I remember a time when you bought ATI instead of NVIDIA, much the same way you still buy AMD instead of Intel. As we all know, AMD bought ATI, further confirming the implicit relationship between the two that already existed anyway. Now, though, the relationship comes to an end, since AMD has confirmed the ATI brand will be phased out.
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2009-09-14
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2006-05-29
So the people who know about the merger don't care, but those are hardly the people you have to reach with emotion targeted marketing anyway and while I always thought the Ati Brand had a somewhat cheap feel to it, I doubt that AMD will immediately become a trusted Graphics Hardware builder to the less informed people, especially if the first products to come out are low end embedded GPUs.
Thus I think this is overall a bad decision and while very temporary in effect I predict a sales drop for at least a few months for the rebranded GPU products.
Member since:2009-06-18
I think AMD is attempting to shore up their own brand as a technology company, not just a CPU company.
It takes time and effort to manage a brand. Managing two discrete brands doubles that time and effort.
If the ATI brand is not in and of itself incredibly valuable, it is likely to be both cheaper in terms of management, and more valuable to the AMD brand, to fold it in.
Member since:2009-10-04
I wouldn't really worry about that. Most people don't even know what a graphics card is, let alone care which company makes it. The only people who care are the gamers, and they probably known enough to know that AMD graphics cards are ATI graphics cards.
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2005-07-13
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2009-03-20
I knew this would happen - and it's so sad. ATI was one of the rare Canadian tech success stories. Canadians could say things like, "You know, ATI is Canadian" and other Canadians would say, "Oh yeah? Wow." (...before quickly dropping the subject and continuing eating their breakfast muffins in awkward silence)
Now, it doesn't even exist in name. Canadians can't even say to each other, "You know, ATI used to be Canadian."
I wonder how long before RIM is bought out by Microsoft and called "Bob on the GO" or something.
Edited 2010-08-30 23:13 UTC
Member since:2005-07-13
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Member since:2005-11-01
You know, Jim Carrey is canadian!?!
I always thought "Neil and Bob on the GO!" was more catchy!
Member since:2005-11-26
Disclosure: my cousin's husband once worked as a mid-level division head at ATI, so I have a bias.
That said, I agree with you. Visiting Ottawa and Toronto more than a decade ago I saw the likes of Corel and Tim Hortons and how Canadians (like my naturalized uncle and aunt) would take pride in them. Then when AMD acquired ATI, I felt there goes one.
Member since:2009-03-20
Disclosure: my cousin's husband once worked as a mid-level division head at ATI, so I have a bias. "
I have a bias too. I had a project at ATI and I got to see the manufacturing line. I was being shown around and the executive casually mentioned that the small cart beside me contained half a million dollars worth of chips. I asked if they could wheel it to my car, but they declined. Pity.
Member since:2007-09-22
Let's see:
- ATI was bought by AMD
- Nortel, bought Bay Networks, but doesn't seem healhty
- Corel, bought Winzip, Paint Shop Pro, Quattro, WordPerfect and sold their Linux distribution to Xandros haven't heared much from them since, they do still produce and office suite
what else ?
Member since:
2010-05-06
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I only own one AMD/ATI setup right now, and that's my HP Touchsmart tablet.
It's a very hit and miss with Linux drivers, though the Windows 7 64-bit on it does work without too many problems.
Plain and simple, their drivers have always sucked. They got a bit better once they started the Catalyst series, but compared to nVidia and Matrox, their drivers had always stunk. When Matrox gave up on the 3D performance wars, and that left us with either crappy or less crappy drivers... well what choice did we really have.
Sad, sad times when we get to the point where there really is no competition. AMD/ATI may make awesome hardware, but without drivers to make that hardware work, it's like having a really hot girlfriend that won't put out.
Member since:2005-07-06
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Member since:2005-11-02
Not to worry. Once the open source drivers are complete to the point of usability for games this problem will go away. You can be pretty sure that open source drivers will be high quality.
Of course this won't help Windows unless someone undertakes an enormous porting effort, But, then, maybe in the future this will be an incentive for gamers to use Linux. ATI^H^H^HAMD hardware with working, stable drivers.
Member since:2005-07-06
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Member since:2009-09-03
And this has been the common refrain for how long? Anyways, those who want to play games TODAY purchase nVidea. Those who want to stay on the bleeding edge, get intel or ati/amd video cards.
Edited 2010-09-01 03:17 UTC
Member since:2005-11-02
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2006-05-19
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2006-02-11
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2006-01-18
I bought a radon 4570 15 months ago, one thing I could not complain about was the windows drivers. They simply worked although the control center was a little bit of a pain. But then it came to Linux .. oh well, a few days later I bought a slower but cheap NVidia card, which worked in both worlds. The card probably now works well as well in Linux, but why bother to switch back the cards?
Member since:
2007-05-04
Even so, the cards and chipsets are called something completely different from the brand, so it's high time they reorganized the naming a bit. It's not as if they'd ever taken a chip from a completely different family and substituted it out of expedience, in the history of videocards. nVidia once changed from pre-production datasheets; but for releases, let us have names that reflect chip tech utilization,development revisions, driver revision, efficiency and hardware bent.
Xxiccuradelite O.3.01.28.0nm.86 Finniform Haiku Thread350r319.4s are going to rock.
Radelintethrobbo 3.02.28.0nm.93 QuickHEPA Thread411r322.2s are faster but below the FireThread411r21.8s' performance.
Maybe they can relate what to call them in concert and find out where to put low power spec?
Pfft...well, at any rate they can mess with the Radeon name a bit while they're at it to get some diversity that does make sense in there.