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Hardware

CEE2003: A One-Vendor Trade Show 106

Posted by timothy from the good-info-anyhow dept.
Billy Stephens writes "Few people knew about the CEE2003 event put on by Chaintech this year. They flew some of the top media analysts and resellers out to Spain to show off their new K8 motherboards and Nvidia Geforce FX based video cards. Unfortunately there was a lot of bad news to be had as well. AMD pushed back their Athlon 64 CPU until September so there were no motherboards based on it to show off, and Nvidia announced they would only release around 4,000 of their Geforce FX GPUs, primarily for preorders only. It looks like ATI has rattled Nvidia more than what people thought. Monkey Review has a great summary of this event with plenty of pictures. Overall I am impressed with the quality Chaintech has put into their products from an aesthetic point of view, it's a shame that both Nvidia and AMD are having product issues."
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CEE2003: A One-Vendor Trade Show More

CEE2003: A One-Vendor Trade Show

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  • Ultra256 and Real256E (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17, 2003 @01:57PM (#5320683)
    Interestingly by looking at the Road Map I noticed that the 760 & 761 chipset will offer a form of integrated graphics, 760 utilizing Utlra256 Graphics and the 761 equipped with Real256E Graphics.

    Yeah but, Sis still hasn't made much headway in terms of the 800 MHz FSB which Intel will soon offer, at least not in terms of what we saw from their roadmap although this might change if their able to get the appropriate "go ahead" from Intel, which, from what I hear, hasn't been an easy task.
  • Is it just me, or does it seem like the whole PC graphics market has gotten well ahead of their consumers and software (i.e. games)? Along with other aspects of PC's, it seems AGP 8X and 128MB video cards are really necessary, at least for the larger customer base that would justify their production. There will always be the bleeding-edge enthusiasts who snap up the latest gear...
    • Wow, two typos in one post! Of course I meant that these things aren't necessary to the average consumer...
    • All they have to do is make the graphics card render slightly faster than before, and people will find a use for it. CAD markets spend lots on this, which brings the price down for regular joes. If you can cut 30 seconds off of a complex render, then you have saved the company thousands of dollars per employee per year.
      • 30 seconds off a complex render? Surely nothing rendered *in hardware*, on the video card, is that slow. For software rendering I can believe it.

        I thought the point of 3d acceleration in video cards is to give a real-time display, and for that obviously faster is better. If you are doing massive rendering jobs a la Toy Story, those are done in software. It would be interesting to accelerate that task using standard 3d accelerator cards, but I think the drivers and/or hardware tend to have bugs which mean missing surfaces, etc, cannot be ruled out. So they may not be good enough to generate the final version.
        • Yeah, but nothing is rendered in final per se, but used to generate previews for the CAD designer. Resizing, rotating, zooming, transparencies, etc. are all used for verification, all of which can't be done entirely in wireframe. Once the designer is confident in his designs, they aren't completely rendered, but rater small portions, or passed entirely to machines to do the work. The computers don't need to see every detail, nor do the machinist, but the designer has to make sure that he's not piercing a mold's waterjacket with an ejector pin hole, and to do that he needs to see the design, and more importantly, to manipulate it. Technically it is a limitation of the user to fail to envision the entire project in 3d using a 2d rendering, but we are, after all human.
      • CAD users have historically used different chipsets with different optimisation points than those used for games, though, so there's no guarantee that what is a win for specialist users will flow into the general market.
    • does it seem like the whole PC graphics market has gotten well ahead of their consumers and software (i.e. games)?

      Nah. Ever played Battlefield: 1942? If you're planning on sniping someone on a hill 400 yards away, you'd better be running above 640x480. I bought a 128MB Radeon 9500 pro to replace my 64MB Geforce 2 MX so that I could up my resolution.
      Next, I'm going to buy 512MB more RAM(currently running 384MB, need more!!!), so that the maps load faster.
      In short, while the GF2MX was good for Quake 3, if you want to play new games, you usually need new hardware. There's always more eye candy that you can turn on - anti-aliasing, antistropic filtering, etc that can tax your video card.

