Nvidia - AMD buyout ?

[SuperSix]

<< you can buy mexico w/ 1 billion... good step for nvidia, an entire country of cheap labor to make PCB's. >>



Wrong - This attributed to the death of 3Dfx

Because their manufacturing was in Juarez (The old STB plant) labor costs were TOO high, compared with many Far East companies.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Maybe the CEO of nVidia wants to buy a baseball team or something? Now, that's coming from left field!

 

[Lankin]

IIRC Nvidia spends about $500million on R&D per year... $2billion cash + a load of nice valued stock could do a buyout/merger of any of the companies listed in this thread.

 

[SniperWulf]

I think they are going into the sound card biz... I mean think about it...

"Hey, get your video card and sound card from us and we'll give you a $3.00 discount"

 

[thorin]

<< Who do u think makes better chipset ? nvidia or via ? >>

nVidia, they put out their first chipset with performance on par with Via (who have been producing chipsets for years).



<< And do you think nvidia's driver team will be better than via's driver team ? >>

I think nVidia has a much much better driver team then Via (think of this historically). Everytime nVidia releases drivers their performance increases and stability remains. Everytime Via releases drive performance stays relatively the same while stability and big fixes increase, and everyone chants the "get the latest 4-in-1s" montra.

I'm not saying Via is bad I'm just saying that nVidia is much more impressive on both counts.

I think everyone is reading too much into this. Blowing $1Billion on R&D isn't really that hard. Given that everything is switching to 0.13um and 0.09um soon. They could also easily sink money into FSAA, some kind of Tiling technology, memory/bandwidth technology. They're probably also looking into 3GIO (although they've stated that they still prefer AGP, 3GIO is coming and they can't stop it so they may as well take advantage of it). Plus integrating some of the ideas that 3Dfx had/has probably represents a significant R&D cost as well.

I could also see nVidia going into the Monitor/LCD market, on the R&D front for things like: monitors based on Bioluminescence, cheaper plasma screens, etc....

Thorin

 

[440sixpack]

Hmmm, as both an NVDA and AMD shareholder, I am somewhat intrigued by the idea...

So far, NVDA hasn't given out too much info on anything like that in their quarterly conference calls, but acquisitions have been mentioned in the past.

 

[EXman]

<< And do you think nvidia's driver team will be better than via's driver team ? >>



well they cannot be any slower than VIA

 

[RazeOrc]

Here's a thought, as some of you have eluded to but not put together:

Nvidia has promised not to go into CPU production but stay in the GPU world,
Nvidia makes the most widely used Video Cards in the mass consumer market
Nvidia has recently unveiled it's Nforce in an attempt to merge GPU/Sound/Chipset
Nvidia keeps upping transistor and computational power on it's GPUs (especially the GF3)

I think those 2 billion is to research/develop fully integrated Chipsets, once it owns GPU/Sound/Chipset capability rolled into one, it has a chance to be a dominant player in 4 markes, not just 1 (GPU, Sound, Chipset, MOTHERBOARD).

Why? Look at the past aquasition of 3DFx, it was Nvidia's attempt to consolodate it's VERTICAL position in the GPU market. Look at the introduction of the Nforce and the upcoming Notebook version, it's Nvidia's attempt to break into 3 other existing and VERY LUCRATIVE markets and consolidate it's HORIZONTAL position.

In the end Nvidia can offer a cheaper (and in their hopes superior) combo: Video, Sound, Chipset, Mobo and the rest of the competition seperatley, WHICH EQUALS MARKETSHARE.

Now, why in the world would Nvidia want such integration? BECAUSE IT'S BEEN STARING EVERYONE IN THE FACE SINCE THE INTRODUCTION OF DECENT QUALITY ON BOARD SOUND AND LAN ON MOTHERBOARDS. Heh, and also the really neat reason that with it's own chipsets fully integrated, NVIDIA would be in a posision with it's GPU knowledge to offer it's own CPU alternative to either AMD/INTEL????? Why not? AMD is locked into CPUs, they subcontract out their chipsets to 3rd parties and they're strained by the pricing war with Intel. Intel on the other hand has no highend GPU knowledge, their video sucks but the rest is decent (JUST OVERPRICED) but revenues are hurt by the pricing war with AMD which at this point hold's Intel's attention as it's now a 70/30 split as opposed to the 80/20 or less reported a year ago.

WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US???? While AMD and Intel choke each other and ATI and the 3rd party chipset busy playing on the Intel/AMD war, everyone is missing the point, NVIDIA has gone off on it's own and is more interested in helping everyone, including MICROSOFT (SEE THE TREND). In fact, it may already be too late for everyone else, that's why NVIDIA is just pulling more money out of the bank, to add some more distance to their lead

Just my thoughts, and besides history will have to be the judge.

 

[TunaBoo]

From the pep talk Nvidia gave a few weeks ago at my college, they dont care much about the gfx industry. It is worth 3 billion or so I think, but the motherboard market is worth 12 billion. So much more room for cash in that market. Also many other places they could branch out to.