TIL AMD almost bought Nvidia before settling with ATI in 2006

[u/AaronDotCom]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2012/02/22/amd-talked-with-nvidia-about-acquisition-before-grabbing-ati/?sh=7ced24a87a79

[u/Masou0007]

At the time, it felt like nForce2 chipsets were the best thing to happen to AMD cpus. They didn't suck nearly as bad as the VIA and ALi chipsets that amd users suffered with since Socket7

[u/ecktt]

Had they done that, Jenssen would have fixed AMD.

ATi would have remained competitive but still have shit drivers.

We would not have had 10 years of 4 core is all you need.

Remember when tecfluencers used to say that? Even when there was a 6 core tri memory channel setup from Intel?

That reminds me of how much shit tecfluencers are and how gullible the public is.

[u/gigaplexian → u/ecktt]

4 cores was all you needed back then as the software didn't take advantage of more.

[u/ecktt → u/gigaplexian]

I'm going to argue that the Ryzen basically kicked devs to start using more threads, there by breaking the cycle.

On a different note, I'd also argue that AMD drove the fairly constant 300-350USD flagship processor price up to 600USD and nobody batted an eye.

[u/f4ern]

nvidia become NVIDIA because they are independent company focused on thing that they are good at. Nvidia would have been ruined by AMD.

[u/ToadP]

Oh please... does nobody remember that Nvidia got all of 3dfx tech due to insider collusion while the shareholders of 3dfx got squat? Nvidia is only where they are because of 3dfx.

[u/Sopadechancla]

Nice thing they didn't, they would have turned Nvidia to shit.

[u/aura_enchanted]

you will also learn today that BFG tech left nvidia for AMD only to then get sued into the ground by jensen over a no compete contract violation

[u/Wellhellob]

It would be so bad. We are in lucky timeline.

[u/CartoonistInfamous76]

"Looks like you backed the wrong horse."

[u/thadoughboy15]

Lol. Now Nvidia could easily buy them. Crazy how things play out in the end. 🤣🤣

[u/Schnoofles → u/thadoughboy15]

For a while there Nvidia's R&D budget alone eclipsed AMD's total revenue. Things were so lopsided it was mindboggling, and things were looking pretty dire for AMD until they found their footing with later Zen revisions.

[u/Le_Nabs → u/Schnoofles]

Same thing on Intel's side. It's kind of astonishing that AMD has any kind of relevance whatsoever when you put their numbers between 2010-2018 and compare them to both Intel and Nvidia.

[u/Blacksad9999]

AMD tried, but Nvidia wasn't as willing as they'd like.

Jensen Huang said that he'd consider it, but only if the two companies merged and he would be the CEO of the new combined company.

[u/KingSwirlyEyes]

Thanks to this not happening I just bought the equivalent to RTX3070 with 16gb vram for $340 from AMD instead of $550.

[u/zeehkaev]

Both immensely successful companies. Thanks God it went that way, who knows what could've happened with nvidia under AMD, probably a monopoly and poorer products from both.

[u/clark1785 → u/zeehkaev]

no because Jensen would have been CEO of Nvidia if they did accept

[u/clark1785 → u/[deleted]]

Thats what I mean for it to work Jensen would have been the CEO, which is counter to the above post

[u/6SpeedMaverick]

That's life for ya.

[u/MakimaGOAT]

Huge fumble for AMD but great for us consumers that it didnt happen

[u/Wow_Space → u/MakimaGOAT]

Yeah, Nvidia was way bigger ambitions in general than amd.

[u/RacecarDriverGuy]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but the reason AMD pulled out of the deal was because of an argument between the 2 CEO's. AMD's CEO wanted to be the CEO of the joint company. The NVIDIA CEO said he wanted to be the CEO. No compromise was found so the deal died right there. That's how I remember it...

[u/SplatoonOrSky → u/RacecarDriverGuy]

Aren’t both CEOs cousins with each other? Talk about a classic cousin argument

[u/mx1701 → u/RacecarDriverGuy]

Well Jensen Huang is an arrogant shithead so...

