U.S. Investigating NVIDIA and AMD

[Javert]

By REUTERS
Published: December 2, 2006

The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to the Nvidia Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices as part of an investigation of potential antitrust violations involving graphics chips.

Nvidia, the largest independent maker of graphics chips for computers and other devices, said yesterday that no specific allegations had been made against the company and that it planned to cooperate with the investigation.

Advanced Micro, the maker of computer processors, said late Thursday that it had been subpoenaed. Advanced Micro entered the graphics business in October after acquiring a Canadian company, ATI Technologies.

Nvidia and Advanced Micro each control about 25 percent of the market for graphics chips, which are used in personal computers, mobile handsets, video game consoles and other devices; Intel controls the rest of the market.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Gina Talamona, confirmed that the department was looking into ”the possibility of anticompetitive practices” involving graphics chips and cards, but she declined to elaborate.

Ow and interesting.

 

[MiccyNarc]

Wait, if Intel controls 50% of the market, why aren't they going after Intel? o.0

 

[clarky003]

I thought they just saturated 50% of the market... theres a difference between trying to control the market and how much of the market you cover.

 

[Adabiviak]

The competition has been nice, driving insanely faster cards. Maybe the prices will go down if they get regulated? I hope it doesn't affect the speed race though.

 

[gweedodogg69]

Intel just makes onboard graphics. Who do those satisfy? Large to small businesses/offices of course. And the average home user who just types stuff and surfs the net. I'm sure you guys knew that already. But since AMD bought ATI things should get interesting since their idea for the CPU and GPU on one chip.

 

[Cole]

Wait, if Intel controls 50% of the market, why aren't they going after Intel? o.0

Intel is not the only other company in the market.
S3 is a player in the low end market. In fact the last 3 comps my moms bought(which all happened to be Emachines) have all had an S3 graphics card.

 

[hungryduck]

mmmm....lower high-end video card prices would be nice.

 

[Naudian]

I don't geddit. What exactly do they think Nvidia/AMD are doing wrong?

 

[ailevation]

Antitrust violation. Like they broke a contract or something, I don't know.

 

[Solaris]

Fixing prices, that sort of thing.