Jeff, Thanks for trying to keep it objective. I've been concerned about the lack of Banshee announcements, even though I fully expect every major card maker who makes a V2 card to make VB card as well. Last week I was on the phone with 3Dfx and asked them about lack of Banshee announcements. The guy I talked with got a bit defensive about the topic but had no satisfactory explanations. (I asked why are the OEMs and/or card makers hesitant to announce Banshee support, he said what makes you think they are hesitant, I said lack of the announcements so far, he said DIMD said that they would (very old news), I agreed and said that announcement lacked detail, he agreed but said nothing else). I don't expect an announcement from OEMs until at least mid-September. So lack of announcement from them does not bother me much. The card makers are a different story. One would think that given that V2 cards are their best selling and most profitable item, the card makers would go out of their way to keep 3Dfx as a happy partner. Can anyone speculate as to why a card maker may prefer to support nvid or siii instead? Do those products provide better margins or something?
As for 0.25u process, the main advantage is that it will bring the costs lower and allow faster speeds at cooler temperatures. As soon as 3Dfx can pull it off, they should.
I don't know enough about AGP to know if a 1x chip set can be converted to a 2x chip set. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this. My question is this though, if you were going to buy a graphics card, would you be more persuaded by the technical jargon on the box (z-buf, alpha blending, fog,... AGP 2X) or would you be better persuaded by a comparative benchmark showing this card to be better than its competition?
Sun Tzu |
