View Full Version : NVIDIA again considering acquisition of AMD
Ancient76
06-02-09, 11:19 AM
Jen-Hsun Huang goes to shopping, again :)
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=18666
The shady underbelly of COMPUTEX that is the rumour-mill of Ye Olde Taipei in June, has produced its first spicy HEXUS.bean this year - apparently NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang may be over here with some shopping in mind, and not just not for souvenirs.
When tech industry aristocracy all gather in one place, the HEXUS bean cup starts to overfloweth, and more than one highly placed source has let it be known they've heard NVIDIA may be looking to embrace another technology company to the green bosom. Permanently.
Prior to AMD's acquisition of ATi Technologies, NVIDIA came very, very close to acquiring AMD itself.
Indeed, it could be said that AMD's acquisition of ATi was somewhat of a reaction to the deal which fell through between AMD and NVIDIA.
And now we're hearing that NVIDIA is once again exploring the acquisition of the other green fabless semiconductor outfit.
Yesterday afternoon, HEXUS hacks exchanged greetings with an NVIDIA posse dutifully surrounding a beaming Jensen... was this a smile brought on by the prospect of a bit of major retail therapy?
In the adopted words of the great INQster, Our Lord Mageek of the Tantric Highlands - "All stories come true in the end"...
Ancient76
06-02-09, 02:48 PM
No comments! Interesting :)
CaptNKILL
06-02-09, 03:47 PM
Hmm...
The only way this would be good is if Intel's Larrabee turned out to be an excellent product that required Nvidia, ATI and AMD to work together to compete.
If Larrabee fails and Nvidia owns the entire graphics card market, this stuff is going to get real boring real fast...
This would be bad for us cause it would make Nvidia the Intel of CPUs. You would have zero competition making prices higher.
josiahsuarez
06-02-09, 04:03 PM
not really. there are two major competitors now, and if AMD/Nvidia join up and Intel begins making high end GPUs, there will still be two.
This would be bad for us cause it would make Nvidia the Intel of CPUs. You would have zero competition making prices higher.
Why would that be the case?
ATi would be spun-off and AMD and Nvidia would co-exist.
There is no need for competition itself to die.
CaptNKILL
06-02-09, 04:24 PM
Why would that be the case?
ATi would be spun-off and AMD and Nvidia would co-exist.
There is no need for competition itself to die.
Why would you allow part of your company to compete with another part?
They have no reason to artificially create competition just to lower their own prices and invest in newer technologies. If they had no real competition for the high end they could just create one monster GPU and sit on the technology for 3 years before releasing anything to replace it. It was almost that bad with the 8800GTX and this hobby got really boring... plus, it took forever for prices to come down.
LydianKnight
06-02-09, 04:28 PM
As long as NVIDIA doesn't take on the same errors Intel had in the past with the infamous Prescott _LONG_ era, I don't see why it should be bad, anyway Intel is aiming at the graphics market with their Larrabee cards, so it would still be an interesting fight to see
From a technology perspective, things would be completely good for NVIDIA, think about it for a second... advanced manufacturing technologies from GlobalFoundries (ideally), the benefits of advanced research projects from IBM/Fraunhofer like the water cooling layers or nanotechnology for when it's needed, AMD would provide the CPU, whereas NVIDIA would provide the graphics power, it has all the tickets for being a really interesting competitor to the Intel 'empire', so... yeah, if this turn out to be true, GO GO GO!! ^_^
Just my 2 cents
Julio
Why would you allow part of your company to compete with another part?
They have no reason to artificially create competition just to lower their own prices and invest in newer technologies. If they had no real competition for the high end they could just create one monster GPU and sit on the technology for 3 years before releasing anything to replace it. It was almost that bad with the 8800GTX and this hobby got really boring... plus, it took forever for prices to come down.
There are such pesky little things as anti-trust lawsuits and what not. Has nothing to do with artificially creating competition.
Without these lawsuits and other laws, there really is nothing preventing a Google or a Microsoft or HP or Apple or Dell from going out there and just buying up a bunch of companies for the sake of it.
This is why, without spinning off ATi as it's own entity, I seriously doubt Nvidia can acquire AMD.
CaptNKILL
06-02-09, 05:42 PM
There are such pesky little things as anti-trust lawsuits and what not. Has nothing to do with artificially creating competition.
Without these lawsuits and other laws, there really is nothing preventing a Google or a Microsoft or HP or Apple or Dell from going out there and just buying up a bunch of companies for the sake of it.