    • As you say, "there will always be the bleeding-edge enthusiasts who snap up the latest gear..."; those enthusiasts often influence the buying decisions of family, friends, and acquantances. Success of NVIDIA, ATI has not been solely based on the sales from the enthusiasts. Buzz influences OEMs indirectly and they (Dell, Gateway, HPQ, etc.) follow along. Okay, so they buy into the extreme performance hype like the rest of us; that hype fuels the consumer notion that product differentiation exists and encourages consumers to pay extra for a few extra FPS. Enthusiasts are a bigger group than you think, if consider everyone that they influence.

    • The 'GPU' makers are in a war of brute forcing solutions to problems that haven't arisen yet in order to drive sales. The evidence of this is clear in 3dfx's card requiring an external brick power source and nVidia's offering requiring two cards.

      They are simply at the limits of what can be put on a card, but have nowhere else to go yet.

      The next logical step in this war is the "home render farm" where we replace the GPU with a graphics computer networked to the desktop.

      Sheesh.

      In the meantime the unwashed browsing masses and pointy hairs have figured out that Rage 128's work just fine for reading email and the odd round of Tetris.

      This will only end when one of the players is willing to drop back a round, punt, and come up some *new ideas* in GPU architecture.

      Which, unfortunately, puts them in the position of risking the company if they don't pull it off, which makes the stockholders edgy, which puts pressure on them to just stay the course as they are, which risks the company.

      Rinse and repeat.

      KFG
      • I don't know if anyone is aware of this one...

        but if I recall, in an interview with the bitboys (hold the flames) - I recall them describing a "trick" with the 2d drivers of their video cards which will make the frame rate of things on screen sync with the video refresh.

        What this means is it will create the illusion (yes illusion) that 2d video is much faster as there will be less tearing if you move things around quickly.

        It's only a small thing, but it's a fantastic idea (in my opinion)
        I wouldn't be surprised if something similar is already in some form of linux gui / driver and has been for years., but I don't follow that scene so please no ms vs linux flames here.

        Definately a simple yet effective feature.

    • Re:Jujst ahead of their time... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jester99 ( 23135 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @03:25PM (#5321199) Homepage
      Is it just me, or does it seem like the whole PC graphics market has gotten well ahead of their consumers and software (i.e. games)?

      Just wait 'til Doom III comes out. I, erm, might have, possibly, uh, "acquired" the E3 preview version :) and let me tell you, it looks simply incredible. That having been said, it ground a GeForce 4 Ti to a halt. Yes, it's only a preview. The final release will be probably around 300% more efficient. But still, tomorrow's games will *definitely* need the newest hardware today.

      True, the graphics market might have gotten ahead in the race for now, but then again, how would Carmack be able to test how his game runs on what the rest of us will be running next year, unless he's got that technology this year?

      I once laughed when I thought about the impossible power of a 1 GHz processor. Now, such a thing is entry-level, and any modern game will require at least that much horsepower.

      Demand does not now exist for an insanely powerful graphics card, because games have not been written yet that take advantage of such hardware. But sooner or later, games will come out that require the latest GeForce or Radeon, and the hardware makers will set their sights on the next horizon, always one step ahead.
      • "That having been said, it ground a GeForce 4 Ti to a halt."

        Why wait for Doom III? Head on over to www.futuremark.com and download 3dmark 2003. You too can witness your video card being beaten to a bloody stump by pixel shaders.
    • Unfortunatly I have to say that this argument is very tired, old, and verging on troll. People have been saying "the hardware is ahead of the software. I won't need to upgrade for sooo long". Its true, and its tiring. Games are sold to the mass market, to run on the machines the majority of players have. This means they tend to run fine on machines a year or two older than the best currently available. Right now there are games that will strain a Geforce3, which was released about 15 months ago.

