ATI to be rebranded, hope you like your "Radeon" cards

Michael H · August 2010

It looks like the brand name ATI will exists no more, and that graphics cards will be branded "Radeon/Firepro" by 2011.

http://www.dailytech.com/So+Long+Farewell+AMD+to+Kill+ATI+Brand+Name+/article19479.htm

Linked in that same article, I saw that ATI had taken the lead (51%) in discrete graphics cards sales.

http://www.dailytech.com/AMD+Takes+Discrete+Graphics+Market+Lead+from+NVIDIA/article19216.htm

Synthesis · August 2010

Wow. Granted, it's just a brand name, but I'm going to kind of miss it. I use Nvidia presently, but my first few build video cards were Radeons, like the X800Pro.

Interesting that AMD took a lead from Nvidia apparently (though not too surprising, I guess).

AzadIsCool · August 2010

Ummm...

Why does this matter? So now I should just refer to my card as a Radeon, gotcha.

Metallikat · August 2010

I've always referred to my cards as Radeon cards.

AzadIsCool · August 2010

There ya go.

Michael H · August 2010

If you really didn't think that it mattered you could have avoided posting in this thread at all.

Michael H · August 2010

Synthesis wrote: »

Wow. Granted, it's just a brand name, but I'm going to kind of miss it. I use Nvidia presently, but my first few build video cards were Radeons, like the X800Pro.

Interesting that AMD took a lead from Nvidia apparently (though not too surprising, I guess).

A couple of the articles mentioned it was only a matter of time, but it's always surprising to me when companies move away from something that has such broad name recognition. "ATI vs. nvidia"... just so used to it.

GungHo · August 2010

It's probably just AMD thinking they've had enough time at the helm to transfer any goodwill still associated with the ATI brand to AMD. This is like when BP dropped the Amoco brand (though they may end up bringing it back...).

AzadIsCool · August 2010

Michael H wrote: »

If you really didn't think that it mattered you could have avoided posting in this thread at all.

I'm not criticizing you for posting this, I just found it interesting that they are going to the trouble to remove the ATI name. I'm pretty sure that could do one of two things. Nothing, in which case it was sort of wasted effort, or it will lower brand recognition, so why bother do it at all?

Senjutsu · August 2010

AzadIsCool wrote: »

Michael H wrote: »

If you really didn't think that it mattered you could have avoided posting in this thread at all.

I'm not criticizing you for posting this, I just found it interesting that they are going to the trouble to remove the ATI name. I'm pretty sure that could do one of two things. Nothing, in which case it was sort of wasted effort, or it will lower brand recognition, so why bother do it at all?

I think the telling quote in the one article is that, from AMD's market research:

AMD preference triples when respondent is aware of ATI-AMD merger

so if you are a suit thinking damn, we would inspire more fondness for the AMD brand in consumers minds if they would just associate AMD with ATi products, you probably hit on taking the ATi name out of the equation.

So they will be Radeon Cards with a big AMD sticker somewhere, I bet

TheUnsane1 · August 2010

Amd should get a new red and white logo around the same time as the transition. ATI has been one of the few brands I have been 100% loyal to since moving to them when I got back to back doa nvidia cards when moving from 3dfx cards.

Michael H · August 2010

Agreed, I've had nothing but positive experiences with my ATI products. (And less than stellar experiences w/ nvida.)

AMD has done well for me also; I'll probably keep buying AMD/ATI combos unless a really good reason to do otherwise presents itself.

TheUnsane1 · August 2010

I haven't built an intel system yet but have no issue with the cpus. I tend to build my systems to last 2-3 years with no/minor upgrades and AMD just works out better price wise for that style of builds in my pc building budget.

Buttcleft · August 2010

TheUnsane1 wrote: »

Amd should get a new red and white logo around the same time as the transition. ATI has been one of the few brands I have been 100% loyal to since moving to them when I got back to back doa nvidia cards when moving from 3dfx cards.

I tend to alternate back and forth because by the time i'm ready to replace my card the opposite company will have had the best dollar/performance ratio.

but I do like radeon red over geforce blue.

Daedalus · August 2010

It's about damn time. I mean, I've usually bought ATi cards since my old 9600 Pro, but ATi's software end of things got waaaaaay better after the AMD buyout. Before the buyout their drivers were really rickety, now they're generally more stable than nVidia's (which took a real hit when Vista came out and the driver model changed and nV couldn't find their asses with both hands).

I mean, they're still not great, because graphics card companies prioritize performance over stability, but they're at least good.

Azio · August 2010

Michael H wrote: »

Agreed, I've had nothing but positive experiences with my ATI products. (And less than stellar experiences w/ nvida.)

The build quality of a particular graphics card model has more to do with the PCB maker (powercolor, xfx, evga, etc) than the GPU brand. Because if you have a card that dies it's probably the RAM that failed, not the GPU

Michael H · August 2010

Azio wrote: »

Michael H wrote: »

Agreed, I've had nothing but positive experiences with my ATI products. (And less than stellar experiences w/ nvida.)

