Chicago (IL) – AMD said it was informed by the U.S. Department of Justice that an investigation into ATI Technologies’ pricing and marketing practices in the sale of graphics processing units has been closed.

The probe is officially ended, according to AMD, effectively clearing up suspicions of antitrust violations that puzzled industry watchers in the first place. However, while AMD/ATI and Nvidia always have been believed to be fierce competitors, the government agency seemed to have enough reason to investigate whether the two companies may have discussed coordinated GPU pricing to keep graphics processor prices artificially high.

Today’s U.S. DOJ note follows a subpoena sent to AMD’s ATI unit in December of 2006.  

A second subpoena was issued to Nvidia and it is likely that this part of the investigation has been closed as well: However, Nvidia has not yet released a statement and has not been reachable for comment.

A separate, private class action lawsuit was filed against ATI/AMD (and Nvidia) in the wake of the DOJ’s investigation. AMD paid a settlement to release the company from all direct purchaser class action claims against it and that the court will dismiss the litigation, AMD spokesperson Michael Silverman said. The court, however, has not yet approved the tehs ettlement agreement. The preliminary hearing for an approval is set for Tuesday, October 14.

"Essentially, we determined that the costs of continuing the private litigation of this magnitude to what we knew would be a successful conclusion greatly exceeded the amount that we decided to pay to end it now," he wrote in an email to TG Daily, and added: "We consider this resolution to be successful as well."

The announcement is certainly good news, especially when considering the financial trouble AMD has been dealing with over the past two years. In generally recovering stock trading today, AMD shares were up almost 4.5% to $3.98 in mid-day trading. Nvidia was up almost 12% to $7.61.