Views
4K
Rainbow Man
R
A
  • Locked
NVIDIA Q3 Earnings + CC
2
Replies
32
Views
9K
Arun
A
G
ATI 4QF05 Conference Call
2
Replies
27
Views
5K
Geo
G
M
Inq article on Xbox 2...old but good
Replies
2
Views
1K
cthellis42
C
M
XNA Studio to Integrate Teams and Speed Game Production
Replies
9
Views
4K
3dcgi
3
Back
Top