AMD will retire the ATI brand

[Skurge]

How was what possible?

The AMD chips being copies of the Intel ones.

 

[Scali]

The AMD chips being copies of the Intel ones.

Reverse-engineering.

 

[Absolution75]

AMD is worth less than what they paid for ATI. They are losing a lot of ground to Intel right now and after years are only even with NVIDIA (which could easily change with the GF104 doing so well). As for fusion, that does not affect NVIDIA at all. It's simply a replacement for integrated GPUs. It will not compete with a discrete solution.

Aren't integrated/low end chips a very significant amount of NVIDIA's profits? Wasn't the news that Apple was using NVIDIA chips huuuuge news and shot NVIDIA's stock up by a couple $?


So what if they have the graphics crown for the last 3 months or so. The high high end market is tiny. They were also 6 months late to the party. . . AMD will have SI/NI (whatever it is) out the door by Christmas this year which will be a huge part of each companies sales (or lack of). While no one really knows how much NVIDIA is making per chip, its probably less than AMD.

If i remember correctly, wasn't ATI down to around 29% discrete market share 3-5 years ago? Now they are over 50%. It is only going to go even higher with the release of NI/SI, assuming its priced appropriately. I'd be worried about that if I was working for NVIDIA.

Don't get me wrong, I love competition and hope that NVIDIA stays around. But it isn't just business as usual for them.

 

[Wreckage]

Aren't integrated/low end chips a very significant amount of NVIDIA's profits? Wasn't the news that Apple was using NVIDIA chips huuuuge news and shot NVIDIA's stock up by a couple $?

Not since Intel locked them out of the chipset business. Although as long as Apple keeps using Intel processors I doubt we will see fusion in a Mac.

So what if they have the graphics crown for the last 3 months or so. The high high end market is tiny. They were also 6 months late to the party. . . AMD will have SI/NI (whatever it is) out the door by Christmas this year which will be a huge part of each companies sales (or lack of). While no one really knows how much NVIDIA is making per chip, its probably less than AMD.

If i remember correctly, wasn't ATI down to around 29% discrete market share 3-5 years ago? Now they are over 50%. It is only going to go even higher with the release of NI/SI, assuming its priced appropriately. I'd be worried about that if I was working for NVIDIA.

Don't get me wrong, I love competition and hope that NVIDIA stays around. But it isn't just business as usual for them.

That's all speculation. I was posting the facts of the situation as it stands right now.

SI/NI could be failures on the level of the R600 launch. NVIDIA could and probably does have something up their sleeve. AMD still could go bankrupt. All speculation of course. But these are very real possibilities.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to Fusion, Bulldozer and Northern Islands.

 

[bryanW1995]

AMD is worth less than what they paid for ATI. They are losing a lot of ground to Intel right now and after years are only even with NVIDIA (which could easily change with the GF104 doing so well). As for fusion, that does not affect NVIDIA at all. It's simply a replacement for integrated GPUs. It will not compete with a discrete solution.

As for NVIDIA they have the fastest chip right now and arguably the best bang for the buck chip. Tegra is (finally) starting to show up in tablet and cell phone designs, it's already in the zune and may be in the next PSP. They are also doing well in the super computer business recently scoring a $25 million contract. They have money in the bank (I've heard upwards of $2 billion but not sure the exact amount), this is opposed to AMD's debt which I believe is even more than that.

As an AMD fan going way back (Super Socket 7 FTW), I am very much worried about AMD. I have no worries about NVIDIA until they have as many losing quarters as AMD and are as deep in debt (not to mention having to sell large chunks of their business), then it would indeed be time to worry.

http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/graphics/how-amd-failed-to-materialize-dreams-made-of-ati
"How AMD failed to materialize its ATI dream"

