NVIDIA shares riding high on fresh acquisition rumors

Rumors were flying today around Wall Street trading desks of a pending Intel buyout of NVIDIA, which helped the graphics company to a hefty raise in shares, but didn't do much to validate the whisperings that have been going around ever since AMD snapped up ATI in July. The word was the deal is supposed to go down tonight, so we'll keep an eye out for sure, but we're not holding our breath. There are reasons aplenty for Intel to stay away from NVIDIA, including a hefty asking price -- about three times that of ATI -- and of course the fact that Intel already has some rather successful integrated graphics thank you very much, so the key reasoning behind the AMD / ATI deal just isn't present here. All the same, it'd be pretty badass to have the two biggest CPU processor manufacturers duking it out with the two biggest GPU manufacturers under their respective wings, so we've got our fingers crossed for some gauntlet throwdown tonight.

[Robert @ Oct 4th 2006 8:21PM]

this will be huge

[Patrick @ Oct 4th 2006 8:23PM]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Plz tell me this is a joke.

I am a AMD and Nvid guy.

The AMD & ATI thing already made me piss my pants but, now this might need some weeping. If this is no joke and follows through, I will cry. :(

[moooo @ Oct 4th 2006 8:42PM]

yuck, yuck, yuck.
i already was deterred enough from working for intel because they wanted my resume in "Word" format. at least nvidia understood like all other companies that i don't use Word, thank you very much.

[Kyle Kennedy @ Oct 4th 2006 8:42PM]

Apparently, it is NOT going to happen.

"Just asked my dad, he said that at one point, Intel considered it, and it came down to that it wasn't a very fiscal decision, so it isn't happening or won't be for a long time. ~ Twigge"

[Dave Pevsner @ Oct 4th 2006 8:53PM]

intel sucks.

this would have been a waste on nvidia, thankfully it didn't happen.

when my parents asked me why i don't want an apple, i said "they dont have amd processors fog8uihergugfl."

[Patrick @ Oct 4th 2006 8:55PM]

Kyle tell your dad that I love him. I play cs way to much to be inspired to buy an ati card..... shame on you intel (I actually thought bout gettin a core 2 duo)

[Baby-G @ Oct 4th 2006 9:09PM]

omg wow the gayest thing to happen since amd bought ati........... i think amd should have went with nvidia.... i would be the happiest man on earth....

[Revrant2394 @ Oct 4th 2006 9:40PM]

My Gmail remains without confirmation link, what the hell's going on you guys?

I'm still surprised, to this very day, how people remained hard-line nVidiots after all the crap they pulled with the launch of the FX line, took them quite a while to get the superb(And finally not critically flawed) 7xxx out there.

Anyway, this would be a dire situation for up and comers, I should hope it doesn't happen, Intel and nVidia are already powerful enough with their invisible claws dug into the market, AMD and ATI combined might have *some* chance against *one* entity, but both? No amount of good product would beat that, No sir.

[Kyle Kennedy @ Oct 4th 2006 10:02PM]

I couldn't go back to ATI, not after I experienced the quality of their graphics cards manufacturing back in the day. nVidia has been good to me, and all of my friends. I wouldn't give my money to anyone else. :)

[Dave @ Oct 4th 2006 10:07PM]

It might be expensive, but it would make both companies quite a bit stronger. It's not that either "needs" the other, but rather they'd have a lot of talent together to bring some serious technology to the table. Philosophically I think Intel would gain a lot from Nvidia's risky side and Nvidia would gain from the counter.

I do realize it's the cost that gets to be a hampering issue. From a technology side they could have done very well together.

oh well :(

[John @ Oct 4th 2006 10:08PM]

Hmm... I for one would think this would be very interesting. It would certainly cause a big shake-up with the computer manufacturers.

http://www.speculationcentral.com

[erg @ Oct 4th 2006 10:14PM]

Intel must be going crazy over the possibility of ATI GPU/streaming processor (you know, the one that processes F@A tasks 40 times faster than Core 2?) going right into an AM3 socket.

[telepheedian @ Oct 4th 2006 10:22PM]

I would love for this to happen. Why? Intel has finally beat AMD in the processor market and NVIDIA has always had great GPUS (with the dishonorable exception of the short-lived 5 series). The main reason I like them is all the neat stuff they include with drivers or have free (3-d support, Gelato, etc.) I didn't like Intel before, but the Core 2 has changed my mind

[Ferny @ Oct 4th 2006 10:33PM]

wasn't Intel in a big financial loss that they were selling divisions and laying off employees? if they had to resort to that I don't think they would have enough money to buy nVidia. plus I think nVidia would ask for too much (appropriately so)

[julio @ Oct 4th 2006 10:50PM]

Why are you people so fiercely loyal to the companies who make your CPUs and GPUs? Go be loyal and blindly fanatic about the company you work for, who gives you a paycheck so you can afford your precious intarwebs. Go be loyal and fanatic about the company who makes the car you drive, the company that made your father's pacemaker, something importaint. Get a life.

[brandon.a.warren @ Oct 4th 2006 10:51PM]

great.. now when the best video card is from one company and the best cpu is from the other, there will no doubt be some sort of malicious code keeping them from running together correctly. This type of BS has happened way to much in the recent (and distant) past make me think it won't happen in the future. This is bad news IMHO.

[chbob @ Oct 4th 2006 10:55PM]

Like others I was disappointed in the AMD/ATI merger and am glad this one won't happen. Hopefully AMD can kick ATI into gear and get out some decent drivers.

