ATI is a duff purchase for AMD

Kursk_crash

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Monday 07 August 2006, 16:05


ANALYSTS AT INTEL must be laughing their socks off. Once the smoke clears and the mirrors have been taken down, AMD will discover that it has purchased rather less than it might have hoped in acquiring ATI. In fact, it could turn out to be a bad move for the industry as a whole.

The problem is not so much what ATI has but what it doesn't have. The graphics industry is driven largely by the fanboys and they are driven largely by getting extra frames per second. So far ATI seems to be onto a winner: put two X1900XTXs into a Crossfire capable machine and you'll get frame rates to make you proud. But there's a word in that last sentence that should make you stop and think. It should have made AMD stop and think. It's Crossfire. And nobody seems to have noticed that Crossfire is dead.

The Way of the Dodo
Intel has been plugging Crossfire for use with the new Core 2 Duo but that's ending quickly now that AMD owns the technology. It was bound to go that way and AMD must have known it. So scratch Intel as a long-term platform for Crossfire.

And AMD can't use Crossfire either. For a start, despite lots of promises, plenty of column inches and many product announcements, try to buy a Crossfire motherboard for an AM2 socket processor and see how far you get. They're incredibly rare. There's no sign of products from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, DFI or any of the other big names apart from a few press releases. In fact, the only one we could find for sale was an ECS that was out of stock. This is two and half months after the launch of AM2.

We tried asking ATI about this lack of Crossfire for AM2 some time ago. Its PR people said they'd find some on sale for us to see and were never heard from again.

Even if motherboard manufacturers were willing to suddenly switch on large streams of ATI chipset-based products, AMD won't let them now. After all, that would be too much like treading on the toes of its existing chipset partners, Nvidia, Via and SIS. AMD really wouldn't want Nvidia or Via pulling out as it just couldn't replace them quickly enough.

That leaves Crossfire gone. That means no more ultra-high frame rates with X1900XTXs in Crossfire. Which means the fanboys will start defecting to Nvidia's SLI. Fewer fanboys means fewer column inches means fewer sales. And that means ATI is worth less.

Frisson Chips
AMD is in the awkward position of having to dump ATI's chipset business. Not that there was much to it apart from a nice deal with Intel which is probably dead now. And AMD won't want to compete with Nvidia, Via and SIS so it can't even keep producing chipsets for its own processors.

That leaves laptop graphics, mobile phone graphics and set-top box chips as the only other areas worth something. That's a reasonable area of the business but it's hardly going to keep the stockholders' dividends pouring in.

One Way
So far, the purchase looks like a one way spiral downwards to loss of profitability. The chipset business has to go. That means Crossfire is history. That means a trailing off of sales on graphics processors as Nvidia permanently secures the performance crown. In short, the whole thing looks like a very expensive way of downsizing the entire ATI workforce.

AMD has said that it wants to start building graphics technology into its processors but there's a fair chance of that being a dead end. Sony already tried to do that with Cell and discovered just how fast the graphics market moves in comparison with processors. It ended up having to put a separate graphics chip into the PS3.

There's only one way that springs to mind as a potential escape route towards profit: releasing graphics chips that fit into the same sockets as AMD's processors and use HyperTransport instead of PCIe. It would mean convincing memory manufacturers to release GDDR4 memory modules, would lead to huge motherboards (barring some radical form factor changes), incredible cooling requirements, etc. But it would be enormously risky as, once again, it could incur the wrath of Nvidia.

Where does this leave AMD? There's a fair chance that, once the smoke clears and the mirrors have been taken down, it has spent $5.4 on a company that would have carried on its profitable dual for the top of the graphics market for years to come but will now gently evaporate into nothing. µ

Bem..este artigo é diferente do que o The Inquierer andava a dizer ultimamente...
Lança umas flames e indica que afinal pode não ter sido uma boa compra...