[u/faroukq → u/RacecarDriverGuy]

If amd were to buy nvidia why would nvidia's ceo be the ceo of the joint company?

[u/JustifytheMean → u/faroukq]

Ask Boeing why they are the way they are now.

[u/AverageBoatEnjoyer → u/JustifytheMean]

Don't ask Boeing too many questions unless you want to shoot yourself in the back of the head 3 times with a bolt action rifle.

[u/RacecarDriverGuy → u/faroukq]

That's what the AMD CEO was saying... lol

[u/faroukq → u/RacecarDriverGuy]

So you are saying I have the mindset of AMD's CEO????

[u/yflhx → u/faroukq]

Because ultimately CEO is just an employee, not the owner. Sure, he is very important, but can be replaced. Most famously, when Boeing bought McDonnel Douglas it was the latter company's execs and culture that took over. It's said that "McD bought Boeing with Boeing's money".

[u/faroukq → u/yflhx]

Interesting. So just the more competitive guy gets it. Or realistically the guy who pleases the board of investors the most

[u/wegotthisonekidmongo → u/faroukq]

Sometimes it's the guy with the loudest wet fart. True story.

[u/RacecarDriverGuy → u/faroukq]

Sometimes it's negotiated ahead of time as part of the merger. CEO A stays on for the merger, then gets a fat fucking separation package and CEO B takes over long term.

[u/Anxious-Machine-727]

Just another AMD blunder. It's a miracle they're still in business.

[u/IndyPFL → u/Anxious-Machine-727]

Yeah, rumor has it consoles sell like 10 units each anymore and the Steam Deck flopped hard...

Edit: This is sarcasm, lmfao.

[u/TemperatureLive3182 → u/IndyPFL]

123 million psn users in December 2023, probably more on Xbox, so I doubt that.

[u/IndyPFL → u/TemperatureLive3182]

As I mentioned to the other guy, I know sarcasm isn't super easy to pick up on via text but come on lmao.

[u/TemperatureLive3182 → u/IndyPFL]

123 million psn users in December 2023, probably more on Xbox, so I doubt that.

[u/steaksoldier → u/IndyPFL]

steam deck flopped hard

X: doubt

[u/IndyPFL → u/steaksoldier]

I know sarcasm doesn't convey the greatest over text but come on, lmao.

[u/steaksoldier → u/IndyPFL]

You’re right, sarcasm doesn’t convey well over text. Sarcasm is literally based entirely on tone, thats why we have things like the “/s” or alternating caps. It’s not my fault you didn’t think before you typed.

[u/uuwatkolr → u/steaksoldier]

r/FuckTheS, alternating caps are annoying too. The issue here is that →you← are way too quick to assume that another person is dumb, when it's more likely that →you← misunderstood their message.

[u/IndyPFL → u/steaksoldier]

I'm well aware of how stupid people on the internet can be.

But did you even read my comment or think about it before you typed?

"Consoles sell like ten units each" is not exactly something any sane person would say... If you have the knowledge of clicking rocks together to make noise, you have the knowledge needed to see I wasn't being serious.

It's not my fault you clearly fell below that bar.

[u/steaksoldier → u/IndyPFL]

Now you’re using an ad hominem right off the bat. You’re mad at everyone else for your own mistake and it’s not a good look dude. Getting mad over downvotes is just sad..

[u/IndyPFL → u/steaksoldier]

"Right off the bat" again, more proof you're not even reading my comments before leaving them. But what else would I expect from someone that frequents political forums? Politeness? Decency?

I don't even care which side gets taken, I see red or blue and I know I'm gonna be treated like garbage because you all throw away politeness in the pursuit of political superiority.

If I was truly mad, I would have done what I'm about to do from the getgo. You insulted me first, and now you're mad I returned the favor...

No one can ever take what they dish out.

[u/LickingMySistersFeet → u/Anxious-Machine-727]

That’s actually true.

