Grab your shaker of salt and enjoy:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inqu [...] lease-woes

If ATI comes out with the 4870's on time in June, it will be an interesting summer. I've often said that ATI and Nvidia leapfrog each other, but now it seems that Nvidia's experiencing the kind of woes ATI did in the lead up to the 2900XT. I was really surprise that the 9800gx2 was going to be a dual PCB board. In this day and age?

If the 4870 arrives in June, it promises to be as fast as my new 3870x2, but the price difference between the high end 4870x2 and the 4870 will be $200 (ie $299 vs. $499). The last bit of info is from Nordic Hardware:

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7356.html

If AMD needs a new CEO (and it probably does) it goes double for Nvidia. Complacency does not bring rewards in the tech sector, let alone consumer tech. We all want ATI and Nvidia to be neck and neck, innovating at all price points and not fudging demos with dubious drivers, or blurring image quality to get a few more fps in popular benchmarks.

Hmm, It's interesting and I wouldn't be surprised by this. One thing that I do have to disagree with is in regards to the "premium" over ATI cards. I think the GT and the GTS are priced exactly where they need to be. Yes, a little more expensive but also performs just above. Both are good cards no doubt, but I think both ATI and Nvidia are priced just where they need to be for how well they perform.

But this is certainly an opportunity for ATI and I hope this brings better competition back to the market.

Nvidia's problem, in the long run, is AMD's roadmap -- one which Intel decided to copy; GPU as one or more cores in a multicore CPU.

IMHO, Nvidia's CEO has ticked off too many other suits. AMD wanted to "buy" Nvidia before ATI, but Huang wanted to be the CEO and Hector Ruiz wouldn't go for it. Then, Huang is reported to have floated a takeover attempt of AMD, nixed by Taiwanese partners.

Now, analysts are saying that Nvidia might buy AMD regardless of x86 licenses and in opposition to regulatory warnings:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/d [...] cense.html

What Nvidia needs to do is get their own x86 license, even if that means eating Intel crow, or buy Via if the one Via has left over from the 486 days is transferable (haven't really researched Via's acquisition of Cyrix all that much). Nvidia has the cash to enter the CPU market in style and they may not just cannibalize sales from AMD. Nvidia could give Intel a run for it's money on two fronts.

It will be interesting to follow the GPU market once Swift and Intel's answer reach maturity, ending up in both notebooks and replacing (or working alongside) motherboard IGP's at the budget end. If Nvdia bought AMD, perhaps they'd be forced to sell off ATI.

I like the press statements that NVidia has been releasing lately to debunk ATI. The one on xbit's page stating that they were gunning for single GPU rather than dual GPU solutions because they suck is pretty funny. It seems to be in defense / response to their x2 that is having troubles getting off the ground. There was another, unfortunately twisted by inquirer, about NVidia saying the 3870x2 sucked due poor xfire support. It is funny because xfire scales better than SLI in some cases.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inqu [...] -financial


It is sad that ATI is part of AMD now. I wish they had remained independent. It is almost like AMD is relying on ATI's hard work to carry them through tough times in order to get to the GPU/CPU integration.

Gamers are F**k*D if there ends up being only one GPU maker. Prices would be out of control. Do you smell monopoly?

Inquirer link = auto ignore. And NO! The inquirer is always to be doubted...

i'm not very familiar with that news source, sorry, can't help you there

The BFG 9600GT is already on the shelves at BestBuy. The inq's statements could still be true though as they mention not all oems have been recalling them. At least BestBuy will give you a full refund, so those people who grab them at that inflated price can test them out and return them if horror stories surface over the next couple weeks.

Doubted, yes, but it would be a shame to ignore them IMO. They're almost always entertaining, and the unauthorized insider info they tend to publish sometimes comes true. When it doesn't, it's mostly because companies change plans, or because the insider who talked to them was not high enough in ranks and clueless, not because the Inquirer lied.

And another thing, they deserve a bit of respect because they're not afraid to annoy anybody, including Microsoft, Intel, Sony, AMD or nVidia. It's getting rare these days to find a site that doesn't take sides.