São duras críticas ao AM2, ao Crossfire (que está morto), aos chipsets ATI e laptops


bem..isso veremos mais tarde...
 
ja li teorias bem melhores na thread da fusão da ATI com a AMD.
este artigo é chato mal fundamentado, como é habitual, e é grandemente baseado em maus pontos de vista.
 
Como diz no head deles...eles querem causar é "friction" lol...é assim, ambos deviam saber o que estavam a fazer...a AMD ter comprado a ATI não é a mesma coisa que eu ir ali ao Minipreço e comprar 6 caixas de cereais...envolveu bom dinheiro...e não o iriam fazer se não vissem alguma maneira de fazer lucro/ganhar vantagem.

Eles ainda têm é algum truque na manga...fazem o pessoal todo acreditar que é o fim e não sei que..e do nada aparecem com algo top secret...lol
 
Já tinha visto várias visões pessimistas do negocio, mas assim tanto ainda não. O objectivo deles é fazer um "filme" para terem mto pessoal a olhar pa eles... estão a conseguir.
Este artigo só falar de um lado da questão. O lado negativo. Alem de uma estrutura da noticia meio deficiente está mal fundamenteda.
 
Que anedota de artigo.

Então agora o que vende é o crossfire????

E os milhões de portáteis com gráficas ati não existem e não dão lucro?

Que rídiculo.
 
o erro começa logo com "the graphics industry is driven by fanboys" tá logo a condiderar que uma minoria elitista lidera o mercado... as graficas que vendem mais neste momento são, sem duvida as GMA 950 da intel! e quantas pessoas têm graficos em SLI ou crossfire? ou pensam nisso quando vão a adquirir a sua plataforma? se fôr 1% do mercado já é muito.

A propria ATi e Nvidia vendem muito é gama baixa e gama média (que tem vindo a crescer), lembro-me de a 9700pro vender bem mas a Nvidia ter mais lucro... porque tinha as FX 5200.

Se a AMD/ATi conseguirem um chip integrado (no cpu ou chipset) muito mais potente que o da intel (que dê para correr jogos actuais) e a gastar menos Watts já temos uma placa vencedora e algo k faz o mercado andar para a frente, para longe dos standards da GMA 950 (dado que a intel tem de responder).

E eu não sou apologista desta fusão, gosto de ambas as marcas, mas prefiro a AMD e a ATi separadas... mas não vou arranjar argumentos onde eles n existem.
 
Ja foi dito oficialmente pelas duas companhias que o Brand se vai manter e todos os rodmaps vao continuar on-schedule.
Depois disso nao se sabe, é especular....
 
Bem k artigo da tanga, muito mal escrito, e com muito poucos conhecimentos da realidade.

Parece mais uma artigo para chatear os AMD Fanboys de modo a gerar mais controvérsia.

Pah eu sei k estamos em Agosto e n há muita movimentação, mas falem de outra coisa a compra da ATI pela AMD já é old news.....
 
Bem k artigo da tanga, muito mal escrito, e com muito poucos conhecimentos da realidade.

Parece mais uma artigo para chatear os AMD Fanboys de modo a gerar mais controvérsia.

Pah eu sei k estamos em Agosto e n há muita movimentação, mas falem de outra coisa a compra da ATI pela AMD já é old news.....



[off-topic]Ya! Vamos falar do Jardel no Beira-mar..isso é que é...:lol:[/off-topic]


O artigo acho que é mesmo para chatear os fans de AMD e possivelmente alguns da ATI...como ja o disse e volto a repetir...não é 1 decisão que se tome assim ao de leve, eles sabiam o que estavam a fazer. Agora é aguardar pacientemente (ou não..) pelos resultados..
 
bem,,pra quem dizia que o The Inquirer era só falar bem da AMD e da ATI.. até chegaram a falar em imparcialidade e tal..

este artigo só vem mostrar que não se pode mesmo confiar no The Inquierer...
 
theInquirer.gif

Tuesday 08 August 2006, 07:06


The ATI brand is dead


UST LIKE NVIDIA killed the 3dfx and Voodoo brands at the moment of their biggest strength - when Voodoo was to GeForce what Ferrari is to Volkswagen, AMD is sending ATI, RADEON and the rest of the ATI brands into Oblivion. Not The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion one, of course.

