Is it in Nvidia's interest to keep AMD afloat?

[adlep]

It looks to me that while Nvidia and AMD are competitors, they could possibly form an alliance to fight the Intel's market dominance, especially in the wake of the recent comments made by Nvidia's CEO.
Also, the competition is good. While both AMD and Nvidia compete with each other in the discrete graphic field, only about 10% of today's PCs have the GPU installed.
Both Nvidia and AMD have a plenty of PC market share left to conquer
Discuss....

 

[apoppin]

Unrelated interests may help AMD and NVIDIA help other
- formally teaming up, no way

FIRST of all - it appears to me that the partnership between Intel and NVIDIA is gone! :Q

So, the time for NVIDIA to buy AMD is long gone .. or they have to spin off ATi and that is difficult and expensive; it makes more sense for NVIDIA to take on Intel directly with a clever PR campaign, and while Intel is so engaged, AMD will keep nibbling on the Arrogant Giant's CPU market and already their IG is starting to get "pressured" because intel is seen as "can't produce"
[well, hell intel *can't*; they can't even make decent IG! - and it it takes WAY more than PR to make a graphics engine out of an Octo-CPU[period]!!]

[1] AMD stands or falls on CPU; long term > speed up phenom, make the shrink keep working on and perfect Crossfire X and pray for another "r300"; make sure fusion at least looks real. Keep with the nice IG MBs until they fully evolve

[2] NVIDIA stands or falls on Discreet Graphics - long term > buy VIA for SIS x86 licensing and sell the rest of VIA for cash for their CPU-GPU; also keep tearing at Intels weakness - their inability [or unwillingness] to produce a decent IG MB solution.

[3] Intel is stupid and will Fail in this battle because they are depending on their old P4 marketing Team's recycled PR .. and are they are slow to react and politically-driven .. ruled by a board who has lost its vision. Long term > dissolution unless they overhaul. Intel is holding back progress and needs to lead or get the hell out of the way.

^^my assessment of the current situation^^

edited

 

[soonerproud]

Nvidia and AMD still have a chipset partnership they both are quick to tout. They both still need each other, even after AMD bought the competitor.

Intel has just fired the first shot in war with Nvidia. It looks like Intel is more worried about Nvidia now than they are AMD. Nvidia has just announced a partnership with Via for a low cost Isaiah processor platform. Nvidia is more worried about Intel than AMD and is positioning itself to better compete.

If AMD's trouble continues, I see a deal between Nvidia and possibly IBM to buy AMD, split the processor side from the chipset and graphics side and then incorporate the processor side into Nvidia.

Things are starting to get interesting!

<----- Grabs a bag of popcorn and watches the drama unfold.


Edit:

Broke it up to make it easier to read.

 

[Rusin]

As long as AMD has more debts than market value I don't think there would be too many people wanting to buy that company. I mean they have to pay 400 million dollars per year just to avoid increasing their debts; they have had only two years in this century when they have made positive results and they then made less than 400M USD..

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Rusin
As long as AMD has more debts than market value I don't think there would be too many people wanting to buy that company. I mean they have to pay 400 million dollars per year just to avoid increasing their debts; they have had only two years in this century when they have made positive results and they then made less than 400M USD..

The IP that AMD owns is clearly worth a lot more than the debt they have. A company with deep pockets is more than able to absorb the debt for a future payoff from all the IP AMD owns.

 

[adlep]

AMD may turn around. Remember, they have been sinking in the past with the K6 series. The K6-3 was a pathetic shot at the P2/P3 line that wasn't really that great. So they were roasting for a while and came up with the Athlon "Alpha" based core effectively taking the engineering lead from Intel up until the C2D.

On the other hand the Nvidia is in a very good financial situation. Strategically, they should give the AMD/ATI break right now.

Anyhow, the recent developments are interesting. But one thing is for sure.
The market innovation needs at least two companies to compete with each other. The last few years for example, have been very good for consumers in terms of price/performance.
On the other hand, in the 90's when Intel did not have any serious competition, the prices were just terrible and the innovation was stagnant.
IMO, all the Nvidia fans should start vouching for AMD NOW...

Edit: Thanks for the feedback so far; it will be a very interesting discussion...

 

[v8envy]

Here we go again, with the whole debt > equity thing.

It's entirely possible to buy AMD's *assets* while leaving the debt-ridden shell and executives golden parachutes behind. Yup, a buyer doesn't need to buy the whole thing. They can buy the name (it's an asset, after all), patents, rights to the HR database to offer the top producers jobs, etc etc etc. There's absolutely no requirement for a purchasing entity to also saddle themselves with debt, a failed executive team or even employees accrued vacation -- taking on liabilities is entirely optional.

