I cant say im suprised

[Acanthus]

"potential antitrust violations"

why would they subpeona nvidia if it was anything other than collusion?

 

[Machine350]

No offense OP, but you've kind of turned a fairly neutral statement like "potential antitrust violations" into a graphics maker flame session by restating it as "price fixing" when there's no way for either you or I to know if that's really the case. Just my two cents.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Machine350
No offense OP, but you've kind of turned a fairly neutral statement like "potential antitrust violations" into a graphics maker flame session by restating it as "price fixing" when there's no way for either you or I to know if that's really the case. Just my two cents.

Please read up on antitrust law, and then let me know what the DoJ could be investigating *BOTH* companies for besides collusion. Its not like the computer industry is a stranger to this behavior.

 

[Acanthus]

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/12/01/tech-amdnvidiadojsubpoena-061201.html

"He noted that the price of graphics hardware has been relatively stable over the years, bucking the prevailing trend of steep declines and razor-thin margins elsewhere in the personal computer technology industry.

"The Department of Justice is probably wondering why the prices haven't come down," Freedman speculated."

" "They're asking for quite a lot of documents," Hara said. "It goes back eight to nine years and it's very broad." "

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: SilentRunning

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The story has been picked up by multiple sources so I stand corrected--it is an antitrust probe of Nvidia and AMD/AIT in the high-end graphics segment.

Still doesn't make any sense to me on the merits, but maybe DOJ knows something we don't. Maybe some kind of spillover from the SRAM chip inquiry announced in October.

How ironic for AMD to attempt to acqire AIT and then be caught up in allegations of anti-competitive behavior after all those years complaining about Intel!

It's probably something related to SLI and Crossfire platform lockin. Maybe they will finally allow me to do Crossfire on my NF4 SLI board.

That was my first thought when I heard about it too. SLI and Crossfire chipsets and lack of cross compatibility.

Not likely. Now you are speaking of "product tying", which is a violation of the antitrust laws but not something in which either Nvidia or AIT/AMD would seem to be engaged. Neither Nvidia nor AIT condition the sale of their graphics cards on the purchase of an SLI or Crossfire motherboard. And you can run either companies' cards in either companies' motherboards in single card mode. To me, that sounds like no tying.

The more likely area of investigation is a conspiracy between the two to fix prices--a Sherman Act violation. Doesn't mean the investigation will turn up anything though. As I said above, I'm a skeptic.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: manuelku

Originally posted by: Saldrin
I'm not impressed.

Now if the DoJ looked into the nations 4 cable companies... or it is 3 now... and asked why prices are close to $200 a month especially including the subpar internet, I would be impressed.

How many millions of people paying at least $100 a month and we *still* can't get upgraded lines in the good ol' USA? Come on now.

TW took over adelphia in my area and has done nothing but cut channels, and increase my bill. Less product, more money? At least nvidia and ati offer more for what you pay. Yeah, they are expensive, but I feel the gains the consumer gets are worth it. We don't have to buy a top of the line card as it comes out. But TV and internet are pretty important, at least to me. I wonder what the reasoning is the DoJ looks at them and turns a blind eye at the others.

I am not quite sure about your problem but I am paying $12.99 a month for DSL and I am pretty impressed by it. I get about 1.4 for 1.5mb service. I don't watch TV that much so having cable or not doesn't really bother me. I would say Internet is more important than TV, at least in the age with IPTV.

Thats not crazy... I pay 65 CDN for cable along with my 10 mbps internet = ~56 USD
thats pretty amazing if you ask me

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister

Originally posted by: SilentRunning

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The story has been picked up by multiple sources so I stand corrected--it is an antitrust probe of Nvidia and AMD/AIT in the high-end graphics segment.

Still doesn't make any sense to me on the merits, but maybe DOJ knows something we don't. Maybe some kind of spillover from the SRAM chip inquiry announced in October.

How ironic for AMD to attempt to acqire AIT and then be caught up in allegations of anti-competitive behavior after all those years complaining about Intel!

It's probably something related to SLI and Crossfire platform lockin. Maybe they will finally allow me to do Crossfire on my NF4 SLI board.

That was my first thought when I heard about it too. SLI and Crossfire chipsets and lack of cross compatibility.