Their GPU business is still alive because of consoles and their CPU business is alive because Intel went to sleep and didn’t innovate.

[u/feedmedamemes → u/LickingMySistersFeet]

Intel might also had ulterior motives. They kind of left AMD with the scraps because of AMD had gone out of business. The question about monopoly have come up, which in the US might have let to a splitting up off the firm. Anti trust can be a bitch sometimes.

I think I read somewhere that Intel wasn't initially to unhappy, that AMD made a decent product with Ryzen. Obviously that changed after they saw what a game changer the Zen architecture was.

[u/Anxious-Machine-727 → u/feedmedamemes]

The issue with AMD is CPUs are really their only go-to and one could argue they aren't the best at it. I'll never purchase any AMD GPU ever again, had a horrible experience on the platform and I'll never abide their software. Any other hardware I could really care less about. I know that I'm not everyone but I've always been close to the median. They just don't have much going for them moving forward it seems.

I think they only exist today because of antitrust. The gov went after Intel and Intel agreed to let both Cyrix and AMD reverse engineer their CPUs in the spirit of competition. Cyrix was bought and sold a few times before becoming the SOC platform for AMD until just a few years ago. Now AMD did innovate the Zen platform and Ryzen, but there doesn't seem to be much more to be expected beyond that.

[u/feedmedamemes → u/Anxious-Machine-727]

Who are you the owner of userbenchmark? AMD CPU right now are great, Intel struggled for years to keep up and cannot beat them without extreme power consumption. Intel is now the one playing catch up

Regarding GPUs? I had because of budget constraints mid-range to budget cards the last 10 years. Starting with the highly competitive R 200 series (a 280x) then a RX 590 because the R 280x couldn't hold up anymore and now a 6600x. The only major issues I had with the driver and software was with the RDNA2 one because it had a bug where the driver crashed when going into screensaver mode with the monitor. Other then that, never any issues.

I really suspect with all the reported problems either BS or the problem lies between chair and monitor.

[u/TheOnlyCraz]

Im sure I could figure this out with a quick Google search, but how long did AMD continue to use the ATI brand? My laptop from ~2009-2010 had ATI graphics.

[u/condoulo → u/TheOnlyCraz]

IIRC it was the HD6000 series when they switched over to AMD branding as I remember having an HD5750 that was still ATI branding.

[u/TheOnlyCraz → u/condoulo]

Makes sense! As I have the Mobility Radeon HD5870. The laptop that started my enjoyment of ASUS.

https://preview.redd.it/dgz8kgr9d9yc1.jpeg?width=420&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=042144320d3f8364d89d61e34808f1aad2f461e8

[u/SameRandomUsername]

by 2006 nvidia was already leaps ahead of ati

[u/handymanshandle → u/SameRandomUsername]

Nvidia was quite behind ATI for a while in the early 2000s. The Radeon 9000, X300 and X1000 series were very competitive with their Nvidia counterparts at their worst and completely slammed them at their best. It took the venerable generation-defining 8000 series and the initial fumbling of TeraScale to really turn the tables for Nvidia. That double whammy set ATI back right as AMD bought them up.

[u/SameRandomUsername → u/handymanshandle]

By 2005 nVidia already had the 7800GTX... All ATI could do at that time was melting gpus and I was one of those that got burned by those shitty ATI GPUs. All cause I followed an ex friend's advice to go ATI.

[u/stereopticon11 → u/SameRandomUsername]

the x1900xtx was a great competitor to the 7000 series. the 8000 series however made a mockery of ATi

[u/oandakid718]

This is back in the days of nForce motherboards from Nvidia. If ATI bought Nvidia it would have led to the biggest hardware monopoly you’d ever seen

[u/Un111KnoWn → u/oandakid718]

where was intel?

[u/Mashiki → u/Un111KnoWn]

Sitting on it's ass like usual, and not paying attention to the market. It goes through phases like that.

