http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/21/technology...on=money_latest

the deal's not done yet, but.... I wonder how it would affect Macs, since Apple have aligned themselves with Intel. Maybe AMD would say "put AMD chips in your Macs and we'll let you use our (ATI) graphics" or something.

Dunno... its interesting anyway (sorry if I posted in the wrong forum)

Wow, how interesting. Sometimes mergers are a good thing, sometimes they're not... but AMD has been on a roll lately and a move to pick up ATI would make them even more competitive with Intel.

Thanks for the link!

(Thread moved to Front Page News, since it's a good enough story to have people vote on)

This means that APPLE has been locked out to buy either AMD processors or OPT for NVIDIA....
which makes chances better 4 any PC user to survive in the fights between Macintosh and PC...
and 4 AMD.. ur simply genius 4 making such a positive approach in the interest of an AMD user...

not to mention the Quad-cores that AMD are hoping to bring out next year:

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/5032/53/

makes me think that Apple's transition to Intel was a bit... hasty...

(I'm an Intel user, so I'm not an AMD fanboy. but choice is good for everyone)

maybe intel will buy nvidia?

Funny thing is that AMD always had a better relationship with nVIDIA.

With this nVIDIA will just stop making chipsets for the AMD platform? They were the best chipsets for an enthusiast/gaming rig.

But a merge with ATI sounds interesting too, imagine graphic cards on die, or finally a chipset who really knows how the architecture works, just like the Intel chipsets for the Intel processors.

I don't think Apple would take kindly to being bullied like that, they would just use Nvidia. Intel clearly has the performance advantage and has accelerated their release of quad core to forth quarter 2006 so they should have the advantage for some time.

I don't think this means apple will NEED to switch anything (CPU or GPU provider), because of this, at least for long wile.

And if for some reason they have to switch partners is easier to chance Graphic cards providers than CPU makers. And I don't believe that apple has any exclusive deal on ATI, they might have offered apple a better deal, but for the mac pro there is probably going to be a nvidia option, if not, well, they will eventually.



Intel is bringing quad core CPUs by the end of this year (Ketsfield and Clovertown)

i can see nvidea native driver for insanelyOSten, since ATI will be stuck to AMD, maybe Apple will use Nvidea on their future models on core 2 duo or further future models.. just a thought..

Haha, interesting news... Unfortunately that means ATI users will have to switch to nVidia. (geez, I hate that)

I wonder what certain members of the community will have to say about that, since now it looks like nVidia will join the "Evil Empire" along with Apple and Intel...
It might be that "SJ is a pathetic fagot" but he will be a nVidia using fagot.

That the merge would be gay at best and i don't see the point for amd to merge with ati. Ati sucks why would you want to merge with such scum and neglect your best partner nvidia, it doesn't make sense. I don't want to think about that , i can see enthusiast people abandoning amd in drooves with intel with the performance advantage and nvidia on its side. It doesn't make anysense for me

I donot believe AMD had a choice. I mean nVidia is much larger, compared to ATI. But I guess this can only lead to faster ATI based AMD mobos.

As for Apple, I donot think they will be bullied. I mean for the Tower Macs, they will have to develop nVidia drivers, as CAD and 3D design, suposedly works better on the Quadro Series.

On the other hand, I am sure AMD wont like to lose a big ATI customer, maybe we will soon have AMD Mac Servers or other machines. I mean there have been many rumours about AMD chips is Apple Servers/Computers.

I think the merger is going to work out great if/when it happens. AMD wouldn't force Apple to switch to their chips, I don't think they'd have the power to do so nor the resources to satisfy Apple's needs. AMD has been ahead in the processor market for quite some time, but once those conroe cores come out, Intel is going to have the lead for quite a while unless AMD has something hidden up their sleeve.

AMD takeing ATI out may help Nvidia

baah, i could care less with who merged or baught who. All I care about is better driver for the Linux community, not just Windows. No direct rendering for XGL sucks and ATI needs to get with it. nV is doing a much better job on the open source project so my next card will be from nVidia.

For the windows gaming community, the merger is probably good news. For the linux community, nothing is really affected. I'm actually a 100% linux guy, so I know what you're talking about. XGL is pretty damn nice.

It makes sense this way:

(1) To compete with Intel, AMD must leverage HyperTransport (HT).

(2) AMD plans to do this by making a dual-socket platform for consumers (AMD's "4 X 4" platform).

(3) To make a cheap high-performance system, AMD wants to get rid of expensive graphics cards and instead fill the second motherboard socket with an HT-GPU.

(4) Neither ATI nor Nvidia will make HT-GPUs just for the small AMD market, so AMD must buy ATI (AMD cannot afford Nvidia) to get HT-GPUs produced.

See these for more details:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060602-6977.html
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/amd-ati.ars/1

Morever, as ATI needs to contract for GPU fabrication which AMD can provide, it makes sense that way as well. In short, it is very expensive to develop chip fabrication processes and AMD can help offset that expense by producing ATI GPUs (and vice versa).

This can only help ati since ati doesn't have fabs and amd has big problems ramping up productions right now, i don't see how they can make gpus for ati when they are unable to make enough cpus.

