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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (7030)	9/9/1998 11:17:00 PM
From: Michael Linov	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

I think OEM will have some OEM wins, probably all they can produce. While 3dfx's reputation in the 3D world is second to none, the banshee is their first real attempt at a 2D-3D card. Without a track record in the area, OEM's would be foolish to give a contract to an unproven design, by a company new to the field. Once the design is proven, 3dfx will have no trouble selling Banshee, and any future sets to the market, and having pre-announcements before chips are ready. Note that many of the OEM's are still buying yesterday's chipsets, not products from the current generation. The christmas announcements haven't really been made yet, and probably won't be till october. As far as SLI and Banshee, I do not know wheter they've allowed for it in the current chipset. There are issues with the new unified memory architecture that may complicate this (but I am merely speculating, and do not know what was, or wasn't designed in the chipset). Certainly, the higher clock speeds of AGP, and higher power requirements also pose challenges. The interaction of SLI with normal 2D operation could also prove troublesome. Once more, I'm merely speculating. I see no reason why Banshee+V2 could not work together to produce faster, more impressive applications. This can be done with/ or without extra work from 3dfx. For instance, Use the V2 for your main display, and use the Banshee (which has fast memory read access) for environment mapping, effectively doubling the performance of environment mapped games. Many other co-operative operations are also possible. I would really like to see a Quantum Obsidian Banshee+V2 SLI board combo. It would be awesome!

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (7030)	9/10/1998 1:23:00 AM
From: Jeff Lins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Sun, I must disagree here: ...I don't buy the arguement that "I don't want one of my products to steal sales from the other one". One way or another you are going to face competition and advance technology. You might as well get that competition from yourself rather than another company."........ I assume that we are referring to Banshee vs. V2 and SLI (if Banshee did it, it would steal sales of V2). Yes it would steal sales. And it would be bad. Our product mix would shift to lower priced lower margin products. BAD. Look at our market. If you were even thinking of doing Banshee SLI, you have been, or will be doing V2 SLI. ...."Yet only one OEM has agreed to use Banshee and two others are just debating if they should buy into it. I consider this a serious marketing flop. If they had done their job right, some OEMs and card makers would simply trust that whatever comes from 3Dfx is worth carrying and would have announced support for Banshee way before it was even a prototype. Not to mention that time to production sucked; If they'd come up with Banshee 4~6 weeks sooner they'd catch the back-to-school market. Since they missed on that opportunity, they may as well have taken another few weeks and improved on it for the Christmas season.".... First of all you are making this judgement, I believe, based on the STBI CC. STBI, though a biggee, is only one of several OEM card suppliers. Elsa, Diamond, Creaf and others may be having more success. BTW, the other two major OEMs that STBI was talking about may well be leaning towards Banshee today, since nVidia has lowered the specs on TNT. Now if we get 3 big STBI OEMs, we could be talking about GTW, DELL, CPQ here. not bad...if true... As for trusting whatever TDFX spits out...you have to be kidding, right? They are unproven in the OEM market. I don't think Dell wants to find out that TDFX wasn't all its cracked up to be after they start getting the calls 2 months and a million computers later. You were kidding, right? Time to production sucked? It has taken nVidia a year to come out with a new chip. In that time TDFX has come up with V2 and Banshee, and made the worlds best (hopefully) 2D core from scratch. Have you seen TNT boards yet? Savage? PVRSG? ATI Rage 128? It isn't like they are the last ones to the party. And your suggestion that they wait until christmas- and totally miss the refresh- is just plain...silly. I can see it now, "Sure Banshee is great, but hey it came out at the same time as its competitors. Damn! Lets wait a while and let the other products entrench themselves and maybe we can do better next year!" If they coulda come up with it 4-6 weeks earlier? Yeah, how about this: what if they could have come up with it 2 years ago! That would have been great! I don't think they are dragging their feet on this one, I just think that they want the product to be good. This is their first impression on OEMs and it MUST be solid. Sorry if I sounded a little wise-ass here, but I really wouldn't expect such comments from such a bright guy. 4 in a row! Yikes!

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (7030)	9/10/1998 2:48:00 AM
From: Simon Cardinale	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

Sun Tzu: Banshee and TNT working together? I read somewhere that someone has come up with a way to get TNT and Banshee work together. I think what you're thinking of is the digital pass-thru between the Canopus TNT and their Voodoo2. I don't buy the arguement that "I don't want one of my products to steal sales from the other one". One way or another you are going to face competition and advance technology. You might as well get that competition from yourself rather than another company. I agree. I don't see Banshee that way. Its only innovation is the addition of 2D. It's not the next generation, it's a cheap version of the current generation targeted at OEMs. It'll get some retail support too, but I don't think think they're staying up nights worrying that they'll sell more Banshees in retail than Voodoo2. I think they're very wise to split their product line in two. An innovative product for the retail market (Voodoo2) and a derivative product (Banshee) that comes out later and captures a good chunk of the OEM market. This discussion was really about marketing rather than technology. So if 3Dfx really made Banshee for OEM and could not have cared less about marketing it to retail channel, then why the OEMs have not lined up in hordes to buy into Banshee? I hear that OEM decisions are made in advance of chip productions and that Banshee is now in full production. Yet only one OEM has agreed to use Banshee and two others are just debating if they should buy into it. Actually, that refers only to STB Banshee cards. One OEM definitely, and two more looking. But what if Creative captured one of those other two? The question posed in the STB CC was something like "What kind of OEM deals are in the works for Banshee?" What could they say if Creative got one contract? I consider this a serious marketing flop. If they had done their job right, some OEMs and card makers would simply trust that whatever comes from 3Dfx is worth carrying and would have announced support for Banshee way before it was even a prototype. What possible advantage would this bring to the OEM who followed your advice? They want to see a working product in useful quantities before they put their cash on the barrelhead. If they'd had 2D/3D cards from 3Dfx in the past maybe they could announce a strategic partnership or something. Committing in advance would just drive up the price. And remember, they're not dealing directly with 3Dfx, so much as with STB, Creative, and maybe others. Not to mention that time to production sucked; If they'd come up with Banshee 4~6 weeks sooner they'd catch the back-to-school market. Since they missed on that opportunity, they may as well have taken another few weeks and improved on it for the Christmas season. Would you really be happy if they'd announced a delay? Remember, from the time that they rescheduled both the Voodoo2 and the Banshee (reversing their release order) Banshee has not been delayed. What implications does that have for future OEM deals? Who in this business hits their release targets with that precision? Nobody but 3Dfx. Also, there are OEM product cycles to account for. Having it done now is just in time for Christmas. There's no "few weeks" of leeway. Having it ready for back to school cycle would have meant having it ready a full cycle before the christmas cycle, not two weeks ago. Simon Don't lose heart, man! They're doing it just right in my opinion.