ATI to buy XGI

[HardWareBoss]

Rumor has it. ATI to buy XGI. WHY????

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

Oh well, XGI was playing around with dual GPU's before ATi/Nvidia, so maybe they had some usefull tech that needs a big corporation like ATI to expand? Or maybe they just trying to get rid of any competition that might evolve. Or, maybe they are just reinforcing their strength as graphics card makers and expanding their capabilities...

 

[cleeve]

I think it's more of a "let's get a foot in the door of asia" thing.

 

[mpjesse]

You're probably right. The only other company that fooled around with dual chip designs was 3dfx- and nVidia snatched them up.

However, do not forget that ATI once had a dual GPU video card... it was called the Rage Fury MAXX.

http://www.active-hardware.com/english/reviews/video/rage-fury-maxx.htm

However it sucked royal ass. XGI is actually a halfway decent company. Their latest GPU's perform as good (if not better in some cases) to ATI and nVidia's lower end offerings.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Rumor has it. ATI to buy XGI. WHY????

LOL!

Rumour had this back in the VolariDuo days when it was a big flop. I'm surprised they started doing this now, and not then, when they were ripe for spinning of another non-marquee brand.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

However it sucked royal ass.

I dont seem to remember it sucking ass, I do remember it not working with WinXP though......which killed it for sure.

 

[pauldh]

Yeah, from what I remember, the Maxx was alright. It didn't gain the top performance spot at the time nor was it worth the premium over a Rage Fury Pro, but it was still one of the better cards available in it's day.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Oh well, XGI was playing around with dual GPU's before ATi/Nvidia,

Uh no, that's wrong. ATi and nV(3Dfx) and Metabyte all had multiple card solutions.

so maybe they had some usefull tech that needs a big corporation like ATI to expand? Or maybe they just trying to get rid of any competition that might evolve.

The last part of that makes more sense the the first, but it wouldn't be their failed multi-vpu solution (if you thought ATi or nv's solutions were flawed, XGi's is far worse), it would be heir 2Dstuff.

Or, maybe they are just reinforcing their strength as graphics card makers and expanding their capabilities...

Could be but the only technology they could grab from XGi would be their video playback stuff IMO.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

However it sucked royal ass.

I dont seem to remember it sucking ass, I do remember it not working with WinXP though......which killed it for sure.

Exactly, if the Maxx sucked A$$ then WTF was the VolariDuo?

Limitations and bugs to be sure but hte Duo was a traggic failure at almost twice the price of the competition's better offerings.

The only great thing SIS makes is their Chrome products which are great for low power, low-medium end, and good 2D, the XGi side of things is kinda weak IMO.

The only other interesting implementation by SIS IMO was their FP24/16 chips which gave them R300 quality without the FP32 speed penalty, but the ability to use partial precision for things like shadows which the R9xxx and X8xx series couldn't, however these chips came out long after nV had moved to FP32 and just before ATi did, so their position in the market place was questionable.