jmke

We have already discussed in detail ATI’s strategy: they decided not to focus on high-performance monolithic GPUs and instead bet on the relatively inexpensive mainstream graphics solutions. And it has totally paid back (for details see our article called ATI Radeon HD 4800 Graphics Architecture: Long Anticipated Revenge?). Today we should pay special attention to a completely opposite approach to winning the market suggested by Nvidia and find out if they made the right bet.

Until recently Nvidia has been dominating the high-performance single graphics solutions market and the only competitor it had there was probably ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 Nevertheless, graphics architecture needed a refresh and the market longed for new graphics processors, especially since Nvidia’s major competitor didn’t keep hands in pockets and put the final touches to its “weapon of retribution”. Moreover, some games, such as Crysis or Call of Juarez, needed more than the industry could offer at that time. As usual, only next generation solutions could actually provide a new level of gaming performance. Besides, a mighty long time - a year and a half - has already passed since the arrival of Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, so the industry simply cried for more.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...00-theory.html

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