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To: Synapsid who wrote (12208)	5/2/1999 8:01:00 PM
From: Obewon	Respond to of 16960

Yes. The low cost of the Savage4 boards relative to all the competition except ATI's, will guarantee that they capture a significant portion of OEM contracts. Personally, I don't think that the OEM market is going to be very profitable to anyone on this product cycle because their is not enough perceived product differentiation among most of the chipsets (Voodoo3 excluded since it is differentiated in a negative kinda way by most of the industry). Without differences, boardmakers have no pricing leverage at all. We saw that with the dozen models of Voodoo2 boards last year. The really low cost computer OEMs are going to integrate graphics right onto the motherboard or main processor(ala Intel) driving margins down even further. The real test of demand is whether 3dfx can still continue to sell 500K accelerators a month after the TNT2 and Savage4 boards start becoming available. Obewon

To: Synapsid who wrote (12208)	5/2/1999 8:08:00 PM
From: Patrick Grinsell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 16960

Despite Savage4's inferior performance, isn't there a risk that OEMs will fall for the framebuffer/price ratio and use it to cause price pressure for OEM deals? Undoubtedly. As soon as I saw the savage4 pricing I knew S3 was aimed squarely at the low-end. It also means that 3dfx and S3 are shooting for different target audiences. The price is so low, that I have a hard time thinking that S3 isn't just buying revenue at the expense of profit. That's a losing strategy in the long term. If you'll notice the performance benchmarks, the original TNT seems to have an edge over the S4 but has been out long enough to have gone through cost reductions as the process is streamlined. In other words, NVIDIA can afford to discount the TNT. I'm not sure S3 has that luxury. The Voodoo3 strikes me a chip the hits squarely in the mid-performance market. Fast and cheap. Pat