Time will tell. :whiste:

amd paid $1.7 billion out of pocket, borrowd $2.5 billion, and paid $1.2 worth of stock, so it's not like they just wrote a big check for $5 billion and said "here ya go". even if it was only a couple billion they clearly haven't gotten a very good roi thus far. however, looking to the long term they at least have a business plan that makes sense. "integrated graphics" used to suck, but with the weaker sb ~ 5450 and BD looking to be closer to 5570 level of performance, where do you draw the line? remember, these are 1st gen units as well. how much better than a 5570 does a light/casual gamer even need? also, we can criticize amd all we want, but what are the odds that intel will look at the current SB graphics and say "you know what, we like nvidia and this is good enough anyway, let's just leave our performance level where it is"?

within a few years we won't see discreet graphics cards selling for less than $100, taking a HUGE portion of the market completely away from nvidia. also, at least these days if I have a 5570 and want to upgrade to gtx 460 I can at least sell my old card on ebay and get some $$ for it, but in the future even that won't be an option. we'll see more and more people settle for whatever their computers comes with. amd will be fine because they'll still be getting a ton of the integrated business, but where does that leave nvidia? they should have sold out to intel when the had the chance instead of allowing jhh to kill the deal.

That's all speculation. I was posting the facts of the situation as it stands right now.

SI/NI could be failures on the level of the R600 launch. NVIDIA could and probably does have something up their sleeve. AMD still could go bankrupt. All speculation of course. But these are very real possibilities.

quit acting like you're simply an impartial 3rd party observer here. SI/NI won't be like R600 for one very important reason: it won't be 6 mos late like r600 or fermi. if SI/NI sucks they can just drop prices on current 5 series, do a minor refresh, and wait for 28nm. they are certainly getting better yields/lower costs on 5xxx gpus than they were last year, so they should be able to easily drop prices to compete with nv's current push and still remain very profitable. In fact, it's certain that SI/NI will be a decent improvement for this very reason because until the past few days they could have just coasted along and not said anything. The very fact that they rolled it out even though they're in a commanding market position implies that it is a significant improvement over their current lineup.

I agree with you on nvidia's likely response, however. they won't take this lying down. SI looks like it will be a tough hill to climb, but nvidia is nothing if not resourceful and the fermi architecture looks very promising. They'll cut out some worthless parts, improve some useful parts, and be competitive again soon. I mentioned 3-4 months earlier, it might take them 6 months but they'll get there. they just have way more firepower than amd to devote to this fight.

regarding amd and bk that could certainly happen but seems extremely unlikely in the short/med term. in the long term I would even go so far as to say that it's likely, but we're looking at 10-15 yrs from now, not 2-3.

 

[Wreckage]

amd paid $1.7 billion out of pocket, borrowd $2.5 billion, and paid $1.2 worth of stock, so it's not like they just wrote a big check for $5 billion and said "here ya go". even if it was only a couple billion they clearly haven't gotten a very good roi thus far. however, looking to the long term they at least have a business plan that makes sense. "integrated graphics" used to suck, but with the weaker sb ~ 5450 and BD looking to be closer to 5570 level of performance, where do you draw the line? remember, these are 1st gen units as well. how much better than a 5570 does a light/casual gamer even need? also, we can criticize amd all we want, but what are the odds that intel will look at the current SB graphics and say "you know what, we like nvidia and this is good enough anyway, let's just leave our performance level where it is"?

within a few years we won't see discreet graphics cards selling for less than $100, taking a HUGE portion of the market completely away from nvidia. also, at least these days if I have a 5570 and want to upgrade to gtx 460 I can at least sell my old card on ebay and get some $$ for it, but in the future even that won't be an option. we'll see more and more people settle for whatever their computers comes with. amd will be fine because they'll still be getting a ton of the integrated business, but where does that leave nvidia? they should have sold out to intel when the had the chance instead of allowing jhh to kill the deal.

I have not seen fusion benchmarks. Do you have a link? Either way, again speculation. This is going a bit offtopic anyways. ATI is gone and we will have to see how AMD does in the next year or two. They could win big or they could be the next ATI.

 

[akugami]

Aren't integrated/low end chips a very significant amount of NVIDIA's profits? Wasn't the news that Apple was using NVIDIA chips huuuuge news and shot NVIDIA's stock up by a couple $?