Not likely. Now you are speaking of "product tying", which is a violation of the antitrust laws but not something in which either Nvidia or AIT/AMD would seem to be engaged. Neither Nvidia nor AIT condition the sale of their graphics cards on the purchase of an SLI or Crossfire motherboard. And you can run either companies' cards in either companies' motherboards in single card mode. To me, that sounds like no tying.

The more likely area of investigation is a conspiracy between the two to fix prices--a Sherman Act violation. Doesn't mean the investigation will turn up anything though. As I said above, I'm a skeptic.

Not saying they are neccessarily guilty of product tying, but I think the case could be made that they artificially limit what chipsets you can run SLI/Crossfire on for what are not always technical reasons. It's not that they merely refuse to support Crossfire on non-approved platforms, they actively prevent you from doing it on their competitor's chipsets via drivers.

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister

Originally posted by: SilentRunning

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
The story has been picked up by multiple sources so I stand corrected--it is an antitrust probe of Nvidia and AMD/AIT in the high-end graphics segment.

Still doesn't make any sense to me on the merits, but maybe DOJ knows something we don't. Maybe some kind of spillover from the SRAM chip inquiry announced in October.

How ironic for AMD to attempt to acqire AIT and then be caught up in allegations of anti-competitive behavior after all those years complaining about Intel!

It's probably something related to SLI and Crossfire platform lockin. Maybe they will finally allow me to do Crossfire on my NF4 SLI board.

That was my first thought when I heard about it too. SLI and Crossfire chipsets and lack of cross compatibility.

Not likely. Now you are speaking of "product tying", which is a violation of the antitrust laws but not something in which either Nvidia or AIT/AMD would seem to be engaged. Neither Nvidia nor AIT condition the sale of their graphics cards on the purchase of an SLI or Crossfire motherboard. And you can run either companies' cards in either companies' motherboards in single card mode. To me, that sounds like no tying.

The more likely area of investigation is a conspiracy between the two to fix prices--a Sherman Act violation. Doesn't mean the investigation will turn up anything though. As I said above, I'm a skeptic.

So let's say joe schmo wants to buy a high performance pair of SLi graphics cards. Then what are his choices for motherboard chipsets? Intel, Via, AMD/ATI, or Nvidia.
Sli and Crossfire are not single card modes.

 

[Skott]

Assuming the DoJ suspects they are guilty (its just an investigation so far) and assuming the DoJ can prove them guilty the worse case scenario is that a fine is levied against them with a promise to do more for fair competition. The fine wouldnt be hundreds of millions IMO. More like tens of millions at best. And the DoJ has to win their case first. Assuming it doesnt get settled out of court first which is more likely to happen. The burden is on the DoJ to prove any wrong doing. After seeing the DoJ go up against Microsoft I'd put my money on the defendents. In the meantime nothing really changes for the consumer.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: manuelku

Originally posted by: Saldrin
I'm not impressed.

Now if the DoJ looked into the nations 4 cable companies... or it is 3 now... and asked why prices are close to $200 a month especially including the subpar internet, I would be impressed.

How many millions of people paying at least $100 a month and we *still* can't get upgraded lines in the good ol' USA? Come on now.

TW took over adelphia in my area and has done nothing but cut channels, and increase my bill. Less product, more money? At least nvidia and ati offer more for what you pay. Yeah, they are expensive, but I feel the gains the consumer gets are worth it. We don't have to buy a top of the line card as it comes out. But TV and internet are pretty important, at least to me. I wonder what the reasoning is the DoJ looks at them and turns a blind eye at the others.

I am not quite sure about your problem but I am paying $12.99 a month for DSL and I am pretty impressed by it. I get about 1.4 for 1.5mb service. I don't watch TV that much so having cable or not doesn't really bother me. I would say Internet is more important than TV, at least in the age with IPTV.

Thats not crazy... I pay 65 CDN for cable along with my 10 mbps internet = ~56 USD
thats pretty amazing if you ask me

wow 56 dollars is nice

i pay about $97 a month with Cox

$40 basic cable (what a load of crap!!! )
$7 digital box with guide
$40 Internet (3-4Mbps)
$10 taxes

basic cable should cost 10 bucks, internet should be 20 like 56k was 7 years ago. I find it amazing the price of cable TV and internet has never gone done in price in the past 7 years... just amazing lol