Will,
Just a correction on the Dell business for the RIVA 128, it's STBI's business, not DIMD's (see link).
stb.com
As for the RIVA 128, presently it's limited to a 4Meg frame buffer (NINE's excuse for not using it at Meltdown '97), which is fine for all but the very high end (which NINE addresses with the 8Meg Ticket-To-Ride). The triangle setup engine on the RIVA 128 is a 5GigaFLOP engine, whereas the Ticket-To-Ride's is only 650MegaFLOPs, which is a large contributing factor to why the RIVA 128 gets over 220 Million 3D Winmarks on the same machine a Revolution 3D gets about 140 Million on. The RIVA 128 based Velocity 128 sells for under $200, while a Revolution 3D starts at $350 (with 4Meg).
With many of the PC vendors getting into the Workstation market, many are chosing 3D Labs based boards (either Permedia 2 or Glint MX based), taking more potential high-end business from NINE, who has to support the home-grown Ticket-To-Ride where ever it can.
At present, I don't believe Matrox has any product with a triangle setup engine, which should at least allow NINE a chance at some former Matrox business. |