Integrated chipsets might not have gaudy numbers but they are profitable and a steady source of revenue. Judging by the Sandy Bridge preview, nvidia should be scared stiffless about the new hybrid CPU/GPU chips coming out. The GPU numbers, while not impressive for discrete GPU's are still impressive for integrated GPU's and will really eat into the low to mid end GPU's. And this is for all x86 based computers since AMD and Intel is going this route.

I have not seen fusion benchmarks. Do you have a link? Either way, again speculation. This is going a bit offtopic anyways. ATI is gone and we will have to see how AMD does in the next year or two. They could win big or they could be the next ATI.

What happened to ATI? Did they fall into a vortex or black hole? Did someone vaporize ATI? Last I heard, all they're doing is changing their name/branding. ATI the brand name may be gone but the company itself is still around.

There is nothing wrong with a re-branding or re-imaging of a company or a merger and change of focus. Hell, you might not have heard of Tabulating Machine Company, International Time Recording Company, and Computing Scale Corporation but you sure as hell have heard of what they merged and became. Some small company by the name of IBM. And Nintendo started out as a company that sold playing cards. Changing focus sure has hurt Nintendo.

 

[tweakboy]

This is a good thing. They had to do this marketing move.

no more ATI.


AMD ,,, CPU and GPU makers.. sounds better... :whiste:

 

[sandorski]

Integrated chipsets might not have gaudy numbers but they are profitable and a steady source of revenue. Judging by the Sandy Bridge preview, nvidia should be scared stiffless about the new hybrid CPU/GPU chips coming out. The GPU numbers, while not impressive for discrete GPU's are still impressive for integrated GPU's and will really eat into the low to mid end GPU's. And this is for all x86 based computers since AMD and Intel is going this route.



What happened to ATI? Did they fall into a vortex or black hole? Did someone vaporize ATI? Last I heard, all they're doing is changing their name/branding. ATI the brand name may be gone but the company itself is still around.

There is nothing wrong with a re-branding or re-imaging of a company or a merger and change of focus. Hell, you might not have heard of Tabulating Machine Company, International Time Recording Company, and Computing Scale Corporation but you sure as hell have heard of what they merged and became. Some small company by the name of IBM. And Nintendo started out as a company that sold playing cards. Changing focus sure has hurt Nintendo.

No dude, ATI is dead! Nvidia won!!! Yay!!!!!!

 

[Wreckage]

What happened to ATI?

Same thing that happened to 3DFX. A bigger company swallowed em hole and then pitched the name.

 

[akugami]

Same thing that happened to 3DFX. A bigger company swallowed em hole and then pitched the name.

Wow. You're right. The ATI purchase by AMD is exactly like the nVidia purchasing of 3DFX. Except for the fact that they are two completely different and not even remotely related situations this is exactly like 3DFX.

3DFX was bankrupt, out of business, and needed to sell itself to the highest bidder. 3DFX was already dead before nVidia bought the remains. ATI was bought by AMD but ATI wasn't in the same dire straits as 3DFX. ATI still had a viable business at the time. While technically AMD bought ATI, this was more akin to a merger than a straight acquisition because the GPU side of things, which is essentially ATI, is a major major part AMD now. Hell, ATI has been one of the things propping up AMD lately.

 

[Wreckage]

Wow. You're right.

What else is new.

The "situations" may have been different, the end result is still the same. Thus my statement is correct.

ATI as a company ceased to exist when AMD bought them. Now they are just tying up loose ends. I'm actually not even sure what the argument is here.

 

[bryanW1995]

so when nvidia gets bought by intel for $2 billion in 3 years will it be the same, or will it be different because nvidia is your i-lover?

 

[SolMiester]

Maybe it's just me being sentimental.

Back when I did hardware reviews, ATi was the nicest company to deal with for getting review units. Matrox was actually pretty awesome too.

3dfx were bastards, they sent me a t-shirt instead of a video card. I reviewed the t-shirt and got tons of traffic and attention. Then they sent me a review card...

*sniff*

LOL....great work!..oh how I miss Glide!

