AMD says ATI-Intel chipsets will continue

Author: Brett Thomas
Published: 2nd March 2007
Comments (7) Stumble
"Don't surprise me, just send me an advance copy" - AMD may soon be in a great information-gathering position.

"Don't surprise me, just send me an advance copy" - AMD may soon be in a great information-gathering position.

Everyone has speculated that the buyout of ATI by AMD would end the short-lived chipset business that ATI had with Intel. Many people have looked at the RD600 (not to be confused with the upcoming R600 graphics card) as the one and only ATI chipset to see an Intel CPU. Some people lamented that possibility, but they can breathe a sigh of relief now. AMD has confirmed that Intel chipsets will remain on the company's roadmap.

AMD has also gone on to state that it has little interest in attempting to overrun Intel's own thriving chipset business. Instead, it would be quite happy with just a decent share of the enthusiast portions of that market and those looking for higher-end integrated VIVO. Even with that market in mind, AMD has promised that it doesn't want such integration as Centrino, instead continuing its idea of remaining a fairly open system and encouraging partner companies.

The extension of hospitality didn't stop there - AMD also stated that it had every intent to remain on good terms with NVIDIA, the current leading chipset provider for AMD platforms. Such a statement is a welcome sound to enthusiast ears, who have been worried ever since the first day of ATI's buyout that competition and cooperation may both decrease.

There's nothing officially holding AMD to these promises aside from the court of public opinion, but they do make some pretty smart financial sense. In fact, it makes the whole takeover look a lot more brilliant.

By retaining good relations with each of these companies, AMD can now garner some trade secret understanding of development. Intel will need to discuss new CPU architectures for chipsets with ATI. New graphics setups (particularly memory structure) by NVIDIA will need to be discussed with AMD for CPU development, as will any chipset technology being developed for use on AMD platforms (which can then be included or improved upon in ATI chipsets). If either of these companies refuse to play along, they'll be the ones looking like they are stifling innovation in the market place.

All in all, it's a win/win for AMD, which needs to give up very little of its own technology to an opposing firm in these arrangements. The inside track will allow it to build up a considerably strong next suite of both processors and graphics cards, and allow the company to finally combat the bruising it's received from both the Core 2 and 8800 series of chips.

Do you have a thought on the statement? Let us know about it in our forums.
Quote DougEdey 2nd March 2007, 09:42
ooooh, the AMD/ATi Merger is looking like it's going to give AMD a huge boost now.
Quote r4tch3t 2nd March 2007, 11:42
Yeah, totally. Intel one ups AMD with their Core processors, AMD one ups Intel by making them disclose some of their secrets. Go AMD.
Quote Shin0bi272 2nd March 2007, 17:05
I really fail to see how this is a "one up" by AMD. They said that they aren't even looking to overtake Intel's market share and that they were happy with just taking a piece of the high end enthusiast market. True Intel will have to tell ATi about their architectures and memory usage but they will also have to tell Nvidia and AMD will have to do the same thing. If AMD takes what Intel tells ATi and uses it in their processors then they will most likely be in violation of a few copyrights and will be sued for it. Judging from AMD's 4x4 configuration sucking up 400 watts they might be looking into ways to find out how intel managed to consume less than half that in their quad core cpus. I'm almost positive that Intel will safeguard this and any other info from use by the competition. Then again AMD might just be throwing in the competitive towel when it comes to being the worlds leading chip maker... not that they ever really said that they were but you dont release a low,mid, and high end desktop chip and a mobile chip if your not trying to overtake the competition who has the same product lines. All in all it could be a complete load of bull or it could be the truth and AMD is just going to concentrate on their high end chips. Either way more power to em just watch what you steal. :D
Quote randosome 2nd March 2007, 18:00
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shin0bi272
Judging from AMD's 4x4 configuration sucking up 400 watts they might be looking into ways to find out how intel managed to consume less than half that in their quad core cpus.
i believe there is a certain level of overhead for each CPU so having 2 separate physical CPU's consumes more then shoving them both on the same chip

Dual CPU has been around for a long time, mainly in the professional market, so i really don't see the point in 4x4 - except if you can shove say an 8800 in 1 of those sockets - /drool

Sounds good for amd, but it seems a little unfair that they will get insider info on intel stuff but alls fair in love and war i guess
Quote traderonline 2nd March 2007, 19:45
yeah.. Intel prefers AMD instead of Nvidia. I have never seen an Intel chipset powered by nvidia ;)
Quote DarkLord7854 2nd March 2007, 20:00
Wish Nvidia/Intel could get together, titghten up this ATI/AMD vs Intel vs Nvidia thing to just 1 vs 1. Would be rather interesting what with Intel moving into power saving and Nvidia seems to have a current habit of pushing graphics to the extreme. Though then it might be a tad 1-sided for AMD/ATI if they were against Intel/Nvidia.
Quote Fiber4now 4th March 2007, 21:17
Now this was one sweet write up for AMD, AMD promises not to try to break Intel's integrated graphics strangle hold on motherboard if Intel plays nice at the high end and allows ATI graphics to work on Intel motherboards.

And just because a few AMD fanboys may get upset if Intel does not give open access to AMD, Intel will hand over trade secrets to its rival AMD to use in AMD products.

Now if that was not the biggest load of BS I have ever heard, do you actually want me to believe that AMD spent 5.4 million dollars on ATI, just manufacture high end GPUs for everyone else. Or they purchased ATI to give AMD the abilities to create platforms in the low medium and high end. Putting artificial boundaries will never earn AMD back the Billions they spent on ATI. AMD knows that, Intel and Nvidia also I guess the only one that doesn't know that is Brett. By the way how does the new intro budget 690V & 690G motherboards play into your scenario? The integrated graphics is the key to that chipset and makes a mockery of your report

It may make you feel all warm and fuzzy believing that what you have written speaks the truth about the ATI deal but you could not be further from the truth. Intel and Nvidia have AMD/ATI boxed in right now and the combined Corporation is on the ropes. The stock market and consumer are punishing AMD for two major reasons, purchasing ATI and also having products that are very stale and at the same time have very low wholesale and retail value.

If you are reporting what has been said to you directly by an AMD spokesperson then i would take the time to ask a few questions before I wrote about a 5.4 billion dollar deal being transacted so AMD could make high end cards.
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