AMD and ATI to pitch merger to shareholders on Monday?

The little rumor that just wouldn't die is finally getting quite a bit of cred behind it. The Inquirer -- the folks who put the kibosh on that first round of whispers -- is now reporting that AMD and ATI are planning on pitching a merger to their shareholders on Monday. Apparently AMD doesn't quite have the cash to buy ATI straight up, but a merger, if approved by the shareholders and regulatory bodies, includes all the strategic wins for both companies, such as partnering on integrated graphics and AMD access to ATI's handheld division. This would also presumably end the longstanding AMD/Nvidia partnership on chipsets, and throw a whole wrench into the GPU wars, so we're feeling good about this merger merely from an industry drama standpoint.

[Thanks, Peter K.]

[korey @ Jul 21st 2006 1:58PM]

Ati please dont do it AMD is horrible use intel use the best

[Trae @ Jul 21st 2006 2:00PM]

The best? In goes back and forth each generation of chips.

[hj @ Jul 21st 2006 2:15PM]

Given how much AMD depends on Nvidia for chipsets I don't know why anyone would think this is a good idea. Do they want to go back to the k7 days of depending on shitset maker VIA!?

[k7 user @ Jul 21st 2006 2:42PM]

Good point hj. I felt bad for amd back in the k7 era. While they had the better desktop chip they had to depend on buggy chipset maker via which really held back the k7's potential when it came to gaining marketshare. I told everyone (before nvidia entered the market) if you get an amd board get one based on an AMD or SIS chipset. I'm still a happy k7s5a (sis 735) user to this day. One would think AMD would have learned their lesson from the k7 and pumped more capital into developing their own chipsets like intel does.

[Steve @ Jul 21st 2006 2:48PM]

I was at a little meet and greet recently with some IBM guys and one of them told me that the AMD corporate jet was at buttonville airport(smaller airport near ATI headquaters in markham) so they have definitly been talking

[Alex @ Jul 21st 2006 3:15PM]

ATI (ATYT I think) is up 3% today but AMD plunged 13% and is at a 52wk low ... interestingly, i couldn't find any mention of this on Yahoo's news tickers, so it seems this isn't widely known yet.

[Taylor G. @ Jul 21st 2006 3:16PM]

I really hope this doesn't happen, because, while I'm a big advocate of AMD, I have a severe dislike of ATIs graphic cards. Their drivers have always been too buggy for my liking.

[saboola @ Jul 21st 2006 3:20PM]

Subject: AMD ATI Merger Shareholder meeting cancelled.

Message: The merger meeting has been cancelled. It was point out by "korey" on the Engadget.com forums that "AMD is horrible" and that we should "use intel use the best". Sorry for all the trouble.

ATi Management

[Bizzle @ Jul 21st 2006 3:23PM]

I think this could go either way.
Yes it is a big risk in trusting ATI which is a smallisher company compared to others in the industry.
But the prospect of an AMD-ATI super chip could lead to huge innovations in the PC and many other industries. Think about the bandwidth and processing speed a chip like that could produce...

[Erik Nelson @ Jul 21st 2006 3:23PM]

I don't know why The Inquirer is considered a good source. Fuad is a fucking dumbass.

[k7 user @ Jul 21st 2006 3:50PM]

Taylor, I agree with you 100% on the ATI drivers issue. While I've always enjoyed their superior 2d performance in the non-gaming environment I've always been annoyed by driver bugs that I've never had with nvidia cards.

[NullSpace @ Jul 21st 2006 3:54PM]

OMG saboola, I almost pissed my pants laughing. ^__^;;

I could care less if AMD and ATI merge... I can't stand either of them.

[Revrant @ Jul 21st 2006 3:59PM]

AMD haters after all this time? What a bunch of Dumbasses, Intel generally sucked by comparison for so many years, and only Now is getting back into the price/performance lead with the superb Core 2 Duo, all this time, there's Still people out there hating AMD.

Just amazing dumbasses, get it made into an Olympic sport and Enter yourselves, bias smacktards.

Next off, this might hurt AMD in the short term, but if the partnership can hold out, we might have the beginnings of a new Technological Superpower by mutual benefaction.

[jgs9455 @ Jul 21st 2006 4:15PM]

I'd rather see AMD merge with Nvidia.

