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It's Official — AMD Will Retire the ATI Brand
J. Dzhugashvili writes "A little over four years have passed since AMD purchased ATI. In May of last year, AMD took the remains of the Canadian graphics company and melded them into a monolithic products group, which combined processors, graphics, and platforms. Now, AMD is about to take the next step: kill the ATI brand altogether. The company has officially announced the move, saying it plans to label its next generation of graphics cards 'AMD Radeon' and 'AMD FirePro,' with new logos to match. The move has a lot to do with the incoming arrival of products like Ontario and Llano, which will combine AMD processing and graphics in single slabs of silicon."
Good. Getting rid of the PCI-e bus between CPU and GPU is one important step in getting massive parallelism to work well.
Since we hit the 3 GHz barrier, where the speed of light itself becomes a limit, putting the processing elements physically closer is essential to get better performance. Now let's see them put 4 GB or so of fast RAM on the same chip.
Are there any deeper changes to come behind the re-brand? ATi involved in producing open source drivers ans specs for their GPU. Will this name change carry some bad news about the current openness?
Léa Gris
I assume there's going to be an AMD Radeon sticker next to the Intel Inside sticker. I can't wait to sort out the confused people around me thinking there are two physical CPUs, one from each manufacturer, in that computer. In addition to consolidating its brand presence,I suppose they think this will reduce confusion when IMHO it will create more confusion for a while.
Engadget.com Article
Regarding killing off the brand,
Great, but did anyone consider the fact that the graphics wars will now be fought between two teams wearing green jerseys?
..can they retire that too? please?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
but that doesn't stop their drivers from sucking.
They can give the AMD brand a big boost by associating it directly with the graphics cards - and it will probably mean that people buying an AMD graphics card will be more likely to buy an AMD processor to go with it.
My Journal
I think ATI was a more reputable brand than AMD that has to carry Defeated-by-Intel badge for years.
ATI is the oldest surviving video card brand. :(
In May of last year, AMD took the remains of the Canadian graphics company and melded them into a monolithic products group, which combined processors, graphics, and platforms. Now, AMD is about to take the next step: kill the ATI brand altogether.
Oh, please, J. Dzhugashvili, don't hold back. Tell us how you REALLY feel. What'd the rejected original form of this summary look like?
In May of last year, the poor, innocent Canadian angels of technology, ATI, had their very remains tortured and raped by the evil, evil AMD, cruelly melded into a hideous abomination of a monolithic products group, creating an unholy, soulless combination of processors, graphics, and platforms. Now, the faceless anti-christ forces of AMD plan to take the next step in their plans to destroy all that is good in the world: Slaughter the angelic ATI brand altogether, laughing with sadistic glee as it begs for mercy in a futile appeal to the quickly-evaporating last shreds of AMD's humanity and compassion, ATI having never having harmed a fly in its too-short, sad, sad life.
because it states "The badges you see above will be used for systems with discrete Radeon and FirePro graphics cards. The lower row omits the AMD logo, so PC makers shipping Intel-based systems will be able to avoid the oil-and-water combo of Intel and AMD branding, if they wish."
But propagation speed is a signficant fraction of C. (66 to 96 percent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity ) Admittedly you've got a point, they've already gotten past 3GHZ. (I'm just wondering how much faster they can get before signal speed is actually the limiting factor.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
...AMD's prepping for their integrated CPU/GPU launch. ...
I would image that better Linux drivers might come down the pipeline, though...they'd definitely loose out on a potential market if they completely ignored the issue.
I'd go one step further and say that I think that AMD has an opportunity to highlight their hardware here.
Intel's CPUs and integrated graphics have long had great support in the Linux kernel. Because Intel controls the tech, they can actually provide the correct and full source for the graphics drivers. The problem is that Intel integrated graphics aren't ever anything special.
If AMD is seriously working on integrating their graphics cards and processors -- perhaps even onto the same die -- then they have an opportunity to provide a much more powerful, integrated hardware platform with fully-open drivers. Intel can't compete with that kind of setup, especially as NVidea appears to have an aversion to opening the source to their graphics card drivers.
coding is life
I think ATI was a more reputable brand than AMD that has to carry Defeated-by-Intel badge for years.
I think that ATI is one of the least reputable brands in PC hardware, every single ATI 3d accelerator I've ever owned has caused me some kind of problem. Retiring the ATI brand won't fool any geeks but it will fool the people they told to never buy ATI.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is hardly their worst offense, but how did the Bush Justice Department ever let AMD buy ATI to begin with? Are we really OK when there are only two major manufacturers of processors and graphics hardware?
