After months of possible merger information it finally happens and I am surprised at the amount of money that AMD had to spend on this. This is a huge step for both companies. Currently Intel is the lead manufacturer of microprocessors, semiconductors, and graphics chips with AMD being the second for microprocessors and Nvidia and Ati battling it out for second in the graphics chips. Now of course Intel graphics chips are like integrated graphics obviously if you need a high end graphics card you would go with a Nvidia, Ati, or some of the other card manufacturers.
The only real good thing about this is better compatibility between AMD and ATI chipsets for example like if my processor, motherboard, and graphics cards were all built to work together it would greatly increase performance. Now the bad thing is for example I hate Ati cards its just my opinion I think the people who buy them are just sold by the cheasy 3d graphics on the box and they think if they get it there Age of Empires II(or some other lame game that doesnt need highend graphics cards) will look like it. So for me Nvidia is the way to go, but lets say I have an AMD processor (not likely either, nothing against them they make good stuff) then my card and processor dont have that compatibility and probably dont work half as well. Another thing is Nvidia is a backer of opensource stuff like Linux so if Ati beats them out then less graphic card support for linux.