Nvidia would cost $10 billion to buy

PEOPLE who don't understand US monopoly laws speculate that Intel might buy Nvidia now that AMD has proposed buying ATI.

Well, while it is not impossible it is very highly unlikely and not just because of the antitrust impications. Nvidia would simply cost way too much. ATI was a bargain, and very cheap for what AMD was getting. AMD paid peanuts to get this once great company and if you want to reach for Nvidia you would have to dig much more deeply into your pocket.

You would have to spend at least eight billion dollars to buy the currently-available Nvidia shares. Of course, you have to add some incentive on top of the price so we are talking about close to 10 billion dollars for this green-loving graphics company.

Intel could afford it, of course, but it has to solve some in-house problems first. Ten billion is a fair wedge, but not for a company as big as Intel. However, the US SEC would never approve such a merger anyhow.

With Nvidia's market share in desktop, mobile and integrated graphics chipperey added to Intel's dominant share in the integrated graphics arena, the company would far excede fifty per cent of the overall market and would instantly be branded a monopoly threat.

Intel is already being investigated about the anti-trust behaviour so it can't just go out and add some more oil on fire. µ