Wonder what ramifications this will have in the graphic card and chipset arena's?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14008460/

The news has been out for some time already & it's even been confirmed by AMD today.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~110899,00.html

Yeah it was on the TS front page too. It will most likely result in better products for us consumers which means more competition from Intel and lower prices. It's all good news for the consumer as such.

the possibility has been well known for a while now, but I didn't know AMD had officially confirmed it until I read the link that Didou provided

chipsets: I think that Nvidia will continue to make the high end chipsets for AMD boards.

graphics cards: again, i think AMD will still work with Nvidia, because nvidia is too big of a player to shut them out.

i also think that the "merger" will allow the cHT-linked multi-socket platform to become reality, because there's really nothing stopping it now (AMD may not be able to make a more powerful processor [yet], but they can make a more powerful platform to compensate .

does anybody have a link to any official statement from Intel or Nvidia about this? this is going to get very interesting, but like rage said, it's good news for all

Why would Intel or nVidia have an official press release concerning two other companies ?

A very good point by Didou , I hope intel lower there prices because of this massive deal as i am an intel user and not an AMD user

Think its bad .. AMD will now want comsumers to buy ATI GPUs instead of Nvidia. . they(AMD) are going to bust a Mircosoft and not allows Nvidia chips for their processors .

thats foolish, I will not be a slave to any company, therefore i will not be forced to buy products because they only make the processor for ATI GPU's. I would much rather buy Intel and have the choice between ATI and nvidia

Intel will now be using their own chipset for onboard graphics as opposed to ATIs (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33238) ...

It's just another strategic move in that great game called the battle of the big chipset/cpu players, as can be confirmed by the recent ATI/AMD conference call and the stated reasoning of the two companies (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33230) ...

Well i dont like intel intergrated grahpics on their mobo's. I have a dell demention 3000 and the graphics have all crapped out, it can't diplay even xp properly. The computer is only one year old, and has been put under just about no stress.

you'll have to excuse my "apple ignorance" , but why does it affect apple? does ATI make the MAC'c chipset for Intel models?
.

No, but the newest MACs that do not have integrated Intel VGA generally have ATI cards in them (Radeon X1600 & the likes).