AMD Kills ATI Brand, Future Products to Feature Brand Change

This had to happen eventually, and it did just happen: AMD has dissolved the ATI brand completely, and consolidated ATI brands, such as Radeon and FirePro under the AMD main brand. Under the new branding scheme, new graphics products AMD launches (such as the upcoming Radeon HD 6000 series), will do away with "ATI" completely from the logo, marketing material, and so on, and the market will, as it already has been doing since the AMD-ATI merger, albeit informally, refer to Radeon/FirePro products as "AMD Radeon" and "AMD FirePro".

AMD explains its move as an "evolution of the AMD brand portfolio", saying that consolidation of ATI-branded products under the main brand results in reduced marketing overhead.

[KratosGirI]

ATI > AMD

[sikbeta]

Hmmm....

AMD = ATI

[SilentNegotiator]

ATI is dead. LONG LIVE AMD!

Just kidding.

[Inside_out]

Sounds like a money saving scheme and to get rid of any contracts associated with ATI brand.

[jerethdagryphon]

its just a breand change to tidy up things, ive always refered to my radeons as radeons rather then ati radeon.. its no biggy and most likly theres not going to be any internal shakeups other then workman repainting parts of buildings

[RedDragan]

Fail comment of the year!

This is where fanboyism shows it's weakness. Where a person can be blinded so much by a name that he/she selectively forgets of all reason and logic.

Newsflash KratosGirl:

ATI IS AMD. And I would not have said it was a merger, more a takeover. AMD were very much the bigger company and became the parent company immediately after the deal.

So ATI will no longer feature? No biggy, the same people will be working on the new cards. No extra staff should go because that happened when the deal was done between both companies years ago.

This is nothing more than Rebranding, although a wierd move to be honest, the ATI brand name was ahead of the nVidia brand name in respectability.

[saint_john_paul_ii]

RIP ATI, but i guess its for the good.

[yewles1]

O.O I'm still in disbelief...

[ultramoot]

What a relief. ATI names are too long anyway. Does that mean I can refer to my 'ATI Radeon HD5750' as just '5750' now? LOL

On a serious note, this does not change a damn thing about how messed up their cards are. They can call it whatever they want. The fact remains that their drivers always have so many issues with different games and with Windows TDR(which they just can't seem to fix).

[mrv321]

Or how about they just make one card a year, call it after the year and have different models.

So AMD 2010-PRO. It'd make buying cards much better than the whole host of confusion it is now, sure bigger number=better but still.

[Pandamobile]

The numbering schemes aren't that hard to figure out.

For AMD cards:
First number: Series (Generation, current is 5)
Second Number: Card Range (e.g. Lower number budget range, high number enthusiast range)
Third Number: Card within range (e.g. 4870 is better than 4830)
Fourth Number: Always zero.

For Nvidia cards:
First number: Series (Generation, current is 5)
Second Number: Card Range (e.g. Lower number budget range, high number enthusiast range)
Third Number: Card within range (e.g. 285 is better than 280) The xx5's are usually the second generation of a card. They'll shrink the die and up the clocks, but the GPU's are the same.

[chak_]

current gen is 4 for nvidia...

Am I wrong?

[Letros]

4 is correct

[IaMs12]

I understand that and makes sense but what about the 9550s and 9600 cards? Say people would look at those and go WHOA those are in the 9000 ranges so must be better then a 5870 haha. But of course they are not.

[Pandamobile]

Screwed up my copy-paste. Yes, current Nvidia generation is 4.

[r1sh12]

Ive got a few ATI radeons, they are a little old but I havent had any issues.
I assume you just love your Nvidia, I just go with what ever is in my budget.
The past few times, Ive got good value and performance.
I need amazing high spec cards, Ive got consoles for gaming.
They have probably done this to cut costs somewhere between both businesses.
Its easier to manage a portfolio when everything is under 1 parent company and they dont trade as separate entity's.

[halocursed]

This is not good news!

[Sez]

As a tear falls from my eye and I fall to my knees with my arms raised in the air. I scream "whyyyyyyyyy"

[specialguest]

Calm down boy-wonder...calm down.

[Sez]

I am calm. Just alittle heartbroken by this news. I'm not really a fan of Navidia. Which is a reason why this is kind of a let down for me.

[RedDragan]

You do realise that Radeons will still be coming right?

They will now be called AMD Radeon instead of ATI Radeon. Apart from the name change, the only real difference now is that under the ATI brand the cards had a budget proportional to the ATI brand... but under AMD there will be more scope to increase the budget as the AMD brand is far richer, it covers everything that company does.

This should have been seen coming as AMD are releasing a hybrid CPU/GPU architecture called the APU, all on a single sye. Intel are in trouble because there upcoming super multi core processors would never compete with a chip with the accuracy of the CPU and the raw processing prowess of a GPU.