  • Why AMD? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @01:59PM (#5320694) Homepage Journal
    Why lump AMD with NVidia in having "issues"? Just because they delayed release of their Clawhammer products doesn't mean they're having problems. Is it their fault that Microsoft can't come up with a consumer 64-bit version operating system? Can you blame them for giving Barton more of a chance in the marketplace by making sure that it doesn't compete with Hammer at the same time?

    Just another case of a submission ruined by the submitter inserting an uninformed opinion at the end of the article.

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DancingSword ( 412552 )

      Think about this, though:

      IF AMD released a desktop version of their hammer, the "Athlon 64", and...

      ... there wasn't an Athlon 64 version of MS-Windows, .. which OS do you think would push sales?

      AMD's suppressing Athlon 64 is partly because the margins are better on the Opteron-class's market, and ..

      .. because if they put 'em out, then they'll be moving the market-share boundaries to reduce MS and grow Linux, and MS won't allow anyone, anywhere ( who's a 'partner' ), to do that ( see the latest bit where they *coded* broken style-sheets to make Opera users non-able to work well with msn, and remember how they pressured IBM so suppress OS/2 ( if what I'd read about the evidence presented in the pre-Bush prosecution of MS was correct )... )

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:08PM (#5320748) Homepage Journal
      Again, this is driven by market demands - there simply isn't a strong need out there for a 64-bit operating system, so why would Microsoft invest the resources required? For the mass market, hardware capabilities have advanced well ahead of customer needs, hence the steep dropoff in PC sales we've seen for the last year or more.

      • Also (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 )
        Microsoft HAS a 64-bit operating system. They have a 64-bit version of Windows XP. Runs only on the Itanium at present. That was actually one of the reasons Intel pushed out the Itainum 1. I mean face it, the chip was pretty worthless for a production environment what with the expense. Basically it was only good for R&D.

        Well, that gave companies, like MS, time to recompile their stuff for it. Now the Itainum 2 actually ahs software and platforms it can run.

        Despite the fact that you can mess with a chip simlator, you really can't code and test until you have actual silicon. If MS is going to make a version fo 64-bit Windows for AMD chips, it won't happen till the processor happens. They may do some work on it with simulators and get it ready, but they aren't going to ship it till they've tested it on the real deal.

        I think it's silly that some people expect software makers to support a chip before it comes out.

      • Re:Why AMD? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by geekoid ( 135745 )
        "there simply isn't a strong need ..."

        I would argue there isn't a strong demand.

        I see a strong need for 64 bit. I put it in the same group as dual procs and Ipv6. People don't know what it brings to the table, so there to ignorant to demand it.

        How much of a need was there for the first Apple computer?

        It's supply and demand, need doesn't enter into it.
    • Honestly, I don't think that Microsoft is dealying any of that stuff.... AMD has tons of corporate customers who would gladly take the 64-bits and Linux in order to get away from stuff like Sun farms.

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Thagg ( 9904 )
      Yes, it is perfectly reasonable to claim that they are having issues. Announcing that they would be releasing products at particular times, and then delaying that release, several times in each case, points to serious problems -- either with the production of the products or with their ethics. I'd love to believe that AMD and NVidia are working as hard as they can and just haven't been able to make things work, but at this point you can't rule out the possibility that they've been pre-announcing products to unfairly distort the marketplace.

      AMD could release Athlon 64 to the Linux community today and they'd snap it up. That would also guarantee that Microsoft worked hard to make their schedule for releasing 64-bit Windows -- they'd be mortified that they'd be left behind.

      thad

      • Re:Why AMD? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by oconnorcjo ( 242077 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:46PM (#5320960) Journal
        AMD could release Athlon 64 to the Linux community today and they'd snap it up. That would also guarantee that Microsoft worked hard to make their schedule for releasing 64-bit Windows -- they'd be mortified that they'd be left behind.

        AAARGH!