Whether or not the x86 license is a transferable asset (among other things) is a completely different question. As you might imagine fire sales of assets only are not something stockholders agree to voluntarily. And if someone is willing to buy the bad with the good there's risk of being outbid. But my point is, it's entirely possible for an interested party to get the *GOOD* parts of AMD while leaving pieces with questionable value (executive team, Phenom brand, certain employees) behind.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Unrelated interests may help AMD and NVIDIA help other
- formally teaming up, no way

FIRST of all - it appears to me that the partnership between Intel and NVIDIA is gone! :Q

This is a common misconception- Intel and NVIDIA have a cross licensing agreement that goes a "a long time" into the future. So you'll be seeing NFORCE motherboards for Intel processors in the future.

PR is not Intel's danger right now, the average cost of CPUs declining over the last 5 years, and the benefit of owning higher end CPUs becoming largely irrelevant in an increasing number of applications (e.g. some GPU based video encoding coming that will make CPU based look like a 286) outside of gaming is Intel's problem.

I've been thinking about trying a Phenom lately, the new 9850 looks interesting, and for gaming CPU is a non-issue.

 

[adlep]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: apoppin
Unrelated interests may help AMD and NVIDIA help other
- formally teaming up, no way

FIRST of all - it appears to me that the partnership between Intel and NVIDIA is gone! :Q

This is a common misconception- Intel and NVIDIA have a cross licensing agreement that goes a "a long time" into the future. So you'll be seeing NFORCE motherboards for Intel processors in the future.

PR is not Intel's danger right now, the average cost of CPUs declining over the last 5 years, and the benefit of owning higher end CPUs becoming largely irrelevant in an increasing number of applications (e.g. some GPU based video encoding coming that will make CPU based look like a 286) outside of gaming is Intel's problem.

I've been thinking about trying a Phenom lately, the new 9850 looks interesting, and for gaming CPU is a non-issue.

I agree. The trend is that the CPU speed is less important than the GPU.
However, it has been made possible only because of the rapid competition between Intel/AMD that has benefited us all so far.
I am afraid that if the AMD will become irrelevant, the CPU development will stagnate.
Also, if the Intel has its way and somehow eliminate the Nvidia from the discrete graphics market, that would be terrible.
1. We need AMD to keep up a high pace of the CPU development.
2. We need AMD/Nvidia to keep up the high pace of the discrete GPU development.
3. Intel is a great company, but they need to be kept in check.

Edit: I have also been thinking about AMD lately. Even though their CPUs are not the fastest, they are still fast enough to last for at least few years.

 

[v8envy]

Well, there you go. Read between the lines of what Rollo said and you can see NV's PR spin strategy.

In a nutshell: Intel CPUs are powerful, but boring desktop business solutions like their integrated graphics. You can go with a cheap underdog like AMD and pair it with our winner of a GPU (or six) and come out miles ahead!

It's pretty obvious from enthusiast forums that when the pissing contest between NV and Intel forced enthusiasts to choose between SLI and Intel chipsets a vast majority of urine-soaked enthusiasts went for the Intel chipset. That's gotta chap NV's britches. AMD is far more interested in moving volumes of their new CPUs than dominating NV on the graphics front, so cozying up to them and Via is the lesser of many evils for a company whose market share, mindshare and niche could be marginalized with a single product success from Chipzilla.

That success doesn't look too likely, but NV wouldn't be spinning up the PR machine if they weren't worried. I wouldn't be shocked if NV doesn't hold a license to produce chipsets for Nehalem, which would make them completely irrelevant as an Intel board provider later this year. If that turns out as expected (string primitives in silicon, SMT, true NUMA cube config and 3 memory channels? OMFG gimme gimme gimme right now!) then grim news indeed.

There are already games which can take all the CPU you can give them and ask for more. Supreme Commander, MS Flight Sim X, Crysis come to mind. That trend will continue if game developers can target a Q9450 or better as a mainstream CPU.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Well, there you go. Read between the lines of what Rollo said and you can see NV's PR spin strategy.

In a nutshell: Intel CPUs are powerful, but boring desktop business solutions like their integrated graphics. You can go with a cheap underdog like AMD and pair it with our winner of a GPU (or six) and come out miles ahead!

It's pretty obvious from enthusiast forums that when the pissing contest between NV and Intel forced enthusiasts to choose between SLI and Intel chipsets a vast majority of urine-soaked enthusiasts went for the Intel chipset. That's gotta chap NV's britches. AMD is far more interested in moving volumes of their new CPUs than dominating NV on the graphics front, so cozying up to them and Via is the lesser of many evils for a company whose market share, mindshare and niche could be marginalized with a single product success from Chipzilla.