Under Distributing Computing a single ATI HD 5780 GPU can complete 1,000,0000 work units before a i7-930 OC'd to 4GHz can complete 1,000 work units. I know this because I do this.

A merger of the architectures of CPU and GPU should have been the smoking bullet of a rebranding I suppose. I would love an APU and next gen GPU as well as a rig lol... I am sure everyone here would haha!

[dredgewalker]

What? Does this mean video card under with the ATI brand gets to be sold for less to get rid of the old stocks?

[kharma45]

One can hope, might be a few bargains appearing!

[RedDragan]

No. We will still see the same prices, just that the new ones to go on the shelf will display AMD instead.

[LightofDarkness]

Ah well, end of an era, I guess. My first graphics card was an ATI 3D Rage Pro. Ah the Quake 2 days...

[comp_ali]

It is just the brand name , the will continue make GPUs under AMD brand, that's it.
For a second I thought WTF.

[LightofDarkness]

Oh I know, but they've been in the game since the beginning, I remember playing Quake 2 at 800x600 (like 40FPS) and thinking WHOA... And that was all thanks to my ATI card.

[RyuDrinksTheDew]

man, ATI sounds so much better than AMD.

[Nihilism]

Heard this was coming a month or so back, thought it was just a rumour, nothing wrong with helping get the ATI name out there. Intel still has market dominance, maybe this will help change that.

[r1sh12]

Intel will stay dominant, not just because their super high end chips are better, they have secured a 'legal monopoly'.
Many large manufacturers use intel for 90% of desktops/laptops.
Amd are way behind. HP, Dell etc...
have a few computers with AMD's, but not many.
Intel have a big foothold over those computer manufacturers, and can shape the way each manufacturer sells products.

[mobijoker]

I think it starts the era of integrated top end GCPU(graphics and central processing unit).

[il-mouzer]

...

I am really baffled by this comment.

[mobijoker]

Intel and AMD are trying to incorporate cpu and gpu together in one single unit.If AMD can do so,why would they give same name to a single piece of unit?

[il-mouzer]

I doubt this 'GCPU' will be able to handle gaming in a wide spec - it maybe used in workstations etc

[JOHN_DOH]

yea I think it has to do with fusion

[Newtype]

If you look at most products with ATi cards they've already adopted this. Most of their computers with AMD/ATi chipsets would go like this:
AMD Vision
AMD Vision Premium
AMD Vision Ultimate
AMD Vision Black

The name AMD usually sways people away, from what I've noticed people have the idea that AMD is inferior to Intel in every way. Usually get the response from people that, "Ew, that computer has an AMD in it? I hate AMD processors."

[r1sh12]

@newtype,
I agree with you. Many people I speak to tell me how the intel's are amazing and how much more power they have, but most benchmark tests for the majority of the chips are pretty level.
Its only when you go to the top end 'extreme' chips does the difference show.
Power consumption and value for money is easily AMD, if I wanted an amazingly high spec PC i would then choose intel, but for simple everyday use and a few films/music and a little entertainment AMD will do me fine.
I even get through some video editing without any issues on my main desktop.
Both desktops were relatively cheap, compared with the Intel equivalent, the AMD's cost a third less

[NYC_Gamer]

well they have been AMD for the longest anyway...

[Carlos_Irwin_Estevez]

I am on an amd machine but i have to agree ati is a stronger brand than amd

amd still has a budget stigma attached to it.

[writersblock]

Its not a huge change, since they're continueing the line anyways. Hopefully they'll be getting rid of the ATI's now

Get myself an Xfire 5850, one isnt cutting it for me somehow :P

[jerethdagryphon]

almost all my machines for 15 years have been amd i think interms of bang for buck and quality ive not seen much better

[Subzero200x]

Amd was always superior.

[zen0]

I wonder if Intel would buy Nvidia and brand Nvidia as Intel. That would be interesting competition.

[JonnyBigBoss]

Lol, this comes 4 days after I just bought an ATI 5770. Oh well, this thing is a monster either way.

[il-mouzer]

doesn't mean that your card won't be supported anymore

future graphics cards will now be AMD 5770, change of name that's all

[Sarcasm]

Sorry but the 5770 isnt a monster, the 5870 is. Still a great card though.

[hiredhelp]

Well for a mo there i thought there turning backs on ATI cards. as long as the drivers continue on AMD. the brand name not a big deal.

[GrilledCheeseBook]

didn't believe the rumor but now it's true
I guess it's a good move. Their graphics division is real good and get good publicity but for the processors they don't really ever market them. Everyone knows Intel but not AMD so maybe this will help them with brand recognition in the mainstream.