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That really had to be the dumbest moves in computing history. "What does the #2 CPU maker need to become #1? The #2 GPU maker, obviously!"

by byuu 10y ago

yulaow 10y ago
Well to defend them they needed a solution to fight the incoming intel cpu with integrated gpu. They needed ATI portfolio and knowledges.
- monocasa 10y ago
  Yeah, exactly. If they didn't have their APUs, they wouldn't have hardly anything anymore.
- byuu 10y ago
  The integrated GPU really didn't need that kind of power, though. Anyone playing more than solitaire is going to get a discrete GPU anyway. They could have snapped up a smaller chipset maker for a tenth of the price. Instead they entered both the integrated and discrete GPU markets, when they were already a market underdog that already struggled in the CPU market. They paid way too much for ATI, and then spread themselves way too thin. I'm not just pointing out the error in hindsight, I was a critic of this deal back when it was first announced as well.
  - pcwalton 10y ago
    > Anyone playing more than solitaire is going to get a discrete GPU anyway That's not true. The PC enthusiast market is a small segment of the overall PC market, and that's not even counting mobiles. Lots of people play non-graphically-intensive games. More importantly, GPUs are hugely important for things that aren't games. Honestly, the fact that video needs hardware acceleration (which is part of the media/GPU block) means that there's a reasonable argument that games aren't even the most important practical function of a GPU.
  - gcp 10y ago
    Current Intel iGPU, and especially AMD APUs are powerful enough to play all the most popular esports games, despite them being quite a bit more demanding than solitaire.
devonkim 10y ago
The idea was that a CPU + GPU company would be a lot stronger than themselves trying to defend against their respective #1 competitors. Instead, both the CPU and GPU market leaders got stronger and leveraged their massive capital to turn the #2 into a very, very distant #2.
- Macha 10y ago
  It also changed the decision process from "Pick 1 of Intel and AMD, plus pick 1 of nVidia and ATI" to "Pick Intel/nVidia or AMD/AMD" for companies like Dell/HP etc. so AMD and ATI's weaknesses compounded each other from then on.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Not sure, having the GPU division allowed them to bid for the Xbox and PS contracts. Having an APU allows them to play in the low end market which was dominated by Intel with their IGP, the vast majority of laptops do not come with a discrete GPU which meant that AMD could not compete with Intel at all prior to their acquisition of ATI unless they would develop their own GPU or license it from some one (they had plans of licensing PowerVR at some point IIRC).
    - Osiris 10y ago
      Exactly, there's a reason that Xbox and PlayStation are both using AMD chips. What those systems needed was a lot more GPU power than CPU power, so AMD was well positioned to do that. It's not a massive money maker for them, but I think that it positioned them well to push open standards like FreeSync, and Mantle/Vulcan. AMD is also fighting back by trying to develop open standards, knowing that proprietary ones wouldn't ever get any traction.
      - gcp 10y ago
        >knowing that proprietary ones wouldn't ever get any traction. Not unless AMD had a dominant market position. CUDA dominating the ecosystem right now is a major PITA, and so is the insistence on GSync over FreeSync.
dogma1138 10y ago
Well NVIDIA wanted to spin off into the CPU market also, they sorta did with them building ARM based SOC's with NVIDIA GPU's. There were also rumors of them licensing x86 from Intel. Oddly enough NVIDIA back in the day made what arguable was the best chipset for AMD CPU's - NVIDIA nForce.
- bakgwailo 10y ago
  NVIDIA could never have gotten an x86 license, as they would have required a ton of licensing from AMD, too. Plus it would violate the cross licensing agreement between Intel, AMD, and VIA.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    NVIDIA used to make an X86 processor long time ago an embedded 386SX. Around 2010 they were snooping around including trying to build an X86 emulator that would run on their HPC parts which started a small turf war with Intel/AMD which was settled. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia-more-money-fewer-problems-no-x86/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia...
- gcp 10y ago
  There's also some belief Project Denver was supposed to be an x86 core and could still be turned into one.
- monocasa 10y ago
  The nForce wasn't really their IP though; it was AMDs. The original Xbox was in prototype phase and consisted of an AMD CPU and AMD chipset with some Nvidia IP for the GPU. Intel comes along and offers a PIII variant for really cheap. Part of the deal that Intel struck was that there can't be any AMD logos on the box, but they don't haven enough time to change out the chipset whoelsale, only to switch out the FSB. So Microsoft pays AMD to licence their 7XX chipset to Nvidia, so now it's all IP properly owned by Nvidia. For whatever reason, there were no restrictions on Nvidia only being able to use this for the Xbox, so they continued updating and releasing that genetic line of IP as nForce.
macspoofing 10y ago
Why not? I still don't see why it was an inherently bad idea. There's a lot of overlap in the CPU and GPU business. What happened was that Intel got its game back and then both, Intel and AMD, missed the mobile train. On the ATI side, they were outcompeted by Nvidia. Bad luck, and bad strategy.

