- Dec 16, 2004
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I know, another AMD-ATI related thread, but I felt like expression my point of view and I think this is different from most other threads.
What has peaked my interest up to this point is what has Intel been doing all this time. First, months ago when an AMD-ATI acquisition was only rumours Intel was already making rounds with it's partners telling them to prepare for an ATI takeover. From the way it was expressed, it seemed like Intel was almost hopeful for the deal. They certainly didn't do anything to discourage it. The question is why?
I suppose it may have been a move to try to bid up ATI's stock in order to discourage AMD, but obviously that didn't work out well.
The thing is, those rounds point out to the fact that Intel knew a merger was coming months in advance. The problem I'm having is that their response is completely out of wack.
For example, they didn't release a new high-end chipset. Instead they are relying on ATI and nVidia to provide them. They know AMD is going to buy ATI, and they let ATI be their launch flagship? What makes even less sense is the ease at which Intel could have released their own high-end chipset. They didn't even need to design a new one. Just take the i975X, tighten the validation specs a bit and you can easily achieve a 1333MHz FSB and DDR2 800 or DDR2 1067 specs. 1333MHz FSBs are already present in Bad-Axe's BIOS, and DDR2 1067 is in ASUS's i975X boards. It would have required virtually no effort on Intel's part at all. Just set the specs. What's more, all motherboard makers already had to redesign the boards to make it compatible with Conroe. A minor chipset update would have fit into the revalidation process perfectly. It would have just been like the i925X to i925XE transition. Instead, with the flagship RD600 going to AMD, Intel did nothing.
Looking at the rest of Intel's chipset situation is even worse. ATI's chispet revenue is going to go to Intel, and Intel is taking their sweet time introducing the P965. The G965, Q965, and Q963 barely even exist. i946 chipsets are also slow to market. Again, they are relying on nVidia and ATI when they knew the situation months in advance.
This leaves me to wonder what Intel's plan really is since they've put themselves in a very awkward situation?
In the short-term the obvious thing is to distance themselves from ATI. I think we'll see that with the Conroe launch on July 27th. Little things go a long way like possibly greating ATI's deligation with lower level executives. The speaking order will probably be rearranged to feature nVidia more prominantly. I have no doubt most of the systems will have nVidia graphics cards and Quad SLI on the nForce 590 will be the new "ultimate gaming solution".
Intel is obviously trying to get SLI licensing worked out and nVidia may be more receptive now since they want to be "much more intimate" with Intel.
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/10416
The easiest way to feature nVidia prominantly is to include nVidia GPUs in Apple's product line instead of ATI's currently. Apple is Intel's flashy trend setter so that will certainly get people's attention.
Ironically, I think the thing to watch for from Intel is not Conroe, but actually the GMA X3000. If it is actually a competitive IGP, ie 8 unified shaders or something like that, then things are certainly looking up for Intel. If they really wanted to get into the GPU game again, all they would then need to do is slap the thing on a daughter card with some memory and they'd have a decent low-end graphics card. Once they have unified shaders, high end graphics cards are easier since it's just more shader iterations.
Anyways, I've gone on too long. I have more to say but I've lost my train of thought, but I'd be interested to here from others why they think Intel's been so passive about this AMD-ATI business up to now and what they think Intel's going to do next.
What has peaked my interest up to this point is what has Intel been doing all this time. First, months ago when an AMD-ATI acquisition was only rumours Intel was already making rounds with it's partners telling them to prepare for an ATI takeover. From the way it was expressed, it seemed like Intel was almost hopeful for the deal. They certainly didn't do anything to discourage it. The question is why?
I suppose it may have been a move to try to bid up ATI's stock in order to discourage AMD, but obviously that didn't work out well.
The thing is, those rounds point out to the fact that Intel knew a merger was coming months in advance. The problem I'm having is that their response is completely out of wack.
For example, they didn't release a new high-end chipset. Instead they are relying on ATI and nVidia to provide them. They know AMD is going to buy ATI, and they let ATI be their launch flagship? What makes even less sense is the ease at which Intel could have released their own high-end chipset. They didn't even need to design a new one. Just take the i975X, tighten the validation specs a bit and you can easily achieve a 1333MHz FSB and DDR2 800 or DDR2 1067 specs. 1333MHz FSBs are already present in Bad-Axe's BIOS, and DDR2 1067 is in ASUS's i975X boards. It would have required virtually no effort on Intel's part at all. Just set the specs. What's more, all motherboard makers already had to redesign the boards to make it compatible with Conroe. A minor chipset update would have fit into the revalidation process perfectly. It would have just been like the i925X to i925XE transition. Instead, with the flagship RD600 going to AMD, Intel did nothing.
Looking at the rest of Intel's chipset situation is even worse. ATI's chispet revenue is going to go to Intel, and Intel is taking their sweet time introducing the P965. The G965, Q965, and Q963 barely even exist. i946 chipsets are also slow to market. Again, they are relying on nVidia and ATI when they knew the situation months in advance.
This leaves me to wonder what Intel's plan really is since they've put themselves in a very awkward situation?
In the short-term the obvious thing is to distance themselves from ATI. I think we'll see that with the Conroe launch on July 27th. Little things go a long way like possibly greating ATI's deligation with lower level executives. The speaking order will probably be rearranged to feature nVidia more prominantly. I have no doubt most of the systems will have nVidia graphics cards and Quad SLI on the nForce 590 will be the new "ultimate gaming solution".
Intel is obviously trying to get SLI licensing worked out and nVidia may be more receptive now since they want to be "much more intimate" with Intel.
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/10416
The easiest way to feature nVidia prominantly is to include nVidia GPUs in Apple's product line instead of ATI's currently. Apple is Intel's flashy trend setter so that will certainly get people's attention.
Ironically, I think the thing to watch for from Intel is not Conroe, but actually the GMA X3000. If it is actually a competitive IGP, ie 8 unified shaders or something like that, then things are certainly looking up for Intel. If they really wanted to get into the GPU game again, all they would then need to do is slap the thing on a daughter card with some memory and they'd have a decent low-end graphics card. Once they have unified shaders, high end graphics cards are easier since it's just more shader iterations.
Anyways, I've gone on too long. I have more to say but I've lost my train of thought, but I'd be interested to here from others why they think Intel's been so passive about this AMD-ATI business up to now and what they think Intel's going to do next.
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