AMD kills the ATI Branding!

I was shocked ... But make of it what you will.

via Engadget - Vlad Savov

 

I think someone already posted that info somewhere here. AnandTech had a better article though (more pictures!). Not surprised it's happening, expected them to do it when they first bought ATi.

Farewell to ATI, AMD to Retire the ATI Brand Later this Year - AnandTech

 

Now all we need is for Intel to buy Nvidia, and it's a wrap!

 

Hmm, didn't see it anywhere, sorry... I just don't get it though. ATI is a very well known brand and so is AMD, but I can honestly say I don't see the sense in this. Why take a perfectly find brand, with loyal fanboys, and kill it?

Here's a quote from that article...

I only see this as confusing people more. More than the "Regular, Premium, and Ultimate" stickers did.

 

Oh...no. That wouldn't be wise for the consumer. AMD a la ATI would get completely owned, due to inferior PCB material use, inferior memory material use, and downright horrible driver support that they are so famed for.

With only one overlord corporation in the picture, they would be able to jack prices up as far as they wanted, within reason of course. Say hello to $800 flagship cards for me. Oh wait...

The renaming of the whole product line to AMD instead of ATI makes it sound really cheap...that budget AMD quality and speed is so ingrained in my mind the meaning "budget" comes with the name.

 

They are only changing the name. The products themselves won't change in terms of quality.

I certainly wouldn't write off AMD graphics when ATI becomes that, for this reason; because if everyone made a fuss and switched to nvidia then the competition ie ati/amd would really be killed off resulting in a nice monopolistic effect and only nvidia to choose from.

As we all know monopolies in computer tech results in a drop in quality and stagnation of advancement.

 

I know. That's why I said what I said.

 

Couldn't have said it any better. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's one of those things you read about and just start shaking your head subconsciously, no.

Customer:
AMD: :yes:
Me:

I mean, I get it that their hardware isn't going to change, but I've known ATI for a LONG time. It's just going to be one of the million things that irritate me on a daily basis.

 

I never really had anything against ATI but I've always hated AMD, given that the two comapanies still operate as a seperate in a way (ATI is just owned by AMD, AMD themselves don't know much about graphics). So now if I wanted a different option to nVidia, I'd have to have stupid AMD branding on my computer.

 

DAMMIT...

DAM.

that is all.

 

grow up people it just a re-branding. jeez....

 

When I think of ATI, ok, it's not as premium as nvidia, but at least the cards they make are quite decent, but when I think of the brand AMD, a big huge word of "budget" and "crap performance" comes to mind...

 

AMD may be budget and ATI is too. But that's not a bad thing. They aren't "crap performance" either. They don't compete at the high end but middle to upper mid range they definitely undercut intel's prices with similar performance.

Either way, it's just a rebadging, who cares. Company rename brands all the time.

 

u all hate my desktop

as long as the next card i buy from them is as good as the 5870, meh.

 

They should have renamed it to mVidia just to avoid confusion.

 

i'll stick my old ati sticker over the amd one in my new computers and find a way to use reshacker to edit the to comme amd ccc to ati ccc as well as the icons back to ati

i WON'T be using AMD graphic

 

Why all the hate for AMD? What did they ever do to you?

Intel and nVidia are the monopolistic behemoths that use unethical practices to force OEMs to ue their proucts.

 

truth or alteast for Intel. That goes for benchmarks aswell.

 

ATI dead thanks to Fusion...

 

IMO, AMD got handed their tail by Intel a few years back. They've had chance after chance to wow the consumer with something that can compete. Their best is never good enough to top Intel. It should be that Intel releases a chip, then AMD surpasses the top performing competition... and they can't. They're perpetually stuck in Intel's shadow. I once asked my mother what the first word that came to mind about AMD was... she said "hot". She, and just about everyone else I've asked have/will say hot, slow, short lifespan, no doubt caused by the heat problems.

I personally thought ATI had a MUCH stronger public image than AMD, but they couldn't rename their CPU business with a name representing performance GPU's.

 

i don't hate AMD i just prefer intell and if they start thier crap of apu they might kill the best cpu+GPU combo on the market wich is intel+ATI even if intel is a monster it stil provide the fastes cpu on the market

i personally might have bought a ATI cpu while buying an AMD GPU i'm not so sure but i have no choice

 

It's been proven in courts that Intel has been practicing monopolistic, anti-competitive practices for well over a decade now. And IMO AMD was ahead of the curve vs intel before this. The first 64 bit processes, the first dual cores, and quad cores. Their Opterons were destroying Xeons etc.

