Author Topic: Nvidia in trouble? ATI king of the heap? (Read 905 times)

mason22 · « **on:** March 06, 2003, 01:43:32 PM »

with the release of the ATI 9800 stuff, it seems that Nvidia is down 2 blows, without and answer.

thoughts opinions? what's next?

in the world of business/technology/competition, i'm betting Nvidia's gotta have something up their sleeve??

Skuzzy? your thoughts?

Chairboy · « **Reply #1 on:** March 06, 2003, 02:59:22 PM »

I work in the software industry, and while the video card industry might be really different, I imagine there are some similarities.

Namely, you must occasionally stay in second place for a little while if it means that you're developing something really spectacular to put you firmly in the lead again and stay there.

I don't know what the future for nVidia or ATI is, but I wouldn't count one company out of the game yet just because they've been in 2nd place for a few months.

I don't know anything about the 9700 and 9800 ATI cards, so don't take this as gospel, I'm just making an example: If ATI was just upping clock speed and releasing new cards to stay ahead, nVidia could whomp 'em in the future by spending the time to develop a new architecture that could be really extensible going into the future.

I'm not saying that's what has happened here, but it's an example of how nVidia could still beat ATI savagely with a stick.

If, on the other hand, the nVidia team is just twiddling their thumbs, then that's another story....

jonnyb · « **Reply #2 on:** March 06, 2003, 03:04:04 PM »

You got some 'splainin to do

nVidia made huge leaps ahead in graphics card technology when they were the underdog and 3dfx was king of the hill. they pushed hard and outclassed the 3dfx cards in every possible way, resulting in bankruptcy of the one-time giant. ATI was not heavily into gaming cards and was more concentrated on OEM licenses and their all in wonder series for enthusiasts.

Fast forward a few years....

nVidia pushes their technology ahead, but being the top dog doesn't really make any giant strides. Sure there were some nice new features along the way: faster memory, ramped up core speeds, smaller die processes, inclusion of hardware T&L, etc. However, they haven't really pushed the envelope as much as they could.

ATI, on the other hand, steps up and enters the gaming market. The Canadian manufacturer produces the Radeon, which at inception was no GeForce killer. As such, nVidia didn't take them too seriously. Suddenly ATI produces the card that obliterates the GeForce: the 9700 Pro. It surpasses the Ti4600 in virtually every single benchmark, and the bells and whistles it provides proceed to decimate the ti's remains. Things like 16x anistropic filtering that barely cause any performance issues, yet make images far smoother than anything nVidia can produce, are just the icing on the cake.

In reaction to this, nVidia promises it's new architecture will recapture the crown. Unfortunately the benchmarks prove differently. The new nVidia cards offer some improvements, but overall they are not the Radeon-killers they were supposed to be.

Now, ATI prepares to kick the nVidia cards around even more with the 9800. If history is a teacher, nVidia had better have something incredible in the pipeline, or it may be disasterous for them. 3dfx went out of business because of the technological leaps of nVidia. AMD is poised to file bankruptcy if it can't get back into contention against the Intel processors. Now, ATI is looking to smash nVidia into oblivion. I'd wager that if nVidia hasn't gotten back into the game by Q4, they're gonna be seriously hurting.

Revvin · « **Reply #3 on:** March 06, 2003, 03:07:56 PM »

Just another spin on the merry-go-round. Nobody really considered a time where 3DFx would no longer be around and it happened, they sat on their laurels a little too long and Nvidia slipped in and now perhaps Nvidia have done the same. Their next gen card the FX came out favourably against the 9700 Pro but ATi's new card is reportedley at least 30% up on performance over that so where does that leave the FX?

It's really interesting at the moment. I'm due an upgrade and after being an Nvidia user for many years the choice is not so clear cut any more, if anything the choice would have to be with ATi for me.

Eagler · « **Reply #4 on:** March 06, 2003, 03:23:23 PM »

blurry 2D text didnt help the geforce crowd - more companies buy ATI cards than any other..

Wlfgng · « **Reply #5 on:** March 06, 2003, 03:33:05 PM »

Nvidia is still ahead with revenues.. they just missed this development cycle. I expect they'll be in on the next one.

but for now, ATI is the king.
question is for how long.

mason22 · « **Reply #6 on:** March 06, 2003, 03:41:36 PM »

nice thoughts....agree with most of them.

Seems like now though, Nvidia has something to "strive to be better than" to grab the crown back....or...maybe they will fade away (doubtful though, in my opinion).

