Welcome Guest LOGIN | REGISTER
Friday 15th February 2008

Nvidia should buy AMD, says analyst

Posted at: 6:13am 15th February 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

You're going to need CPU technology if you're going to take on Intel

Nvidia Phenom

Hoovering up every game technology company in sight to create huge corporations seems to be the latest trend at the moment. AMD has bought ATI, Intel has bought Havok, Nvidia has bought Ageia, and now speculation is building up about Nvidia possibly purchasing AMD.

Doug Freedman from American Technology Research reckons that AMD's shareholders could be pushing for new leadership soon, and that 'One candidate to consider would be Jen-Hsun Huang, who is a serial deliverer with a passion for execution and perfection.'

According to EE Times, Huang has already told Freedman that he wouldn't consider leaving Nvidia to join AMD. However, Freedman reckons that he wouldn't 'walk away from the challenge of buying AMD on the cheap and turning the company around.'

The reason is, of course, because Nvidia is facing an ever-growing threat from Intel since it bought Havok and announced it was going to produce its own discrete graphics part, codenamed Larrabaee. 'The Intel/AMD road-map of integration of the CPU/GPU could pose a risk to Nvidia,' said Freedman, while 'buying AMD propels Nvidia into a formidable competitor for Intel.'
 
There have been various rumours about potential purchasers of AMD including IBM and Samsung, while others have speculated that Nvidia is developing its own CPU. Whatever is actually happening, Nvidia is certainly going to be increasingly threatened by Intel in the future, and buying AMD could be a way of countering that.


Submit to:  
Comments
2 much

way too $oooo much baggaggege, AMD AND ATI r negative value, credit crisis today what about tommorororw

Comment by j7dunwiddie at 5:20pm 22nd February 2008



ive just read the news (in the mag)

ive just read about Nvidia taking its eyes off ATI for the time being and concentrating on intel because their current plans (intels) and it looks like its gonna be a big fight and i have been routing for AMD/ATI for a while because i want them to get back in the game with the new combined CPU/GPU technology but now i think at this moment in time i am gonna be routing for Nvidia to win the competition because Nvidia respect their customers so much more. so at this stage i am starting to think that Nvidia will start really concentrating on CPU's and the story of Nvidia needing to buy out AMD might actually make much more sence

Comment by smiler_16 at 4:19pm 21st February 2008



It's all very well saying Nvidia should buy out AMD, but the second they make a move they're gona get pwnzed by the trading standards commission

Comment by FlyingWeagle at 10:07pm 19th February 2008



PokerMuppet

I like your example of VW; I worked in the Vehicle Parts trade for 5 years and have to say that Audi Porsche and Skoda all use the same parts as VW Lol. But maybe if NVIDIA buys ATI this will be the end result in years to come (That they work exactly the same!)

Comment by 1_2_4_8_128 at 3:52pm 19th February 2008



i think you guys have big points your making but i think AMD is just a bit down at the moment with the head guys (which dont know the difference between left or right) but if they can sort that out alone they will keep their education to them selves and become who they used to be and maybe stronger with big GPU's in their production range too. i thank pokermuppet for making the best demonstration understandable after all we all watch Top Gear lol

Comment by smiler_16 at 5:14pm 19th February 2008



Think about it guys ...

What makes cpu's so fast ?? The micron scale of their fabs and tight integration. If you're nVidia and you want a small scale fabrication plant where better to get one than from a cpu manufacturer ?? AMD are not behind they just don't solve the processing problem the same way intel do. ATI won't die it will be come a department within nVidia and responsible for 1 part ofa larger project, this is what happens when you have lots of teams, you work out their strengths and use them to a more global advantage !!!! PokerMuppet hit the nail on the head when mentioned VW ... it's entirely possible for companies to own companies that compete and in fact i've worked in that situation for company that did exactly that. In fact its a good idea as it encourages companies to learn from their "siblings" and through the parent company the best from each "generation" of technical acheivement is then feed back in to all the siblings. As for the impact on companies like Microsoft, well that's neither here nor there as it will make no difference to them, Microsoft don't build hardware they understand and use it's strengths. CPU / GPU development has always and will always be taken in a direction decided by the consumer, if something works and solves a problem well then it will take off. If intel decide to "integrate" cpu and gpu who's to say if that's a good ora bad idea but if it is a good idea then nVidia would be daft not consider competing which means they need cpu development skills andfabrication equipment. Bearing in mind that the competition for such a bid would be IBM and Samsung types I think nVidia will struggle to win the bid so carefull bidding would have to be the goal rather than the "yes lets just do this" type of attitude. Big companies deal in big numbers. Whatever happens it's usually the consumer that wins because if a company doesn't understand its consumers needs well enough the consumer will bring it to its knees very quickly.