The build quality of a particular graphics card model has more to do with the PCB maker (powercolor, xfx, evga, etc) than the GPU brand. Because if you have a card that dies it's probably the RAM that failed, not the GPU

In my case it's been nvidia onboard graphics for laptops. I'm not sure where that falls in the realm of blame.

GrimReaper · August 2010

Metallikat wrote: »

I've always referred to my cards as Radeon cards.

What, even the nvidia ones?

;-)

EDIT:

It is kind of sad in a way to be losing ATI, yeah.. it's just a brand name. But still, bit sad to see it die. I have a kind of semi-hatred for nvidia because I kept getting nvidia cards/chipsets that died on me. And you gotta hand it to ATI, they've really been eating away at nvidia the last few years.

I of course will buy nvidia if I think it's a good deal etc, I'm just a lot more careful of what nvidia chips I buy. (had two 7900GTX's die and a 8600M GT on my Macbook Pro) After getting burnt three times I really find it hard to trust nvidia.

Not once have I had an ATI chip die on me, the worst I've had with ATI were driver issues. That and I wish they'd either totally replace catalyst control center or just fix it so it doesn't suck so much.

Mugsley · August 2010

I just want a Radeon in my MBP. Too bad it'll never happen.

krapst78 · August 2010

Dang, now both the main GPU manufacturers will have black and green icons.

My very first discrete graphic card was an ATi 4MB Xpert@work. It was pretty crappy but I didn't really play too many 3D games then. Their website was the first non-US website I ever visited because www.ati.com went to some squatter site back in the 90s. They've come a long way since then and now I'm running a Radeon 5850 in my main desktop.

Darlan · August 2010

I really don't care about the ATI brand one way or another. I'd just like to see them develop some kind of numbering system that actually lets people (who don't obsess over tech news and video card hierarchy charts) make informed decisions on which card to get.

Michael H · August 2010

Darlan wrote: »

I really don't care about the ATI brand one way or another. I'd just like to see them develop some kind of numbering system that actually lets people (who don't obsess over tech news and video card hierarchy charts) make informed decisions on which card to get.

^ This. After reading up for a few months it seems pretty intuitive to me, but when I first starting researching video cards it didn't make any sense whatsoever. To the casual consumer it can make it easy to second guess whatever purchase is being made.

AzadIsCool · August 2010

It doesn't take very long to go on Tom's Hardware and check.

And you should be doing that anyway to check benchmarks.

Darlan · August 2010

I didn't mean that *I* was confused personally, just that this is no way to brand and sell a product. It's madness for the normal consumer, and it holds back computing in general as a result. If normal people better understood what they were buying, you'd probably see a lot more support for newer, better cards.

archonwarp · August 2010

Darlan wrote: »

I didn't mean that *I* was confused personally, just that this is no way to brand and sell a product. It's madness for the normal consumer, and it holds back computing in general as a result. If normal people better understood what they were buying, you'd probably see a lot more support for newer, better cards.

I totally agree. I work retail, and I can tell that it's incredibly confusing for non-enthusiast consumers to buy a graphics card. They need a clear-defined system, and they need to list it on the box. Just as cars have their XE, XL, GT, Si etc. editions, graphics cards should have these with a table listed on the box explaining what it means. This will help consumers looking for a specific feature set more easily make a purchase. I wouldn't mind an industry-wide standard, but we all know that would never happen.

Barrakketh · August 2010

archonwarp wrote: »

Darlan wrote: »

I didn't mean that *I* was confused personally, just that this is no way to brand and sell a product. It's madness for the normal consumer, and it holds back computing in general as a result. If normal people better understood what they were buying, you'd probably see a lot more support for newer, better cards.

I totally agree. I work retail, and I can tell that it's incredibly confusing for non-enthusiast consumers to buy a graphics card. They need a clear-defined system

Well, AMD sort of does have a clearly defined system. ABC0, where A is the card "generation", B is the "tier" of the card (budget, mainstream, enthusiast), and C is the relative performance level within the tier. With the odd exception of the 5830 (bad price/performance ratio, get a GeForce 460 instead) you should basically be buying the card with the highest numbers of B and then C that your wallet can cope with.

Hell, unless you count previous generation cards (4870 vs 5770 performance-wise, ignoring certain features of new cards) AMD's scheme is practically "buy the card with the biggest number that you can afford".

Dark Shroud · August 2010

Darlan wrote: »

I really don't care about the ATI brand one way or another. I'd just like to see them develop some kind of numbering system that actually lets people (who don't obsess over tech news and video card hierarchy charts) make informed decisions on which card to get.

They're just rebranding them to AMD Radeon and they will be keeping the red badges.

Stormwatcher · September 2010

I love my Radeon Cards. As long as they remain awesome, I couldn't care less about the logo.

Krikee · September 2010

Just wait for the boxed computer manufacturers to put their AMD-powered graphics sticker next to the Intel Inside sticker. Looks like a marketing ploy to me.

Daedalus · September 2010

Krikee wrote: »

Just wait for the boxed computer manufacturers to put their AMD-powered graphics sticker next to the Intel Inside sticker. Looks like a marketing ploy to me.

From the article:

Those bottom two are for computers with Intel Inside stickers on them.

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