14 DAY TRIAL // This doesn't mean that Ati will disappear. The brand will continue to exist as a division of AMD but the R600 series is rumored to be manufactured under the AMD name. This information is somewhat strange and this is why: when AMD acquired Ati they said that they were going to keep the "Ati" brand alive. And now?
A small period of time can change a lot of things. This is probably why Ati decided to release a limited edition of their DirectX 9 monster. The package is called "Uber Edition" and it comes with two X1950 XTX cards, one of which being a "Master" card required to run the Crossfire setup. The cards come factory overclocked (670/2100MHz GPU/mem which is a small increase over the default clocks - 650/2000). As far as we can tell, only 500 packages will be released, meaning that this edition will probably be the rarest video card ever.
The 500 potential owners that will be able to buy the card will receive, along with the two VGA cards, an exclusive Certificate of Authenticity signed by Dave Orton, the former chief executive of ATI. Moreover the special suit-case that houses the goods will come with a built-in combination lock. Sincerely speaking, when 3Dfx had been bought by Nvidia such a gift would have probably provoked a mass hysteria.
Now, this makes me a bit sad. The "Ati" name will surely disappear from the market but the Uber Edition will remain in the hearts of fans everywhere around the world. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. But it will happen anyway.