Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1166



So it continues, after a long day of hitting the show room floor, we found a bit more time to talk with other video card manufacturers. It seems that this time NVIDIA and ATI are a bit both to blame for shortcomings that users will needlessly experience. It is likely you are already familiar with our Day 1 coverage and know about how NVIDIA has been reassuring video card partners that newer and better graphic drivers will fix performance issues for DX9 games. Just to reiterate, manufacturers are skeptical that NVIDIA will be able to accomplish this, but nevertheless, they want to wait it out. Actually, one manufacturer surprised us a bit by saying something to the effect, “If they can pull this rabbit out of the hat, it will be the best rabbit pulled out of a hat ever.” NVIDIA’s emphasis on driver support seems to be the proverbial million dollar question, and by all accounts, it probably will be resolved as soon as the drivers get publicly released.

Today, the interesting thing is that the strategic planning of NVIDIA hasn’t seemed to change in light of any of the DX9 controversy nor has ATI’s. Traditionally, NVIDIA and ATI have gone after the volume market and those tier 1 manufacturers that have the brand name and the production volume to push forward in that market. This is the expected norm since the pure volume basically translates to higher profits per investment. However, according to non-volume vendors, NVIDIA and ATI have been casually ignoring them, which some are attributing to a disjoint between sales and marketing. While we need not go into full details, this does not particularly bode well for the consumers and end-users. If [significant] non-volume market players are reporting they are finding it hard to deal with NVIDIA, ATI has a strategic opportunity to build more alliances and try to bring their product to the market across the board, but at this point, ATI’s developmental support for such companies is said to be reluctant. Remember, one big factor in a contract negotiation is developmental support, basically technical support for manufacturers. Manufacturers run into problems when producing early designs, and in order to fix whatever issue it may be, they need prompt service from the graphic or chipset makers. If they can’t do this, it means that manufacturers are going to get product launches delayed, which means they can’t come to the market on a competitive timeline.

Actually, one manufacturer went as far as to say that they would have switched to ATI earlier this year had the developmental support been there. For them, they still feel that ATI is ignoring a large market by focusing on only volume. NVIDIA, on the other hand, has not been coming back to them with the willingness they would like to see. Those same non-volume players collectively still make up a significant market share, so their view of NVIDIA prioritizing them as second place isn’t good. Non-volume market players are still in touch with their respective niches and the overall market, and have the ability to disseminate information to the rest of the market though the niches. Basically, this means that consumers in niche markets may be left “holding the short end of the stick,” because free market competition hasn’t been fully permitted. If NVIDIA is alienating market players, irrespective of size (volume or non-volume), one can quickly deduce this is an opportunity window for ATI. On the flip side, if ATI is not providing the developmental support and everything else that encompasses partnership then, NVIDIA can refocus on this as part of a collective package that comes in partnership. At the moment, we are receiving conflicting reports on NVIDIA market strategy for the future. There is some speculation that NVIDIA would shift primary focus away from graphics, but this is a gamble, since all of their market perception: multimedia, chipsets, etc… derives from their graphics’ name. Behind closed doors, we have not heard reports from manufacturers suggesting that NVIDIA will shift primary focus away from graphics, so we will have to wait to see on this too. As far of all of this goes, we are only sure of one thing: there are unsatisfied [volume and non-volume] video card market players, and now there is an opportunity window for something to happen.



Turning to Multimedia...

Aside from graphics, multimedia and the home entertainment market, specifically, are fronts where ATI and NVIDIA are continually pushing forward. At the NVIDIA press event, Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, mentioned their diversification into consumer electronic applications, such as Windows Media Center Edition.

NVIDIA’s Windows Media Center Edition will be based on their Personal Cinema line, which we found companies like Albatron and Chaintech showcasing. We are aware of the sound issues in GeForce4 MX versions of the Personal Cinema, but we have hence not heard anything about the GeForce FX based Personal Cinemas. The supply for these cards is much lower compared to ATI’s All-In-Wonder, and after they go through testing, we will update accordingly.

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Meanwhile, ATI is focusing on enhancing their existing multimedia profile with the Remote Wonder II and All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro.



Making the rounds on mobile...

After our first round of M10 notebooks, we seemed to have stumbled across more Mobility Radeon 9600 based notebooks. Actually, our Day 1 coverage only turned up one Mobility Radeon 9600 notebook, since the rest of them were Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro based.  Mobility Radeon 9600 is going to be the mainstream choice for many system designers, while the Pro version will be left for the higher performance market. As far as we have been informed, the Pro version is the same thing as the non-Pro version, expect that it has higher core clock speeds and higher memory clock speed since it uses GDDR2-M. (Read more about Mobility Radeon 9600 and Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro.)

The first Mobility Radeon 9600 we stumbled on is Asus' A2000, which overall is a slick system. However, this is a desktop replacement notebook because of its use of a 800FSB Pentium 4. Coincidentally, two other tier 1 motherboard manufacturers are producing Mobility Radeon 9600 based notebooks: Gigabyte and ECS. Gigabyte is revamping their notebook line, and has come out with three notebooks: N201, N501, and N601. The N601 uses the Mobility Radeon 9600, while the other two use integrated graphics from Intel.

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ECS, meanwhile, is showcasing their G736 and their G900, both of which use Mobility Radeon 9600. G900, which we were not able to get a picture of due to timing, is another notebook to use the elusive modular graphic system. ECS still seems to be debated on how to market this feature, since it definitely has the upgrade advantage over embedded graphics.

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While it isn’t based on a Mobility Radeon 9600, Chaintech is showcasing their desktop replacement notebook, which really redefines the weight limitations for the term “desktop replacement.” Adding to the weight is the use of an desktop version of an LCD screen (not mobile one, which is on virtually all notebooks). Chaintech told us they will manufacturer this product, and they said they plan to ODM this design out to mobile system vendors. Certainly, this is a heavy system, and we are curious how the market will accept it.

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