        They are realeasing thier SERVER version of their product (opteron) in APRIL. They only "delayed" the consumer version (clawhammer) because there is no Microsoft 64 bit system for it yet. So AMD is doing EXACTLY what you suggest and you have not checked the FACTS to KNOW it. I just don't get why there is so much misunderstanding of AMD's release schedule.

        • Re:Why AMD? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          You are full of crap. They are releasing the SERVER version in APRIL because they don't need the higher clock speeds that they are unable to produce. Most industry analysts see the delay of clawhammer as a direct result of their problems with SOI, and the Microsoft OS EXCUSE is nothing but PR spin. Maybe you should read some more FACTS instead of blindly towing the AMD party line...
          • Cmon at least give this post 1 or 2 mod points it deserves it please........

            (and no, I'm not anti AMD, I'm disapointed and frustrated, I want them to survive and put the hammer into intel a little but things are *NOT* looking good, and bullshit excuses don't cover it)

    • its there already (Score:3, Informative)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )
      With an MSDN subscription you can get copies of 64 bit XP. Their download page even lists 64 bit patches and service packs, what are you talking about? Intel already sells I2 servers and desktops. Its totally AMD's issue.

      • Re:its there already (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ponos ( 122721 )
        The fact that 64-bit XP exists does NOT mean
        that it will work on ALL 64-bit processors!
        Clearly, IA-64 (Itanium) is NOT the same as
        x86-64 (Opteron) and XP for Opteron needs
        quite a lot of different low level code.
        It is a different processor!

        However, AMD has released working silicon
        (and complete specifications, AND an emulator)
        to partners a long time ago. Please check http://www.x86-64.org.
        The reason Opteron has taken quite a long time
        to release to the public is that it has
        to be competitive with an already fast processor
        (Athlon 3000+, P4 3.06 etc) so it has to reach
        a very high clock rating AND it has to be
        widely available.

        I believe the first "unofficial" benchmarks had
        been available a few months ago. Also note that
        according to AMD, test systems are available
        (www.amd.com).I'm sure you can read about
        working systems presented during the last
        year.

        Anyway, to sum this up, I'm sure that if this
        was an issue, MS would have had BETA (or
        ALPHA!) silicon a VERY long time ago for
        developement. Hell, even UT2003 has been
        recompiled for x86-64 and linux/arch/x86-64/
        is already 35000 lines of C and assembler
        code!

        P.

        P.S. I just found out that Tom's hardware
        had seen x86-64 silicon from 27 February
        2002. Go check
        http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020227/
        I'm sure they could spare a few extra systems
        for MS ;-)

      • Re:its there already (Score:2, Informative)

        by Slack3r78 ( 596506 )
        Except that the current version won't run with the AMD chips. The 64 bit XP that's out now is for the Itanium chip structure (IA-64) which is a totally different chip for AMD's x86-64 structure. Basically, Intel threw out all the old chip design for the new structure, while AMD is focusing on expanding the current structure to run native 64 bit. there's a big difference there. so in short, no, it's not just AMD's problem.
    • they don't have to develop a 64-bit version of their OS. Since the hammer runs in 32-bit mode, all they have to do is make the chip run in normal old 32-bit mode. They don't have to optimize it for 64-bits, however it would be nice.

    • Actually, It's more like...

      Why is AMD lumped in with Nvidia? Don't you know that Nvidia is an evil megacorporation that hoardes IP and eats small companies? AMD is the small underdog, they will never be evil. They are leagues above Nvidia, just because of their underdoggishness.

      That's why ATI is so great. Intel is evil. Down with the Monopoly! Microsoft is evil, and forces everyone to eat their product! Grrr...

    • Just because they delayed release of their Clawhammer products doesn't mean they're having problems.