I guess the answer is "for the same reason they're about to let United Airlines and Continental Airlines merge".
Don't they realize that every time one of these mergers happens, the end result is that Goldman Sachs makes a ton of cash, a handful of execs make a ton of cash, and a whole lot of manufacturing workers are thrown off the back of the train? Then they act like they don't understand why there are market "inefficiencies" and manufacturing is fleeing the US (and Canada). And ultimately consumers suffer, too.
Oh, and yes, the Justice Department does have jurisdiction when a US company buys a Canadian company (or vice versa).
You are welcome on my lawn.
My laptop with a GeForce 310M does it just fine. Pushes out 1080p, too.
Laptop != desktop.
It's interesting that the Radeon brand, or series at least, has outlived it's creator. Who will be there to give away Radeon to it's new life partner?
Something old (AMD), Something new (Radeon), Something borrowed (x86 architecture), Something blue (Intel?)
moox. for a new generation.
and here is yet another reason to hate them more.
I always liked ATI they might not always have had the best but they produced
fine video cards imnsho. I knew when AMD bought them it was over and a mere 4 years later
I wish I would of blogged about it back than and be like told ya so..
I also agree that ATI was a more respected brand name than AMD.
The name AMD always meant "second rate to Intel" to myself and every one else I know, despite the fact that there are indeed some very first-rate AMD processors in the their production history and current lineup.
AMD would probably do better to themselves by not only retiring the ATI brand name, but also phase out AMD as well and come up with a completely new name.
You're saying that nVidia's laptop chips are faster and more capable than their desktop chips?
I bought an nVidia 7200 in my laptop and have it explode out of warranty. No way was I going to buy another nVidia.
Considering there aren't fiber optics inside the silicon, the speed of light shouldn't be relative. It's the speed of electricity, which is much different/slower than the speed of light. Unless I'm missing something? Please correct this if I'm wrong.
Proverbs 21:19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.
Without the red ATI logo, will they continue to use red as the brand color of their graphics products? Or, will people now be choosing between AMD green and Nvidia green? It may sound superficial (because, by definition, it is), but rival groups always seem to have different colors. It makes for a nice mental distinction when looking at their products. My only guess is that it will probably look like the "AMD Vision" logo or might even be an extension of that branding.
With all the driver trouble, I was beginning to think ATI stood for Always Trapping IRQLs
im no fan, however in the last 1.5 years i read a lot of verdict carrying court cases in regard to intel's bribery of computer manufacturers in asia and usa. they get fined here and there for their shit. if getting defeated means 'bribery', then well, give me enough money to bribe, and i will defeat all others with any shitty random brand.
get real.
Read radical news here
Am I the only one who misses the Voodoo cards?
me, none of the people in my community, noone i have made buy ati cards had any problem with their drivers. this includes all activities ranging from playing crysis by dx10 hacking it on an xp machine to watching movies.
excuse me, but your 'obscure rare driver problem on an obscure rare operating system' doesnt interest the world. such problems will always be there.
Read radical news here
you are in the minority. i have been playing all the games that came out in the last 2 years with ati cards, even using newly released drivers, and i didnt have any kind of problems with anything from crysis to mass effect 2 or obscure random games. and says 'actually offered no working driver on any os but vista' ...
you are either shitting us, or a nvidia shill. both are pretty annoying.
Read radical news here
random obscure driver issue on random obscure linux distro #123415 working on random device setup #3121646, unfortunately, doesnt interest the world. as much as i support open source and linux, unfortunately, it doesnt. it is reality, and noone has the right to brand any kind of device or manufacturer failure, just because they werent able to get their rare setup working. and linux graphics, is a rare setup. whether we like it or not, the graphics, multimedia related dominance is with ms osses.
you cannot blame any company for not taking the extra budget to make some minority obscure platform users happy. unfortunately capitalism doesnt work that way. either you make your platform dominant, or, you shut up.
Read radical news here
The name AMD always meant "second rate to Intel" to myself and every one else I know,
unfortunately yes, as intel was bribing computer manufacturers worldwide. they got fined for it in the end in asia, usa, however.
Read radical news here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER7
IBM settled around 4.25 Ghz now. Their original promise (which seems to be very expensive) is around 5+ Ghz speeds.
