AMD, ATI the same company

Wow suppried to see no talk of this, after i think this is the biggest IT news/even of the year.

We know K8 core is dated...
K9 i dont think will have time to be affected by this,
but K10, hopefully we will see the GPU part of the CPU.

Anyhow the results of this is gona be a PC that is nothing like we have ever seen before.
The PC industry just had a MAJOR change IMHO

there is plenty of talk of this, just in other threads.


http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=469468

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=469468

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=463260

yeah saw that after, just figured it would be here 1st

Well lets just hope AMD doesn't sit on thier asses with ATi like they have with thier own CPU's at this point.

I've got mixed feelings on this...b/c I am not a big ATI fan and haven't been for some time I've had some of their cards and just have not liked them, every ATI card I've ever had was just horrible, nothing but issues with drivers mostly.

nVidia on the other hand has always been good to be and never had any probs that where not easily fixed. Hell even though the FX 5000's series of cards where pretty much garbage my 5600 Ultra still worked better then a couple of ATI cards I had tried around the same time period.

So this merger has me a little worried that AMD will go for a ATI based systems or gear more for them much like games are gear toward one card company or another. While as the OP posted it could revolutionize the PC world where the CPU & GPU are now combined into one device. Who knows...

Now what's left is Intel and nVidia to do something similar. I would have much rather seen nVidia & AMD get together then ATI & AMD but oh well...hopefully things will work out and the products they put out are much better then any either company put out on their own.

Also a while back I read that nVidia bought out ULI but haven't heard hide nor hair about it since?

DvBoard said:

Well lets just hope AMD doesn't sit on thier asses with ATi like they have with thier own CPU's at this point.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry, don't take this the wrong way but I don't really understand why you said this. If you consider AMD putting out the first Dual-Core CPU before Intel sitting on there *** then I guess you would be correct. From what I have seen of AMD they have been doing nothing but constantly improving. I am not trying to start any flaming so please don't take it that way, I am just trying to understand your point of view

Wolverine690 said:

I've got mixed feelings on this...b/c I am not a big ATI fan and haven't been for some time I've had some of their cards and just have not liked them, every ATI card I've ever had was just horrible, nothing but issues with drivers mostly.

nVidia on the other hand has always been good to be and never had any probs that where not easily fixed. Hell even though the FX 5000's series of cards where pretty much garbage my 5600 Ultra still worked better then a couple of ATI cards I had tried around the same time period.

So this merger has me a little worried that AMD will go for a ATI based systems or gear more for them much like games are gear toward one card company or another. While as the OP posted it could revolutionize the PC world where the CPU & GPU are now combined into one device. Who knows...

Now what's left is Intel and nVidia to do something similar. I would have much rather seen nVidia & AMD get together then ATI & AMD but oh well...hopefully things will work out and the products they put out are much better then any either company put out on their own.

Also a while back I read that nVidia bought out ULI but haven't heard hide nor hair about it since?

Click to expand...

I AGREE ENTIRELY AMD & nVidia could rock my world

and yeah, what about this ULI? I read that article too

evancold said:

I'm sorry, don't take this the wrong way but I don't really understand why you said this. If you consider AMD putting out the first Dual-Core CPU before Intel sitting on there *** then I guess you would be correct. From what I have seen of AMD they have been doing nothing but constantly improving. I am not trying to start any flaming so please don't take it that way, I am just trying to understand your point of view

Click to expand...

I'm talking about the lack of response in the past 6 months and to conroe particualarly. They have nothing planned.

Honestly if i was looking for a CPU before intel got thier asses in gear i would have gone AMD. Intel responded to AMD (thier dual core release), and did so greatly. AMD has yet to respond back, or show much signs of an attempt to. At least that's the feeling iv'e gotten in the past few months.

AMD buying a graphics card company when they are lagging in the CPU market isn't what i would call a good move as it could put the feeling on ATi that it's going to become stalled like AMD has of late.

Maybe AMD has a plan, or some super secret, but untill they do it's looking more and more like thier ship is leaving without them. I just hope they can keep ATi competative with nVidia as i prefer ATi's video cards (mine has lasted over 3 years!).

evancold said:

If you consider AMD putting out the first Dual-Core CPU before Intel sitting on there *** then I guess you would be correct.

Click to expand...

