Sam Oliver
AMD is prepared to make the change because it believes having two brands is unnecessary, and the company plans to offer both CPUs and GPUs combined in its forthcoming Fusion product, according to ZDNet. Existing products such as Radeon will maintain their names, but will be labeled as AMD products rather than ATI.
AMD said it conducted research that found its brand is stronger than ATI, and that consumer preference toward ATI triples when they are aware of the ATI-AMD merger. AMD acquired ATI for $5.4 billion in 2006.
Apple partners with AMD's rival, Intel, for all of the CPUs in its line of Macs. However, AMD and Apple do have a close relationship when it comes to graphics processing in the Mac lineup.
In July, Apple updated its Mac Pro and iMac desktops, and the new machines only offer ATI graphics. But soon, those same products will be labeled AMD.
AMD, in justifying the change, highlighted its relationship with Apple, noting that the company continues to "secure new design wins with major OEMs — e.g. Apple iMac and Mac Pro." The company said it has the "momentum and data to make this change with confidence."
The chipmaker also said that with the AMD Fusion chip set to debut in the fourth quarter of 2010, it is "perfect timing" for the branding change. AMD said its "Ontario" model, which will be its first to offer a CPU and GPU in a combined package, will be a "watershed moment" for the company.
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AMD said its "Ontario" model, which will be its first to offer a CPU and GPU in a combined package, will be a "watershed moment" for the company.
Huh. A combined CPU and GPU. And a resurgent Mac marketplace. This could prove vereee interesteeeng....
Could it be that Apple prompted the Intel move so they could offer AMD CPUs in future Mac products while not cutting too much of the revenue stream that Intel enjoys?
Huh. A combined CPU and GPU. And a resurgent Mac marketplace. This could prove vereee interesteeeng....
Good pair of articles today about Intel's Sandy Bridge as well. Sounds like the gpu in one of the new i5s will be better (in most tests) than an ATI 5450. Yes that's an entry level card, but it showed good results at lower resolutions and quality settings. You won't be playing anything high end that way, but it might but the space needed to also fit a discrete card so their graphics switching solution can fit into 13" notebooks
Smart Move, IMO.
People don't really care about ATI vis-a-vis nVidia. However, the AMD brand has a lot of loyalty and good will attached to it, because they have always been looked at as the David in front of the Goliath, Intel. They are also, quite rightfully, credited with making Intel move towards better chip designs after the disasters that was Pentium 4, and moving the industry towards 64 bit.
I just got rid of a 5870 for a 480GTX. Too many issues with the 5870 on my machine. 2nd display corruption when viewing certain movie formats, crashes different games. Switch to nvidia relieved all those issues.