You say they have been given a chance? I don't think so. After a decade of fighting intel's billions upon billion dollar operations to drive AMD out of business, not by competition but bribery and threats... AMD simply don't have the revenue for R&D to compete. A decade of this type of operation doesn't just dissappear. Now you people like you who don't think rationally or have any sympathy for a company that strives to provide the best for the money, and outright just call them shoddy.

Intel's operations were very successful, even though they lost in the Euro courts, Asia and in the USA, they don't need to do this anymore. They have people like you to continue their work by making stupid remarks.

The Phenom II are very energy efficient and even with the default crappy heatsink and fans they come with, you can OC them more than you can OC an Intel with water cooling.

The next gen of Bulldozer from AMD will further their energy efficiency and provide everything Intel has to offer.

 

M

I didn't even think about that. I doubt intel will let OEM's stick little AMD stickers next to the Intel ones. This rebranding, now that it's finally taking effect, is going to get ugly. And if they do use those stickers side by side, I can only imagine how much that's going to confuse people.

 

i haven't thought about it ...... that won't be preatty you'r right but now imagine if intel buy nvidia (wich might very well hapen at the rate wich ati is pushing nvidia's offering to obsolecence) how are we gonna tell the diference form a system using AMD GPU + Intel CPU or one with Intel GPU +AMD CPU or will these kind of system exist at all? will we be able to make these kind of system at all?

 

I have no doubt about it that Intel wasn't fighting fair, but in all honesty, anger isn't a good color to have this morning, chill. I don't want this thread to get ugly and get closed. I'm talking about the NON-geek crowd, and how this is going to affect them. And I have no doubt that AMD's desktop processors are pretty darn brilliant, as I'm running the 1055t Thuban hexacore RIGHT NOW. But on the mobile side, they CANNOT compete. Their archetecture just hasn't been optimized for notebooks. If they can get their heat issues and power optimizations under control, I'd most certainly consider buying a notebook with AMD in the future, but absolutely not right now.

Everyone, keep the flames to a minimum, thanks

 

Well IMO your wishes will likely be answered sometime in 2011. The Bulldozer is an entirely new architecture that will have their version of turbo, and hyperthreading with better energy efficiency. It's slated for Desktop first, but maybe in 2012, I also will have the opportunity to support AMD CPU in a notebook.

I realize I come off harsh, but I just think it's fine to say to AMD doesn't perform as well as Intel's 900 series, but calling them inferior doesn't make sense to me. In their price range, AMD processors are still excellent.

As for ATi, I think it's fine. AMD's partnership with Global Foundry will provide them cutting edge fabrication that will rival, likely exceed what intel has, and this benefit hopefully will be available to their Graphics division also.

 

Short lifespan? I have had a hp lappy with a amd dual core for 3 or 4 years and still going strong. This is all without cleaning the vents once and being overclocked. As for AMD cpus being hot, ive never had a "cool" one intel or amd. My lap gets warm with both.

 

link died.. just like ATi lol.

it doesn't matter. Normal people will associate any problem they have with anything to be an association with that brand, regardless of lack of mantiance. I see it all the time on the car forums I visit. Audi's are junk, bla bla bla.. never mind they're basing their opinion on a single 100K mile car out of 1million+ units sold during it's production cycle.

 

It says for this in the Anandtech article:

 

FYI, AMD doesn't have and won't ever have hyperthreading as it's Intel's implementation of SMT. From what I've read, BD will have something more like CMT (clustered).

Everything anyone says is relevant to a point. For ultra high-end work machines, yes, AMD is inferior (as time is money). But for the mid/low-range, AMD can't be beaten on price/performance because at this level, the CPU is "good enough", so who cares if it gets beaten by 15-20% if you won't even notice the difference while saving some money? <- your exact end point.

Probably not exceed for the next while, but in the future, I could see GF surpassing Intel in terms of process technology.


Why oh why did they kill ATI? They should have kept the name for the discrete parts and slowly killed off the low-end, replacing it with Fusion.

 

i think that's funny lol.

 

LOL, exactly. I have two Shuttle PC's with Athlon64 X2 that are about five years old, and one with a Sempron 2400+ that is at least seven, and both have been used extensively and work fne. Well except for a stick of Kingston RAM that went bad.

It's these misconceptions that wn the battles for companies. It's true AMD's used to run hot, hotter than Intel, but their top temps usually weren't much far off from Intel's. That has changed for the most part.

