Graphics chipmakers are fond of making a case these days
that their graphics processing units (GPUs) are becoming as important or more
so than the central processing units (CPUs) of the PC microprocessor makers.
As bigger displays in high-definition dazzle consumers, most
of the horsepower that drives them comes from the GPU.
Fourth-quarter numbers for the graphics market will begin to
leak out after the market closes today. Ashok Kumar, CRT Capital analyst,
expects Silicon Valley’s Nvidia to pick up a point or two of market share, to
the detriment of its rival, Advanced Micro Devices (incorporating the Canadian
graphics chipmaker ATI).
He says 2007 was a memorable year for graphics, with the
release of richer interfaces in the Windows Vista and Apple Leopard operating
systems, a series of new graphics-intensive PC games, the new DX10 graphics
standard from Microsoft and a complete refresh of Nvidia and AMD’s line-ups.
Nvidia released its next-generation graphics chips and cards
ahead of AMD, gaining market share.
“AMD had their low point pretty much the middle of last
year,” says Dean McCarron of Mercury Research, who releases the fourth-quarter
figures today.
He says they recovered in the third quarter as new products
were released and describes the latest versions launched over the past week as
“process-shrinks essentially” that offer improved performance and have reduced
costs.
The ATI Radeon HD 3450, 3650 and 3870X2 boards are based on
chips with circuit widths of 55 billionths of a metre, compared to 80 billionths
in the previous generation. This allows a smaller die size, greater transistor
density and lower costs.
The 3450 and 3650, available this month, are low-power
sub-$150 boards, while the 3870X2, announced today, features two GPUs and, at
$450, is being priced around $150 below Nvidia’s competing card.
Multi-GPU boards are likely to become a trend, as are hybrid
graphics.
The graphics capabilities of low-cost PCs can easily be upgraded
by adding a new board. But, in the past, this has meant switching off the
integrated graphics chip already included on the motherboard.
With hybrid graphics, the integrated chip stays on and
is boosted by the addition of the board. AMD says it is introducing this
feature with its new boards, Nvidia says it already has the capability.
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