[u/Burgergold → u/oandakid718]

Not ATI, AMD

[u/im_just_thinking → u/oandakid718]

That's a big maybe tho, there is a reason why each company achieved what they did, if it was all just under AMD roof, we could have just AMD, or could as well have a different big player instead of Nvidia. This is a silly point tbh

[u/0utlook → u/oandakid718]

I had a Athlon XP 1900+ (1600+ maybe?) on an nForce 2 chipset. That hardware lasted me years.

[u/SailorMint → u/0utlook]

You're lucky, my Athlon XP 2800+ outlived 2 motherboards.

[u/Shining_prox → u/[deleted]]

I still remember the original article where some scientists tried to use OpenGL to compute something and where astonished to the power the nvidia 4600 ti series. But the real use began with folding at home using 1950x and 7800s house to accelerate protein folding calculations.

Remember that there was not even a concept of compute shaders when they tried this in 2002

Compute was an accident created by a few crazy scientists playing around with their gaming machines. Deal with it

[u/clark1785 → u/Shining_prox]

I hardly think it was an accident. Seeing the huge jumps in 3d graphics power in a few short years for consumer products even at that time, it was a no brainer

[u/Shining_prox → u/clark1785]

The spark is often accident, someone needs to be the first

[u/Zheros00 → u/[deleted]]

Ermmm, I don’t think so. Graphics was the foundation on which gpus were built. That includes Nvidia. It just so happened that other forms of programming benefited from the same parallel programming that graphics did

[u/Shining_prox → u/Zheros00]

I still remember the original article where some scientists tried to use OpenGL to compute something and where astonished to the power the nvidia 4600 ti series. But the real use began with folding at home using 1950x and 7800s house to accelerate protein folding calculations.

Remember that there was not even a concept of compute shaders when they tried this in 2002

[u/virtikle_two → u/Shining_prox]

Man, these companies could really use some new naming conventions lol.

[u/handymanshandle → u/[deleted]]

Both Intel and AMD had been working rather hard to minimize the necessity of a chipset for a long while by the time AMD bought ATI out. That was one of the motivations for AMD to buy ATI out and it was a primary motivator for getting the memory controller moved to the CPU. There was that whole Timna project from Intel, too. AMD buying Nvidia probably wouldn’t have changed that aspect of history, although the Fusion project probably would have looked a fair bit different in the end.

[u/MCA2142 → u/oandakid718]

I remember nforce chipsets being a requirement for using multiple 8800s in SLI.

Wow that was such a long time ago.

[u/illwill79 → u/MCA2142]

I had 2 of the bfg gtxs. I remember this vividly lol. I also remember the copium of thinking it was all worth it lmao. I was still rocking a crt at the time, 1920x1200 gang.

[u/Andrew_hl2 → u/MCA2142]

I remember nForce (soundstorm) being the first motherboard that had integrated audio that was good enough I didn't feel like I needed an extra sound blaster.

[u/[deleted] → u/Andrew_hl2]

RIP Aureal

[u/DuckCleaning → u/Andrew_hl2]

So glad that sound cards are a thing of the past

[u/IllustratorBoring448 → u/DuckCleaning]

Ha. Nforce 1 and 2 has dolby digital live. The only other solutions to this day are sound cards that have real time encoding.

I loved soundstorm so much I bought the first card ever to encode dd in real time, when nvidia didn't on nforce 3. Its called hda digital x mystique and I still use it to this day. I have yet to hear integrated sound that compares, or even comes close.

1 cable. 5.1 sound.

[u/[deleted] → u/DuckCleaning]

Aureal cards were so awsome tho.

[u/Andrew_hl2 → u/DuckCleaning]

Yeah I don't really have a lot of nostalgia for sound cards and their fidgety drivers...

[u/animeman59 → u/Andrew_hl2]

I remember Asus having one of the best sound cards years ago, because it's drivers didn't fuck with anything.

Sound card drivers are right up there with printer drivers as some of the most god awful software you can install.

