Beans - HEXUS.beans :: NVIDIA again considering acquisition of AMD?

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The HEXUS.beanvine has started to twitch in ye olde Taipei, with rumours that Jensen is here on a shopping spree...

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never in a million years would this be passed by the monopolies and mergers commission

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Originally Posted by Jay

never in a million years would this be passed by the monopolies and mergers commission

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I agree, it would give ndaamitvidia such a monopoly at the current time I can't see the US or EU agreeing to it. Maybe once Intel has larrabee out, and if it's a success, something would be possible.

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Originally Posted by Jay

never in a million years would this be passed by the monopolies and mergers commission

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Why not? Once Larabee is out then Intel will be providing competition in all areas that nVidiAMD works in.

If Nvidia did buy AMD then imo they still wouldn't be able to make CPU's as Intel would defiantly not renew the cross licence agreement.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Why not? Once Larabee is out then Intel will be providing competition in all areas that nVidiAMD works in.

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but its not out yet....

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Originally Posted by Jay

but its not out yet....

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And nVidia haven't acquired AMD yet...

Interesting though this could be when AMD bought ATI we had 2 years of Nvidia/Intel dominance while they sorted themselves out, with crap prices to boot. If the same could happen again I'm really not up for this.

I think it's likely that Nvidia just don't see a future for themselves 5 years down the line when processors/GPUs have merged, at least at the bottom end, and this is out of desperation due to that?

Somehow I wasn't expecting to hear Mageek being mentioned in Hexus news (ok, rumours) :shocked2:

I understand what you're all saying as far as CPU's is concerned, but surely if nVidia acquire AMD then it will be a great thing for GPU's as the two teams working together will produce some VERY powerful products, worthy of even...dare I say...taking on Larabee.

Though I didn't think about what Lanky123 said, we really need the competition from other companies in order to drive prices down and prevent nVidia charging whatever they feel like.

This makes me torn between it being a good idea, or a bad idea......I'm really not sure what I would prefer now lol.

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Originally Posted by cobhc

I understand what you're all saying as far as CPU's is concerned, but surely if nVidia acquire AMD then it will be a great thing for GPU's as the two teams working together will produce some VERY powerful products, worthy of even...dare I say...taking on Larabee.

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The fear is they would just make all the ATI guys redundant and go back to the days when nVidia were so dominant it was a near monopoly and prices tripled.

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Originally Posted by cobhc

... the two teams working together will produce some VERY powerful products, worthy of even...dare I say...taking on Larabee.

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Larabee is still basically a theory, and AFAIK there are no current indications of pricing, performance or stability. I'm sure NVidia won't worry about Larabee unless and until it proves that it can be performance competitive at the same price point as NVidia's latest generation of Graphics processors. Let's be honest, Intel's current batch of graphics chipsets isn't exactly threatening the integrated graphics chipsets from either ATI/AMD or NVidia - so I doubt that's a major concern.

Besides, I suspect that, given the huge combined market share of ATI and NVidia, any NVidia acquisition of AMD/ATI is certain to come under close scrutiny. I for one would not like to see a Graphics market devoid of any real competition...

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Larabee is still basically a theory, and AFAIK there are no current indications of pricing, performance or stability. I'm sure NVidia won't worry about Larabee unless and until it proves that it can be performance competitive at the same price point as NVidia's latest generation of Graphics processors. Let's be honest, Intel's current batch of graphics chipsets isn't exactly threatening the integrated graphics chipsets from either ATI/AMD or NVidia - so I doubt that's a major concern.

Besides, I suspect that, given the huge combined market share of ATI and NVidia, any NVidia acquisition of AMD/ATI is certain to come under close scrutiny. I for one would not like to see a Graphics market devoid of any real competition...

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Perhaps it would end up with NVidia acquiring the CPU business and ATI being spun off again as a separate entity, or sold to someone else?

I really hope this doesn't happen as the ATI/Nvidia competition has been great on both a technological race front and a price front. Its been great for us consumers recently and I'm really hoping it doesn't change.

I thought AMD had splintered ATI off into ATIT to keep the entities separate?

Making the acquisition of the CPU business possible as it would leave the graphics business out in the cold...

It wouldn't make a lot of business sense for AMD / ATI though, as it would have to completely restart it's platform-building concepts that it's only really just finalised. If I was NVidia I'd be looking to acquire VIA, I think... ;)

i'm gonna build my own CPU and beat the lot of them :)

amd/global foundries are about, eleventy billion times richer than Nvidia, who would bring nothing to the table at all.

