Why should the card makers announce Banshee cards that won't be shipping for at least a month? So their most-excellent V2 boards take a hit in sales?
For people in the market for a 3dfx board, there is currently only one high-end option, V2. [V1 for the cheapskate] Rather than cloud the issue, I imagine the card makers will wait until the last moment before talking about Banshee to maximize V2 sales. Once Banshee comes out, I'd imagine that the main selling force behind V2 will be for those who want SLI or those who already have a good 2D solution, e.g. Riva or Matrox.
If TNT is just around the V2 specs, I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief. This really hurts nVidia's credibility since there were all the statements of substantial improvements over V2.
Also, regarding the stock price, Intel has recently released their plans to integrate 3D onto the logic support chips (not the CPU). This would also account for some of the decline in price as worried investors sell based on the Intel juggernaut. However, a number of things are just wrong with the Intel strategy including (1) who wants to be locked into a substandard graphics system and (2) DOJ antitrust. |
