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

[HEXUS]

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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[Jay]

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

[tickedon]

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

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.

[kalniel]

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

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

[Platinum]

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.

[Jay]

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

but its not out yet....

[kalniel]

but its not out yet....

And nVidia haven't acquired AMD yet...

[Lanky123]

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?

[Crevan]

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

[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.

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.

[kalniel]

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.

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.

[scaryjim]

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

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...

[kingpotnoodle]

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...

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?

[cheesemp]

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.

[TAKTAK]

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...

[scaryjim]

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...