Its not like Intel couldnt do it..
I think the Ppro was the 1st CPU with 2 dies, however 1 die was a L2 cache block....

just saying

Wolverine690 said:

I've got mixed feelings on this...b/c I am not a big ATI fan and haven't been for some time I've had some of their cards and just have not liked them, every ATI card I've ever had was just horrible, nothing but issues with drivers mostly.

nVidia on the other hand has always been good to be and never had any probs that where not easily fixed. Hell even though the FX 5000's series of cards where pretty much garbage my 5600 Ultra still worked better then a couple of ATI cards I had tried around the same time period.

So this merger has me a little worried that AMD will go for a ATI based systems or gear more for them much like games are gear toward one card company or another. While as the OP posted it could revolutionize the PC world where the CPU & GPU are now combined into one device. Who knows...

Now what's left is Intel and nVidia to do something similar. I would have much rather seen nVidia & AMD get together then ATI & AMD but oh well...hopefully things will work out and the products they put out are much better then any either company put out on their own.

Also a while back I read that nVidia bought out ULI but haven't heard hide nor hair about it since?

Click to expand...

Personally, I think anyone who says that the other company which they dont like totally sucks is a fanboy. If you think about it, its usually true. I have had both and found both to be great, never had any problems, plus linux has better ATi support anyway, alteast in the distros I use.

On the other note. I think this will be a good turning point for AMD and it should really help them get moving again, hopefully something competitive against intel right now, lol. But this should do more good for AMD than bad, and im siked for it.

DvBoard said:

I'm talking about the lack of response in the past 6 months and to conroe particualarly. They have nothing planned.

Honestly if i was looking for a CPU before intel got thier asses in gear i would have gone AMD. Intel responded to AMD (thier dual core release), and did so greatly. AMD has yet to respond back, or show much signs of an attempt to. At least that's the feeling iv'e gotten in the past few months.

AMD buying a graphics card company when they are lagging in the CPU market isn't what i would call a good move as it could put the feeling on ATi that it's going to become stalled like AMD has of late.

Maybe AMD has a plan, or some super secret, but untill they do it's looking more and more like thier ship is leaving without them. I just hope they can keep ATi competative with nVidia as i prefer ATi's video cards (mine has lasted over 3 years!).

Click to expand...

Thanks!!! I understand your point of view alot better now, that's all I was asking for was to understand where you were coming from.

JaY_III said:

Wow suppried to see no talk of this, after i think this is the biggest IT news/even of the year.

We know K8 core is dated...
K9 i dont think will have time to be affected by this,
but K10, hopefully we will see the GPU part of the CPU.

Anyhow the results of this is gona be a PC that is nothing like we have ever seen before.
The PC industry just had a MAJOR change IMHO

Click to expand...

I personally think combining the CPU and GPU would be a horrible mistake akin to all those motherboards with built-in video. I mean think about how old (maybe not anybody here, of course) most people's CPUs are compared to their video cards. GPU technology simply changes too fast.

Now if they created a motherboard where you could just "swap-out" the GPU the way you swap-out RAM... Intel would wither-up and die I believe. Nobody would ever see that coming. Because while GPUs have changed rapidly their supporting platforms (Vesa LB, PCI, AGP, PCI xPress) have changed only once every five or ten years. So if they could make a platform for the GPU that's going to be around for a while... maybe have separate real RAM for the CPU and GPU, and get a patent insuring that Intel couldn't do the same thing... THEN you're talking about a major change.

Barring that I see almost no advantage or logic in AMD buying ATI. Maybe they could change all their Nforce boards to Aforce boards. But I'm sure they have SOMETHING up their sleeves. You don't just spend five billion dollars without a plan.

rainless said:

I personally think combining the CPU and GPU would be a horrible mistake akin to all those motherboards with built-in video. I mean think about how old (maybe not anybody here, of course) most people's CPUs are compared to their video cards. GPU technology simply changes too fast.

Now if they created a motherboard where you could just "swap-out" the GPU the way you swap-out RAM... Intel would wither-up and die I believe. Nobody would ever see that coming. Because while GPUs have changed rapidly their supporting platforms (Vesa LB, PCI, AGP, PCI xPress) have changed only once every five or ten years. So if they could make a platform for the GPU that's going to be around for a while... maybe have separate real RAM for the CPU and GPU, and get a patent insuring that Intel couldn't do the same thing... THEN you're talking about a major change.