That success doesn't look too likely, but NV wouldn't be spinning up the PR machine if they weren't worried. I wouldn't be shocked if NV doesn't hold a license to produce chipsets for Nehalem, which would make them completely irrelevant as an Intel board provider later this year. If that turns out as expected (string primitives in silicon, SMT, true NUMA cube config and 3 memory channels? OMFG gimme gimme gimme right now!) then grim news indeed.

There are already games which can take all the CPU you can give them and ask for more. Supreme Commander, MS Flight Sim X, Crysis come to mind. That trend will continue if game developers can target a Q9450 or better as a mainstream CPU.

I don't think you can read all that into what I said. As far as the AMD goes, I have two fairly high end gaming PCs, don't see the harm in trying a Phenom in one now that they've resolved their errata issue.

I also agree those games benefit from CPU power, but think most don't.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nRollo

Originally posted by: apoppin
Unrelated interests may help AMD and NVIDIA help other
- formally teaming up, no way

FIRST of all - it appears to me that the partnership between Intel and NVIDIA is gone! :Q

This is a common misconception- Intel and NVIDIA have a cross licensing agreement that goes a "a long time" into the future. So you'll be seeing NFORCE motherboards for Intel processors in the future.

PR is not Intel's danger right now, the average cost of CPUs declining over the last 5 years, and the benefit of owning higher end CPUs becoming largely irrelevant in an increasing number of applications (e.g. some GPU based video encoding coming that will make CPU based look like a 286) outside of gaming is Intel's problem.

I've been thinking about trying a Phenom lately, the new 9850 looks interesting, and for gaming CPU is a non-issue.

no .. no .. no . . no .. that is beside my issue entirely

i have to agree WITH you - if you can believe it! - but it does not invalidate what i said.

First of all, that *partnership* is a STRICT iron-clad "cross-licensing" agreement - they each MUST keep for each of their mutual advantage and SURVIVAL and it is [imo] unbreakable until things really change with Fusion and whatever the hell NVIDIA calls their own.

HOWEVER, i *believe* Intel and NVIDIA stood at the brink of a real "partnership" - look at their hopeful talk not long ago .. and something really broke down from NVIDIA's end, maybe - to P.O. Intel (my guess is that it might have been a deliberate move when they realized they won't get anywhere without major compromise.

Now lets go for Recent History & Changes ... Intel's danger right now IS the average cost of CPUs declining over the last 5 years and the benefit of owning higher end CPUs is becoming largely irrelevant - especially the new 'GPU stuff' that AMD and NVIDIA are pushing - the practical stuff the CPU cannot DO - agreed.

What is outside of gaming is largely Intel's problem

-- - Yes .. Yes!! .. and Intel is letting AMD escape!!

For whatever reason, and i say "political, again" .. run by a board that is having trouble comprehending the NEW danger from NVIDIA and AMD - and maybe because NVIDIA did "something" to piss them off; they are {WRONGLY!} looking at NVIDIA as the Primary threat!

You and i have the right analysis - Intel is hitting it all wrong [imo]

I've been thinking about trying a Phenom lately, the new 9850 looks interesting, and for gaming CPU is a non-issue.

Bingo! ... and NVIDIA sees the cracks in Intel's armor and joins in with some amazingly creative and adaptive PR; they are allies with AMD not by design .. but by default .. by coincidence and timing and Intel has engineered it's own downfall, i believe - screwing VIA to allow NVIDIA to buy SIS.

CPU's are rapidly becoming commodities. To avoid becoming commodities, CPUs' must do what they have done in the past - grab more and more of the overall PC operations. Wouldn't you say AMD is better at this than Intel is? - think Athlon integrated memory controller.

CPU's can only succeed in the 3d-graphics space if the 3D companies let them. ATi decided it would let them. imo ATi saw G80 coming [i did] and that it wouldn't be able to compete head-to-head with NVIDIA's High-end in the long-term, so they decided to help AMD evolve the CPU.
. . . *my old analysis* .. several of us believed this .. remember?
- now it fits from looking back

However, idon't think NVIDIA has any intention of allowing AMD/Intel to take over their market - and Larrabee will take more than 5 years. Do you think the 'in order' cores and the overhead of x86 will be a n easy thing for Larrabee to drag around while trying to keep up with dedicated purpose-built hardware?

Howz' that ? You keep making me go deeper and deeper.