      Yes it does. They have delayed the release many times, and that is almost always because of unforeseen problems. Most industry analysts believe it is because of manufacturing problems with SOI, and AMD has pretty much admitted this is the case. With the current yields, they probably won't be able to clock the chips higher than 1.8 GHz, and that might not even be fast enough to beat the fastest Barton chips (with 32 bit code).

      http://www.tech-report.com/onearticle.x/4685 [tech-report.com]

      Also, I would bet that Microsoft will wait until there is a 64 bit consumer chip before it releases a 64 bit consumer OS.
    • Let's see here, AMD's quarterly losses are up to $256,000,000. [yahoo.com]

      Intel on the other hand made $686,000,000 in the same period [yahoo.com].

      Yes, Virginia, AMD does have issues. You can only sieve cash like that for so long.

  • "aesthetic point of view?" (Score:5, Funny)

    by deft ( 253558 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:00PM (#5320701) Homepage
    "Overall I am impressed with the quality Chaintech has put into their products from an aesthetic point of view"

    That should be great for people who leave their boxes open and stare at them like its a TV.

    oh yeah, this is slashdot. my bad.

  • My reactions are split.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:05PM (#5320733) Journal
    Half of me wants to say that AMD and Nvidia must be insane for not keeping their timetables in better order, and the other half of me is glad that they are not releasing (or are releasing only on a minor scale) incomplete or inferior products. All of me is frustrated at the irony of these situations. I recall reading a tour of Nvidia's headquarters, which included a ton of expensive Sun hardware going to work at the design phase of the Nvidia's GPUs. The guys giving the tour said that they couldn't wait until AMD released their new 64 bit chips so they could replace those farms with Linux-powered machines on AMD hardware. Now with AMD pushing back the Athlon 64 to September, that delays Nvidia's ability to make and design chips on the hardware and software they really want to use.
    • actually a bunch of people are acting like spoiled brats/babies. it has been Nvidias rock solid time tables that have put a lot of companies out of business. And now they mess up on their time table once and everyone jumps down their throats. Give them a break. If it weren't for them you people would be stuck with "top of the line" graphics on a Voodoo3.
  • I'm sitting here looking out the window at 2 feet of snow keeping me inside and wishing that I didn't have my next computer upgrade delayed by AMD. I know I could pick up plenty of CPUs right now much faster than my 1.4 GHz Athlon, but I really wanted my next upgrade to be to their 64bit architecture. It's like when a 386 was the fastest intel chip out there, but the 486 was just around the corner.... I want to wait, but until September now?!?

    Since I really don't have anything that actually requires an immediate upgrade (picking up another 1/2 GB of ram and a decent video card put that off for a while), I'll just keep waiting.

    I want one (ok, two) for my house, but really, I do want inexpensive blade servers using the new Athlon MP chip to use as web/application servers first....

    • If you really can't wait until then buy a cheap Alpha from ebay. I have a PC164 box that was built in 1997 and was true 64 bit back then. It has two ISA, two PCI, and two 64 bit PCI slots. 8 simm sockets so you can interleave the two banks of memory for double the throughput. Built in IDE controllers that don't have any issues with seeing 80Gb drives (most pII boards can't). A shame it never caught on. It runs NetBSD and happily routes packets for my firewall.

      • The Alpha cpus are nice. We're using four DS20's (dual 866 Mhz Alpha CPUs and 4 GB of RAM each) as Oracle 9i RAC database servers at work and they're great for that purpoase. We bought them to save about 1.5 Million on Oracle licenses before the Ultra Sparc III's came out. (Gotta love Oracle's by cpu doesn't matter what the speed licensing model!) Sadly, it looks like that after the Dec/Compaq/HP merger series, Alpha hardware is going the way of the unsupported.

  • Collaboration (Score:4, Insightful)

    by v3rb ( 239648 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:11PM (#5320772) Homepage
    About the portion on "it's a shame that NVidia and AMD are having product issues". It just seems to be that Chaintech is unable to collaborate better with their vendors to make sure they don't release products that cannot be shipped in volume. I think the reason we don't see this from other manufacturers (think ATI/Intel...) because they have ways to collaborate and make sure these kind of snafu's don't happen.