Don't get me wrong, that is a high end/enterprise UNIX server chip, I don't say Apple should be shipping POWER7 now.
If they just... took consumer desktop&portable CPU business serious...
My nVidia GT240 offers this feature. Note that this is the mid-range card from nVidia's previous generation, so I'm going to say you're wrong.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Just put an ATI-branded Radeon 5870 in a new rig last week.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Please quote the response I responded to where the word "desktop" was mentioned in any capacity.
Thanks in advance! Don't strain yourself!
Sorry, I should have been more specific: Blu Ray quality HD Audio. If I was going to be super pedantic I could claim that 'audio' is not the same as 'HD Audio'.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gf-210-gt220_2.html
"The newest ATI Radeon HD 5700 and 5800 series cards offer full support for PAP and bit-streaming of Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio to an external receiver whereas the capabilities of the GeForce 210 and GT 220 correspond to what the previous-generation Radeons could do. Technically, the new GeForce cards can output 7.1 audio (196kHz/24 bits per sample) with a bit rate up to 6.144Mbps in various formats via HDMI but the lack of PAP and the software limitations make it impossible to reproduce lossless audio streams (in all formats other than LPCM) recorded on Blu-ray discs. On the other hand, the audio output capabilities of the GeForce 210, GT 220 and Radeon HD 4000 are satisfactory for 90% of HTPC users. Only the few owners of external receivers are going to complain at the lack of PAP in Nvidia’s new products."
I am an owner of an external receiver that supports DTS HD and Dolby True HD, so this was a feature I definitely needed for playing Blu Rays. I prefer nVidia myself, but at the time of buying nVidia did not support it.
The lines between CPU and GPU will blur.
But with the GPU on the CPU die, does this mean the gap between an "Office and Facebook" PC and a gaming PC will narrow or widen?
random obscure driver issue on random obscure linux distro #123415 working on random device setup #3121646, unfortunately, doesnt interest the world.
So if I use a non-obscure desktop Linux distro such as Ubuntu, how do I choose non-random devices to get it to work?
This is kind of stupid. A marketing brand is a marketing brand. When I think ATI I think of one of the top 2 video card manufacturers. When I think of AMD, I think of cheaper CPUs. Retiring "ATI" is a mistake.
5 years later somebody will invent some thingamajig that boosts graphical performance if you plug it into the motherboard.
ATI stood for ATI Technology Incorporated now it stands for And That's It
"In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change" --Thich Nhat Hanh
No disrespect, but your single experience is just as meaningless as his trolling. With a sample size of 1 you may as well have decided on the flip of a coin.
* My [Nvidia/ATI] anecdote trumps your [Nvidia/ATI] anecdote. You are stupid for buying their products.
* [Nvidia/ATI] has terrible drivers. You are stupid for buying their products.
* [Nvidia/ATI] produced hardware with a design flaw 25 generations ago. I will never buy their hardware again.
* Based on my comprehensive study of one graphics card, here is my 100% accurate assessment of the failure rate of every graphics card [Nvidia/ATI] produces. I will never buy their hardware again.
* Here's an opinion I formed more than ten years ago. Presumably it's still relevant because technology moves so incredibly slowly. You are stupid for buying [Nvidia/ATI]'s products.
Sample of one? http://hplies.com/ http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277 http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377 http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/Direct2Dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/09/12/nvidia-gpu-update-limited-warranty-enhancement-details.aspx
I remember when ATI.com went to Artificial Turds Inc, a company who sold a fake turd carefully placed atop astroturf, and shipped to anyone. That was way cooler than the current ATI.com.
Ahh, memories. So long ATI.
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
"Dzhugashvili" was Josef Stalin's birth name.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
There are 2 manufacturers of processors and graphics hardware because either no one else wants to enter the business or those who have attempted to do so have failed (ie. Transmeta).
Barriers to entry are definitional of a market that isn't perfectly competitive. Transmeta tried to run the blockade; most potential players would just avoid it entirely.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
No offence, but if it's out of warranty, you can hardly complain about it...
No offense but if the average life of the components are severely shorter than normal, customers shouldn't be expected to put up with junk that renders their $1000 computer useless. And no offense but manufactures shouldn't be trying to hide such defects.
"the average life of the components are severely shorter than normal" surely means "the component failed within its warranty". I don't see a problem with failures outside of warranty, they should be expected. If you want something that should last for a long time, get something that's "guaranteed" to last a long time. If something fails its guarantee, then the producer already has to pay for that mistake.