Intel Confirms AMD/ATI Merger ?

8T8

Saw this over at [H]ardOCP despite all the rumours and denials from both companies I still cant believe it but apparently Intel has been telling it's partners that the AMD/ATI deal is on and expected in 2 weeks time!

ATI has a lot of engineering talent that AMD can surely put to good use and a motherboard division as well as lots of embedded products for TV's and the like. But I wonder what will happen to ATI's bread & butter GPU business any sort of step down in that area with be bad news as NVIDIA left alone wouldn't have to compete as hard as they do now.

If it does come to pass I'm sure they will reveal the reasons why they merged but I wonder if we will be seeing an AMD CPU, GPU & chipset combo like Intel's V-Pro, ViiV & Centrino platforms & drop the ATI brand name.

christophicus

8T8 wrote:

Saw this over at [H]ardOCP

as NVIDIA left alone wouldn't have to compete as hard as they do now.

.

compete as hard?? they would basically have no compitition so the wouldnt be competing with anyone!!!!! That would be one of the worst things to happen to teh industry in the last few years, there would be no holding back on the prices then!!!

Lemming

Errrr ... why are Intel "confirming" this? I can "confirm" that Eircom are buying Esat BT. A company starts rumours about it's rival. Does anyone not see the somewhat conflicting interest here?

Explosive_Cornflake

Seems a bit crazy, but they are hardly going to throw the towel in on the GPU business, are they? They've got a good market share, and are not going to give that up.

Endurance Man

Lemming wrote:

Errrr ... why are Intel "confirming" this? I can "confirm" that Eircom are buying Esat BT. A company starts rumours about it's rival. Does anyone not see the somewhat conflicting interest here?

What Lemming said, can you not see how crazy this sounds :rolleyes: .

Khannie

I agree that it sounds crazy....but not implausible tbh. In big industry like that, you can be sure as sh*t that the intel heads know when their main rival is up to something big like a merger.

No way ATI's gonna drop their graphics section. They do a lot of embedded stuff (like in the gamecube, etc.) and their PC graphics section surely makes them a bundle of money.

Lemming

Khannie wrote:

I agree that it sounds crazy....but not implausible tbh. In big industry like that, you can be sure as sh*t that the intel heads know when their main rival is up to something big like a merger.

No way ATI's gonna drop their graphics section. They do a lot of embedded stuff (like in the gamecube, etc.) and their PC graphics section surely makes them a bundle of money.

And if you spread rumours about yoru rival merging what does it create? Share value uncertainty for your rival ....

I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm just saying it's extremely dubious given teh source is AMD's main rival who have been taking a pasting from AMD for the last year or so.

conzy

There was talk of this a few weeks ago too......

AMD are buying ATI, but it will be like the Dell/Alienware thing, ATI will continue as ATI, it would be stupid on AMD's part to dismantle ATI.......

This is AMD's way of getting into the chipset world.........

Cuddlesworth

My krazy sense is tingling.

jesus_thats_gre

Seemingly Intel inadvertently confirmed it by meeting with their important trade partners to discuss the effect of a AMD/ATi merger on their business going forward.. It makes sense to be honest.

8T8

Well I though it was a load of tosh as well but Intel isn't exactly one to go around telling the companies it works with that AMD is taking over ATI in two weeks time and you need to be prepared for it which is a little unusual if it weren't true & they were only stirring the pot.

ATI actually supplies a lot of low end chipsets for Intel and many of it's partners so maybe they got wind of what was coming

Anandtech also hint at something coming though they don't outright say it's going to happen;

the talk of the town was Core 2 Duo (Conroe) and AMD's expected response. AMD's first response in the short term very well could be the purchase of ATI; whether this truly makes business sense for either party is up for debate considering ATI's close relationship with Intel and AMD's long term partnership with NVIDIA, but privately representatives from both Intel and NVIDIA told us they were already discussing the potential effects of this merger internally.

I'd heard a few theories put forward as to why it's not NVIDIA which may make sense in that NVIDIA would cost too much for AMD to absorb & that NVIDIA's long term plans include getting into the CPU business, I'd hazard a guess NVIDIA wants to continue on it's own path as such.