    I like the way Apple releases products. You hear NOTHING until every vendor is producing in volume and they are shipping or about to ship assembled units. This whole idea of announcing products 3-12 months before they can ship is just FUD trying to keep customers from buying right now.
    • I'll show you a demo model in an Apple store.

      Still waiting on 17" Powerbook which was announced 3-4 weeks ago and has a 5-7 week ship time as of today.

      I love apple but don't compare them to a "We only announce when we can sell it" company.

    • Modification (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bstadil ( 7110 )
      is just FUD trying to keep customers from buying right now.

      I agree with you but you forgot one word. competitor

      The line should read:

      is just FUD trying to keep customers buying from a competitor right now.

      That is by the way one of the reasons Apple can keep a much better track record on new product releases. They are to a major extend competiting against itself, at least in the short term.

  • Nvidia's Demise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Arc04 ( 601196 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:15PM (#5320789)
    As much as I don't want to beleive it, I am now thinking that we could be seeing the end of nVidia, just like we saw the end of 3DFX a few years back now. The GeForceFX is just so huge and noisy comapred to ATI's offering, it is not even funny.

    I guess there are not as many companies (especially computer/IT/internet companies) that can survive long these days - we are seeing more and more "infallible" companies failing nowadays.

    As soon as ATI makes better drivers for Windows/Linux and other OSes, then they will sell even more than they do now.

    I wonder if this will apply to companies such as Google and Microsoft.... :P

    Arc

    • Re:Nvidia's Demise (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Milican ( 58140 )
      OMG not this again. Seriously, just because a video card comes out that sounds like a hoover on steroids doesn't mean a company is going out of business. Please back up a quote with some financials [yahoo.com] or something tangible [yahoo.com]. Yes, the product sucks (and blows.. har har har). No I won't be buying it, but nVidia has had nothing but success since the TNT2. Lets not forget their XBox design win. The FX is only one generation people.

      JOhn

      • The FX is only one generation people.
        Yeah, but the GPU generation cycle is less than 6 months now. Their financials may look OK, but that doesn't always show the big picture. There are some people that make 200k+ a year, but still live paycheck-to-paycheck. Once little slip could spell disaster. They same could be said of nVidia. After all, this is not a very forgiving industry.
        ...but nVidia has had nothing but success since the TNT2.
        A couple of years ago you could have said the same thing about 3dfx (ignoring the Rush fiasco, of course :-) The V5 is oddly similiar to the FX, even more odd when you consider that the FX is supposedly the first nVidia GPU to use 3dfx technology.

        I don't pretend to know the future, but there's no harm in speculation.
      • Is that nVidia releases a new chip archeticture, then refines it. The GeForce 3 was the last major architectural upgrade before the FX. Subsequent GF3s were faster, or slower, or smaller and so on, but no real different. The GF4 addedd some things, a little more efficient AA engine, a second vertex shader, but kept the same fundimental architecture.

        The FX is totally new again and it looks like designed with teh future in mind. It's more programmable than the Radeon and more programmable than DX9 currently calls for. This should mean that the overall archeticture will last for some time and through a number of refinements.

        I would predict that the FX as it is now will have rather limited sales, much like the orignal GF3 did (probably even less). However the next incarnation will probably do quite a bit better.

      • Agreed. Financials are indeed important as indicators of future performance. Look at the NVDA and ATYT stock prices; people are wild. If you could successfully predict firm success 100% of the time, you'd get a Nobel. Unfortunately, EMH has held fairly strong. Anyway, damnit...

        NVIDIA won't have consecutive design wins. XBOX gave way to NFORCE, an integrated chipset/pipeline for value PCs. This is the direction of the firm--make its product necessary for the functionality of the PC. Right now, Geforce is a luxury item. Having sound, communications, and graphics on the MOBO (NFORCE) is one step toward becoming as necessary as INTEL INSIDE.

    • Re:Nvidia's Demise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:48PM (#5320969)
      During the anti-trust trial Bill was fond of pointing out that the computer business was entirely unlike most others.

