Originally posted by: nrb
Originally posted by: apoppin
Evidence
The Inquirer is not a reliable source. It's a matter of record that (for example) ATI engineers when they are bored will ring up people from The Inquirer and then compete with each other to see which of them can get The Inq to publish the most ridiculous false story.
...AMD had looked for some time at spreading its wings into the graphics arena, but concluded that it was better to approach a firm like ATI which had immense expertise in that marketplace. He said that the only rational way to approach that market was to take that approach.
...if you looked at the graphics and CPU market for PCs, there had been five to 10 companies which tried to enter the GPU business and the same sort of number attempted entry into the CPU business too. But that has consolidated into two or three firms in both sectors which suited AMD customers very well. A monopoly didn't suit PC manufacturers, who like to be able to choose which components they use and play the price and performance game.
It's too early to say how AMD's acquisition of ATI will shake out, said Hester, but there were unlikely to be too many redundancies. It continued to be a partner and to work with Nvidia and it was likely that AMD will continue to use the ATI brand in the AMD portfolio
Perhaps you could point out where, in that quote, there is a reference to the high-end graphics market, as distinct from the graphics market in general...? Is AMD interested in the GPU market? Yes, absolutely - there's a lot of money to be made in integrated GPUs. That's not the same thing as being interested in the high-end market.
Originally posted by: apoppin
it stands to reason that to have graphics solutions that compete with intel and nvidia would require persuing high-end grapics in addition to integrated gfx....
True - but who says AMD
wants to compete with Nvidia? That's the whole point of what some of us are saying: AMD
doesn't want to compete with Nvidia. It wants to compete with Intel. And it swallowed ATI to help it compete with Intel.
On a more general note, and aimed at a number of people....
1) Nobody is suggesting that ATI will stop making graphics products. What some people (including me) are suggesting is that ATI will no longer compete directly against Nvidia in the
high-end market.
2) People need to understand the distinction between revenue and profit. ATI's high-end chips bring in a lot of money - but they don't bring in a lot of
profit. On the contrary, they are effectively subsidised by ATI's other divisions. AMD has no interest in perpertuating a market segment that causes it to lose money. AMD will make more profit by staying out of the high-end market than it will by staying in.
3) If I and others are predicting that R600 will be ATI's last high-end graphics product,
this does not mean that we hate ATI. On the contrary: I am
immensely depressed about the possibility of ATI abandoning the high-end market. If Nvidia acquires a
de facto monopoly in that space, it'll be very bad for consumers. But the fact that I might
want ATI to keep on making high-end chips, doesn't mean it will actually happen. AMD is not a philanthropic organisation. It doesn't
care if you end having to pay $1000 for a video card because there's no one but Nvidia in the market. It has no interest in helping to bring down the price of components.
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