[u/Berfs1 → u/animeman59]

With very high impedance headphones, you can tell the difference, especially in the bass with the DT 990 600ohm. On board audio without an on board amplifier would barely play any bass, but on another board whose on board audio had an amplifier, the bass was pretty deep. At the moment I am using a Maximus XI Gene, versus an X Hero previously, so I ended up getting a SupremeFX HiFi which fits in one of my 5.25" bays, and the audio is stupidly awesome for a 40$ DAC, and it even has a nice brushed aluminum volume dial!

[u/virtikle_two → u/MCA2142]

Lol, sure do! I remember speccing my dream machine out with dual 8800GTs and getting frustrated at the lack of main board choice due to this. That machine actually still runs! Q6600, 8 gigs of DDR2 and the dual 8800s sits under my dad's desk to this day. Paid in full with money from my first job.

Those 8800s slapped. Crysis with all the bells and whistles was beautiful. Ah, memories.

[u/animeman59 → u/virtikle_two]

You had my setup, except with 4GB of memory and one 8800GT. I paired it with an amazing 24-inch NEC CRT monitor and ran that screen for years until it finally died, and I switched to a 1080p IPS monitor.

I miss the 8800GT, too. I miss those powerful single slot cards.

[u/CarpeMofo → u/virtikle_two]

I had a Q6600 as the first CPU I bought with my own money after becoming an adult. I loved that chip. I was able to overclock mine to a full 3 ghz without raising voltage and it was stable as shit.

[u/thesteveyo → u/CarpeMofo]

Are you me? Curious to know what your first CPU was before the Q6600. I had some hand-me-down dual core Celeron.

[u/CarpeMofo → u/thesteveyo]

My first CPU was a 633 mhz Celeron. But that was just a cheap, off the shelf Dell. My first actual gaming machine was a 1.8 ghz Pentium 4 with a Geforce 4 ti4200.

[u/ChanceFray → u/virtikle_two]

my sli 9800gtx+ build still lives to! they don't make hardware like they used to.. That pc heated the entire apartment when it was my main rig. Also i didn't "need" to upgrade till around 2016 lol. I think it was rocket league that finally made me get a modern pc.

[u/RedTuesdayMusic → u/ChanceFray]

Good for you, my 9800GTX+ is the only graphics card I've ever had catch actual fire :(

Though it happened in a PvP stress test of the internal devs+family of devs alpha of Rift: Planes of Telara when there were a total of 300 players in the world with the game and 85% showed up to the same area.

[u/ChanceFray → u/RedTuesdayMusic]

With the amount of heat those things can make... I can't say I am suprised to hear that. Sorry for your loss

[u/RedTuesdayMusic → u/ChanceFray]

I was overdue an upgrade anyway and the rest of the system was fine. Got a GTX 470 as a replacement so basically skipped a generation and that upgrade felt like night and day

[u/oandakid718 → u/MCA2142]

Back in the day the 2 go to choices for mobo chipsets, I believe, were VIA and nForce

[u/Bloopyhead → u/oandakid718]

Via kt133 was complete and utter shit.

[u/The_Grungeican → u/oandakid718]

nforce was really pretty awesome. i had one of the early ones.

for those not in the know. in those days built in graphics chips were really awful. they were usually limited to 8MB of RAM, and most games were simply unplayable on them. they were generally fine for running Windows, and playing some older games.

when the nforce boards came out, they could use up to 32MB of RAM, and were pretty much the same as having a 32MB Geforce 2 MX card. they were a great stop gap. you could build a PC on that board, and be able to game on it, until you upgraded to a more proper dedicated card.

a nforce board was capable of running games like UT2004 or Quake 3 based games at 1024x768 resolution, no problem. games like HL2 or Doom 3 were a little too heavy for them.

also fun to note, the current Geforce Driver is on version 522 or something. the last driver for nforce boards (which used a unified driver), was something like 47 or so. to give some reference on how long ago that was.

[u/This-Requirement6918]

I remember this back in the day and was so glad they didn't. I also had a very sour taste in my mouth with AMD in the early 2000s with their stupid hot CPUs.

