Industry Update - Q4-2004: AMD adds SSE3 Support, Intel's 925/915 not selling and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 3, 2004 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ATI vs. NVIDIA
Just a couple of years back and a motherboard manufacturer producing both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards would find themselves kicked off of the nForce2 partner list. These days things are very different, most manufacturers are producing both ATI and NVIDIA cards thanks to around 12 months of NV3x slip-ups. That being said, there are still incentives for a manufacturer to only deal with one of the two companies. For example, ATI is only willing to share a certain amount of information with their partners if the partners in question happen to produce NVIDIA cards as well. If you are ATI-exclusive, then you get more information. Makes sense, right?
Despite having access to more information, there's little I could find out about what's coming next for ATI and NVIDIA. Despite close relations with their partners, ATI and NVIDIA can keep their board vendors in the dark for much longer than Intel can, for example. The reason being that most of the time ATI and NVIDIA simply hand their vendors a reference design, and the vendors do nothing more than duplicate the relatively simple design. In some cases with NVIDIA, the board vendors must purchase both the GPU and the memory from NVIDIA, leaving very little work other than assembly for the board manufacturers to do. Combine that with very short product cycles and you can see why there's not much information floating around.
The big discussion in Taiwan about ATI and NVIDIA is with the current state of PCI Express. Without a doubt, Intel did a wonderful job of convincing all of their partners that the transition and ramp to their 915 and 925X platforms would be extremely aggressive. The reality obviously was completely different, as 2004 has almost come to a close and the only demand that we've seen for the latest PCI Express platforms comes from the OEMs themselves. Intel's efforts are very evident from the most recent product releases we've seen from ATI and NVIDIA; the GeForce 6600GT and X700 XT were both PCI Express-only parts initially, with AGP versions due out in the coming weeks.
The supplies of PCI Express graphics solutions from both ATI and NVIDIA are limited as you've heard over the past several weeks, and unfortunately there were no signs of a fix from the manufacturers in Taiwan. We received varying explanations for the shortages - with everything from low packaging yields to demand miscalculations. There is light at the end of the tunnel and most manufacturers were optimistic that PCI Express graphics supplies should pick up in the new year, until then we can expect sparse availability of the more desirable PCI Express GPUs.
Memory
The memory market is pretty unchanged from what you'd expect, the strengths are definitely in DDR sales right now. With poor 915 and 925X sales and no AMD support for DDR2, there are simply not enough platforms out there to drive up DDR2 demand. The only real demand for DDR2 comes from, as you can guess, the OEM platforms.
We would expect better adoption of DDR2 in 2005 as more 915 and 925X platforms make their way into the hands of more and more end users. Towards the end of 2005 Intel will have DDR2-667 support on their platforms, and without AMD here to force an early adoption of DDR2 standards we can expect that Intel's upcoming Glenwood/Lakeport platforms will be the only driving force behind DDR2-667 adoption.
Final Words
I hope you enjoyed this little update on the industry, if you'd like to see more of these types of articles just let us know - the flight to Taiwan isn't too bad and the information is usually top notch :)
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YellowWing - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
To answer the MB maker's question about what would make me get off the dime and purshase a new motherboard...One that has 5.1 digital out in either Dolby or DTS so I could set it up with other audio equipment. Without that feature they can put most anything they want on a board and I won't upgrade.
A digital out that just does stereo PCM does not cut it.
And any more than 4 USB ports is overkill. Firewire IS required.
Houdani - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
[SNIP]I hope you enjoyed this little update on the industry, if you'd like to see more of these types of articles just let us know - the flight to Taiwan isn't too bad and the information is usually top notch :)"
[/SNIP]
By all means continue. This is great insight into the real industry, and is immeasurably more entertaining than the one-sided, questionable fluff which PR departments typically pawn off on us.
This is real information, sans polish, and I truly appreciate that you provided us with this report.
Rekonn - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Great article, really enjoyed reading this, just facts without marketing BS. Gives real insight into what the market will be like in the next couple of months. You mentioned pcie shortages, any news about the AGP version of the 6600GT ?CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Pebkac, BTW how's the food in TW...? Well I'm pretty excited about P4M DTR's MB's from DFI and others. It could stop some of the hemmoraging for Intel...CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Don't forget to check our Insider section for more articles like this one.Kristopher
BigT383 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
I'd like to see more of these types of articles... just letting you know.;-)
Seriously, these types of articles are great. I'd just make sure before you take the trip that there will be enough new information to cover while you're there. I like the fact that you're bypassing the PR departments this way. Generally, Anandtech readers are smarter than the average consumer, and don't deserve to be fed the same PR crap that Johnny Uninformed gets... For evidence of this see post 17 by MAME.
mlittl3 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
#21, 2005 won't be all that boring. I agree that there won't be much excitement from Intel or AMD but some things will be cool. Here is a quick list of cool things to look forward too in 2005.AMD 90nm processors with better memory controller, bug fixes and SSE3
More AMD Semprons from socket 754
AMD 2.8 and maybe 3.0 GHz CPUs
Dual core processors from both AMD and Intel
Intel 6xx series CPUs (this is not so exciting)
Possible Win XP for 64bits might be released
R5xx and NV5x GPUs released (R5xx with SM3.0)
And will all this cool new hardware, we can play the games released in 2004 at higher frame rates (Doom3, Half-life2, etc.).
:)
piasabird - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
About 6 months ago I also saw some articles on Intel that claimed they wanted to bring the Mobile chipset to the desktop. Is this a viable option?piasabird - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
I recall an experiment Intel was doing with a new chipset similar to the MINI-ITX motherboards. Are they going to sell these to the end consumer. It was suppose to be a motherboard with a Centrino PIII type processor similar to the VIA C3 but lots faster. I saw a couple of benchmerks on it. I think it was the Shelton Chipset.