NVIDIA / Ageia deal gets officially official

Well that was fast -- just nine days after announcing plans to acquire PhysX maker Ageia, NVIDIA said today that the deal is done. Still no word on when we might see NVIDIA cards with Ageia tech in them, but we'll let these two enjoy their first Valentine's day as a happy couple merged corporate entity before we start asking the hard questions.

[Thanks, Ryan]

[Pismodude @ Feb 13th 2008 8:38PM]

Happy VT day!!!

[Nathan @ Feb 13th 2008 10:54PM]

As long as it's not VD day, it's all good.

[Fraggle.Rock @ Feb 14th 2008 3:48AM]

Happy 'Victory Technology' Day???

Well, I guess so :-)

[erhan @ Feb 13th 2008 8:43PM]

I now pronounce you Man and Wife. ;)

[NineT9 @ Feb 13th 2008 8:58PM]

you may now kiss the bride

[Mark Nelson @ Feb 13th 2008 9:04PM]

...and line up redundant employees for immediate dismissal.

[Jeremiah Zachary Hoffman @ Feb 13th 2008 9:15PM]

so Nvidia has Ageia; Intel has Havok; and AMD has ATI but no physics companies..... who will win the integrated graphics/physics/cpu war?

[tekdroid @ Feb 13th 2008 9:25PM]

hopefully no-one. I want choice and lower prices :)

[Jeremiah Zachary Hoffman @ Feb 13th 2008 9:36PM]

i agree... but you know it'll end up some kind of "physics war"

[Wwhat @ Feb 13th 2008 11:34PM]

From what I gathered they all decided to basically give up on HW assisted physics and let game developers, and maybe MS if they decide so, to fill the gap.
I'm not expecting anything of ageia's physX to actually end up in a nvidia hardware product ever.

[Fraggle.Rock @ Feb 14th 2008 3:58AM]

@Wwhat

So NVIDIA bought Ageia for the fun of it? Maybe they had nothing better to do? Or perhaps they thought Ageia had some interesting ideas and/or products, a strong lead in a niche market that will likely grow in the near future, the chance to essentially purchase a number of preexisting patents, and the fact that Ageia is a small but proven company that would allow NVIDIA to make an acquisition that doesn't cost too much capital while representing relatively low risk???

Nah, you're right Wwhat - NVIDIA will never incorporate any Ageia technology into their cards - you make a good point! ;-|

[Wwhat @ Feb 14th 2008 7:23AM]

Yeah people buy companies for weird reasons, many good companies over time have been bought then killed off, they can buy it for to get the 'talent' or to get the patents to use in something else.
Plus they could have bought it for their non-game cards, see this link for example:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_computing_solutions.html

So don't hold your breath to see it in game-level graphics cards.

[Darkest Daze @ Feb 14th 2008 9:54AM]

Actually they bought it for the physics software that Ageia created. Basically Nvidia will be using it as a Havok substitute that will use your GFX card as an accelerator. They just don't seem to want the actual physix processor business.

[Reader @ Feb 13th 2008 9:28PM]

What type of gift does one company get for another on Valentine's Day?

[tekdroid @ Feb 13th 2008 9:32PM]

simulated PHYSical eXertion.

[geekboy314 @ Feb 13th 2008 9:34PM]

a couple million in cash

[Pismodude @ Feb 13th 2008 9:38PM]

Hype, apparently not every company can appear better than it actually is all by its lonesome :-(

[Frankenstein Black @ Feb 13th 2008 10:00PM]

Hooraaaay! looking forward to a free'ed up PCI (PCIe) slot. Now we can actually add that Killer NIC, HD tuner or latest 7.1 SB card. On another note, still Sirius/XM waits! How sick is that?!

[mike @ Feb 13th 2008 10:13PM]

...they just aren't ready for that level of commitment.

[johnnychipface @ Feb 14th 2008 1:14AM]

Latest soundblaster... really? I mean that's a little Timmy if you ask me (which you're not, I'm just pointing it out).

[paul34 @ Feb 14th 2008 3:01AM]

Agreed. I'm still waiting for my dual-slot sound card that uses liquid cooling to barely stay stable while eating up 700W of glorious power.

Well, creative?! My Audigy 2 isn't getting any younger!

[Zorque @ Feb 14th 2008 5:14AM]

I wonder what Intel's planning for Havok upon realizing that PhysX suddenly became feasible. Hopefully something really nice.

[Timerider @ Feb 14th 2008 2:56PM]

Does that mean if you have an ATI graphics card you can't get PhysX?

[bartoron @ Feb 14th 2008 4:03PM]

At the moment I don't think that's the case, but in the near future who knows.

[brian @ Mar 8th 2008 7:41PM]

Nvidia bought Ageia since there IP can be embedded into the shades model and adds value to the consumer by leveraging all of Nvidia's huge software development with all current game developers. Doesn't anyone get the picture that physics enginine will be huge avantage to serve the compute market segment in acdemia or science industries. Nvidia is thinking long term, and they believe that in order to survive they will need to compete head on with Intel. I'm sure in the short term nvidia will confine to support there near term product roadmap Ageia has worked to establish. Yes companies buy other companies for all sorts of reasons. I'm sure it will be very interesting times at nvidia and I would be surprised if AMD goes on the auction block and nvida takes second place to Intel.