 

AMD's bad reputation comes mostly from the 2-3 years old hp that had a coling desing error

 

Is this bad?

 

Brands are merely personable "identities" that corporations create in order to connect with the consumer on a human level. Ultimately it doesn't matter whether they brand ATI's GPUs as AMD this-or-that. Technically nothing has changed.

 

I am pretty sure this will confuse non-geeks. Not everyone's even aware of the whole AMD-owns-ATI business acquisition. But I think they could pull this off without much confusion, mainly because they do retain the Radeon/FirePro branding.

As for AMD's bad reputation, I don't think it's that bad. Sure, they really really can't compete in the mobile [laptop] segment right now. Whether it's power consumption [they can't even directly compete with Atom; even on the mainstream side, they're known for heat and battery life issues] or performance [mobile Core i7, need I say more...], they just don't have an answer. On the desktop side, it's a bit more competitive. They may not have the best performing CPUs but they do offer great value [price/performance ratio]. Many small/medium-sized computer/internet/gaming shops here in the Philippines use AMD-setup desktops because they're really cheap without having to sacrifice on performance too much.

 

I have to admit that I think it is kinda whack and an change that isnt needed/wanted...but overall I HIGHLY doubt it'll change anything AT ALL. If I'm not mistaken ATI is still (overall) its own company with its own designers and engineers...so ATI products will remain the same...just with the AMD name and not ATI.

Not a big deal at all in my eyes.

 

Agree...so far with with the length of AMD's ownership the cards and drivers seem to be actually getting better, with more frequent releases of driver updates. I think it's more or less AMD wanting to advertise its name.

 

Yeah that's the part some people have overlooked. Since AMD has bought ATi, ATi has met all their deadlines. Before ATi was in a similar situation as Nvidia, unable to meet the deadlines. And before ATi was in a deadlock, head to head race with Nvidia. I don't think we'd be seeing such affordable performance cards from ATi if it wasn't for AMD.

 

The AMD brand must make them more money than the ATI one, nobody can be stupid enough to ditch a money making brand name can they?

 

So now AMD drivers will be worthless too

 

Nvidia doesn't have anything Intel wants or needs. Intel already has all the patents, engineers, and fab plants to design and manufacture their own discrete GPU...they don't need a defunct chipset business...they don't need CUDA or PhysX....and they don't need an ARM processor.

The only reason Intel would have to buy Nvidia would be to hang the GPU company on their wall as a trophy....next to RISC.

If Nvidia ever finds itself searching for suitors a more likely buyer would be someone looking to get bigger in HPC or ARM-based servers....or maybe even Apple.



As for the end of the ATI logo the fact of the matter is, like the Fusion APU that prompted AMD to purchase ATI in the first place, the name change is long overdue. ATI hasn't existed as a company in four years and had AMD dropped the logo back in 2006 not only wouldn't we have seen any mourners tossing themselves across ATI's coffin but all this "public image" strength people are harping on would have went to AMD.

 

The moment I saw this thread, the song "Video Killed The Radio Star" started playing. Spooky.

 

Wow, so much hate for AMD. I guess everyone will be switching to nVidia now to go with their Intel?

 

It's not SMT, but it's similar (and better in a way) from what I've read. They have multiple full integer units and a single FP unit, along with separate decoders, so it can actually run two full integer threads completely simultaneously, with no slowdown. Hyperthreading works by putting another thread into the "gaps" of the primary one on the Intel core, basically. So AMD's multithreading cores implementation holds promise to be much more efficient and higher performance.

 

i really thinks its a bad idea considering ATI is the only part of AMD making a profit.. but good thing is that this is a rumour and not true yet

 

It's amazing how brand recognition and the human mind works isn't it?

 

No, it's confirmed. ATi is already pretty much rolled into AMD, if you look at the Fusion product and the fact that all ATi engineers have been relocated to AMD's campuses. It's ATi in name only any more, and there's no need for that, especially since they're trying to unify things.

I can understand where they're coming from. AMD has a broader appeal and recognition than ATi does, gamers notwithstanding. Gotta remember that we're a minority of computer users The products aren't changing (except for the better from what I see), so why fight it?

 

Going through the 5 stages of grief?

1. Denial <--- Looks like you're here
2. Anger <--- Others are here
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance


They should ditch the green and red too. Switch to Orange or Purple.

 

"Orange vs Purple" sounds waaayyy more fun than "Red vs Green"