This had to happen eventually, and it did just happen: AMD has dissolved the ATI brand completely, and consolidated ATI brands, such as Radeon and FirePro under the AMD main brand. Under the new branding scheme, new graphics products AMD launches (such as the upcoming Radeon HD 6000 series), will do away with "ATI" completely from the logo, marketing material, and so on, and the market will, as it already has been doing since the AMD-ATI merger, albeit informally, refer to Radeon/FirePro products as "AMD Radeon" and "AMD FirePro".

AMD explains its move as an "evolution of the AMD brand portfolio", saying that consolidation of ATI-branded products under the main brand results in reduced marketing overhead. It claims to have surveyed several thousand discrete graphics-aware users in in the U.S., U.K., Germany, China, Japan, Brazil, and Russia. The survey revealed that when made aware of ATI-AMD merger, AMD preference triples; AMD brand is stronger than ATI (against graphics competitors); and that people see Radeon and FirePro product names more conspicuous than ATI, indicating a "permission" to consolidate ATI into AMD. The survey was conducted entirely by AMD.The company also claimed that this is the perfect time AMD could possibly consolidate ATI brand, because Radeon products are experiencing good sales, and there's high market penetration of AMD's graphics products. Finally, AMD revealed the new brand logos that are nearly identical to the present ATI logos, of course, minus the revered "ATI".Looking ahead in the future, AMD expects its Vision branding strategy to cover a wide range of PC processor products, making it easy for consumers to choose a PC. Individual processors still carry their own logos, while Vision serves as a blanket logo to describe what the PC is capable of. AMD made it clear that existing Radeon HD 5000 series product (including the Radeon HD 5000 which are being manufactured or will be manufactured), are not affected by this change.

The transition will take place gradually. While current products aren't affected, with future product-lines (starting with Radeon HD 6000 series, and next-generation FirePro). Partners can choose between two kinds of logos (shown in the first image above), one which is more recognizable with the AMD corporate logo embedded, and one without.Did you like this move? We're sure a lot of you enthusiasts are going to be very vocal about this move. Either comment in the discussion below, or pick an option on our frontpage poll.