Did AMD kill ATI?

[Andrewr05]

Do you think that the purchasing of ATI by AMD has caused a declione in the performance in their new cards?

OR

Do you think that ATI would have been better off had AMD not bought them?

[SLAR]

I personally think that ATI was dying anyway. In the past I would occassionally pick up an ATI card on a build but would end of with nothing but problems. I always use top of the line products and I always end up back at NVidia!

[SMeeD]

I liked my 9800pro alot but that was the only ATi card Ive ever owned. I wasnt buying their cards anyway so I dont see how it can hurt.

[coolcat97]

Yes, last time i want to ATI.amd.com it really sucked.

[bigred]

first off for those people who think companies like ATI make thier living on the $500+ graphics card sales.... please remove your head from your own rear end.

 

 

ATI like every other company in the PC component industry sells 1 high end part for 3,000 of their entry level parts. and when you're taking about making $15 on that high end part and $5 on the low end one... do the math. the x2900 flop won't kill ATI anymore than the entire FX series killed Nvidia.

[ir_cow]

i wished Nvidia and AMD joined not ATi. i feel Ati drivers are the worse and really dont work well with other things and on top of that they always come late in the game only to produce half . products which is reason i have a Ati card, it was cheaper than a 6600gt because no one wanted it. might be faster but sure doesnt help when SM 2.0 is no longer in the game (Lost Planet and Rainbow Six Vages only support SM 3) i feel i should have just kept my 6800Gt and never sold it.

[Silverfox]

In reality it would have been better if NO merger had happened between any party, as competition would be more fierce, thus forcing pricing rivalries. It's a shame really, but such is life. We'll see how it all works out for the enthusiast user in the future. I'm guessing that for the mass-producers of PCs, ATI/AMD is a money saver.

[Nemo]

ATI continues to make the overwhelming bulk of their sales in areas not associated with the high end graphics card market. I read an article on ATI, pre-AMD, that said ATI garners no more than 5% of it sales volume from high-end/enthusiast graphics cards. It still maintains a dominant position in other graphics chips in markets such as consoles and mobile phones. If anything, AMD was damaged more by the $5.4 billion it paid for ATi than the other way around.

[coolcat97]

IDK why but i always thought:

Pentium 4: ATI

AMD 64: Nvidia

Coppermine: Nvidia

K6: Nvidia

P1: Trident/ati

 

This might not make anysense...but i think the CPU and company match good

[Andrewr05]

first off for those people who think companies like ATI make thier living on the $500+ graphics card sales....

I understand that.

 

What is your take on the merger?

[Agallion]

by dead, andrew doesnt mean finicially dead, they are no longer a special company thats on top, they had 1 good run on top around the 9800pro days, basically they got lucky.

[Verran]

No.

 

First of all, the word "kill" implies that ATi is dead or dying. Both are huge exaggerations of what is happening. I would agree with the folks that are saying the 2900 launch was a less than stellar performance. Now it wasn't really a "flop", because it's still a competitive card. It performs with or slightly ahead of the 8800GTS cards, and that means it will sell. Most people don't have a clue that it consumes nearly twice the power, nor do they really care. Most people also don't care to put the 7 month delay beyond the 8800 launch into the picture either. So while there's plenty to justify ripping on it, in general it will sell decently.

 

As for this somewhat weak launch being an indicator of ATi's "death", that's just plain silly. As has already been said, these high end cards aren't what make or break companies. It's a relatively small piece of their overall market. ATi continues to sell solidly in other (more profitable) areas. In the grand scheme, the 2900 launch wasn't even that bad. It'll take a LOT more to "kill" a company like ATi.

 

As for the merger, I think for the most part it's impossible to judge. First of all, take into consideration how slowly things move in a huge company like this. For all we know, the things we're seeing today could have been put in play even before the merger. There's a good chance that none of the large-scale changes AMD made have even been enacted yet. And to try to judge whether they're better or worse off is equally hard to judge. Who's to say what AMD changed? For all we know, they just bought the company and didn't change a thing. Or maybe they changed everything. We really don't know. So without knowing who's responsible for what, I don't really see how you can try to give credit.