AMD buying ATI: confirmed

Joshua Stubbles

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/21/technology/amd_atitech.reut/index.htm?section=money_latest

I can see this as both good and bad. What do you guys think?

flaagan

The better chip maker buying out the cruddy vid card maker... One can only hope that the people at ATI responsible for their drivers don't start doing things for AMD.

This could potentially be good, especially with the idea of high-end vid card chips being built right into the mobo being a possibility.

Slum

Hey, anything that could potentially make two vital bits of hardware play together better is a good thing.

sonic

Haha, how crazy is that! First there was the rumor that they were going to buy ATI, then came the confirmation that they WEREN'T going to buy ATI, then they did.

It's kind of weird to me, considering that AMD and nVidia have a partnership going with the nForce chipsets. I wonder where they'll go with this.

I have a feeling now that ATI is owned by AMD, they will begin work on an actual unique design or advancement instead of remaking nVidia's tech.

flaagan

If I remember correctly, doesn't ATI have the leg up on Nvidia as far as DirectX 10? Seems to me that perhaps AMD is looking to get in on that action and try to become the 'unofficial official mobo of Vista'.

Toomas

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I have a feeling now that ATI is owned by AMD, they will begin work on an actual unique design or advancement instead of remaking nVidia's tech.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like WTF?
ATI remaking nVidia stuff?
Your grandma told you that or something?

ElysiumGX

Let's not forget both gaming consoles are now running ATI chips, because Nvidia F'ed up. And don't forget the buzzsaw cards they released. And the real ATI users know where to find the best drivers for PC gaming. Any more arguements?

I think this merger could be good.

KDR_11k

Let's not forget both gaming consoles are now running ATI chips, because Nvidia F'ed up.

Let's not forget the PS3 which uses an NVidia GPU.

BRUTICUS(CW)

I guess AMD being the better CPU makers they could help advance the GPU. But i'm an Nvidia fan. Sounds like it could be good for gamers, but might not be so good for gamers/cg artists.

doc rob

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And the real ATI users know where to find the best drivers for PC gaming.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where, pray tell, is that? I think I must not be real.

eXpendabLe

Bring back 3Dfx !!

CheapAlert

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And the real ATI users know where to find the best drivers for PC gaming.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where, pray tell, is that? I think I must not be real.

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If they mean omegas, then they're just the same old drivers with forced 16-bit texturing and other artifacting features for little speed gain.

While i'm running on a r9800pro right now, i'm still an nVidia fan for their robust linux support.

I just wish PowerVR still kept going in the consumer video card market

sonic

[ QUOTE ]
Like WTF?
ATI remaking nVidia stuff?
Your grandma told you that or something?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah my grandma... you know, it's not even worth typing all the shit that I could post to completely own you, but I'm sure that your expertise of reading forum posts about graphics cards heavily outweighs all my experience in the hardware industry.

ElysiumGX

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Let's not forget the PS3 which uses an NVidia GPU.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's not forget I said gaming consoles.

doc rob

Fine, Elysium, just ignore me. Keep your magical drivers to yourself. See if I care.

ElysiumGX

I'm just saying, if you want good drivers for your ATI card for use with gaming and 3D design...don't simply settle with the official drivers, and try more than one release. If they work fine, don't replace them. So many still bad mouth ATI for a bad catalyst driver that was perhaps released 2 years ago. That arguement is as old and useless as "Macs don't have a two button mouse".

Personally, I love the Omegadrivers...no matter what Cheapy says. I've had them installed on 3 seperate PC's with the Omega's, and none have problems. They are tweaked to have more options, and give a boost in performance and stability. I've add an Arctic Cooler for easy overclocking, and a quieter fan. I've had no problems with XSI, while others have using the Catalyst drivers.

I have two Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT's at work, and I have just as many, if not more rendering errors and performance issues in games. More often it is the game's fault.

Point being, it's silly to call ATI a cruddy vid card maker. I've always used AMD chips, and for years they were call the cruddy processor maker. Times change.

sonic

ATI is far from being a cruddy vid card maker! I had the 9800se when it first came out, unlocked 4 of the pipelines and OCd a bit. It's still working in great condition still running games at a pretty damn good speed for the price.

sledgy

I had a 9800Pro that worked great with Intel, not-so-good with ATI but I suspect it was a VIA chipset that I could only identify as a prototype set so that might explain some things. With AMD's ASIC engineers I bet they could develop the best GPU ever.

EarthQuake

ATI has a long history of making crap, its going to take a while before some people will acknowledge them for making decent products. They used to outsource thier fucking drivers to a different company FFS, hehehe. I wont say i'm an expert on ATI cards but i do know that the one 850xt i used was fast as hell, but had horrible horrible drivers.

aesir

hmmm, i love my amd... but i hate ati...

(confusion)

Joshua Stubbles

ATI's drivers are still buggy. I'm stuck with ATI FireGL cards here at work, since they work with our platform. They are terrible for most desktop use. Lightwave and many other apps (including windows explorer itself) get graphical errors.

The one ATI card I owned at home was also not the greatest (9600).
It comes down to what works, and that's Nvidia. GeForce cards work with EVERYTHING. They might not have the absolute fastest DX shaders, but so what? I don't have to search the internet for "special" drivers, or worry about wether or not a game or application will work. It just does.

By the way, Intel has pulled the plug on ATI's mobo chipsets for Intel cpu systems. Not good.
Would be a sad, sad day if AMD pulled the plug on Nvidia.

EarthQuake

I think Nvidia has helped AMD's sales substantially, nforce boards mmmmm. I doubt they would drop them. But who knows, it could happen. I personally wouldnt buy any mobo that isnt an nforce board. I sure as hell wouldnt buy an ati chipset for an amd system.

Fuse

From a source i cant disclose .. it seems that AMD might have sold the video card department to Nvidia, officially closing the ATI/Radeon brand, leaving Nvidia as the sole major video card developer...

AMD's happy because they get their own chipset, so they can market and sell packaged systems with proprietary cpu/chipset

Nvidia is happy because they merged with ATI ending the competitive market...

Dont shoot the messenger, let's look out for official press release..

CheapAlert

also from an anonymous source but with super high reliability, they're closing their plants and converting them to ice cream parlors

sonic

also from an anonymous source who works for the government, bill nye the science guy is taking over operations at AMD/ATI

aesir

Bill Nye would send that company to the TOP. He would crush Intel within a year!!!