The ht gpu doesn't make sense unless you aim to the budget low-level market. The 4x4 sounds like a desperate move and k8l is vaporware , what doesn't make sense for me is how wasting money on ati can help amd when they desperately need to invest money in R&D to make out with a competive new core

Keep in mind that it's not like amd is full of cash to waste and the price war will cripple their revenues big times plus they don't have anything to counterstrike

The way i see it is that AMD will lose the nForce chipset, but ATI already makes AMD chipsets... they are not the best but with a merger with amd they will be able to make extreamly awesome chipsets.

ATI will get GPUs for extreamly chip... and hopefully great quility / power. Also ATI will have much more money to develop their video cards.

I doubt apple will have to switch to AMD or nVidia... but if they are forced to (again i doubt it) they will just make an nVidia kext (or just release the one they have already made).

The bottem line is that this is good news for ATI and AMD; I doubt apple will be effect but if they are we will have some happy nVidia users in our fourms.

how this is supposed to happen ati is a second world tier, nvidia is the best chipset supplier and rest assured that the entusiastic market will be lost, amd people besides some looser in this forum hate ati with a passion.

Apple has consistently used both ATI and Nvidia, it has not generally favored one over the other. I certainly expect at least one Nvidia board to be offered with the Mac Pro.

this will hopefully be a good thing, because maybe they can benifit and learn from each otehr, and it might bring prices down too because then they dont have to spend as much because they can use joint research.


max

it will be a good thing, as both processors and graphics cards need to be able to do more without contributing to global warming. We'll see what happens from there.

As for AMD possibly screwing Apple--IBM and Motorola found out firsthand what happens when you screw with Apple. You get dumped.

Unstable - nVidia is not much alrger than ATi (in terms of markets hare) they are usually about equal - right now, 50% ATI to 37% nV

Well... I don't care if my video card is ATI or nVidia... i just buy the cheapest one. (I only buy AMD cpus... i guess im loser)

The fact remains that AMD figured that having a GPU suppler would be an advantage over Intel... nVidia was way out of their price range... where else would you go for a GPU supplyer.

I suppose that AMD is taking a long term vision in this MERGER...so that they can compete with Intel in every department.. coz now if AMD buys ATI, then they r with a company producing the motherboards and HENCE.. AMD's own motherboard designs.. hence competing with Intel's wide range of motherboards.. and one can easily guess that if the processor making firms designs its own motherboard, this helps them in getting most out of their processor..
But i think of what nVidia has to say on this merger..
and i suppose that the merger will not affect AMD and nVidia FRIENDSHIP.. coz AMD will utilize this ATI firm for cheaper solutions as a whole.. coz now they can make cheaper motherboards with onboard graphics 4 the low end market and everyone knows that well no company beats the quality given by nVidia nForce and GeForce chipset..
But on the other side of this merger, we can see a new horizon to Intel and nVidia FRIENDSHIP...LOL..

People, maybe Apple will continue to use ATI/AMD video cards?

I doubt that AMD/ATI would be stupid enough to refuse to sell video cards that they are trying to... I don't know... maybe SELL!

Nothing will change for Apple, except the name brand of video cards in question. And the future will no doubt bring AMD into the logic board arena with it's own integrated graphics onboard... Just like Intel, the reason Apple chose Intel.

THEN you might see AMD chips in Apple. Once AMD catches up to where Intel is.

This got shot down twice on Digg due to large amounts of people who felt this article was inaccurate. I'm going to take it with a grain of salt, but if it is true, it will have a definate impact on Apple Computers.

Things are looking a little enticing on the AMD side of things, as opposed to Intel. Intel will have quad cores, but it's basically two dual-core CPUs on one dye. AMD's quad core will implement 4 CPUs on one dye, which has its advantages. It's easy enough for Apple to take out the "genuine intel CPU check" or w/e to allow some AMD variants of its machines...

well it's official now

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/Virtual...~110899,00.html

Sounds like i'll turn to darkside, my next pc will be intel/nvidia bye bye stupid amd

Well, I hope something good becomes of this... AMD and ATi could could up with some killer computers together.

And who cares, I doubt It will hurt ether big corp if apple dumps them, i mean seriously, motorola and IBM are still around and doing just fine....... seriously, if you can sell to apple thats great, because then you have those sales, but if you lose them it will not hurt you that much (i hate apple)


max

and to add to this, Intel has pulled ATI:


"Intel has pulled ATI's chipset license, meaning that there will be no more ATI (or rather, AMD) chipsets for Intel processors after the end of the year."

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/07/24/in...hipset_license/

Well you have to remember, nvidia also makes chipsets, which of course favored AMD.

As I mentioned before, Intel is working on a chipset that is supposed to be Vista ready meaning = to ATI on board ATI for Apple, but here is the glitch, ATI now AMD, and Nvidia which competes to some extent with Intel, leaves intel well, with with intel and puts a tad bit of pressure on Apples choices. In addition, there is nothing that can stop Apple from using AMD. Until the Conroe/Memoron, AMD has had the best FPU/Raw CPU power at a lower megahertz and for many Apple users, most of the audio/video pro's that I know that used Apple and switched to PC where via AMD. Now however, the dual core 2 is very strong but that is not to say that AMD does not have something up it's sleeve, as it was reported ohhhh, over a year or so ago, that AMD had a quad core that required NO, as in NOTHING, heatsink and was cool to the touch under load.