Comment by Wardy at 1:50pm 19th February 2008



easy

Even if there is a buy out ATI will remain, why would nvidia cease ati production? they would still make profit from it! Like pokermuppet said, think of the car companies or even the UK insurance companies: Admiral own Admiral, Elephant, Diamond & Bell, works VERY well for them! Ignore the rubbish about the legalities of buying a competitor.

Comment by costas at 1:38pm 19th February 2008



easy

Even if there is a buy out ATI will remain, why would nvidia cease ati production? they would still make profit from it! Like pokermuppet said, think of the car companies or even the UK insurance companies: Admiral own Admiral, Elephant, Diamond & Bell, works VERY well for them! Ignore the rubbish about the legalities of buying a competitor.

Comment by costas at 1:38pm 19th February 2008



easy

Even if there is a buy out ATI will remain, why would nvidia cease ati production? they would still make profit from it! Like pokermuppet said, think of the car companies or even the UK insurance companies: Admiral own Admiral, Elephant, Diamond & Bell, works VERY well for them!

Comment by costas at 1:38pm 19th February 2008



easy

Even if there is a buy out ATI will remain, why would nvidia cease ati production? they would still make profit from it! Like pokermuppet said, think of the car companies or even the UK insurance companies: Admiral own Admiral, Elephant, Diamond & Bell, works VERY will for them!

Comment by costas at 1:38pm 19th February 2008



As Homer Simpsons Says:

Nvidia Buying AMD/Ati would result in a few statements from nvidia as 'D'oh' if it ever took on a failing company?

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 7:40pm 18th February 2008



Oops.

I knew something was wrong... nVidia... lol

Comment by PokerMuppet at 3:28am 18th February 2008



Business Gumbies...

Most of you people commenting on here haven't got a clue what you are talking about... you are talking about this from a tech point of view... ITS BUSINESS!!! Just look at the motor industry, VW Group owns... VW, Audi Skoda, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Seat. They all work, sharing technologies as different depts of the same company. You only need and quite often in business only have two companies making up the competition. About 4 years ago AMD went through a corporate restructuring and ever since then its gone down hill. Not because of their tech or their developments... purly because of the direction they have been told to go by the 4/5 big heads at the top. Another example of leadership change would be Tottenham Football club. Start of the season they were awful, now with a new manager (same players) they are a different team. The same thing can and will happen at AMD/ATi if/when it gets bought. Intel are exploring the graphics arena smartly by going for the discrete market first. Here they will gain tech knowledge and experience (I'm sure they have plenty of both already through development communications with nVidea/ATi) before they launch full graphics cards on the market in a couple of years. nVidea are looking into CPU developments (If we are hearing about it now... they have been looking at it for years behind closed doors) and buying AMD/ATi removes all the trouble and hugh expence of hiring and building TEAMS of developers. Thats why Intel bought Havok and nVidea bought Ageia. On a complete sidenote for everyone complaining about multicards for graphics and physics... There is a fundimental advantage on having different processor running things seperately. Why do you think servers have been running Xeons for years? Apart from any other reason, its THE most stab;e way of doing things, thats why they are in servers in the first place. Intel's new awsome Skulltrail is expensive... but its so good. Same as always, if you want the BEST... PAY FOR IT. If you want value then you will NEVER have the best.

Comment by PokerMuppet at 3:06am 18th February 2008



What is Ben Hardwidge on about???????????

What is this all about? The sale would be stopped because AMD own ATI! Nvidia would be buying out the competition. It’s not legally possible. Anyway the cpu market is going to crash big time in the next couple of years because business are moving over to CITRIX based system with Thin clients for users. No more desktop computers for work means big losses for Intel. AMD mite as well pull from the market unless they can develop FPGA processors.

Comment by 1_2_4_8_128 at 11:12pm 17th February 2008



Sounds good to me

I have no brand loyalty. I just buy the best I can afford at any given time. Think about it, if Intel are going to produce a top notch, hmmm!, graphics card then the combined talents of ATI/nVidia will probably be necessary to counter it. Also if nVidia want to build their own processor then AMD technical knowledge will be favourable. Be that as it may nVidia will still produce for the Intel platform since they would alienate a huge portion of their consummer base if they chose not to. Likewise Intel won't want to produce anything discrete that moves away from the agreed standards for personal computers hence would work on an AMD/ATI/nVidia platform. Combined processor/graphics chips will be most likely used in laptops since the chip would likely be very power efficient. So I say bring it on, PC gaming is healthy and hardware competition will continue only the names will have changed.

