AMD to Buy ATI?

[fitbabits]

GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com) is reporting that AMD may be close to buying videocard manufacturer ATI for $5.5 billion.

You can read the full story here (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154489.html).

As much as analysts aren't always right, they aren't always wrong, either. In May, RBC Capital Markets analysts said microprocessor manufacturer AMD was considering an acquisition of graphics-card maker ATI Technologies.

Today, Reuters is reporting that AMD is close to a deal that would see it acquire ATI for $5.5 billion, citing "a source familiar with the situation" for the info. The source said a deal could be announced as soon as Monday.

In suggesting the purchase in May, the RBC analysts noted that the idea of Intel or AMD purchasing a graphics-chip maker has been batted around for a while, and pointed out AMD's stated intent to increase its capacity in the coming years. As for ATI being chosen for acquisition instead of a rival company like Nvidia, the pair called ATI "a rare buy in the semiconductor space right now."
Holy hunnerza money! $5.5 BILLION?

[Varsity]

I've always thought as AMD as the ATI of processors for some reason. Something more down-to-earth compared to the glitz of nVidiel.

[fitbabits]

I've always thought as AMD as the ATI of processors for some reason. Something more down-to-earth compared to the glitz of nVidiel.
Yeah, I know what you mean. When I first started on playing games on PC, nVidia was the daddy, but that all changed with the release of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (which I'm still using to this day).

[Draft]

Could be a good move for AMD, who will now be able to match Intel move for move in the hardware arena. Perhaps even surpass them, as Intel clearly has no clue how to integrate viable 3D capability into a motherboard.

Nvidia will sort of become the odd man out, but that will really just mean they'll have to step up their tech so that people see it as a viable alternative mobo to AMD or Intel's branded offerings. That of course assumes that an AMD owned ATI would stop making chipsets for Intel CPUs, which I guess would happen.

[Xerxes]

I wonder would they Nvidia get rid of there Nforce chipset...

[Draft]

I wonder would they Nvidia get rid of there Nforce chipset...Why would Nvidia want to do that? Furthermore, why would AMD want them to do that?

If you're a CPU manufacturer, I think you'd want as many companies as possible building chipsets for you.

[Xerxes]

Cause now you are like helping the competition...

[Mr.Green]

I had pride in ATI beeing a Canadian company. So much for that.

SELLOUTS!!!!!11!1

[crashedout]

This is great, AMD needs a good product to hold it untill its new architecture CPU's are ready. As mentioned above, they could put out a good integrated GPU chipset. The only question I have is who is going to fab the GPU's, AMD's top fabs are overwhelmed as it is now.

[KarmaGhost]

I think dominance in the video card market (in terms of quality) tends to go back and forth between nVidia and ATI. ATI really did well with the 9700 and 9800, nVidia bombed with the Geforce 5x00 line, but has done a reallly good job on the 6800's and 7900's. I'm an AMD guy, but I'm not currently an ATI guy. This should be interesting.

[SexualChoc]

Does this mean Intel are going to buy nVidia? Not that it matters. With a these 2 working together, maybe we'll see something good come out of it.

[Varsity]

The only question I have is who is going to fab the GPU's, AMD's top fabs are overwhelmed as it is now.
ATI's of course...

[TrackZero]

And another successful Canadian company gets bought by one from the states. *sigh*

[dojoteef]

Holy hunnerza money! $5.5 BILLION?

Is it just me, or does that price seem a bit low?

[fitbabits]

Is it just me, or does that price seem a bit low?
$5.5 billion for ATI seems low to you? Do you work for them or even have stock in ATI? :)

[Draft]

And another successful Canadian company gets bought by one from the states. *sigh*You're lucky we haven't annexed you yet.

[jBusy]

ATI's (fabs) of course...
ATI doesn't have any fabs. The actual card production is handled by USM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Microelectronics_Corporation) and TSMC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC).

[Xerxes]

Is it just me, or does that price seem a bit low?

Well when you covert it into canadian money... *sigh*
I remember when canadia currency jokes were funny...

[Ailer]

You're lucky we haven't annexed you yet.
When you do, can I get put in one of the vaults?

[nfwolfpryde]

It's a merger, not a buyout. There's a key difference there. AMD can't afford to buy-out ATI outright. That's why it's only $5.5 billion.

[torrefaction]

Yeah, I know what you mean. When I first started on playing games on PC, nVidia was the daddy, but that all changed with the release of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (which I'm still using to this day).