[u/Zaziel → u/This-Requirement6918]

Early 2000’s AMD CPUs were killer? Athlon hitting 1ghz and beating the P3 in gaming. Then soon after in 2003 we get the Athlon64 with 64-bit and built in memory controller that gave them another big boost to performance. 2010-2017 RIP AMD though.

[u/not_a_gay_stereotype → u/Zaziel]

AMD64 absolutely clapped intel's cheeks when it first came out. They dominated with the phenom series until core2duo showed up. then AMD totally shit the bed with the FX CPUs until ryzen came around. however, I always ran AMD since 2003 until present.

[u/Ocronus → u/Zaziel]

Athlon's were the absolute shit back in the day.  I remember building a Althon 64 being so smug about it. It was kind like the current gen of processors.

[u/Minimum-Risk7929]

Probably a good thing for consumers they didn’t buy Nvidia because I could only imagine how much of a monopoly AMD would have with Nvidia’s resources.

Quite the blunder for AMD retrospectively.

Edit: you guys have alot of great input and the market would look IMMENSELY Different if AMD acquired Nvidia, it may be that Intel buys ATI for less than AMD would have and dominates in Console APUs. However my perspective is Jensen Huang would have eventually overtaken AMD as the official CEO particularly when reading,

*"AMD’s first target: Nvidia. But Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang (see our January 7, 2008 cover story on Nvidia "Shoot to Kill") insisted on being chief executive of the combined company, according to a former AMD employee (Nvidia declined to comment for this story)."*

this is probably the reason Hector Ruiz declined Huang's terms as he would have been a threat to his authority in AMD, and why they went with ATI instead.

Also looking at Dirk Meyers performance of AMD it seems like having a Taiwanese Electrical Engineer is themeta as both Lisa Sue and Jensen Haung are both those. Thanks

[u/DuckCleaning → u/Minimum-Risk7929]

having a Taiwanese Electrical Engineer is themeta as both Lisa Sue and Jensen Haung are both those 

Theyre also related. Jensen is along the lines of 2nd cousin to Lisa Su. Also interesting that Jensen used to work at AMD before founding Nvidia.

[u/Minimum-Risk7929 → u/DuckCleaning]

This just adds more reasons why AMD shareholders should be infuriated with Hector Ruiz’s disastrous acquisition of ATI prior to his resignation as CEO. It definitely adds to the blunder.

Edit: we can go on and on about this

[u/Shurae → u/Minimum-Risk7929]

Lisa Su and Jensen Huang are related as well

[u/Onceforlife → u/[deleted]]

Your specs are trash my dude

[u/Real-Human-1985 → u/Minimum-Risk7929]

They didn’t have the resources they have today and JHH wanted to run AMD so of course the guy running AMD said no.

[u/rogerrei1 → u/Real-Human-1985]

Then he left like a year and a half later, lol. Still not the best strategic choice from the company's POV.

[u/Real-Human-1985 → u/rogerrei1]

The only benefit for AMD would be JHH not accepting that pussy ass settlement from the Intel anti-trust case. When your stock is worth 10 cents and you have a fab to run 1 billion is a fart in the wind.

[u/Suspect4pe → u/Minimum-Risk7929]

We don’t know that Nvidia would have done as well under AMD. It could be that where they are now is where they would have been.

[u/Cute-Pomegranate-966 → u/Suspect4pe]

Well if the terms were successful we know exactly what Nvidia would have done as Huang would have been CEO.

[u/FireFalcon123 → u/Minimum-Risk7929]

Definitely would have pulled an Intel and somewhat recently somewhat accurate Nvidia especially with their production GPUs and halo tier GPUs

[u/kontenjer → u/FireFalcon123]

halo tier means good yes?

[u/FireFalcon123 → u/kontenjer]

Yes

Like a 4090, 3090ti, 2080ti etc etc, but not really the 1080ti because it was more reasonably priced for the time