Comment by alexmackie1 at 7:32pm 17th February 2008



If Nvidia buys AMD...somebody is going to die!

Think about it. If Nvidia buys AMD what will happen to ATI? They're the only profitable part of that company right now and they won't be needed. If Intel, IBM or Samsung buys AMD then what happens to AMD because they'll only need ATI? Microsoft should buy AMD! That is the only way I see AMD staying intact. MS would then have the whole PC market AND 1/3 of the console market owned. Intel is about to have a massive price drop on it's CPUs in the spring. This will hurt AMD even more.

Comment by Warrior24_7 at 3:44pm 17th February 2008



well why do Nvidia seem scared

if you think about it maybe they are running pretty well but you wouldn't think so with this all of a sudden deperation to buy everyone out including a company thats got higher debts than AMD (Ageia)

Comment by smiler_16 at 12:51pm 17th February 2008



wtf

smiler_16 you have not got a clue, nvidia on its knees? are you living on another planet anyhow, no idiot will buy AMD, there in too much debt and are miles behind tech wise. i used to love amd ( had an athlon 3200 barton which ive still got) but intel is better price:performance wise. if nvidia wanna make CPUs then they should start from scratch

Comment by delvey2 at 7:58am 17th February 2008



I dont like all this buying out other companies that seems to have become the new trend. I mean, PC's are all about choice you have a choice to use different parts from different companies to suite your own tastes. The word "custom" dosent really come to mind when all you PC's parts come from one large company yeah sure compatibilty shouldnt be a problem but theres no fun in that.

Comment by CPC_RedDawn at 4:38am 17th February 2008



Nvidia should buy ATI, says me.

AMD could sell ATI to Nvidia, get a huge cash boost and pour it straight into concentrating on developing a nice new CPU technology, cutting their losses on the GPU front. Whats in it for Nvidia? (a) A final nail in the coffin of their biggest present day GPU competitor, ensuring that while theyre fighting a costly war with intel, ATI doesnt chance on a new technology and blow them both out of the picture. (b) Allowing a chance for AMD to get back in the CPU picture and cause expensive problems for intel, and (c) acquiring a company, which alongside themselves and ageia, would give them access to the best three companys minds money can buy. Theres the best way to fight off Intel without p***ing off all your potential customers.

Comment by pajpaj at 3:17am 17th February 2008



lmao no way NO WAY!! THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN unless intel make a monster of a graphics card But there is no way i can see that happening

Comment by megapig at 1:40pm 16th February 2008



lmao no way NO WAY!! THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN unless intel make a monster of a graphics card But there is no way i can see that happening

Comment by megapig at 1:40pm 16th February 2008



I think masa20 is on the right lines

i know weve all been argueing over this one but i think that masa20 has hit the nail on the head for this one... including the bit where intel are just like microsoft... anyone who remebers the old pentium II's original price will understand what i mean... if you do a bit of research people were making a big deal out of the first ever pentium to be below £1000 (in english money so imagine that in us dollars lol) so once you have done your research you'll know exactly where we are coming from... and all along thats what i was trying to get at about just waiting a little bit to upgrade your cpu... once competition is back everyone will be forced to sell hardware at low prices... i promise you

Comment by smiler_16 at 3:38am 16th February 2008



"now... if they didn't why would people be sayin Nvidia need to buy AMD" One person has mentioned it! It's speculation!!! You can't say Nvidia are on their knees, Intel hasn't even released anything yet! Nvidia are currently doing very well and selling shedloads of cards. Being an innovative company I'm sure they'll come up with something even without buying AMD which may or may not be a good idea anyway.

Comment by combatus at 1:23am 16th February 2008



You can all sit there arguin but I'm glad to here this

I like how everyone's rootin for Intel and nobody's even hopin for AMD at all, chances are they'll come up with somethin worthwhile if Nvidia buys them, sorry if this is patronisin, but I'm a fan of AMD, and I'd love to once again see the day that AMD and Nvidia were both united again, I mean there are hardly any new AMD, Nvidia SLI mobos anymore and seen as this is the exact combo i have on my old PC Right now, this is just annoying, I dont like Intel that much, too much of a big money suckin corp if you ask me, they're like Microsoft, they have a certain dominence and no-one else can get a word in edgeways. Remember, it wasn't always like this, we all wanted AMD Athlon 64's back in 2003-2005 and Intel was a bit stumbly to be fair, they just kept ratcheting up the speed one wee bit at a time and never really made any massive improvments, they were behind AMD at that time, while AMD had the right Price /Performance ratio goin for it, I would sure like to see competition from AMD again otherwise, think about it, Intel would be the dominent CPU maker again, and the only one at that and, as alotta folks have been sayin, they could very well get complacent and ramp there prices way up to an insulting premium for even entry level chips. The only reason Intel core 2 Duo and Quads are priced like they are is to keep AMD at bay, trust me, if AMD went bust, things wouldn't stay that way for long, I can assure you. Sam Tne Bam