[The Rev @ Oct 4th 2006 11:27PM]

well hopefully nivida keeps going up because i made over $400 today

[Nova @ Oct 4th 2006 11:30PM]

That can be a good thing. Best CPU company with best GPU company, that only can make good things at all (I hope). Personnally, this is really my 2 favorite compagnies in computing. What can I ask more?

[Zorque @ Oct 5th 2006 12:01AM]

I really hope this doesn't go through. The previous merger was bad enough, but this would eliminate choice altogether. Much of the point of the home computer is that it can be customized, and if people are locked in to one company or another, I can bet a third party that would allow customization would gain strength very quickly and steal a lot of market share from the "big two".

[an_observer @ Oct 5th 2006 12:45AM]

This doesn't make sense. A huge chunk of nVidia's revenues come from AMD-PCs. So, if it was bought out by Intel, those will zip; it should be valued at a much much lower cap than $10.96 billions, or Tuesday's close, $9 billions. I don't think Intel is desperate enough to pay a premium even on top of that. nVidia is not a cash cow. No way to stay balance positive for years, especially considering how saturated + competitive that market is... sounds like somebody screws up the math.

[ebob9 @ Oct 5th 2006 1:22AM]

I hate to say this but..

Often, when companies merge or are aquired, this has a 'cooling effect' on innovation from the aquired company.

It takes time to merge management structures, roadmaps, resources, etc. Even if the companies say they will be totally seperate units, that never seems to actually happen.

Sure, Nvidia could possibly be losing out on AMD Consumer business in the future when AMD+ATI are fully meshed. But in the short term, ATI will likely falter on their roadmap. In the GPU market, that's a really big deal.

Nvidia could take advantage of a ATI falter, and be in a much stronger position in 6-12 months, which would make them more valuable to merge. However, a merger now involves less risk (and heaven forbid, risk taken by a corporation!).

If Nvidia does get aquired by Intel, that would be a good time for a 3rd party chipset maker to innovate and get in the game. Any of them left for the task? (S3? I miss my ViRGE - haha).

ebob

[Noah @ Oct 5th 2006 1:43AM]

Sheesh, I'm a Mac user, and I thought I was religious about my computer. Wait, nevermind, I remember almost beating a guy up for calling a G4 slow.

That said, that same guy kicked my ass in CS, Quake, Doom, Mortal Kombat, um, and Pong. Yes.

Any, I think if anything happens in 5 years, it will be that the GPU and CPU will become more specialized in their operations, but less distringuishable in their make up, where there will be strictly parallel cores running along side scalar cores. It is totally belevable that a system can split the highly parallel operations from the non-parallelized operations without that split having to be designated in code. Thus, a GPU will lean more towards parallel, providing massive amounts of raw processing power, while now being able to throw some complex tasks into the mix with greater ease. Similarlly, a CPU will become more efficent in certian tasks that are repitious. Remember, this is just a theory, but it does seem likely.

Overall, what I would love to see on my desktop 5 years down the road, is a Dual Processor Mac Pro with each processor having 81 cores (just like Intel said + 1). These cores would of course be very similar to today's Core 2 lines, of course, just more advanced and more per chip. Since you can throw a lot at that processor, it would be smart to put about 9 "Parallel" cores to deal with these parallel tasks. On the graphics end I would love to see a serial slot (preferably some sort of optical connection at this point) which is running set of ganged graphics cards which are able to take some load from the CPU for highly parallel non-graphics tasks. Combine this with a 1-quadrabyte hard disk (which won't be a disk at that point, but who cares), a blu-ray/hd-dvd/dvd/cd/Holographic Disk drive, and you would be golden.

Of course, by then, Apple will have probably made the case a white sphere which causes euphoria from looking at it.

I can dream can't I?

[Robert @ Oct 5th 2006 6:08AM]

maybe we will get free g8800's with out new Quad Core Processors! that would be a nice 2-300 upgrade!!!

[lincoln.blodgett @ Oct 5th 2006 9:05AM]

I'm an intel boy, the core 2 has really proven itself. I know there's a lot of AMD guys here, but until AMD takes the lead I'm running with Intel, I have a Pentium D that's overclocked anyways. My intial thought was yay, finally those Ati boys can shut up about how great AMD is. I have a Nvidia 7900 GT, it works very well with my Intel. But after some consideration, I figured that eventually Nvidia would be bought out by Intel, to help Intel gain leverage over AMD/ATI. Intel's i.g. sucks ass, Nvidia would seriously help that. At the moment to enter the graphics card game would be very risky. Since ATI now have an expanded budget, it can really lay down the law, but if Intel buys Nvidia, then you have to giant superpowers with very big budgets, in particular Intel being favored as they have the newest and fastest product, and they also have a large revenue source mainly because of the contracts with the big computer makers. Now anyone who attempted to enter the market after this would be smashed to pieces by both powers. It's like coming to a Nascar race with a go kart.

[Shmee150 @ Oct 5th 2006 10:32AM]

At least this means the QX6700 and 8800GTX will work together happily - make for an awesome computer come xmas :)

ShMeE

[Gamey McGee @ Oct 5th 2006 12:32PM]

So the #2 Graphics chip producer is asking 3 times that of #1? LOL. Good luck nVidia.

[Ian @ Oct 5th 2006 6:45PM]

Well I don't like intel but currently I've got a AMD and nVidia machine. Since I don't really have a problem with ATI it looks like nVidia would lose my business if this were true, thats a shame to, they do make good products.

[Dan @ Dec 9th 2006 9:00PM]

Do we need another merger? Can't we have open choice here? This is getting really stupid.