      As he put it, " Microsoft is just one good idea away from oblivion."

      Which is to say that if someone *else* came up with just the right good idea Microsoft products could become worthless virtually overnight.

      His awareness of this simple truth may go some way to explaining his absolute ruthlessness in piling up a nest egg. (I said explain. I didn't say excuse)

      Some would say that day is now.

      Nor is this fact actually unique to the computer business. It's a fact of life in any hot, new developing technology. Just look up the names of automobile companies formed between 1890 and 1910. A few of them, such as Daimler and Peugot are still around, but they're the exceptions.

      KFG
      • But the computer industry needs to tap into other industries in order to spread itself around, and a lot of money is required to make that happen. Microsoft has that money, so it will take more than a good idea to make the company worthless, and it won't happen overnight.

        That day is not now, because as long as they have that money they cannot be defeated.
    • "As soon as ATI makes better drivers for Windows/Linux and other OSes, then they will sell even more than they do now."

      so Nvidia is in no danger what so ever.
      • I believe TomsHardware, in a review of the GeForceFX, stated that Geforce4/FX drivers had problems [tomshardware.com] w/ Serious Sam 2 Z-Buffers, which the Geforce 3 processed w/o incident. I thought someone said unified drivers were consistent in controlling the Gfx cards and thus were a valuable asset to NVIDIA.
  • I think trade shows are going away,

    Apple pulling out of MacWorld Comdex Having Record Low Numbers

    I think in the next 5 years or so there will be no more trade shows just because of the lack of revenue. Dont get me wrong their will still be Convenentions like Defcon [defcon.org] and Rubi-Con [rubi-con.org] but I think the trade shows will be gone...so get your free schwag now!

  • I Think Nvidia are on the way out. Whenever the market starts talking about raw frame rates and speed as the defining benchmark the winds of change are blowing. Concentrating on speed killed 3dfx. I see a great similarity now with Nvidia Vs Radeon. Raw speed is never the key. when 3dfx concentrated on raw speed issues like pass-thru cables and enforced full screen acceleration became glaring errors. With Nvidia you have Cards taking up a pci slot and fans that sound like lawnmowers. When a company starts to lose its advantage over the market they look for something they can put in a press release and say "we are better". and thats what benchmarks are for but by concentrating on that ina vain attempt to say "we are better" just means your not innovating enough and someone will come up with a better product

    • Re:Nvidia issues (Score:2, Interesting)

      by isaacwith2as ( 543482 )
      The thing is, when 3dfx died, Nvidia was the one going for speed; the big feature being pushed on the Voodoo4/5 was FSAA and it's higher image quality. Nvidia's card at the time was the Geforce2 which was totally about speed. ATI's last couple of generations have been pushing FSAA and usually outperform Nvidia once you turn it on.

  • Another opinion of the same event (Score:4, Informative)

    by juggleme ( 53716 ) on Monday February 17, 2003 @02:20PM (#5320819)
    Check out the Tech Report's [tech-report.com] for more text, and a better picture of the video card that may never be.

  • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • nvidia (Score:2, Funny)

    by newsdee ( 629448 )
    It seems to me that Nvidia is going to go for another product, superior to the announced GeforceFX, in order to compete with the announced Radeon successor.
    Of course this is pure speculation, but I don't see the point of filling pre-orders only if the product is merely "delayed".

  • IIRC, it was a problem getting a decent/profitable yeild of chips that would support the high clock speeds they were shooting for on the 5800 line. But I seem to remember reading somewhere that nVidia was still going to release their more moderate cards (5200 and 5600, maybe?) sometime in the future.

    I can't find any of the articles I remember reading this, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. ;)
  • Granted I'm running on year old information, but isn't Chaintech known for producing POS motherboards? And anyways, a little research [amptron.com] will show that Amptron, PC Chips, Chaintech, ECS, and ASRock might as well be the same company. (PC Chips motherboards [pcchips.com.tw] and Amptron motherboards [amptron.com] look surprisingly similar.)

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