Wow. You're a latecomer to the PC scene huh?

I still remember looking around and being like...WTF. Who the hell are these Nvidia guys, and what the hell are they doing to the graphics scene :D

[Heretic Machine]

Bleh... I hate ATI. Shit-ass drivers, shit-ass support, shit-ass "SUPER DUPER DELUXE CONTROL PANEL!"

I have owned two ATI products, one was the Radion 9700 (a piece of shit), and a capture card that they basically stopped supporting the moment they shipped them out. AMD on the other hand, I have had no problems out of them. But hopefully they don't do anything that would jeopardize my future of using Nvidia and AMD products together.

[digitalErich]

I remember hearing rumors about this a month ago. I think this could bode well for gamers myself. Think about it, you have a CPU manufacturer and GPU manufacturor working very closely together. They could really tighten up the integration and data exchange between the two processing units.

[Slack3r78]

I remember hearing rumors about this a month ago. I think this could bode well for gamers myself. Think about it, you have a CPU manufacturer and GPU manufacturor working very closely together. They could really tighten up the integration and data exchange between the two processing units.
Except that's not your bottleneck right now - current cards don't come anywhere close to saturating the bandwidth of 16 PCI-E channels. The GPU itself is still where we're bottlenecked.

[Mondopest]

Yeah, I know what you mean. When I first started on playing games on PC, nVidia was the daddy, but that all changed with the release of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (which I'm still using to this day).

Yeah when we were growin' up, we didnt have no fancy shmancy "3d" cards. We had 2d ISA cards! Whats ISA? Look it up on Wiki.....I tell you that was an interface. If we wanted "3d", we had to wait years for a company called "3dfx"! Even then we still needed a 2d card for our normal operating procedures. You youngsters nowadays.... ;)

And you should hear the stories from my Dad about computers that didnt even have monitors! They had things called.....teletypes!

[mandarin]

Companies are usually bought for 4-5x their yearly revenues. I guess ATI pulls in 1 billion a year or so? A quick Google search finds their investor relations page (http://ir.ati.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=105421&p=irol-quarterlyresults), which shows about 500 million gross revenue per quarter. 5 billion is a tad low, then, if they're doing about 2 billion a year.

[Slack3r78]

Yeah when we were growin' up, we didnt have no fancy shmancy "3d" cards. We had 2d ISA cards! Whats ISA? Look it up on Wiki.....I tell you that was an interface. If we wanted "3d", we had to wait years for a company called "3dfx"! Even then we still needed a 2d card for our normal operating procedures. You youngsters nowadays.... ;)

And you should hear the stories from my Dad about computers that didnt even have monitors! They had things called.....teletypes!
Mmmmmmm VLB. <3.

[nfwolfpryde]

Mmmmm.... my Voodoo 2 used to own people's machines.

[Ernst_Jager]

I remember my old Rage 128. That was a good card. For me like most people I will buy from whoever will give me the most bang for my buck.

[fitbabits]

Wow. You're a latecomer to the PC scene huh?

I still remember looking around and being like...WTF. Who the hell are these Nvidia guys, and what the hell are they doing to the graphics scene :D
Relatively speaking, yes. Does that make me any less of a man? Should I start making sweaters with my pubic hair? :confused:

[Deathbane27]

Hmm. Well, hmm.

nVidia makes one of the best AMD mobo chipsets, the nForce line. If AMD and ATI merge, it may jeopordize that, and that would suck.





Relatively speaking, yes. Does that make me any less of a man? Should I start making sweaters with my pubic hair? :confused:

That's another issue, but yes, you should. :)

[Darkmatter]

Relatively speaking, yes. Does that make me any less of a man? Should I start making sweaters with my pubic hair? :confused:

Once your old enough, yes. j/k ;) /ducks

[Oddmaker]

Isnt it more like merging together?

[TrackZero]

Wow. You're a latecomer to the PC scene huh?

I still remember looking around and being like...WTF. Who the hell are these Nvidia guys, and what the hell are they doing to the graphics scene :D

I remember when suddenly my new computer had 16 colours.

I owned the first 3D "accelerator" card out there, the S3 Virge. Which actually slowed down a few games, it only went faster if you used the ViRGE libraries, which made textures look like complete ass. As I recall, some of the only games that supported it were Tomb Raider and Terminal Velocity. Back then you had to get seperate builds of the game (.EXEs), as there was no unified API for graphics, it being pre-win95 and developers rarely included support in the main build of the game. It came with a big kicking 2MB of onboard video memory (which I then paid extra and upgraded to 4MB).

