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