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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 an

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.
- devonkim 10y ago
  The market was already dividing out that way honestly, and if you are going to be a low-margin, higher-volume player, you should try to work on economy of scale as part of your market differentiation factors.
- macspoofing 10y ago
  You think Dell or HP would ever have sidelined Intel? AMD was going to get shafted, no matter what.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    Dell and HP would have sidelined Intel in a heartbeat if they could have made more money by switching to AMD.
    - devonkim 10y ago
      The Intel advertising campaign kept their branding quite strong in the consumer market and there'd have been an uphill battle to get consumers onto the AMD train for even Dell and other OEMs. With consoles, the branding isn't the CPUs but the console maker's and the audience generally doesn't include grandma & grandpa that only ever watch TV commercials and see an occasional newspaper advertisement when it comes to technology. On the business technology side it'd be even harder due to thermal characteristics that have been demanded for over a decade now and Intel destroys AMD there without question.
- syshum 10y ago
  AMD had about as much of a Chance at breaking in the to Intel Dominated OEM market as Linux had to become the default operating systems on all Consumers PC's MS and Intel both put EXTREME pressure and incentives on OEM (and both were accused of Anti-Trust Violations) to keep their defacto monopolies

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.
devonkim 10y ago
The market was already dividing out that way honestly, and if you are going to be a low-margin, higher-volume player, you should try to work on economy of scale as part of your market differentiation factors.
macspoofing 10y ago
You think Dell or HP would ever have sidelined Intel? AMD was going to get shafted, no matter what.
- twblalock 10y ago
  Dell and HP would have sidelined Intel in a heartbeat if they could have made more money by switching to AMD.
  - devonkim 10y ago
    The Intel advertising campaign kept their branding quite strong in the consumer market and there'd have been an uphill battle to get consumers onto the AMD train for even Dell and other OEMs. With consoles, the branding isn't the CPUs but the console maker's and the audience generally doesn't include grandma & grandpa that only ever watch TV commercials and see an occasional newspaper advertisement when it comes to technology. On the business technology side it'd be even harder due to thermal characteristics that have been demanded for over a decade now and Intel destroys AMD there without question.
syshum 10y ago
AMD had about as much of a Chance at breaking in the to Intel Dominated OEM market as Linux had to become the default operating systems on all Consumers PC's MS and Intel both put EXTREME pressure and incentives on OEM (and both were accused of Anti-Trust Violations) to keep their defacto monopolies