According to the digit times there may be a problem but launch is schedualed for the 21th of this month and the GX2 is supposed to come soon after.
http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20080219PD213.html

Interesting read.

Its kind of crazy how much of an uproar the personal computer segment is in right now. Actually, tech in general.

HDDVD falling by the way side to Blu-ray. AMD tripping over its laces, talks about IBM buying them out, Intel's delayed CPUs, nVidia buys out Aegia and preps to offer a CUDA based PhysX upgrade, then nVidia delays and possibly recalls some of it stuff.

Total conjecture based off no fact whatsoever, but I wonder if they are delaying some of their new cards in order to implement PhysX PPUs?

probably... considering they seem to be pretty scared of ATI atm...

Well this reminds me of the GF7900 and GF8800 launch, there were issues leading right up to and past the launch, but they tried to manage them in channel basically swapping out first arrived stock with replacements right away causing a slight volume hitch but not a major launch delay. This may be a little more since supposedly the original target date was Feb 14th, and the 21st is still not firm for a full launch.

As mentioned by Paul there are some already in the channel and I would suspect that being Best Buy it's probably the standard models and likely less prone to minor issues compared to any higher clocked models.

All in all it's interesting, but I wouldn't take it as solid information considering the source. I love reading the InQ, but I wouldn't bet my retirement funds on their information.

Why would you bother?

The PhysX software port isn't expected for another 2 months, why bother delaying a product launch for something that at best is a bonus feature that you can already talk about now with your PR machine (how is this different than nV and AMD both talking about VPU physics before?).

Also if you delay something for this it better work damn well right out of the box.

The rumour about the delay for a more unified launch with the MoBo makes sense, and sounds familiar, but if it doesn't launch on the 21st, then it sounds like a coping strategy, which also sounds familiar.

Why would I bother? It was something I thought of that my have added to the conversation. Nothing more. Sorry if it was offensive.

You are right though, its a bit far off for nvidia to delay that much. Good point.

However, im excited about Physx and I think it may become more than a bonus feature if game devs really decide to embrace it. But im sure, as with everything, only time will tell.

Uhh back when the Core 2 series had already been announced, Inquirer was claiming that first Intel would roll out its 5.0GHz series of processors, followed by processors clocked up to 10GHz in 2006.

Why in god's name would you ever count on them for anything but a slightly amusing read?

It just isn’t for amusement. INQ takes a stab in the dark with the info it reports. They tend to report rumors but they are interesting none the less. The "amusing" side (a lot of people don't find it amusing) is the high level of unprofessionalism they slip in there and how many people they PO.

Nono, you misunderstand, not a criticism of you, what I meant was "If you were nVidia, why would you bother delaying hardware for PhysX which you can tack on later as a value add"?

not a comment on why bother posting, it's a good theory, and I'm all for posting theories, it make the discussion more interesting.

Oh, I agree, I think it will be a great free feature. The only limitation right now is the same that faced Ageia and the PPU, not enough titles. But I think with nVidia backing it it definitely has a better chance than Ageia did against Havok/intel. Right now though for GRAW and UT3 this may be the finally worth it demo to make VPU physics a more viable solution. The only question is whether it is too little too late since both intel and AMD are heading towards fusion as their physics solutions, not the discrete cards. But as a free bonus, it's freakin' great!

But like I said, and you agree, not really worth delaying for, so I think it's likely more serious than waiting for PhysX, but let's hope it's just waiting for a more unified launch after a minor glitch not something more serious. Until then I say give nV the benefit of the doubt up to the 21st.

i mean....its called the inquirer, folks!!
their frontpage should be a grocery store line!!!
i'm still waiting for the "batboy's tech reviews" section to gear up, and i suspect i'm yet still to read a report about "elvis using oc'd phenom because he can fry his pb&banana sandwich on it!"

that being said...shockingly enough there may be some truth to this report/rumour. the boys at my local pc store (nvidi-ites if ever there were!) are still waiting, and they said they heard something about "channel delays or recalls".
maybe that dual pcb has elvis thinkin' on some pc gourmet!!