AMD Socket AM2 Chipset Showdown: ATI vs NVIDIA
 

ATI and NVIDIA have been locked in a bitter graphics war for the better part of roughly a decade now, although admittedly NVIDIA really wasn’t directly in ATI’s crosshairs those first few years. Over the course of this time both companies have seen their fortunes rise and fall, with neither company ever able to truly land a knockout blow to the other, which has led to a very competitive graphics industry. In fact, the graphics industry is probably the most competitive segment in the PC world right now, and has been for quite some time. But in more recent times a new front has opened in the ATI versus NVIDIA war: system chipsets.

For past few years now, NVIDIA’s had a decisive advantage in the chipset market over not just ATI, but all chipset manufacturers in the AMD space. Take for example the first generation of PCI Express capable chipsets for the AMD platform. Both ATI and NVIDIA’s chipsets first shipped in the same general timeframe around the end of 2004, but it was NVIDIA’s nForce4 chipset that was perceived as the high-end part, with most of ATI’s XPRESS 200 chipset sales going to OEMs who opted for the ATI chipset due to the fact that they were the only ones to offer a PCI Express chipset with integrated graphics. Once NVIDIA provided their integrated solution, ATI’s XPRES 200 sales quickly dried up. nForce4’s dominance continued for all of 2005 and into 2006 as well.