[Veritas II @ Jul 21st 2006 5:05PM]

I'm for it if they fire everyone previously responsible for ATI's terrible drivers. They're so bad it should be criminal.

[SuicideNinja @ Jul 21st 2006 5:28PM]

I pick Intel for reliability and AMD for performance. Intel is great "for the office", but I generally want AMD CPU's in my home machines.

As for ATI, I've not had problems with any of their drivers in the last few years. In the Win98 days...oh yeah....but not really now.

I don't think it's necessarily a terrible idea, and it could benefit both companies in the long run.

[HalfTwitch @ Jul 21st 2006 5:31PM]

That was great saboola, but! i love my AMD and i love my Nvidia. if amd were to lock in ATi then id end up having to switch to either ATI or intel and with depending on intels new chipset, i may go intel/nvidia
....i cant stand ATI

[iceman2929 @ Jul 21st 2006 5:32PM]

the only reason why AMD would merge with ATI instead of Nvidea is because they are both three letter accronyms so they can save money by using one less A for example:

A M D
T
I

[Revrant @ Jul 21st 2006 5:41PM]

ATI hate too...I've never had any driver problems, they had a superb set of cards in the 9700-X800 series, a Junk X850 and a Junk X1800, then back to a superb(If a tad loud) X1900, I dumped nVidia after they stuck the consumers with the Horrible Crap that was the launch of the FX line, they didn't manage to really redeem themselves until the 6600 became so consumer friendly, and the 78/900 reclaimed, in full, a price/performance lead.

Why are people so God damned Bias? This is why I can't stand Best Buy, every punk has some kind of Bias with the products, and they try to Sway you one way or the other despite what might be best.

[Jerry @ Jul 21st 2006 6:50PM]

oh god no

[chris @ Jul 21st 2006 7:43PM]

superb x800 but junk x850, me not understand, care to explain?

[Revrant @ Jul 21st 2006 11:56PM]

The X850 offered a very slim performance gain, a hotter card, and a much louder fan, it was akin to the 5950 and 5900, not a quality increase in performance, but more a reason to Jack up the price for the "New" product.

[Tom @ Jul 22nd 2006 1:46AM]

Wouldn't this stiffle our ability to pick and choose components for our gaming PCs? Isn't this just decreasing variety and innovation and competition? Isn't this going to raise prices?

[Liam @ Jul 22nd 2006 2:19AM]

So what does this mean for us mac people? Since most Macs seem to use ATI for graphics.

I just hope this doesn't mean (more) integrated graphics.

[Altoid @ Jul 22nd 2006 3:05AM]

What if AMD decides to keep supporting nVidia? Could this merger force a new bond with nVidia and ATi? All are fine companies in there own right, and while I use an AMD, nVidia powered machine, I think ATi does great in their own ways and I hope each of the companies continues to make impressive equipment.

[st @ Jul 22nd 2006 11:38AM]

I think a few of you are missing the point of the ATI/AMD merger.

Even if AMD does not get chipsets from NVIDIA anymore, they get them from ATI, so the whole talk about AMD going back to the K7 days is not going to happen because ATI will make their chipsets.

Also, I do believe that this merger is more focused on mobile devices as AMD has spent a lot of time and resources in the past 2 years to improve their mobile device department.

So no K7 days and better mobile devices.

But seriously, who trusts the Inquirer as a reliable source?

signing out,
st

[Mike @ Jul 22nd 2006 11:44AM]

Ugh, ATI drivers are horrible. On my AThlon 64 3200+ system, it takes a minute just to even show the driver center, and then it never remembers my dual monitor video settings with forced TV detection, and yes, its the latest driver.

They have always been really slow, and not very user friendly.

[tekdroid @ Jul 22nd 2006 1:41PM]

ATI make terrible chipsets too, if my sister's el cheapo HP laptop is any indication. Random crashes where you'd never expect them. Drivers or chipset? Who knows. Get what you pay for, I guess.

[Scott Sibley @ Jul 23rd 2006 2:22AM]

This is deal is not just to be found from The Inquirer alone but some very reliable sources as well:

CNN Money, Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal to name a few:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/21/technology/amd_atitech.reut/index.htm

http://www.bloombergnews.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2OI7WZvKSvY&refer=home

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15099287.htm