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AMD Buys ATI
by Maarten Goldstein, Jul 24, 2006 2:49am PDTIt was rumored for a while now, and today it has become official: AMD is acquiring Canadian graphics chipset manufacturer ATI for $5.4 billion. The majority of that money, $4.2 billion, will be paid in cash, the rest with AMD shares. In PR speak, here's what AMD hopes to get out of this deal (apparently two companies merging will give the consumer more freedom, I'm not sure how that works)
AMD's acquisition of ATI will position the new company to deliver innovations that fulfill the increasing demand for more integrated solutions in key market segments while also continuing to develop "best-of-breed" discrete products that empower customers to choose the combination of technologies that best serves their needs. In 2008 and beyond, AMD aims to move beyond current technological configurations to transform processing technologies, with silicon-specific platforms that integrate microprocessors and graphics processors to address the growing need for general-purpose, media-centric, data-centric and graphic-centric performance. Thus, the combined company intends to empower its customers to create their own unique products and solutions within an open-innovation ecosystem free from artificial barriers to customer success.
Comments
must of took alot of briefcases to hold all that loot
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I think the Dilbert guy was in disguise again heading the AMD press release team.
First AMD gets schooled by Intel's Conroe processors (though obviously we have to wait and see what normal people think once they're widely available).
Then AMD slashes prices - but not by enough apparently
Now they're buying the #2 video card company in a race of.. two.
Now I personally hope that they're able to come out soon and bitch slap Intel back and maybe we'll see an AMD video card that can blow NVidia's socks off. But right now it seems like AMD's in a bit of hot water and I don't know if they'll be able to pull up in time.
But perhaps I'm overreacting
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Thus, the combined company intends to empower its customers to create their own unique products and solutions within an open-innovation ecosystem free from artificial barriers to customer success. = You can still mix and match motherboards and graphics cards.
Also the whole reatrded control panel debacle will be shoved up our asses now. yah! That's why I bought nVidia for this past gen.
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Why stop there? If you are going to produce a closed, controlled, optimized architecture, you might as well partner up with specific motherboard and memory manufacturers.
The customer will only have two choices. TotalSystemA or TotalSystemB. No mixing and matching. The case will be the only thing left to the consumer to decide upon. They probably won't even allow upgrades, outside of extra RAM. We will be dealing with console-like computers that that point.
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One can only hope.
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*head asploded*
I'm getting the 'gist' of why this transaction needs to happen. AMD needs GPU functionality on the CPU. I think everyone kinda expected that to happen at some point. The Inq. then takes a left turn in the plot and mentions 'mini-cores' which are multi-cores with massive amount of threads. Sort of but not really like Intels’ hyperthreading times 32x. Shitloads of threads.
Bottom line?
ATI will work on AMD's new cores. I don't know if they'll work on something that'll plug into a PCIe slot still like nVidia.
nVidia will still be around making graphic cards for AMD. Just won't necessarily be anything remotely similar to what's out on the stores today. AMD doesn't like closed technology like Intel does. So it'll be an open platform still which is a 'good thing' (tm).
Forget about GPU's and chipsets. The main innovation has to come from these new GCPU's.
ATI was going to lose its Intel chipset business anyway with or without this takeover. So no big loss here.
Intel has about a year lead on this tech and probably be first out to market with it.
CPU cores change radically every 5 years or so. With GCPU's, think more in terms of GPU's and radical changes every year to 18 months. Crazy shit.
Plenty of space at FAB 36 to build the new cores and the recently announced plant they are building in New York. So no more costly production runs in Taiwan.
If AMD didn't do this, they'd be out of business in 5 years. Period.
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Vice Versa, I think this merger, at least in the short term, is really really going to hurt AMD. They are already in a tough price war right now with Intel, and Intel is finally stepping up to the performance plate again. Spending this kind of money to aquire ATI and possibly cut off their ties with Nvidia in the process is only going to hurt them more.
Long term, if AMD survives this merger and the current battle with Intel, I think this combination could be very interesting. Here's why. Remember years and years ago when Intel said that eventually graphics cards would be obsolete because the CPU would be able to handle everything?
Well I think that's what AMD is looking at with this merger. Think about it. They've already integrated the memory controller into their CPU. The prime reason I can think that they would want to buy ATI is they have their eyes set on integrating the GPU into their CPU. So that all you need is a single AMD processor for all your graphics needs.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Sure, over time, your CPU might not cover it graphics wise making it time for an upgrade. But it would be far cheaper and more efficient to be able to upgrade *both* your CPU and GPU with a single purchase than the current system.
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http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/10416
"Does NVIDIA have any official statements or comments on the news about AMD buying ATI?
Today's news about the acquisition of ATI by AMD is a positive development for NVIDIA. We are now the only graphics processor and core logic company that supports both Intel and AMD processors. We will continue to execute on our strategy, which is to develop industry-changing GPU and platform technologies, extend the use of the GPU into new applications, and expand its reach into all computing devices - from PCs to servers to phones
How do you expect AMD's purchase of ATI to affect your partnerships with AMD?
AMD needs and wants the support of our leading brands - GeForce, nForce, Quadro, and SLI. We will continue to work with AMD to bring our brands to our mutual customers. On the other hand, our relationship with Intel is going to become much more intimate than before. We are now Intel's best GPU partner.
Next, Intel had only this to say:
We will study the transaction but have no comment at this time about any possible impact it might have on our agreements with ATI."
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A T I
M
D
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AMD bought ATI simply because the names rhyme. Yes. I know this shit.
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Quite a turn of events in the last 10 years with AMD going from building chips that plugged into intel mobos(486 clones), to Intel building chips that will be plugged into AMD mobos (RD600). That purchase of Nexgen really paid off.
New company name: ADMIT
MAID AT: AMD
Irfunnay :/
Don't forget that ATI makes the gfx cards for x360, ps3, wii AND for all of apple. Thats some crazy quantities of done deals.
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Needs more market competition.
Right now we are all enjoying the competition competeing and giving us some get stuff for great prices.
But if AMD and ATi, create some sort of Hybrid that simply blows Intel and nVidia out of the water... then were back to monopoly land.... :/
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I can see both company's stocks nose diving when the market opens.
I hope everyone enjoyed the (competition inspired) rapid advance of GPU power over the last couple years because it ends here.
AMD will probally steal all of ATi's good engineers in order to get ahead of Intel again.
I wonder how this will affect the 360 and Wii as both have ATi GPUs in them.
All in all no good will come of this.
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It'll be an octo-sli video card, it'll sell for $100 and it'll be black with silver heat pipes!
Send your payments to my paypal account and I'll send them out once ATIAMD finish off production.
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...and oh, it's nice to read actual LEGITIMATE news from the Shack front page ;)
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translation:
AMD's acquisition of ATI will provide a plethora of opportunites for our marketing department to release finely crafted statements of an overly verbose nature.
tl;dr:
We just bought a kickass company! LOLz moneyhats r us woot holla! :D
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Love it.
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