Barring that I see almost no advantage or logic in AMD buying ATI. Maybe they could change all their Nforce boards to Aforce boards. But I'm sure they have SOMETHING up their sleeves. You don't just spend five billion dollars without a plan.

Click to expand...

the only problem is your solution involves a special motherboard, which AMD doesn't make. However a motherboard with GPU parts that can be replaced/upgraded is a very good idea (in my mind, although they are definattly downsides).

I agree however that combining the two in the same chip is a horrid idea, and i'm someone who's used the same video card and CPU since i built this thing.

DvBoard said:

the only problem is your solution involves a special motherboard, which AMD doesn't make. However a motherboard with GPU parts that can be replaced/upgraded is a very good idea (in my mind, although they are definattly downsides).

I agree however that combining the two in the same chip is a horrid idea, and i'm someone who's used the same video card and CPU since i built this thing.

Click to expand...

Special mobo? All that's needed is a hypertransport linked gpu which can be plonked into an Athlon/Opteron socket...... There's loads of opteron boards out there ALREADY which could support a gpu co-processor..... remember all the talk of this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/21/drc_fpga_module/

I reckon that's why AMD purchased ATI, purely to speed up the development of such a beast and create a 'platform' a'la the ones intel has been banging on about for the last year of so.

The problem for intel is that their platforms are not really open, Hypertransport is. If this is really sucessful we *might* see intel chips connecting into athlon/opteron sockets. Everybody knows intel bus arch sucks and it's replacement which was part of the Itanic 'platform' (and supposed to filter down to x86 processors) was cancelled ;-)

thingi

DvBoard said:

the only problem is your solution involves a special motherboard, which AMD doesn't make. However a motherboard with GPU parts that can be replaced/upgraded is a very good idea (in my mind, although they are definattly downsides).

Click to expand...

I don't recall AMD making their own motherboards at this point. that was up to other companies and even so they did a pretty damn good job of it. AMD just laid out specs. specs shouldn't be too hard to design now.

a motherboard with gpu parts, hell a different bus just for the integration of the gpu is a pretty damn nice idea. cept, the motherboard would have a huge power drain and the designs of the integration would have to be universal. whether this limits processing power of the gpu, i wouldn't know. but seriously. Id be pretty scared if i paid to plug a few more molexs into the motherboard. in fact.. i feel sorry for the motherboard cuz thats one more giant heatsink for the motherboard. well giant in comparison to the old pIIs and pIIIs.

Having the integration isn't a bad thing though. technology should be getting smaller and smaller yet were staying on the ATX platform for a helluva long time. this would take up a huge chunk of space which in my opinion, is a good thing to make sure of the motherboard room, not to mention cooling would be easier. Water cooling systems will look more interesting as well. Lets just hope they do come out with that although didn't they say.. bandwith didn't matter that much? so yeah im just wondering.. how much bonus would attaching the gpu to the motherboard directly be?

I would love to see a board that supports swappable GPUs and separate memory banks that support 256MB-2GB of whatever the flavor-of-the-day RAM. Im sure it would raise prices of MBs, but the cost savings could be passed to the consumer relieving a little of today’s obscene graphics card prices.

I am very happy to see the price war between AMD and Intel, but what I would really like to see are similar percentage price drops with ATI and nVidia. I haven’t worried about the price of Processors for some time, but Video Cards make my wallet squirm. Maybe AMD can now help kick-start that wish.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEyNiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Viola...Video of a dude from AMD that seems a bit nervous, but has some good info...

Honestly not happy about this one at all. The way I see it we had two wars going on; Intel Vs AMD & Ati vs Nvidia. Due to this we had some decent improvements in the PC industry and prices have been cut. Now though not only does Ati have a company backing it giving it extra funds, AMD will most likly tell Ati that they can only work with AMD chips from now on. I am guessing this is AMDs way to keep some market, is try and force Ati fanboys to use their chips just so they can use their GPU. It's late so most of that is probably worded wrong, so to sum it up; I am trying to say I think this is a crappy way for AMD to try and counter the Conroe core, and will in the end be very bad for the PC market. Though I honestly like Nvidia more then Ati, the thought of them running free with no compatition is pretty scary.

ATI cards not working on Intel gear is as bad as this..
Intel fabing up some 45nm IMC CSI GPU's and heading head strong into the GFX market.