ASk yourself this, Global foundries(who own 45% of amd and amd own 55% of them iirc) have essentially limitless pockets, what does Nvidia offer them at this point in time. Market share? Nvidia are losing it daily, about to lose their 250million pay off by all accounts that they thought their insurers would cover. Their insurers seem set to announce to due to long term lying of the underlying problems from Nvidia they aren't liable, which will make it public and obvious that Nvidia have had faulty products for many generations. Dell have switched to ATi in a big style recently also.

But again this is the problem, Nvidia don't have a middle/low range, their high end is a massively expensive huge core that isn't the future of the graphics market so design wise they have an obsolete design that Ati, price/yield/profits wise is wiping the floor with. Nvidia have no manufacturing nor, well, anything whatsoever to offer.

If they produced their own chips then maybe Global foundries would buy Nvidia out to merge all the companies, gain a fab or two quickly to spin both Nvidia/ati cards through and all would be right in the world.

Not even April the 1st so this might be the worst story I've seen in a long time. A company whose share price has dropped, are losing market share, have nothing of value except designs for old chips, have chipsets no one want. A company with very little cash on hand, is going to buy out a company which is largely owned by Global foundries, who together could buy out Nvidia 100 times over and still have enough money to run several large countries? not hugely likely is it.

Yes, without question Nvidia would WANT to buy AMD, they need cpu's (as its looking increasingly likely they along with physx will be cut out of the next gen console market completely) and they need a platform rather than just a product. Intel and AMD can offer the likes of Dell an entire system, intergrated gfx, mobo's, chipsets and cpu's. Nvidia can offer mobo's and graphics, a distinct disadvantage. If Nvidia had more money and AMD were in significant debt they might try a hostile takeover, but the backing AMD have dwarf's that of Intel's now. Nvidia would love a platform, and a x86 licence, and manufacturing capability, but they can't afford, well, any of that.

Yeah sure, a $200m/quarter loss company with 5000 employees will take over a $400m/quarter loss company with 15000 employees.

I dont know much about big business but it doesn't seem plausible that a smaller company would be buying a far larger one.

You would think it more likely that Intel would consider aquiring nvidia.

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Originally Posted by Daydreamer

I dont know much about big business but it doesn't seem plausible that a smaller company would be buying a far larger one.

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Porsche took over Volkswagen 'bout six months ago :)

Also, does AMD really have more cash in the bank than Nvidia? I'm just curious.

except porsche and veedub have always been closely linked, making parts for each other, unless im mistaken, porsche has always owned a large part of vw.

Wouldn't anti-trust laws kill this stone dead.

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Originally Posted by Arthran

except porsche and veedub have always been closely linked, making parts for each other, unless im mistaken, porsche has always owned a large part of vw.

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Not exactly always, but about 4 years ago they took 15ish percent stake in VW, and have slowly but steadily been increasing it, until one day they owned it. I've read a story about their takeover, it appears it's been quite a surprise to many.

Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that a smaller company acquired a bigger one.

It's not going to happen, end of.

Porsche own a majority share stake in VW, but don't own it.
In building up this share stake they have bought themselves a poo load of debt (to the tune of 9bn euro - would have been a load more if they hadn't earned themselves 6bn euro scalping some hedgefund managers a few months ago)
Porsche have decided to abandon their pursuit of owning VW (they cant afford it !!) and are now looking to merge with VW instead. Although VW are not hugely keen because of Porsches debt.

So to sum up, the Porsche/VW example is not an ideal one.

As long as AMD//ATI run the price division then im happy with it, nvidia has awful pricing so i would be against it being in charge.

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Originally Posted by Lateknight

Porsche own a majority share stake in VW, but don't own it.
In building up this share stake they have bought themselves a poo load of debt (to the tune of 9bn euro - would have been a load more if they hadn't earned themselves 6bn euro scalping some hedgefund managers a few months ago)
Porsche have decided to abandon their pursuit of owning VW (they cant afford it !!) and are now looking to merge with VW instead. Although VW are not hugely keen because of Porsches debt.

So to sum up, the Porsche/VW example is not an ideal one.

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When AMD bought ATI, they got themselves into financial limbo for a few years. And we're not talking ideals here - just smaller companies going after bigger ones (successful or not is a different issue).

In any case, it's just a rumour, wild speculation at this point is normal :)

God, please let me never see the day whenn NVIDIA buys off ATI/AMD. It will then be a monopoly and we cosnumers will suffer. And, let's not forget rebranding of same product to trick us!

I see nvidia as the worst-positioned company for the introduction of Larrabee.

Check http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=7747

Yes it's months away right now, but if they can make a Larrabee chip comparable to the GTX 285 (see link above), then there's no reason they can't go after the money market - of low-mid range chips.

I can see Intel putting the squeeze on Nvidia and AMD/ATI with this sort of tech, but whereas AMD has the capacity to take a similar design route, what can Nvidia do?