[Mr. Lake]

When is 3dfx releasing the Voodoo 6000?

[Voodoo]

Here comes socketed GPUs ladies and gentlemen. This is all part of their 4x4 plan. Should be cool.

[Xerxes]

WHOA... Voodoo plew my mind... I do remember the 4x4 plan. Which turned more into a 4x4x4x4 something-ish plan.

[dirtbag]

Hmm. Well, hmm.

nVidia makes one of the best AMD mobo chipsets, the nForce line. If AMD and ATI merge, it may jeopordize that, and that would suck.



I agree 100%. When I read this article, my first instinct was to be worried about what this could do to both companies. I love my nforce4 mobo with an AMD dual-core and a GF 7900GT. I'd hate to see AMD get tied down to ATI graphics, or lose nVidia mobos -- one of the things that makes PCs great is the competition between Intel and AMD and between ATI and nVidia. This merger could screw up the balance, which usually means WE lose.

[Shifteh]

Haha, when I was more of a computer 'noob' (I haven't really ascended out of that yet) I thought they were the same company, so there you go.

I've been screwed by too many of Nvidias products - I'm not a Radeon/ATI fanboy, but I lean more towards them.

[Kyle Jones]

I don't know why I feel this is weird. Maybe it's because I'm using Intel and ATI...

[timmyd]

Why do computer losers always have to compete to see who has the oldest experience? It's fucking stupid. And then all the 20-somethings think they seen something because they saw the advent of the 3D card!?!
Crap. Now I'm doing it.

This fight has gone back and forth a few times now. Seems if I was buying a system now I'd consider Intel + ATI. Not so 6 months ago. However, I do think that nVidia didn't really suck that bad during the 5x00 times. I got a 5700 in a machine and it's fine. AMD has always done well too.

But if AMD starts requiring you to have a second computer with a properitary bus interconnect so that you can run that REALLY REALLY FUCKING STUPID FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT OH MY GOD FUCK YOU ATI "control center" so you can turn anti aliasing on and off, I swear to God I will stuff a soldering iron up the ass of each and every person responsible, plug it in and I will by God only cut the power after they've turned antistropic filtering on.

[TrackZero]

Why do computer losers always have to compete to see who has the oldest experience? It's fucking stupid. And then all the 20-somethings think they seen something because they saw the advent of the 3D card!?!
Crap. Now I'm doing it.

We're enjoying nostalgia. Which goes far beyond the realm of "computer losers", maybe someday you'll understand that timmyd.

[timmyd]

We're enjoying nostalgia. Which goes far beyond the realm of "computer losers", maybe someday you'll understand that timmyd.

Oh! Oh! You condescending little snot computer loser you! :D Maybe someday I'll understand how to stay away from this site and the likes that inhibit, er inhabit it. Nostalgia is nothing compared to the peace of mind of knowing you didn't post on an Internet forum today.

- sigh -

Think I'll play a thinking's man's game now, MSFS! That should enrage all you twitch junkies.

[TrackZero]

Oh! Oh! You condescending little snot computer loser you! :D Maybe someday I'll understand how to stay away from this site and the likes that inhibit, er inhabit it. Nostalgia is nothing compared to the peace of mind of knowing you didn't post on an Internet forum today.

- sigh -

Think I'll play a thinking's man's game now, MSFS! That should enrage all you twitch junkies.

Now you're mad because someone replied to you? I'm supposed to feel bad because I post in forums and you have a vague idea that I don't get out enough (when you know absolutely nothing about me)? Pot, meet kettle.

If you're shocked that I replied to you so quickly, it's because I get e-mails everytime someone posts to the thread, which you did as I happened to be reading my e-mail.

Sims are great. You're not enraging anyone. Why would your taste in games offend us?

Or more to the point, why did you feel the need to reply to me in the first place? There's no argument for you to win here, you're just burying yourself deeper in your projection of EvAv posters and their value to, what, the world? And, if as you predict, I'm not going anywhere, I can obviously sit here replying to you all day long.

[Speed_D]

I swear to God I will stuff a soldering iron up the ass of each and every person responsible, plug it in and I will by God only cut the power after they've turned antistropic filtering on.
Dude if you're still running a 5700, that's the least of your worries.