Blog FeedAMD and ATI Tie the Knot
It doesn’t get much more convincing than shots of the CEOs shaking hands. The official announcement hasn’t been made as I write this, though I expect it to come shortly afterwards.
To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it. AMD’s latest price cuts (which, if you are interested, are huge and worth checking out) show that it’s now on the back foot with Intel’s new chip being crowned performance king. ATI’s video cards seem to be fine, but last time I checked, it’s AMD motherboard chipsets were somewhat lacking in the reliability department (though were blazingly fast). Perhaps from that point of view it’s a good thing - it’s consolidates AMDs position and it can probably give ATI what it needs to make chipsets that aren’t just fast, but also bug-free.
As far as AMD and Intel competition goes, I don’t see this merger changing anything substantially. What I am worried about though, as some have noted already, is the potential loss of balance which we currently enjoy between Nvidia and ATI. Watching these two slog it out for graphics cards, chipsets, and even console graphics has been fun to watch, and reassuring that competition is fierce enough for consumers to benefit. Nvidia makes great AMD chipsets - though it did tick me off when their SLI would only work on said chipsets. Likewise, I don’t like the idea of CrossFire only working on ATI chipsets. It limits choice. With AMD and ATI now snuggled up, and with the potential for them to offer bundled deals and the like, I see hard times ahead for Nvidia. If that means more fierce competition then great, but then if it means everything is split between two camps, with Nvidia deciding to refocus it’s work towards Intel, then the consumers will again lose out on choice.
24th July | Reply
It’s hard to make any judgements about this at the moment. The only thing that I can say is that this will be a bad move if ATI comes to depend on AMD-based technology to sell its products. At present ATI has the option (and takes it) of selling products to work for both AMD and Intel-based systems and so it doesn’t really matter which is doing the best since the customer always has the choice if which graphics card manufacturer to purchase from. If AMD hits a rough spot then will ATI also lose out? Equally, will the consumer also lose out by losing a choice in the graphics card manufacturer to buy from if Intel does better?
At the end of the day it will depend on how integrated AMD-based systems become with ATI graphics. There are definite advantages from having a leading graphics manufacturer effectively in-house, particularly when it comes to adding integrated graphics solutions. But ATI also needs to make sure that it is able to sell solutions for Intel-based systems if it is to avoid the “putting all your eggs in one basket” problem.
Personally, I’m expecting business as normal after the hoo-haa over the announcement has died down.
26th July | Reply
This firing squad article actually assumes the opposite. Of course it is Nvidia talking here but the points do show some validity. Nvidia is now the only company that can make chipsets and GPUs for both AMD and Intel. Not a terrible position to be in. However if the tight integration of AMD/ATI ends up in PCs that have a performance edge we might see Nvidia and Intel having to get in bed together to produce a similar situation. Overall this could be good and bad.
It removes a lot of the choice for the user since there will be two separate camps. No longer can I have a Radeon + Intel. A lot of PC enthusiasts like the “lawlessness” of the PC platform and being able to build anything out of the parts. Choosing what is best for you and all.
However, in a Mac-sense kind of way integration provides some truly wonderful solutions. And easy of use skyrockets as well as optimization. I guess only time will tell but being one who has been burned by ATI multiple times but loves AMD I am a bit distraught.
27th July | Reply
From a bussiness standpoint it really doesn’t make that much sense to me in all honesty. What does ATI grant AMD that they couldn’t just invest up and do themselves? I doubt you’re going to see anymore synergistic effect here than say the HP-Compaq merger, as these companies don’t really add much to each other’s abilities. People aren’t going to accept an exclusivity situation, AMD could get a mainboard line together for less than the cost of ATI and this looks to me to be a merger that solely makes the new company bigger not really better.
8th August | Reply
I should mention that where I said “merger” I was technically incorrect. According to this piece of information, the fact that it is a takeover is much more apparent. AMD plans on doing away with the ATI name altogether.
So, if my next video card is an AMD Radeon, will the board itself go back to being green after being red for so many years?