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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles R who wrote (66721)	7/27/1999 3:34:00 AM
From: fyo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574096

Charles - Re: I do not believe it is #2 because SIII's ASP are increasing - which means high-end sales and not the low-end ones. Well... not necessarily. You have to remember that this is based on previous quarters where all S3 had was an outdated Savage3D chip that they practically had to give away. (although it should be said that I personally feel that the Savage3D chip didn't get a fair shake). Today, they have a fairly strong Savage4 lineup and their 'texture compression' scheme has won over a lot of people. Their product is still not the fastest in the market, but it does perform reasonably well. One other advantage they have is that it consumes significantly less power than the other top contenders. In the end, my opinion on S3 is that they could almost not avoid regaining market share from ATI. Their problem had not been one of market acceptance, but rather that their products had underperformed - at least until the Savage3D chip. When it was introduced, the drivers were not very good and the card got a bad rep. S3 actually did an admirable job in improving the driver quality, but it was too late. The chip was also introduced half a cycle too late (3 months). ATI is interesting to follow at the moment, because they are completely out of phase with the rest of the industry. They are now gearing up for a new launch, whereas everyone else has already launched. As was the case last time, they will likely have a VERY competitive product, but likely not quite enough to beat the top dogs. However, since they are going primarily for the OEM space, they can live (very well :)) with introducing an 'on par' performer a couple of months 'late'. In 2-4 months we should see new chips from the other companies. I know that NVDA customers are talking a September launch of the 'NV10' (of which it is officially known that it will have hardware lighting and transform). This date fits very well with the 6 month cycle in the industry. S3 is a month or so 'late', so I would figure an October/November launch of their new product (which is also said, albeit unofficially, to have hardware T&L). Ever since their near 'death', I have considered S3 a strong buy. I still do. Their main competitor will remain ATI. I don't believe that 3dfx will be able to make much of a dent in the OEM market for some time and it doesn't look like ATI will be able to produce a chip that's faster than what S3 can do. There is one thing that concerns me a bit, however, and that is the status of S3's production. I know that they had their own Fab at one point (in fact, they claimed to be the first with a .18mu process), but I have since been made to understand that they are using a foundry. Would you happen to know the situation here? --fyodor