The only ATI card I've owned is the Radeon x800 Pro back in the day and it was a fantastic card to be honest, but I've always preferred & used nvidia since then. In fact nvidia's always been one of my favorite tech companies.
However, if AMD hired me and I was given the task of turning the graphics part of the company around, here are 9 things I would do:
1. Bring back the ATI name. Even if AMD is the overall company name, I would have ATI be a sub-section within the company and start back calling it the ATI Radeon. This would accomplish two things:
1a. It tells people that we're serious about turning things around and we're planning to compete on a even level like we did back in the day.
1b. It gets people's nostalgia working and may help to bring some people back over to the red side (a few, but mainly point #1a applies).
2. I'd focus on having my top card be faster then nvidia's top card and if they trade blows then I'd make sure I was $100 less expensive. For the 2nd fastest card, I'd focus on value for the customer with a great bang for the buck price like the GTX 970 did. I've also noticed over the years that amd cards tend to have more vram then their nvidia equivalents, so I'd continue to do this. No more 4gb on our top card, HBM or no HBM.
3. I'd make sure that we work with developers to have game-ready drivers on day 1, along with crossfire support. We'd also focus on improving the experience that people have with crossfire to have a smoother and stutter free experience, along with trying maximize the performance boost that each additional cards adds. We would also make efforts to improve our triple monitor support.
4. I'd work with a pilot company like Sony or Samsung and have their TV's start integrating freesync capabilites. Then when Sony or MS started developing the PS5 & XB2, I'd make sure that I was again their choice of APU supplier and that the new consoles would support freesync as well. Consumers would love it because their TVs would already have the capability by the time the consoles launched and PC gamers with our cards could even hook their PC up the TV for a tear-free experience. In particular I'd try to work with Sony's TV division first and then later try to have my APU's in their PS5 support freesync as well.
5. I would start a loyalty program. Come up with a clever marketing slogan about "being Red" and allow users to create a myRadeon account on our website. Then allow users to register their Radeon cards and add the serial number to their account. All members who register at least 1 card would be eligible for 10% off all Steam purchases for 1 year from when their first card was registered. We'd also relaunch the forums to be called myRadeon forums with a new red-inspired visual theme and do what we can to have it be more community friendly, like having vendors do occasional giveaways and providing support along with all the other usual forum sections and discussions.
6. Next we need to focus on improving our advertising. Remember how some Nintendo Gamecubes had that little sticker in the bottom right corner on the front of the console that said "Graphics by ATI"?
http://cubemedia.ign.com/media/space2k1/hardware/gcnperiph32.jpg
We need to bring that back. I want people to know that our tech is everywhere and I'd want our logo once again featured somewhere on the front or even on the back of the next gen consoles, and for sure on the box's front somewhere. I know we're strapped for cash but we also need to have the occasional commercial on TV with a clever campaign like Intel has been doing, to let people know that we're still out there & relevant. As part of our campaign we also need to get people thinking that Radeons provide the premier 4K PC experience. Remember when Dodge had the marketing campaign where they would say "That thing got a Hemi?" In our commercials we need to have someone say "Nice, you've got a 4k monitor. Is that powered by a Radeon?"
7. We need to continue to innovate on the open-source front. Freesync is good, mantle was good, but we need to think about the next big thing.
8. We need to implement a stringent QA process to completely eliminate coil whine and then advertise to people that when you buy ATI you don't have to worry about this. The silent PC / home theater crowd would love us and users in general would love not having to worry about this.
9. Nvidia's Titan-style coolers that began with the GTX 690 have been doing great for them. They deliver solid performance, they have the cool window on top where you can see the alumim fins underneath, and they have the Geforce GTX logo lighting up the side in green. We've designed those AIO coolers for the Fury series with Radeon on the side, but our coolers don't have that same visual wow factor that theirs do. To address this, I would revise the AIO cooler so that the top of the waterblock on the card is see-through, to expose the fins in the waterblock. Then also parter with Noctua to use their fans (albeit in black) in order to improve the performance/noise ratio and also work on eliminating the pump noise as much as possible. I know using Noctua's may raise the price a few dollars but this is for a premium product and efficient cooling goes a long way towards keeping temps down, noise down, and reliability up. There's more to a good experience than performance alone and we want to demonstrate this with quality.
