NVIDIA TO ACQUIRE ULI TECHNOLOGY

[nemesismk2]

"ULi is recognized for its innovative core logic technology as well as other multimedia and embedded products. The acquisition represents NVIDIA?s ongoing investment in its platform solution strategy, which leverages the acclaimed NVIDIA nForce® media and communications processors (MCPs) and NVIDIA® GeForce® and NVIDIA Quadro® graphics processing units (GPUs). Additionally, the acquisition is expected to strengthen the Company?s sales, marketing, and customer engineering presence in Taiwan and China.

Under the terms of the agreement, NVIDIA will pay 19 New Taiwan Dollars in cash for each outstanding ULi share and stock option, for a total of approximately $52 million (USD). The acquisition, which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of the Company?s fiscal year 2007, remains subject to the satisfaction of regulatory requirements and other customary closing conditions."

NVIDIA to Acquire ULi Electronics, a Leading Developer of Core Logic Technology!

 

[Allio]

Wow, that's cheap. And a pretty smart move on their part.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Allio
Wow, that's cheap. And a pretty smart move on their part.

Not to worry. People love Crossfire so much they'll buy it with ATIs buggy, underperforming Southbridge.....errrr.....maybe?

 

[DigitalFreak]

Sounds like the AMD chipset market is going the way of the graphics card market. Only Nvidia and ATI...

VIA is all but done in the chipset market, and SiS hasn't done anything worthwhile in years. Even the E-machines boxes are coming with the ATI Xpress 200 chipset now...

 

[nealh]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: Allio
Wow, that's cheap. And a pretty smart move on their part.

Not to worry. People love Crossfire so much they'll buy it with ATIs buggy, underperforming Southbridge.....errrr.....maybe?

What the hell does your post have to do with this thread..jeez

Lets see if I recall Nvidia first attempt at a chipset was not perfect either

Rollo...why is it your mission in life to bash ATI about everything


I would prefer as most consumers that companies would not release crap and then fix it..because the new adopters get screwed with crap, poor performance and issues

ATI and Nvidia(all computer hardware/software makers) should make sure whether it is a graphics card or mobo chipset that they are stable and work prior to release

I personally hate being a beta tester for them....I get no free upgrade to working product...but these big companies get pissed about warez and sue..what does the little guy who spends $200 mobo get when its crap or software program that trashes your system or underperforms as expected

I hate this double std....rush the product out...then fix and screw the consumer

Damn...it pisses me off so much... all the big computer companies pull this crap....all of them...MS, ATI, Nvidia,AMD, Intel etc...at some point they have done and will not hesitate to do it again

I am a fanboy of no one...I used to love Intel..then switched to AMD..I own both Nvidia and ATI video cards

 

[erwos]

Lets see if I recall Nvidia first attempt at a chipset was not perfect either

How is this relevant? You're not competing against the past, you're competing against the present. Fact is, ATI's current chipset offerings are somewhat underwhelming compared to nVidia's, and only get really competitive with ULi's south bridges backing them up. Maybe that'll change in the future, but it's not going to help ATI today.

-Erwos

 

[mamisano]

Well, I am an ATI Fan, and own a Crossfire board. I see what Rollo is talking about. The main reason I waited for the ASUS A8R-MVP is because it came with a ULI southbridge and not ATI's own SB450. Currently, ATI can NOT compete with current south bridge solutions from the other major manufacturers. I find it sad that people would spend $200+ for DFI's crossfire board with the SB450 southbridge, it is severly outdated and underperforming.

Now, with Nvidia owning ULI, people may think that board manufacturers may not be able to incorporate ULI products onto ATI based boards. Who knows, depends upon how Nvidia positions ULIs products. Either ULI keeps its brand name, or Nvidia takes their tech and rebrands it as Nvidia. Time will tell, but ATI is also working on the SB600 south bridge which should help them catch up to the pack.

 

[Greenman]

Nvidai screws us again. I like them less with every passing day.

 

[WT]

Damn, next thing you know, Nvidia will buy up 3fdx .. errr, waitasec ...

Mr. Microsoft, meete Mr. Nvidia ... I'm sure you two will have plenty to talk about.