Since this was a company buyout and not a merger, it is not surprising that the AMD execs decided to kill the ATI brand. People will just have to get used to the fact that now they can buy CPUs, graphic cards and motherboards with full AMD branding. Since AMD uses green for its own corporate colours, you can expect that the whole AMD platform is now green - both AMD and Nvidia are fans of British racing green.

The death of the ATI brand will pretty much start immediately, so you can expect that the fall line-up of chipsets and graphic processors will bear AMD branding. It will be certainly interesting to see that actually the best chipset for Conroe, or Core 2 Duo is actually coming from - AMD.

Knowing that AMD likes to create names starting with obligatory "on" at the end of the brand name, we would not be surprised if all of the new AMD products follow suit.

You can expect that the current "Imageon" brand will remain intact, since it does end with the "on" and fits AMD's mantra perfectly (Athletic+on, SemperFi+on, Imagine+on)

Mais umas achas pra fogueira!!!!!
 
novidades

theInquirer.gif

Tuesday 08 August 2006, 00:05

That piece you've written on ATI and AMD is a waste of cyberspace

(hahahahahahaha):-D :-D

nteresting read on the AMD-ATI merger. I don't agree with some of your assessments.

I don't think Crossfire is necessarily dead, nor is it a big deal if it is. Surely Nvidia created and continues to lead that niche, but let's face it, the fanboiz do not generate any more than a petty amount of revenue for either ATI or Nvidia. Let Nvidia whip themselves into a frenzy over short term for the performance crown, the real money is in the midrange sector, where ATI can now make some real gains with AMD's fab capacity and bring out higher performing, lower energy consuming products.

The approach that AMD/ATI wants to follow in embedding graphics capability in the processor is far different that the Sony Cell. Besides the process for that was highly aggressive. I've always suspected Sony's chip designing capabilities were not up to snuff. Even with IBM helping, I know Sony was not receptive to the advice from IBM's expert chipmakers. Believe me, IBM is keeping that technology in their hand.

The current emphasis on frame rates is totally silly, as the human eye can't really handle anything above 60fps (and generally less), besides which, what monitors run at 400fps? The fastest you need to run is at the fastest speed of the slowest component in the path. Now if you are talking about delta time steps for processing dynamic elements, that's different, but better tailored algorithms should significantly reduce the jerkiness.

The party for the traditional raster oriented graphics GPU is just about over. With increases in performance and new algorithms, ray-tracing is set to become the new standard in computer graphics, giving us movie quality or better. Both Nvidia and ATI are working on it, but with ATI's ability to work with AMD, a CPU with ray-tracing instructions becomes quite feasible.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks for the article though, I like it when someone plays Devil's Advocate.

Rich Wargo
Voorheesville, NY

HAHAHA!

This is a joke right? I can't believe the inquirer actually employ pointless writers to write pointless letters like this. His points are all jokes and I can't stop but laughing. I think fanboys are just stupid bias commentators who uses flaky points to justify their opinions. One thing is true about the industry is that it doesn't need any fanboys to bash the oposite side because they can.

AMD/ATI is all about the future, the future is gpu/cpu integration and even intel knows this. They are smart and you are not, that's why you don't understand.

Dilbert

Hi,

As a fan of the inquirer, I will try to be nice, but that piece you've written on ATI and AMD is such a waste of cyber-space.

Not only are you biased towards one side, you fail to mention the merrits of the deal, even if they have been available on the same website before.

Next time, try sticking to the facts and give us a piece of journalism, not just your opinion.

Thx

I believe that AMD's gamble is what an ATI card will do if plugged into a ccHT slot. IOW, ridiculously high bandwidth (and ridiculously low latency), second to no one. And if ATI were to get into physics...