That really had to be the dumbest moves in computing history. "What does the #2 CPU maker need to become #1? The #2 GPU maker, obviously!"

by byuu 10y ago

That really had to be the dumbest moves in computing history. "What does the #2 CPU maker need to become #1? The #2 GPU maker, obviously!"

yulaow 10y ago

Well to defend them they needed a solution to fight the incoming intel cpu with integrated gpu. They needed ATI portfolio and knowledges.

monocasa 10y ago
Yeah, exactly. If they didn't have their APUs, they wouldn't have hardly anything anymore.
byuu 10y ago
The integrated GPU really didn't need that kind of power, though. Anyone playing more than solitaire is going to get a discrete GPU anyway. They could have snapped up a smaller chipset maker for a tenth of the price. Instead they entered both the integrated and discrete GPU markets, when they were already a market underdog that already struggled in the CPU market. They paid way too much for ATI, and then spread themselves way too thin. I'm not just pointing out the error in hindsight, I was a critic of this deal back when it was first announced as well.
- pcwalton 10y ago
  > Anyone playing more than solitaire is going to get a discrete GPU anyway That's not true. The PC enthusiast market is a small segment of the overall PC market, and that's not even counting mobiles. Lots of people play non-graphically-intensive games. More importantly, GPUs are hugely important for things that aren't games. Honestly, the fact that video needs hardware acceleration (which is part of the media/GPU block) means that there's a reasonable argument that games aren't even the most important practical function of a GPU.
- gcp 10y ago
  Current Intel iGPU, and especially AMD APUs are powerful enough to play all the most popular esports games, despite them being quite a bit more demanding than solitaire.

devonkim 10y ago

The idea was that a CPU + GPU company would be a lot stronger than themselves trying to defend against their respective #1 competitors. Instead, both the CPU and GPU market leaders got stronger and leveraged their massive capital to turn the #2 into a very, very distant #2.

Macha 10y ago
It also changed the decision process from "Pick 1 of Intel and AMD, plus pick 1 of nVidia and ATI" to "Pick Intel/nVidia or AMD/AMD" for companies like Dell/HP etc. so AMD and ATI's weaknesses compounded each other from then on.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Not sure, having the GPU division allowed them to bid for the Xbox and PS contracts. Having an APU allows them to play in the low end market which was dominated by Intel with their IGP, the vast majority of laptops do not come with a discrete GPU which meant that AMD could not compete with Intel at all prior to their acquisition of ATI unless they would develop their own GPU or license it from some one (they had plans of licensing PowerVR at some point IIRC).
  - Osiris 10y ago
    Exactly, there's a reason that Xbox and PlayStation are both using AMD chips. What those systems needed was a lot more GPU power than CPU power, so AMD was well positioned to do that. It's not a massive money maker for them, but I think that it positioned them well to push open standards like FreeSync, and Mantle/Vulcan. AMD is also fighting back by trying to develop open standards, knowing that proprietary ones wouldn't ever get any traction.
    - gcp 10y ago
      >knowing that proprietary ones wouldn't ever get any traction. Not unless AMD had a dominant market position. CUDA dominating the ecosystem right now is a major PITA, and so is the insistence on GSync over FreeSync.

dogma1138 10y ago

Well NVIDIA wanted to spin off into the CPU market also, they sorta did with them building ARM based SOC's with NVIDIA GPU's. There were also rumors of them licensing x86 from Intel. Oddly enough NVIDIA back in the day made what arguable was the best chipset for AMD CPU's - NVIDIA nForce.

bakgwailo 10y ago
NVIDIA could never have gotten an x86 license, as they would have required a ton of licensing from AMD, too. Plus it would violate the cross licensing agreement between Intel, AMD, and VIA.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  NVIDIA used to make an X86 processor long time ago an embedded 386SX. Around 2010 they were snooping around including trying to build an X86 emulator that would run on their HPC parts which started a small turf war with Intel/AMD which was settled. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia-more-money-fewer-problems-no-x86/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia...
gcp 10y ago
There's also some belief Project Denver was supposed to be an x86 core and could still be turned into one.
monocasa 10y ago
The nForce wasn't really their IP though; it was AMDs. The original Xbox was in prototype phase and consisted of an AMD CPU and AMD chipset with some Nvidia IP for the GPU. Intel comes along and offers a PIII variant for really cheap. Part of the deal that Intel struck was that there can't be any AMD logos on the box, but they don't haven enough time to change out the chipset whoelsale, only to switch out the FSB. So Microsoft pays AMD to licence their 7XX chipset to Nvidia, so now it's all IP properly owned by Nvidia. For whatever reason, there were no restrictions on Nvidia only being able to use this for the Xbox, so they continued updating and releasing that genetic line of IP as nForce.

macspoofing 10y ago

Why not? I still don't see why it was an inherently bad idea. There's a lot of overlap in the CPU and GPU business. What happened was that Intel got its game back and then both, Intel and AMD, missed the mobile train. On the ATI side, they were outcompeted by Nvidia. Bad luck, and bad strategy.