AMD also has a better memory controller, so in time we shall see.

Either way, this opens the doors MORE for APPLE than ever before, don't be surprised if AMD becomes part of APPLES plans, especially since they have been part of the AMD Hypertransport Consortium for years and there are also talks that AMD and IBM are working together.

In theory, essense, speculation, it could very well be that Apple has used INTC (wall street tech stock symbol) for development, leaked OSX to be hacked to watch the development of the PC (bascially using us as beta testers) and Apple might be on the verge of a break through year and years to come, especially with price to performance ratio meaning Apple no longer over priced and hyped and actually overs a good bang for the buck. The problem though for some, which is just 3% (audio/video users) of PC users, is that they have invested thousands $$$$$ in .exe programs.

Exciting times none the less.

PS, for those interested in this sort of news - - there is speculation that Intel could merge with Nvidia http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/24/technology...rce=yahoo_quote

In addition, should AMD come out with a new killer chip and ATI comes out with a great onboard GPU (NOTE INTELS NEW MOTHERBOARDS ARE RUNNING HOT (ouch), this could be the reason Apple could say, we want to use AMD too.

Bottom Line = everything is about to get blazingly fast for desktops (QUAD) and laptops Dual Dual core.

Power out the wazzzzoooooo !

One last thing, for those wondering why AMD stocks might be down today is this is normal when AMD releases good news - the stock is pushed down as INTEL owns quite a bit of shares and what they do is sell, sell, sell, which causes the selling of the stock - it usally rebounds in about 1-3 days. Normal tactic to get weak holders to sell there shares.

Also, it should be known that there are a few companies that are using, developing programs that utilize the GPU power to help the CPU, e.g., for a system using VST plug-ins, (software synths, which eats FPU power), they are developing programs that use the GPU in a way that is similar to a PCI plug in card whereas the GPU takes some of the load off the CPU, as GPU is not needed for audio work.

Just something to think about as many things could change as well as the way we compute.

Chipset wise Nvidia kills ATI, but GPU performance wise ATI has the edge over Nvidia. Nvidias top cards maybe clocked faster than ATIs top cards, and have more pixel pipelines, but ATIs top cards can handle more shaders then Nvidias can. Which, shaders is what games are dependant on now, example is the D3 engine games.OpenGL+shader+D3 engine.And the stencel shadows.

But, I like this news actually. ATI and AMD is a good combo in a PC. I would like to see AMD chips in Macs sooner or later.

As for heat, Intels motherboards run hot, and are normal tempatures for them but ATI boards run EXTREMELY hot, but is average for them, and not a problem.

Not to take the great thread out of contexts, but we want power, we need power for our mobile machines. Who's up for the job to make battery supplies more reliable? What are the power consumptions on these new chips coming out? Based on the current standard batteries we have now, can the new processors extend our battery life? If not, what's the point in always plugging in our C2D after 2hrs?

Their sources apparently jumped the gun a little, thank God.

(the following is mere speculation)

I wouldn't worry too much about any end of things; Intel and AMD aren't exactly in good positions for one to buck the other. In the meantime, AMD will profit from "ATI" sales even for Intel chips, and Intel already IS the biggest supplier of graphics chips (albeit integrated). NVIDIA... uh, their press releases seem optimistic. From a strictly economic perspective (that is, ignoring the performance of the chips) it seems that the economy will be the winner for now with a barrage of companies making new stuff being released this year and next year, cheaper and faster. Of course, what happens after this year could be anyone's guess, and perhaps NVIDIA is the only one at a disadvantage at present.

(you are now exiting the spin zone)

I do have a problem with this announcement though.

What people aren't taking into consideration is that all of these mega-mergers going on all over the country are NOT good for the industry!

Anyone remember the Ma Bell nightmare? The nightmare that is about to start again with the AT&T->BellSouth merger? Now we've got AMD grabbing ATI, Intel probably thinking about going for nVidia... Less separate companies = less competition = no real reason to keep prices low.

i think it is not going to change very much. i think ATI will have it own ideas for the future. just all the money made by ATI go's to AMD now. apple will still gets it ATI chips and intel will still support there chips in the future well i hope the story does make it sound like ATI will get drop altogther by intel. but intel is mostly dropping ATI's crossfire duel graphics cards that suck and almost no one buys. if you are going to have a duel gpus you are going to have nidivia SLI i mean who the hell is going to bother with ATI crossfire read some of the reviews of it and you can see why intel is dropping crossfire mobo. you can never tell what will happen to ATI and AMD after the merger maybe ATI chip sets will sell more and AMD will sell more fo there chips or it could go bad and they sell less chips no one can tell at this point. i think it wont change very much kinda like the dell+alienware buy out.

You also have to remember, IBM is supplying a CPU for the PS3, Xbox360, the Wii, and the Gamecube.

I don't think they have much to worry about. Cept how much the Cell CPU brought up the price of the Ps3.