ATI, we hardly knew ye. Word on the street is that AMD, which bought ATI for a cool $5.4 billion some four years ago, will phase out the ATI name later this year. Apparently AMD’s research indicates that people prefer the AMD name to the ATI name, but that, above that, the name that really sells is Radeon. Goodbye ATI Radeon Pro, hello AMD Radeon Pro.
Is this a big deal? Eh, kinda. I honestly could give a toss what AMD calls the GPUs so long as they perform admirably. (And I’m writing this post on a PC with a Radeon Pro 5970 on board that I shelled out quite a bit of money for!) I guess it’s more of a nostalgia thing. “Oh man, they’re phasing out the ATI name? Bummer.”
Perhaps AMD will use this as an opportunity to create drivers that don’t cause the community to meltdown!
Now, why is this happening? AMD’s research shows that, well, the ATI name doesn’t mean a whole bunch these days. Side-by-side, people have more confidence in AMD GPUs when referred to as “AMD” rather than “ATI.”
I’d like to meet the person who’s willing to buy an AMD Radeon but not an ATI Radeon. But apparently these people exist.
AMD has also found that the, truth be told, it’s really the Radeon brand name that means anything, particularly when compared to the name Nvidia.
Wall of text to explain this: beginning with the next batch of GPUs, which should be released later this year, you’ll be looking at benchmarks of the AMD Radeon XXXX and not the ATI Radeon.
Perhaps a sad day for all the ATI fans in the crowd, but at the end of the day, so long as the cards work well AMD could call them the Super-Duper AMD Graphics Processing Unit for all I care.