| Not long ago there were a dozen companies contending for the
3D graphics crown. Its a testament to the times how fast
3D empires have risen and fallen. 3dfx which had
in many ways created the 3D game market via their
legendary Voodoo card has become a ghost of the past.
Matrox has essentially dropped out of the 3D graphics
race and focussed on multiple displays.
For the past few years, it appeared that ATI had
also given up the 3D graphics race to Nvidia. ATI's
niche has been combining video input with graphics
resulting in their All-In-Wonder series. This
left the 3D performance market open for Nvidia
which has completely dominated the consumer market
with their Geforce line.
Times have changed again. This year marks the
introduction of 2 new graphics cards: Geforce3 (Nvidia)
and the Radeon 8500 (ATI). All bets were
clearly on the Geforce3 to maintain a respectable
lead over ATI. However, the predictions turned out to be
wrong. ATI has managed
to retake the crown with their newest Radeon technology.
Their Radeon 8500 card shows a clear lead (15-25%) over the
Geforce3 in most computer games.
Times keep changing. Nvidia has also expanded their
strategic market by introducing new modules for allowing
video input on their cards, which creates new competition
with ATI. |
