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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Boritz who wrote (5768)	7/24/1998 4:35:00 PM
From: Rob Cavese	Respond to of 16960

Is there anybody buying SGI workstations anymore? It used to be you had to buy a $10,000 behemoth to do anything terribly intensive but now even Hollywood video producers are editing with desktop PCs. I highly doubt anyone looking for some enhanced video capability will decide to throw in an extra few thousand and just get a workstation. The workstation customer is not what 3Dfx is after and they aren't where the growth is. As for another vendor coming along, we've already seen the case for chipset dominance even in the face of competitive or superior performing products (a company called Intel). I agree that computer makers are price-sensitive in choosing OEM equipment in the sub-$1,000 category, but this provides even more aftermarket opportunity for 3dfx. I go buy my $999 PC with a piddly video card and get frustrated trying to run Tomb Raider. With such a small initial investment in the PC, I'm a lot more likely to go out and buy custom aftermarket cards to bring it up to spec. My prediction is that 2 years from now 3D applications are going to mushroom. Currently it's confined to the gaming sector but as PC capabilites grow, 3D will become prevalent in educational, productivity, and training applications. Formerly stoic companies like Autodesk are moving aggressively to position themselves in the consumer market to take advantage of the coming boom.

To: James Boritz who wrote (5768)	7/24/1998 8:32:00 PM
From: Mark Carson	Respond to of 16960

As a sample of one, I bought a card based on the nVidia chipset. I have been really happy with it. I won't by a Voodoo anything at the current price level and I'm in the graphics industry. >> I wouldn't buy a 3dfx for the graphics industry either. The 3dfx is designed for the hard core gamer. Pro-E users buy 96MB Glint MX cards for $1,500 while Photoshop users buy STB Nitros and a lot of RAM. Doesn't mean the Glint based cards are bad, you just have to have the right applications to make it worth the price. Mark