Just a matter of time and how long to hold out on buying that new video card. I'm still sittin on my G2 ULTRA 64 meg, runs AH fine. The 9700 PRO looks yummy, and by the time i'm serious about buying a new card, i'm hoping Nvidia will have something new above and beyond the FX...something closer in comparison to the 9700/9800 speeds and options that ATI has included on the those current cards. Not only for technical reasons, but to drop prices on stuff that is still ahead or leading the game as far as the industry is concerned.

so far, i'm thinking along with wlfgng, they (nvidia) are between cycles. who knows?

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** March 06, 2003, 09:08:38 PM »

Lot of things went wrong with NVidia to get them to this point.

ATI really did catch NVidia flat-footed when they introduced the 9700Pro. That card caused NVidia to hold up the NV30 until they could get the performance close to the 9700Pro.
The NV30 is a really poor design. It is unbalanced, it has some hardware problems with fogging, it dissipates too much power for what it is doing as well. The shader performance is really poor of this part and that just is not logical.
None of that helped NVidia. The overall architecture of the NV30 is a souped up GF4 part, with a few more bells and whistles to be able to be a DX9 part.

The problem NVidia faces right now is all thier next generation cards were/are going to be based on NV30. This simply means ATI will hold the performance crown until NVidia can get the NV35 out of the door.
But even then, it may not be enough.

Both ATI and NVidia have a problem at TSMC, regarding thier low-k process, which will hold up the release of ATI's R400 (was sceduled for Aug 03), and NVidia's NV40 (was scheduled for early Feb 04).

So what the two companies have to offer is all based on the current generations of chips with a twist.

ATI has two more major products to release this year. NVidia has the NV35, which would theoritically take back the performance crwon, but ATI's 9800Pro 256MB board has some surprises and will be released next month.
Also, ATI has a .13 R350 chip underway for deleivery late this year. Remember, ATI is winning using .15 chips right now.

The 9800Pro 256MB board will probably not be enough for ATI to hang on, but just be slower than the NV35. The .13 R350 will probably put ATI back on top.

I figure NVidia will take the performance crown for about one month this year.

The real battle is between NV40 and R400. Nvidia knows ATI can deliver and ATI knows NVidia can deliver. Should be interesting.

Now, why has ATI all of sudden gotten so good? If you have been following ATI the last couple of years, you would note several key acqusitions and deals made. It is only now has all this culminated into the current onslaught of territory NVidia had owned. ATI's cross-licensing of technology with Intel was a primary factor in ATI getting the R300 done.

What has added to NVidia's pain? NVidia burned thier bridge with Intel in a big way. NVidia has pooped in Microsoft's oatmeal once too many times. They have removed themselves from the Futuremark 3DMark software development. They have pissed off almost all thier IHV's by promising product and not delivering. Then delivering product that does not come close to the PR they spewed.

Is NVidia in trouble? Well,..they aren't going out of business anytime soon, but market share is getting ready to slide towards ATI.

Competition is always a good thing. ATI has the edge right now, as they manage to put out a part (R300) that can evolve into something better while being a very good part on its own.
NVidia missed a cycle, and is stuck with a part that has a lot of problems. NV35 will be the part they have to get right to get them back on track.

mason22 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 06, 2003, 10:20:10 PM »

thanks a bunch skuzzy. i think you sum up my point (even though i didn't really make it all that apparrent) at the end of your statement there...that competition is a good thing. it only spurs more to be better.

budget wise, i think i'm gonna try and see if a deal can be made soon on a 9700 pro card.

thanks again for the info/discussion.

minus · « **Reply #9 on:** March 07, 2003, 01:22:16 PM »

thx to skuzy , who safed me from buying matrox parhelia, just waited 3

woodfordb · « **Reply #10 on:** March 07, 2003, 03:49:06 PM »

My SNES is better than your Megadrive (Genisis)

Mandrill

Reschke · « **Reply #11 on:** March 07, 2003, 03:52:21 PM »

I wonder how long it will be before the video card has more memory than most gamers computers. Right now I have 512MB and am happy with that but to see the next ATI card will drop in with 256MB is really amazing.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #12 on:** March 07, 2003, 04:00:55 PM »

Well Reschke,..the GPU's on the current top cards have over twice the number of transistors as a Pentium 4 Northwood.

The shear processing power in these current GPU's is astonishing, consider they only have to deal with video data.

AtmkRstr · « **Reply #13 on:** March 10, 2003, 02:35:03 AM »

I'm sick of this two horse race. What I want to know is wtf Matrox is doing. Why arn't those tards trying harder to compete. All they seem to come up with is slow expensive cards that focus on features I don't even want. They were once a serious option for gamers.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #14 on:** March 10, 2003, 08:25:34 AM »

Matrox is about done for. I would be surprised to see them last to the end of this year.