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What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch)What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch)Posted Jul 25, 2006 17:53 UTC (Tue) by brouhaha (guest, #1698)In reply to: What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch) by vmole Parent article: What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch) I think you're wrong about AMD not acquiring ATI for the graphics technology. That's where I think most of the value is. AMD has the ability to produce reasonably chipsets inhouse, and has done that in the past. It's true that they have fallen behind on that (due to reduced need with multiple third-party chipset vendors), so they'll certainly get some benefit from the ATI chipset operation. But chipsets are a fairly low-margin operation, so the acquisition can't be justified on that as the primary basis. Going forward, integrated graphics will be the big win for them. Initially that will be in the integrated chipsets for value and mobile systems, but over time all but the super-high-end graphics will get absorbed into the chipsets, and the value to medium-high-end graphics will migrate onto the processor die (especially for the mobile segment), along with most of the chipset functionality (USB ports, etc.)
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What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch) Posted Jul 25, 2006 18:05 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Along these lines, the Inquirer has an interesting article on what they think AMD is up to. It has everything to do with integrating the graphics engine into the processor core. If that is truly the way of it, AMD will be hard put to keep information on graphics proprietary while simultaneously keeping its processors open.
What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch) Posted Jul 25, 2006 18:34 UTC (Tue) by brouhaha (guest, #1698) [Link] I suspect that they'll just bring it on-die. There's no point to actually integrating it into the processor core; just giving it a port to the crossbar switch is sufficient.
What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch) Posted Jul 25, 2006 21:56 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Yep it would just be another core on a multicore chip.
Think about it.. A graphics chip utilizing the same manufacturing proccess and having the similar clock settings (even running at 50% speed would be fast) and such being used in opteron/amd64 chips.
I think that it would effectively blur the line between software rendering and hardware rendering. Also if they keep it open enough it should be very usefull for running high speed encryption/decryption as well as media encoding.
What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch) Posted Jul 26, 2006 7:23 UTC (Wed) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] You miss the point. Graphics and CPU technology are converging (what is a GPU, if not a powerful, dedicated, CPU?).
AMD need to put GPU technology into the CPU (at which point the CPU will become a massively parallel processor, and GPUs will disappear...). It won't be "just another core".
Look at the Open Graphics Project. Although it is allegedly "just a video card", it's actually a pretty powerful DSP and by reprogramming the firmware it would be very easy to turn it into a parallel co-processor, a pc on a chip, a soundcard, or whatever. If AMD can't put that flexibility into its CPUs, it'll be a goner in the next few years.
Charlie wasn't saying "this is a convenient acquisition so AMD can compete with Intel on the graphics front". He said "this is a survival play so AMD can catch up with what Intel currently have in planning". AMD need ATI so they can match the stuff that Intel currently has on the back of a napkin, that will take five years to appear but will be nothing like what we have today ...
Cheers,
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