quick start THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
A
TI has already told Maximum PC it
would have liked to have its next-gen
R520 videocard out by now, but that simply
hasn’t happened. On top of that, shortly
after E3, ATI announced its dual-card solu-
tion, dubbed CrossFire, but that technology
is also vapor as we go to press. Meanwhile,
nVidia is shipping its new GeForce 7800
GTX graphics chips and SLI chipsets by the
truck load. Faced with this situation, even
the most hardened fanboy would have to
admit it hasn’t been a great summer for ATI.
And it’s not just the fanboys. WhenMaximum PC quizzed top system vendors
about the ATI matter, some said consum-
ers were clearly favoring nVidia today.
“It wasn’t even close [this time
between ATI and nVidia],” said one vendor.
“One of the armies failed to show up.” The
vendor, who asked that we not identify
him, said this cycle is a total write-off for
ATI, but he doesn’t think the whole year
is shot. “I don’t think the race is over,” he
said, suggesting that if R520 is all that and
a bucket of chicken wings, the ATI bashing
will stop in a heartbeat.ATI denies it has taken its eye off the
ball, but does agree it’s facing a perception
problem right now, especially among hard-
ware forum jockeys who are hyper-aware
of product-launch schedules. A spokes-
woman said ATI is still on schedule with its
products, and that its product cycle is within
its six-to-nine month projections. She said
people forget that it was ATI’s competitor
who didn’t respond with a product when the
X850 was released. “I think we all acknowl-
edge that we would have liked to have seen
(R520) earlier, but we’re confi dent we’ll have
a competitive product later this summer.”
She also said armchair analysts who say the
company has lost focus since taking on the
job for Xbox 360 graphics are fl at-out wrong.
Lisa Epstein, an analyst with John
Peddie Research, agrees that any claims the
sky is falling are quite premature. She said
ATI has actually increased its market share
in the most recent quarter while nVidia lost
market share. Discrete videocards sales, for
the X800 and so forth, have stayed fl at but
the profi t margins have remained high. It’s
an area that ATI can’t just ignore, she said.
“What [ATI] has been doing is respond-
ing to nVidia’s moves. And [ATI] can’t just
leave SLI and dual cards to nVidia.” When
asked whether or not the latest round in
the videocard war has already been won by
nVidia she answered, “I just don’t know yet.”What’s up
with AT I?
10 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005
Its new R520 GPU is nowhere
in site, and its dual-card
CrossFire solution is missing in
action. Is the company holding
off because it has something
very special up its sleeve, or is
it in tons of trouble?
The 7800-series cards from nVidia have so far gone unchallenged
by ATI, which is highly unusual given the industry’s ruthless com-
petitiveness and never-ending one-upsmanship.