Personally I'd like to see AMD and Nvidia do well, their competition gives us fairer prices. And I have a moral objection to giving Intel my cash in general, so they won't be seeing my money unless they come up with something that completely blows away the competition.

Like other posters in this thread, I'm highly skeptical of this happening.

Does it have to be a merger?

What they really need is an alliance where they dedicate some engineers to a shared software platform for GPGPU computing that isn't Microsoft or Apple based.

Intel saw the writing on the wall - Wintel is not something you can rely on in the future. Something spurred them into building Moblin and its probably a hedge.

AMD and Nvidia are very reliant on Microsoft delivering DXcompute and that is not something you want to do. Once upon a time a hardware graphics company called SGI had to rely on Microsoft delivering an API ... it did not end well for them.

This is the best thing NVidia could do for themselves. AMD has great potential, and married to the marketing of NVidia, they would give Intel a serious run for their money. Intel's greatest downfall is the fact that their graphics division is atrocious, and NVidia's is that their chipset division is horrible. AMD rectified their horrible chipset dependence by acquiring ATI, they now have great chipsets. An AMD/Nvidia marriage would be fantastic for consumers, because it would force Intel to do something about the shovelware graphics they put in all of their parts. They would no longer be able to foist that crap off on the market.

I can't see a problem so long as NVIDIA/AMD divested itself of ATi to say... Intel, it would make for a very interesting playing field. This would be better than say Intel trying to buy Nvidia itself, (from a competition point of view). The one I am surprised about is Nvidia buying a research company like ARM. Which would suit it well being fab less.

Intel is releasing Larrabee don't foget...

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

Intel is releasing Larrabee don't foget...

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They've been talking about "releasing Larrabee" for about 4 years. By the time they finally do it, it will be antiquated. Much like everything Intel's graphics division releases. They have a phenomenal chipset and cpu business, but their graphics division is plain awful. I hope Larrabee is impressive, but I hope it is impressive in performance instead of impressive that it was a waste of money to develop as I suspect.

Well, is it wrong to have a long development cycle? And with there CPU/IGPU coming on the same package soon if that could happen with Larrabee and its supposed performance they may just troll the complete market - before FCC comes in obviously.

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Originally Posted by AntiTalent

I see nvidia as the worst-positioned company for the introduction of Larrabee.

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Yes it's months away right now, but if they can make a Larrabee chip comparable to the GTX 285 (see link above), then there's no reason they can't go after the money market - of low-mid range chips.

I can see Intel putting the squeeze on Nvidia and AMD/ATI with this sort of tech, but whereas AMD has the capacity to take a similar design route, what can Nvidia do?

Personally I'd like to see AMD and Nvidia do well, their competition gives us fairer prices. And I have a moral objection to giving Intel my cash in general, so they won't be seeing my money unless they come up with something that completely blows away the competition.

Like other posters in this thread, I'm highly skeptical of this happening.

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LOL "comparable to the GTX 285". Comparable in that it runs the same things a GTX 285 runs at a quarter of the framerate, on a highly optimized set of drivers that don't get released to the public. That's the kind of "comparable" we've come to expect from Intel and graphics. It seems like their business model is to produce horrible GPU's just so you have a reason to upgrade to the next horrible GPU they integrate.

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Originally Posted by Terbinator

Well, is it wrong to have a long development cycle? And with there CPU/IGPU coming on the same package soon if that could happen with Larrabee and its supposed performance they may just troll the complete market - before FCC comes in obviously.

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You are aware that the graphics technology they put on chip is the illustrious GMA 950, right?

You can probably watch Hulu, but you can't even play World of Warcraft with that - WoW runs, but you can't group, so what is the point? Yes, I want a GPU and a CPU in one package that I can't do even simple things with, that will work out.

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Originally Posted by Aerows

You are aware that the graphics technology they put on chip is the illustrious GMA 950, right?

You can probably watch Hulu, but you can't even play World of Warcraft with that - WoW runs, but you can't group, so what is the point? Yes, I want a GPU and a CPU in one package that I can't do even simple things with, that will work out.

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Yeah i know its a poor excuse of a GPU - but i just don think its fair to right Larrabbee off.

If Nvidia were forced to promote virtual competition, much like Nike/Converse by retaining AMD/ATI's brand and pitting it against their own products, I would like to see what the great minds from both sides can produce.

However, I don't like to bring up 3DFX...but people don't tend to change their habits. Could the same be done again in today's market climate? I hope not...

If they have the capital to do it, it would make sense on Nvidia's part. AMD are massacring them in the consumer graphics market.

But would they really want the CPU business? Especially since AMD are currently struggling to match Intel's lead?