http://www.elitebastards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15789

Crazy stuff.

I know I'm being an ignorant ******* (I really do know this.) but aside from AMD possibly making all their CPUs only be compatible with ATi cards, what about this impacts the common computer user? Might this perhaps make AMD + ATi only and Intel + nVIdia only now or something?

What could possibly posses you to even think of something like that?

They said that ATI would begin to focus more on integrated solutions which as far as I'm concerned is great. It's about time laptops began getting better IGPs.

i was about to ask.

with this move, in the near future, will ATI and AMD technology begin to work together even more seamlessly and sexually.... i mean, i'm not going to ask something as silly as zloc, but will it make everything smoother?

Smoother?

We might see CPU+GPU merging or something like that for budget PCs and laptops.

i dont know anything about computer hardware, so i'm not going to pretend my question has any basis in reality or that i know what i'm talking about.

but what i mean is... optimisation, will this mean that they can tinker with the two products in order to make them work better with each other.

I suppose this would be because its a natural progression if it were to be true AND it would make ATI folk more inclined toward AMD product and vice versa.

I don't see what they could improve really, but its possible. Its not like you see hardware forums full of "OMFG my CPU won't send info to my GPU!"

You'll probably see more AMD rigs come with ATi cards for starters. Beyond that, I don't think anything major will happen.

intel pulled ati licensing today for the end of '06.
no more ati chipsets on intel boards.

aw. i have an intel cpu and an ati card. i hope they can still be friends after this.

Info on effects on products: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3471

Aside from that, this is really just AMD expanding where it can and delving/trying to capture into different market segments (the whole Intel pulling ati chips thing is a good example of a mechanism for this -- it pulls ATi hardcore loyal people over and opens the door for anyone that's on the fence .. makes stuff more polarized) . It's likely that consideration of how to integrate AMD and ATi products was just that -- a consideration, a plan for the future, but not THE singular driver for the acquisition.

Never used AMD's products, only ATI card I had was ATI Rage II+ 3D around 1998 or so.

5.4 billion is quite neat though.

As people have said, it seems like AMD is looking forward to the future as they grab market share. The technological benefits of the partnership aren't concrete, but it will give them more capital in the long run of the war between the chip makers.

And that's a $5.4E9 acquisition occuring as both AMD and Intel slash prices to gain an edge. Wowsers.

Hyper Transport + GPU anyone?