 

[Wreckage]

so when nvidia gets bought by intel for $2 billion in 3 years will it be the same, or will it be different because nvidia is your i-lover?

Clearly it will be different because it will be NVIDIA that buys Intel.

 

[Absolution75]

Not since Intel locked them out of the chipset business. Although as long as Apple keeps using Intel processors I doubt we will see fusion in a Mac.

I was speaking more along the lines of socket 775 macbooks.

That's all speculation. I was posting the facts of the situation as it stands right now.

SI/NI could be failures on the level of the R600 launch. NVIDIA could and probably does have something up their sleeve. AMD still could go bankrupt. All speculation of course. But these are very real possibilities.

Erm of course its speculation. If it wasn't, there wouldn't ever be anything to talk about in these forums.

AMD isn't going to go bankrupt any time soon. While speculation, we can make good assumptions based on the knowledge we have. ATI's last product launch was about a year ago. ATI will have something that performs quite a bit faster. There is no specific data for this, but its the industry norm. NVIDIA launched a big, hot chip 3 months ago. They won't have something for at least another 3-6 months. Why? Because you can't dream up GPU designs. They are on schedules.

That'd be like Intel releasing the core architecture a few months after releasing the P4. That obviously didn't happen.

 

[bryanW1995]

Clearly it will be different because it will be NVIDIA that buys Intel.

wreckage, are you getting a sense of humor? rotflmao. be careful, people might quit hating you if you continue down this path.

 

[Wreckage]

wreckage, are you getting a sense of humor? rotflmao. be careful, people might quit hating you if you continue down this path.

Nah, they always hate the playa. :'(

I think a lot of people take this stuff waaaaaaaaaay to seriously. Video cards are for playing games, which are fun. Discussing them should be equally fun.

In the long run, this name change was a long time coming and a surprise to very few people. Its what usually happens when one company eats another. Although I did buy a Compaq computer not too long ago hmmm...

 

[Hauk]

wreckage, are you getting a sense of humor? rotflmao. be careful, people might quit hating you if you continue down this path.

LOL +1 for Wreckage!

 

[akugami]

What else is new.

The "situations" may have been different, the end result is still the same. Thus my statement is correct.

ATI as a company ceased to exist when AMD bought them. Now they are just tying up loose ends. I'm actually not even sure what the argument is here.

.....you win. There is nothing to say to someone who does not use logical thought in his arguments. I think I'll just quote Sandorski.

No dude, ATI is dead! Nvidia won!!! Yay!!!!!!

 

[Wreckage]

.....you win. There is nothing to say to someone who does not use logical thought in his arguments. I think I'll just quote Sandorski.

Your insults aside, are you trying to say that AMD did not buy ATI?

 

[extra]

Nvidia has TONS to lose over fusion (and from sandy bridge if Intel really gets it right, which it looks like they are going to do, or be "good enough" anyway). That's gotta be their biggest threat right now.

What we are looking at is in another 2 years or so, the under $100 (ish, maybe under $75 or so, who knows!) discrete graphics card market won't exist. That's huge. And AMD and Intel will still be making money in this segment. Nvidia won't. Nvidia really needs some tegra design wins imho (it's a good product despite all the FUD about it, zune hd for example is a great little device).

 

[akugami]

Your insults aside, are you trying to say that AMD did not buy ATI?

I did not insult you. It's not an insult when I'm speaking the truth and making an observation. I presented information on why your statement that nVidia purchasing 3DFX is the same as AMD purchasing ATI. All you could come up with is that I'm wrong. That the two separate purchases were the same thing without giving any reasons why they were the same. You are known for using flawed logic and purposely ignore any facts that does not suit your arguments. That's a fact. This is no different from your past behavior in that respect.

AMD's purchase of ATI is completely different from nVidia's buying of 3DFX. The reasoning behind both purchases are completely different. The health of ATI and 3DFX at the time of their being purchased were night and day.

As I have previously stated, and something you ignored on purpose, AMD's purchase of ATI is more akin to a merger. They were two different companies, one produces CPU's and one produces GPU's. They are merging their respective products into one because that's where the market is headed.