This is why, without spinning off ATi as it's own entity, I seriously doubt Nvidia can acquire AMD.
I think the problem is that Intel is a large enough competitor that nvidia won't be seen as "endangering" the market if they control ATI.
If this goes through we're either going to have Nvidia and Intel competing for the integrated market and Nvidia dominating the (relatively small) enthusiast market, or if Larrabee is a success we're having competition across the board.
Either way I don't think the enthusiast market would be large enough for anyone to actually try to sue nvidia for controlling it. And as long as Intel is making any GPUs (sucky or not) they will be competing in the integrated market.
Integrated market, no, not at all. You are correct.
However, the discrete market is where both Nvidia and AMD are huge players, in relation to everyone else.
Maybe it is just me, but a merger would seem anti-competitive in that market.
CaptNKILL
06-03-09, 12:38 AM
Maybe it is just me, but a merger would seem anti-competitive in that market.
Yeah, it would be, but once Intel starts releasing discrete cards it'll make it a lot more difficult to convince anyone that there is no competition in the discrete market... even if Intel's cards suck.
a12ctic
06-03-09, 12:42 AM
Yeah, it would be, but once Intel starts releasing discrete cards it'll make it a lot more difficult to convince anyone that there is no competition in the discrete market... even if Intel's cards suck.
If the cards suck, they wont be competitive, negating the situation? I guess they could bully their chips on OEM's, but I feel like consumers would catch on pretty fast that they were getting shafted when they bought an Intel Gaming computer that isn't comparable to their buddys NV/ATI rig.
CaptNKILL
06-03-09, 01:28 AM
If the cards suck, they wont be competitive, negating the situation? I guess they could bully their chips on OEM's, but I feel like consumers would catch on pretty fast that they were getting shafted when they bought an Intel Gaming computer that isn't comparable to their buddys NV/ATI rig.
For some reason I just don't see the actual value\quality of the products being figured into how competitive they are, as long as they are selling.
nekrosoft13
06-03-09, 02:34 AM
Hmm...
The only way this would be good is if Intel's Larrabee turned out to be an excellent product that required Nvidia, ATI and AMD to work together to compete.
If Larrabee fails and Nvidia owns the entire graphics card market, this stuff is going to get real boring real fast...
there is also a change that if nvidia does acquire amd, they could set ati free, seperate ati from amd.
CaptNKILL
06-03-09, 02:47 AM
there is also a change that if nvidia does acquire amd, they could set ati free, seperate ati from amd.
That's possible.
Though ATI would probably have it pretty rough. They'd be tiny compared to nvidia\AMD and Intel.
If NV were to buy just AMD...the CPU side...wouldn't that nullify the licensing agreement for x86 IP with Intel?
Ancient76
06-03-09, 08:16 AM
I think this would be great. ATI is pull in into M$ ass, and if Nvidia buy AMD it's gonna stop. Somebody needs to stop this XBOX multiplatform nonsense.
They need to control gaming industry, not M$.
DansFace
06-03-09, 12:15 PM
Hmm...
The only way this would be good is if Intel's Larrabee turned out to be an excellent product that required Nvidia, ATI and AMD to work together to compete.
If Larrabee fails and Nvidia owns the entire graphics card market, this stuff is going to get real boring real fast...
yeah agreed...
I think this would be great. ATI is pull in into M$ ass, and if Nvidia buy AMD it's gonna stop. Somebody needs to stop this XBOX multiplatform nonsense.
They need to control gaming industry, not M$.
Who needs to control it?
And the leet geek factor of using 'M$' has long passed.
If NV were to buy just AMD...the CPU side...wouldn't that nullify the licensing agreement for x86 IP with Intel?
I don't think Nvidia has x86 IP rights, they have some chipset rights, but even then limited.
josiahsuarez
06-03-09, 01:33 PM
AFAIK if Nvidia bought AMD the resulting entity would not have an x86 license, but if AMD bought Nvidia the license would still be good, because it wouldn't be changing hands. I'm no lawyer though, and I imagine this is something that would result in a court battle
hell_of_doom227
06-03-09, 03:22 PM
If Nvidia buys AMD x86 license would be still good till its renewal.
magitek
06-03-09, 04:24 PM
Any kind of sale/merger between the two would be a disaster if Intel doesn't produce its own blockbuster. ATI's resurgence as viable competition has caused both players to put out some great hardware in the past year or so, and it would be a shame to see another round of stagnation like we got during the 8000-series' dominant period.
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