Joe Kraska
San Diego

I don’t know what your sources are but I found your article to be one of the worst I have read in a long time.

Despite it all being based on fiction, you seem to have got all your “information” mixed up!

Your part about "AMD is in the awkward position of having to dump ATI's chipset business. The whole point of business is to be up against all the rest and winning, which ATI has done very well at.

In case you haven’t noticed ATI's chipsets are far superior to any other manufacturers in performance terms.

Crossfire has been on the market more than a year less than SLI, but is in fact better than SLI. (Yes I did say BETTER!) If I stick a pair of X1900's in crossfire in a conroe machine (to eliminate CPU bottleneck) then there is no pair of 7900's on earth that can get the same frame rates at the highest resolutions as the Crossfire does. There is just not enough bandwidth in SLI when you get to the high levels.

You people at the Inquirer fail to realise that you already have a terrible reputation for reliable information and this is just a prime example. You gave me and my colleagues many hours of laughter reading your article. Many Thanks

Ben

I have a few disagreements with you:

Crossfire deciding the worth of ATI. It is only a marginal fraction of users who will buy a Crossfire video card. Far more will use ATI integrated graphics than will ever even SEE a single Crossfire system.

Intel not using Crossfire. Yes, Intel will quietly use ANYTHING that boosts their performance. They may not advertise it for ATI/AMD but they damn well will use it.

AM2 Lacking Crossfire support - AM2 is a patch and I am sure the mobo makers don't expect this socket to live long. K8L may be using something completely different.

Chipsets will very likely be rolling to AMD's line of CPU's. I see very little to this deal that is negative, but all mergers are laced with a change to go south.

ad

You sir, are a moron.

sumang007

Sorry but I think you are in for a rude surprise when the dust settles from the Monday morning armchair quarter back ANALysis...

Oliver

I'd like to respectfully disagree.

I currently own a 6800GT AGP but if I were to go out today, and buy a new video card it would be an x1900xt, or an x1800xt. Why? Because I'm bat-crap-crazy about Battlefield 2 and bang-for-buck Ati's cards come out on top. I'm not interested in SLI/Crossfire at all. I am a hardcore gamer, and most of my friends are hardcore gamers as well. We buy Laptops based on video cards not on processors. We know the deal. All of our desktops with A64's, and we're all happy in the pants about Conroe. We have a lot of different opinions about hardware configurations, manufacturers, and chipsets. But we all agree on one thing: SLI/Crossfire is a joke.

We buy our cards based on what we play, not on how well an over priced(by wallet, and wattage), and over hyped, feature is slapped in our faces. We're all well paid professionals in varying fields and certainly have the disposable income to blow it away frivolously on “features” like SLI. Yet like most “hard-core” gamers we are also particularly well informed about out hobby/habit. Hard-core is dependent on time, not money. Like my friend who called me up just yesterday to tell me how on the way to the store he slammed on his breaks because he saw three cylindrical metal objects in the middle of the road, and the first thought that came to his head was, “Oh crap land mines!” He plays BF2 on a single slot 128MB 6800 vanilla. Hard-core? Yes. Hype suggestible? No.

I have no idea if you're right about AMD+ATI but don't call “hard-core” gamers morons, no matter how politely you try to put it. SLI makes sense for the kind of guy that goes out and gets financing to pay for his rims. Or the guys that buy windowed cases. The other 90% of us really do have lives. Please stop unreflectively asserting SLI and Crossfire as the greatest things since sliced bread as if it were fact, because they aren't.

-matt

as analist my self and pardodn my english im not native english speaker, they buy out from ati was with a good reason IGP and MOBILE market thwy would leave ATI in their perfomance chipset and perfomance gpu alone but amd wants control in the IGP and MOBILE chipset, so you rant is based on pure crack you had this weekend you really get paid for this kind of analisys? or perhaps you beer at pub was bad

Axel Cortez

PS You should think better before writting really or at least get some fundation...

Pardon?