3DFX being purchased by nVidia was completely different. For one, 3DFX unlike ATI, was bankrupt and out of business. ATI was a relatively healthy company at the time and could have rebuked AMD's offer and still survive. Hell, it is arguable that ATI might have been better off without being purchased by AMD. Another reason is that nVidia purchased 3DFX to bolster it's graphics business while ATI was purchased to merge two products that were, at the time, separate.

Feel free to refute my statement that nVidia's purchase of 3DFX is the same as AMD's purchase of ATI. Bring something to the table and explain why you feel that way.


And for anyone who cares, ATI was a shrinking brand name anyways. It actually is logical for AMD to remove the ATI branding and just slap AMD on everything. I actually felt in the last year that the Radeon branding had eclipsed the name recognition for ATI. Slap AMD on both the video cards and computer systems and it might actually boost sales. Joe Computer will be thinking, I've got a HP with an AMD processor, better go get an AMD video card because it might not work well with nVidia video cards. And yes, the average computer user thinks that way.

Nvidia has TONS to lose over fusion (and from sandy bridge if Intel really gets it right, which it looks like they are going to do, or be "good enough" anyway). That's gotta be their biggest threat right now.

Agreed. I've felt this way for a long while now. In fact, I saw the writing on the wall with AMD's purchase of ATI and the announcement of Fusion.

What we are looking at is in another 2 years or so, the under $100 (ish, maybe under $75 or so, who knows!) discrete graphics card market won't exist. That's huge. And AMD and Intel will still be making money in this segment. Nvidia won't. Nvidia really needs some tegra design wins imho (it's a good product despite all the FUD about it, zune hd for example is a great little device).

I'd argue that the $100-150'ish segment is going to be impacted as well. The sub $100 market might as well not exist cause integrated solutions will be "good enough" for those buying OEM systems from the likes of Dell, HP and Gateway.

The problem with Tegra 2 is that we've been hearing a lot of rumors about how it'll be integrated in this, integrated in that, and most of the rumors haven't panned out. What's interesting is that the only major win for nVidia in the ARM market has been with MS's Zune. The graphics chip market for embedded systems seems to be fiercely competitive. Hell, nVidia and ATI are GPU giants but Nintendo chose some relatively unknown company for its new Nintendo 3DS games system. And Nintendo has been an ATI customer for years.

I do feel that Tegra and the ARM based computing is a logical step for nVidia to move into. My opinion is that there is nothing nVidia can do to stop the shrinking prospects in the x86 market and it has to look elsewhere for revenue and profits. The fastest growing sector outside of x86 is ARM based. Considering almost every new smartphone coming out is based on an ARM chip it is logical to move into this segment. This segment is hugely competitive and nvidia has its work cut out for it. Especially since everyone is using the same (assuming same generation) ARM CPU's and nVidia's expertise is not exactly in low power friendly GPU's.

 

[Wreckage]

People were saying NVIDIA was doomed when AMD bought ATI. Yet NVIDIA is now worth more than both companies combined. People were saying that Larabee was going to destroy NVIDIA, how did that work out. So now it's Fusion (which is how many years late? http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/processors/the-heart-of-amds-llano-is-k8 ) . How much CPU marketshare does AMD even have to leverage? I would not be surprised to see NVIDIA selling more Tegra chips in a few years than AMD is selling CPUs.

I will say this much. 3DFX and ATI are now gone and yet NVIDIA is still standing. I guess we can pick this discussion up again in a 3-5 years to see who was right.

As for akugami. Go back and read my post. I said just like 3DFX, ATI was swallowed by a larger company and now the name is gone. How you blew that out of proportion is beyond me. If you are saying that ATI was not bought out by a larger company or that their name is not going away, I suppose you can refute my statement, otherwise I think you are just wanting to argue for zero reason whatsoever.

I can't wait for Q4 when we have new products to discuss. :thumbsup:

 

[bryanW1995]

nice sig wreckage. will you do the same for nvidia in 2013?