Intel's Lakeport threatens Nvidia and ATI

@ 2005/07/19
WE ARE GETTING into serious chipset wars now, as Intel pushes to win over 50 per cent of graphics shipments. Nvidia and ATI are both concerned as Intel's GMA 950 is a very attractive chipset for global OEMs and some major system integrators, too.
Intel GMA 950 is faster than GMA 900, a graphic part that runs in Intel 915G motherboards. The i915G was not that fast, but the 950 has better drivers and looks like a decent card for manufacturers that don't care too much about the high end gaming market.

We believe that companies like Dell and HP will go for the i945G chipset, as we also heard that Intel can run Doom III on such boards. It's not bad for the casual gamer who wants to see how these games look like.

If you are a big OEM or SI, all you want to do is to cut your costs and increase your profits. If you use an integrated chipset, you should be able to do that. Nvidia and ATI know it and therefore ATI has its RD400 boards available with integrated graphic while Nvidia will introduce its C51G integrated graphic chipset.

Both graphics companies are expecting that 945G is going to hurt their sales of low end chips such as 6200TC and 6200 or X300SE, X300HM or X300 – X550. Intel still has to go a long way to make better drivers for gamers, but from the corporate market point of view, you don’t need to be able to play a Doom III if you are an accountant or manager.

Intel has one huge advantage over Nvidia and ATI. It does not has to earn money on chipsets and it can be much more price competitive than any of the other chipset companies including Via, SIS and UlI. Intel's competitors fear that Intel might even make some Centrino style "marketing platform" for desktops and hurt their business even more. µ

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