I'm dissapointed that your editor let this pass. Speaking as a non-hack, of course. This article, to my mind, was trash speculation. I'm sorry, but you simply do not sound like you know what you're talking about. I hate just conveying an empty opinion like this, but neither the time or inclination to respond to this tripe have I at the moment.

trggrfsh/Zed Wow, I must say that I find your "analysis" deficient, to say the least.

First off, Crossfire will not die. If AMD decided to kill ATI's core logic business for some unknown reason (which I doubt they will, by the way) then all they'd need to do is open up crossfire so it works on ANY MOTHERBOARD WITH 2 16x SLOTS. Yes, that includes nVidia's chipsets, Intel's, ULI's and VIA's. The only reason why this is not so is because both nVidia and ATI want to protect their core logic businesses.

Now, GDDR4 modules? What the hell have you been smoking, it must be some good stuff. The reason why GDDR clocks as high as it does is because of the extremely low trace lengths and the fact that there are no weird interfaces, the chips connect to the controller through a single direct wire. Putting GDDR4 on modules would probably take something like half of its clocking potential, not to mention that you have to make it work at DDR2 voltages and and using the DDR2 pin layout. No, if AMD actually makes a graphics co-processor it'll use DDR2, the CPU's and its own perhaps, but that's still not that much bandwidth. Not to mention that this takes away the whole dual-GPU thing, since you can run a system without CPUs. If anything will happen I'd expect those fabled "physics coprocessor GPUs" or some other accelerator to be made for socket AM2 and perhaps we'll see an HTX video card that still has enough PCB for GDDR.

Delta XV

Bad move?

Be carefull not to gat Nvidia and Via on their bad side?

Nvidia and Via chipsets for AMD could become "unnecessary". Ati still uses TSMC (as well as Nvidia and Via), why shouldn't they own the complete AMD chipset business?

4x CPU + 4xGPU + nb + 16MB 3rd level cache . . . seems nice to me specially if it is like 4 cores containing 4x int, 8x "upu" (fpu, psu, vsu, mmx, . . .)

I am sure the guys at AMD know what they are doing . . .

Nvidia could go in bed with IBM or Sony now . . .

Intel loves to be alone . . .

As does AMD, it seems . . . ;)

hladnik

Its clear that AMD wants ATI's chipsets and at some point it will use mainly ATI chipsets for the AMD CPU's, just like Intel is trying to do with its own chipsets. AMD does not need NVidia, VIA and Sis, ATI chipsets are very good right now. And because of this, Crossfire will be the main choice for AMD. cstavaru


bem..como as reações não se fizeram esperar..agora para terem movimento até publicam os comentários em estilo fórum ou blog acerca da bosta dos seus artigos..

o The Inquierer no seu melhor..
 
theInquirer.gif

Tuesday 08 August 2006, 07:06


The ATI brand is dead




Mais umas achas pra fogueira!!!!!

Agora o contrario:

ATI does not appear dead
08 August 2006, 12:55

THERE HAVE BEEN multiple reports about the premature death of the ATI brand.

I don't think that will happen.

While others may disagree, it makes no sense, Intel aside, to throw away a well recognised name that is thought of positively by most who care about these things.

Leaping ahead to the meat of the matter, I am of the opinion that ATI will be kept on as a brand. Doing anything less seems just plain silly.

Others (Cough! News Ed) may think differently, but I would be very surprised if it went away.

That, and the fact that I asked and some AMD people, and they said: "Nope!" µ
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33542
 
Destruir o marca ATI era um erro, só se fosse nos ***** e mesmo assim axo k n era boa ideia.


Porquê ?
Achas mesmo que a marca "Xpress" é mais conhecida do que a marca "nForce" no mundo AMD ?



Já agora, dois meses depois do lançamento do AM2, quantas mobos com chipsets ATI para o novo socket é que estão à venda cá em PT, e dessas quantas suportam Crossfire ?
Compara com a quantidade de nForce's para o mesmo chipset.
Pois...
 
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