I'm not sure what to think of this one, but I hate it when competition is removed from the open market system. Uli offered one hell of an innovative product with the 1695/1697 boards (too bad they couldn't add onboard gB NIC) and was just starting to make enthusiasts aware of their product, and now .. POOF .. gone like the smoke from a bad capacitor. Competition forces innovation and lower prices, so don't expect a cheap Nvidia/Uli board to do what a current Uli board can do.

 

[chexi]

Maybe the Department of Justice will step in and save the day on anti-trust grounds.

 

[nealh]

The point was Rollo was bashing ATI for being ATI..I was pointing out that every company has issues at some point..

As for Nvidia..dont forget the issues with 6800 series chips not having a working hardware encoder..yet swearing they did...jeez...I was just making a point to stop bashing a company because you are a fan boy

I will pass on Rollo being a mod

Nvidia swallowed 3dfx tech have we seen it in there graphic cards??? I am not really sure but to me this sucks...

less competition not good..however...this is way of the business world

 

[solofly]

 

[nealh]

No I do not blame Nvidia for 3dfx porr management decisions that led to there failure..but some of there tech looked very promising...I commenting on the concern ..we may lose the ULi chipset tech...ie agp/pci-e support

Nvidia made I assume for them a good business...all my comments were directed a Rollo again bashing ATI for no reason

second to point out that all of our great hardware/software companies have dropped the ball for us consumers....

Oh well I being misunderstood..so sorry

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: nealh

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: Allio
Wow, that's cheap. And a pretty smart move on their part.

Not to worry. People love Crossfire so much they'll buy it with ATIs buggy, underperforming Southbridge.....errrr.....maybe?

What the hell does your post have to do with this thread..jeez

I was stating that the only reason many consider the Crossfire motherboards a viable option is most were going to utilize the ULI Southbridge.

If nVidia withholds the ULI Southbridge, it will cripple ATIs Crossfire project, as few will want motherboards with their flakey, feature poor Southbridge. Would you?

My post was on topic, I just chose to say the above in a more colorful way.

This may be why ATI has seemed largely unconcerned with Crossfire, as these things don't happen overnight and I'm sure they knew this was coming.

I can't even imagine what it must be like to work at ATI these days:
1. You release X850XTPE, nV releases SLI and stomps it.
2. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GTX and stomps it
3. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GT and stomps it
4. You paper launch X850 Crossfire three times, it arrives with 16X12 60Hz limitation, SLI stomps it
5. You release X1800XT, nV releases 512 GTX and stomps it
6. You're about to launch press acclaimed X1800 Crossfire, nV buys your Southbridge supplier and stomps it.

Not too hard to see who dominates motherboards and graphics for 2005.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: nealh
No I do not blame Nvidia for 3dfx porr management decisions that led to there failure..but some of there tech looked very promising...I commenting on the concern ..we may lose the ULi chipset tech...ie agp/pci-e support

Nvidia made I assume for them a good business...all my comments were directed a Rollo again bashing ATI for no reason

second to point out that all of our great hardware/software companies have dropped the ball for us consumers....

Oh well I being misunderstood..so sorry

Who "bashed ATI"? I just said no one will want their motherboards with their Southbridge, and it's pretty much true.

 

[rbV5]

Chris Evenden of ATI responds:

This announcement won't affect our business or our customers' business. ATI supports an open southbridge model that allows our customers to pair our ATI-designed northbridge with either an ATI-designed southbridge or a 3rd party southbridge such as the ones from ULI. At this time approximately 90 per cent of the motherboards shipping with ATI northbridges also ship with an ATI southbridge. These motherboards are designed for and are sold to a variety of key OEMs and system builders for both notebook and desktop platforms as well as for the channel market.

For customers that are currently shipping motherboards with the ULI southbridge, they can choose to continue to ship with the ULI southbridge or, they can switch to an ATI southbridge. We have made the appropriate arrangements to ensure that we can support our partners if they choose this route.

Moving forward, we have a very strong roadmap for future ATI-designed southbridges and very strongly believe that our customers will continue to deliver best-in-class motherboards based on ATI chipsets.

Link

Josh at Penstar seems to think that

So, for at least the next year, motherboard manufacturers will still have the ability to buy the ULi southbridge and use it with the ATI product.

I'm not so sure about that, but if its true, perhaps this announcement will have little effect on current products. I have to think that ATI would have bought ULI themselves if they didn't have confidence in their upcoming SB solutions, time will tell if this is more than just making a competing chipset disappear. It doesn't sound so good at first "glance".

