Blizzard, AMD forge graphics-card deal

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Aug 12, 2008 4:53 pm PT

GPU maker teams with so-cold-it's-hot outfit on development partnership; unspecified catalog games bundled with all new ATI products.

The graphics-chip wars have always raged hotter than a fully charged silicon wafer, and today AMD launched its latest volley to combat the growing dominance of Nvidia's GTX 280 top-end card. That bombshell took the form of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, a $549 top-of-the-line card that packs 2.4 teraflops of processing power and communicates with memory at 230GB per second.

However, that isn't the only measure that AMD is taking to gain ground on graphics-chip rival Nvidia. The semiconductor company also said today that it has entered into a partnership with Blizzard Entertainment, purveyor of arguably the most popular PC game in the world, World of Warcraft. As part of the development-partnership deal, AMD will also begin bundling unspecified Blizzard Entertainment games with all ATI Radeon graphics cards.

"Our collaboration with AMD is especially important to us because it provides us with early access to some of the latest graphics technology," commented Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. "Delivering a polished game experience is one of our top priorities, and this relationship helps us achieve that goal for Blizzard gamers who choose AMD graphics cards."

For a more comprehensive look at the goings-on of the gaming-hardware sector, check out GameSpot's Hardware Insider blog.

100 Comments

  • weaselciuy

    Posted Jan 24, 2009 1:45 am PT

    stfu u haters and this so called war ati vs nvidia. Ati is clearly better made for games , Intel is for office puss**s. Intel 7 is overrated.

  • aura_enchanted

    Posted Sep 5, 2008 10:35 am PT

    ohh blizzard is high on crack the graphic deal talks smack, there partnership is lame, please blizzard go away.

  • baden1992

    Posted Sep 4, 2008 3:57 am PT

    cant wait till it if they do i might wait to get my card for my computer if this is going to happen hopefully i get SC2 in it or Diablo 3 as WoW is gay

  • Doomrazer

    Posted Aug 20, 2008 3:09 am PT

    Thats what Nvidia gets for being arrogant...they are surpassed by companies that kept on moving forward...this is just another example...

  • brain20035

    Posted Aug 17, 2008 12:54 am PT

    OMG! nVIDIA must not lose!!!

  • Destroyeron13

    Posted Aug 14, 2008 11:37 am PT

    SC2?

  • Spartan809

    Posted Aug 14, 2008 9:18 am PT

    ATI can't touch NVIDIA.

  • sieg6529

    Posted Aug 14, 2008 6:19 am PT

    I really like the idea of offering game-card bundles so you can be absolutely sure the graphics card will play the optimum settings.

  • blackangel2008

    Posted Aug 14, 2008 12:28 am PT

    Well, AMD makes great CPU 's and as far as I'm concerned their GPU's are reasonably good; I actually prefer AMD over Intel, so I guess more power to them....

    But, you can't deny that the whole bundle package deal seems pretty sweet

  • Griff152

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 11:29 pm PT

    lmao, it sounds like ATi begged them. Good luck to them though (ati that is).

  • brian_13un

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 10:42 pm PT

    Me too i prefer Nvidia Blizzard T_T

  • invictuslemming

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 6:45 pm PT

    Ati seems to be good at finding popular partners, their Black black box deal when Half Life 2 came out was also a great package.

  • MetalGuyver

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 5:27 pm PT

    I REALLY hope they bundle a good graphics card with Diablo III, I need a good Graphics card to play it. :S

  • elozl

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 5:05 pm PT

    well ATI is a good company, i think this will help them grow a little more since the AMD fusion did not worked out as expected

  • ebonyflame

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 4:10 pm PT

    Now that is a mighty blow to Nvidia since Blizzard is releaseing in the coming year no fewer than two highly anticipated games that will surely be million sellers.

  • tony2077ca

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 3:50 pm PT

    why ati why not nvidia blizzard i prefer nvidia

  • thor25br

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 2:12 pm PT

    This sh* sucks to me...

  • lapalm

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 1:31 pm PT

    Actually, with the new drivers for older Radeon, you get 10 days trial of WoW. But I would be surprise if the game bundled is WoW. Much more chance being SC2 beta, DIII beta or even the complete game to get with a code. They did it with the Orange Box. And remember it's more of a marketing alliance for AMD than showdown. Which greater PC game company could have been chosen? Blizz is one of the rare companies being loyal to PC gaming.

  • Zloth2

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 12:01 pm PT

    Yep. Once was a day when graphics cards came bundled with a few games. None of them were topping the sales charts at the time but you could still get some decent games or some really good games that were a year or so old.

    I'm guessing a World of Warcraft 30 day free trial and ... ummm... jeez, Blizzard hasn't done anything BUT WoW for five years! Diablo 3 would be a pretty huge give away. What are they going to put in there?

  • ColdfireTrilogy

    Posted Aug 13, 2008 11:58 am PT

    endocrine lol but not 100% true. I love nvidia but this is a great partnership AND sad as I must say ATI is catching up :S Heres to hoping Nvid releases something stellar like the old 8800 series equivalent that just rocks the house down again haha.

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