Comment by masa20 at 1:05am 16th February 2008



DLEProductions

i don't think nvidia would be allowed to purchase AMD for the simple reason is because AMD own ATI, this would give Nvidia a monopoly on the graphics world :( shame

Comment by DLEProductions at 1:16am 16th February 2008



analysts say many things, its thier job. This wont happen. The x86 liscence issue. The GPU monopoly issue. The fact that despite being cheap stock wise, AMD woul come with a huge amount of debt right now. My predictions for the future? In a few years we will have 3 companies, each one makign thier own chipsets, CPUs and GPUs

Comment by NotFred at 12:18am 16th February 2008



i totally agree with Smiler_16

Hes right you know i was thinking of upgrading my Q6600 but im gonna leave it until ive managed to get my hands on the new 9 series GPU

Comment by NikoBellic at 10:04pm 15th February 2008



now... if they didn't why would people be sayin Nvidia need to buy AMD... but im not gonna debate over this now if you guys want Nvidia to go bankrupt then leave them to it... aint gonna effect me

Comment by smiler_16 at 9:49pm 15th February 2008



Let Nvidia get back on their feet???? When exactly did they fall over?

Comment by combatus at 9:37pm 15th February 2008



i didnt say buy AMD products

i just ment stick with what you have got until Nvidia get back on there feet because intel have got enough money to crush Nvidia easily but oh well it wont effect me i aint a Nvidia fan anyway... is it against the law of pc's to stand up for Nvidia

Comment by smiler_16 at 9:26pm 15th February 2008



B----y Analysts

Clearly a recommendation from the same school of thought as "PC Gaming is dying apart from a million sales of Crysis and 600,000 for the Witcher and a billion in subs for WoW"

Comment by KHenry_07 at 9:17pm 15th February 2008



@ Smiler

What on Earth are you talking about. No-one's going to stop buying Intel CPUs just because of some rumoured deal with AMD and Nvidia. I like Intel, they make good products. No idiot would buy an AMD Phenom at the moment.

Comment by Chimerical at 8:56pm 15th February 2008



We would probably see DAAMIT disappear and a nVidia v Intel CPU & GPU & Chipset wars. Then you'd assume the stronger pluses of ATI gfx tech would be "integrated" (stolen) into nVidia products, so anything from Intel would be pummelled into the ground on the graphics front. And nVidia would obviously lose to Intel on the CPU war as AMD is so horribly far behind. Then after that, a new CPU/GPU company??

Comment by NickMC07121989 at 8:42pm 15th February 2008



this is what i ment on another discussion

i said previously intel are gonna kill off Nvidia next if we dont stop buying intel cpus for a little while... so really this is the very last chance... so if everyone could just stay away from buying an intel cpu for the next 12 months then once nvidia have got back on there feet intel wont be powerfull enough to shoot Nvidia down... and then we would of saved the technology market then... because obviously with AMD already at a low level they are no threat to intel at the moment but nvidia has been talking about making cpus and if the 8800 in 2007 is anything to go by then intel will obviously be scared...so come on guys lets just stick with our current cpus until VIA has begun and we will be able to look at our grankids an say we saved technology if it wasnt for us you wouldnt be on that now playing your games with better graphics than ever thought possible... (its up to you now guys)

Comment by smiler_16 at 8:30pm 15th February 2008



on the dusty trail ahahahahahahahahahaha

Comment by Shadow_Man_Uk at 7:20pm 15th February 2008



...err

would be awful if the only decent graphics card company (Nvati/Ativia?) were locked in to a development avenue that strongly preferred one cpu over another, or even went down the proposed CPU/GPU integration ... imagine the only choice of processor for a decent gaming machine being an AMD... a few years a go we would have laughed and said fine get on with it, but time has taught us that those on top won't always stay on top... especially with no incentive to.

Comment by NewParadigm at 7:15pm 15th February 2008



Obvious Question

So what the Hell is going to happen to ATI if this occurs?

Comment by Chimerical at 6:48pm 15th February 2008



Make a Comment

Mobile Broadband

Compare prices

Fastest, cheapest 3G mobile broadband dongles from 3, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange
from just £10/month

Button link to Mobile Broadbandgenie.co.uk
Powered by
Broadband Genie