 

[mamisano]

Ummm, wasn't SLI a fruit of the 3DFx acquisition?

 

[SKoprowski]

Wonder how ATI's relationship with Via is??

 

[DigitalFreak]

I can't even imagine what it must be like to work at ATI these days:
1. You release X850XTPE, nV releases SLI and stomps it.
2. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GTX and stomps it
3. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GT and stomps it
4. You paper launch X850 Crossfire three times, it arrives with 16X12 60Hz limitation, SLI stomps it
5. You release X1800XT, nV releases 512 GTX and stomps it
6. You're about to launch press acclaimed X1800 Crossfire, nV buys your Southbridge supplier and stomps it.

Not too hard to see who dominates motherboards and graphics for 2005.

ROFL! Oh, so true. Tech wise, I don't see any reason Nvidia needed to buy ULi. They probably did it just to kick ATI in the nuts again. ATI just can't seem to get their sh!t together.

 

[the Chase]

I can't wait to buy my ATI crossfire mobo with the shiny new NVIDIA southbridge with HD Audio and even gigabyte LAN!!!!

 

[dadach]

Not to worry. People love Crossfire so much they'll buy it with ATIs buggy, underperforming Southbridge.....errrr.....maybe?

haha...having a slower usb and no sata2 must really slow ATI-based computers down...not

 

[DefRef]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I can't even imagine what it must be like to work at ATI these days:
1. You release X850XTPE, nV releases SLI and stomps it.
2. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GTX and stomps it
3. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GT and stomps it
4. You paper launch X850 Crossfire three times, it arrives with 16X12 60Hz limitation, SLI stomps it
5. You release X1800XT, nV releases 512 GTX and stomps it
6. You're about to launch press acclaimed X1800 Crossfire, nV buys your Southbridge supplier and stomps it.

Not too hard to see who dominates motherboards and graphics for 2005.

ROFLMAO!!!:laugh:

 

[jackwhitter]

Originally posted by: Rollo

I can't even imagine what it must be like to work at ATI these days:
1. You release X850XTPE, nV releases SLI and stomps it. (the price on previous cards drops)
2. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GTX and stomps it (ati launches rebates)
3. You release nothing, nV releases 7800GT and stomps it (ati again with the rebates, price drops, and forces nvidia to do some pricematching)
4. You paper launch X850 Crossfire three times, it arrives with 16X12 60Hz limitation, SLI stomps it (nvidia drops the price on SLI chips and considers opening support for more companies)
5. You release X1800XT, nV releases 512 GTX and stomps it (further price drops)
6. You're about to launch press acclaimed X1800 Crossfire, nV buys your Southbridge supplier and stomps it. (one more competitor is pulled out of the arena.)

Not too hard to see who dominates motherboards and graphics for 2005. (edits by me)

the bigger point is not who is winning the graphics war this year.. personally, i do not care who is currently 10 points ahead right now, so long as the companies are competing for my hard earned cash, i win. the performance boosts in graphics cards within the last couple of years is probably the most performance increases they have ever seen in that amount of time. and by the same token, the more innovations nvidia and ati come up with and then copy each other, the more boards that are solid, stable, overclockable platforms. overclockable boards are more the norm now than the exception.. not so just a few years ago, and that is all due to competition. Sis had the athlon 735 chipset, which was a great performer, dual ram support, and cheap! Uli has the m1695 agp/pcie board.. once again, a great performer, give some backwards compatibility, and cheap! now, we are losing companies who can produce some innovative parts. i do not know if i like this move by nvidia, unless they plan to use the "Uli" branding to sell a cheaper value line of chipsets, let the Nforce platforms maintain the performance titles.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: mamisano
Ummm, wasn't SLI a fruit of the 3DFx acquisition?

No the technology behind SLi is new and would wouldn't require any license from 3dfx, perfect example is the Rage Fury MAXX. The Use of the SLI name is even if 3Dfx had a different meaning then Nvidia.

Basically everyone remembers SLI, in fact I still have a hard time calling crossifire, crossfire, I want to call it ATI's SLI. For that and that only Nvidias purchase of 3Dfx was helpful in SLI.

 

[dadach]

so long as the companies are competing for my hard earned cash, i win.

exactly...only an idiot would want one company to crush the other, only for the sake of his own shi*talking