Is it just me or do we need a 3rd player in the GPU industry?

[Anarchist420]

There's simply too much that nvidia and ATI don't do right in my opinion.

ATi's filtering may not be as good, they do something to their z-range that makes it shorter, and ATi's not interested in the support of older games. They also don't have PhysX.

Nvidia doesn't do scaling through HDMI in many cases, they don't have as good of opengl performance anymore, they only partially support older games (it would be nice if they're drivers forced 32 bit RGBA frame buffer when an application asks for a 16 bit format, and it would also be nice if they'd include the drivers a check box to force an complimentary FP32 Z-buffer), and they don't have edge-detect AA. OVerall, nvidia is better, but they're still not too good.

It would also be nice if one of them included a glide wrapper in their drivers that includes a 3dfx hardware ID so it works with all glide games.

I really wish Intel had released Larrabee, even if it was slower than Fermi. I wish they had released Larrabee, because it emulated rasterization except for textures. Even though emulation of ROPs and depth units is slower, I think it's a good idea.

What are intel's drivers like on Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU? I'm sure that if intel made a discrete GPU its drivers'd be better than those of ATi and nvidia.

 

[Veliko]

Competition is good.

 

[Rhezuss]

I'd like to see at least third company in the graphics card industry. Would bring fresh new products and good competition.

I don't understand why it's not the case yet...

 

[Skurge]

There's simply too much that nvidia and ATI don't do right in my opinion.

ATi's filtering may not be as good, they do something to their z-range that makes it shorter, and ATi's not interested in the support of older games. They also don't have PhysX.

Nvidia doesn't do scaling through HDMI in many cases, they don't have as good of opengl performance anymore, they only partially support older games (it would be nice if they're drivers forced 32 bit RGBA frame buffer when an application asks for a 16 bit format, and it would also be nice if they'd include the drivers a check box to force an complimentary FP32 Z-buffer), and they don't have edge-detect AA. OVerall, nvidia is better, but they're still not too good.

It would also be nice if one of them included a glide wrapper in their drivers that includes a 3dfx hardware ID so it works with all glide games.

I really wish Intel had released Larrabee, even if it was slower than Fermi. I wish they had released Larrabee, because it emulated rasterization except for textures. Even though emulation of ROPs and depth units is slower, I think it's a good idea.

The fact that Larrabee was never released should give you a hint of how hard it is to design a modern GPU. Even a "failure" of a GPU like nV30 was still better than everything non ATI based at the time in performance, IQ and features. I doubt larrabee was even at that level. Just having money doesnt mean a ticket to success.

What are intel's drivers like on Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU? I'm sure that if intel made a discrete GPU its drivers'd be better than those of ATi and nvidia.

Why do you say this.

 

[Arkadrel]

What are intel's drivers like on Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU?

I dont own a sandybridge, but read reviews.... its as it always was with Intel.
Bugs/issues with alot of games, lower IQ ect.

I dont understand how you can even say if Intel made a discrete card, their GPU drivers would be better than AMD/Nvidias. Nvidia/AMDs drivers are ALOT better currently.

I'd like to see at least third company in the graphics card industry. Would bring fresh new products and good competition.

its a tough biz.... look at Matrox, 3DFX, Via S3?.... they died out, only the 2 strongest remain.

 

[Skurge]

I dont own a sandybridge, but read reviews.... its as it always was with Intel.
Bugs/issues with alot of games, lower IQ ect.

I dont understand how you can even say if Intel made a discrete card, their GPU drivers would be better than AMD/Nvidias. Nvidia/AMDs drivers are ALOT better currently.

Even if Intel's drivers were better. You have to remember, as an example, current nVidia drivers have to support all kinds of GPU configurations, everything from an 8400GS playing HD video on youtube to QUAD SLI 580s running in surround vision with 3D with physx turned on.

There are bound to be things overlooked when you have that much stuff to support.

 

[biostud]

it's just you

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I'd like to see at least third company in the graphics card industry. Would bring fresh new products and good competition.

I don't understand why it's not the case yet...

Because it costs a lot of money to start up. You're basically investing billions and billions of dollars in making a new GPU, and because nobody's ever heard of your architecture no games will be optimized for it, you have no idea how to contend with heat, power, and other logistical issues (unless you steal people from AMD or nvidia) and that's not even including the fact you have to write drivers for the thing, wrestling with HTPC features, image processing, multiple-GPU and multiple-monitor setups, etc. Where do you get the money from? Because it's unlikely that whoever's providing it will get any of it back.

 

[bryanW1995]

I'd like to see at least third company in the graphics card industry. Would bring fresh new products and good competition.

I don't understand why it's not the case yet...

same reason you don't see other chip makers going after the x86 market; the costs to enter are ridiculously high, high enough in fact that it might even be cheaper to just buy amd. but when you look at amd, how overall competent/efficient the company is, and see that they're still getting absolutely smoked by intel, and you think "I can lose $5 billion investing in space just as easily and at least that might get me a trip to mars". jhh basically ran everybody (even basically ati) out of the gpu market, and ati was just rescued b/c of long-term market forces that convinced amd/intel that they were an interesting acquisition. If intel could throw $3 billion at larrabee and basically give up on it (and pat gelsinger), who else is going to attack the high end gpu market? amd and nvidia are both so good at what they do that it would take somebody like intel to force open a 3rd door, and at least for now they're licking their wounds.

besides, having said all of that, I think that both amd and nvidia are, overall, doing a great job. Sure there are small issues with each of them, but I'm happy using either company and I would definitely look very skeptically at a new entrant, even one with the cachet of intel.

 

[TransistorsX]

I would love to have a third competitor, but not Intel, they're horrible with their decade old driver issues. The last companies that came close to be an important player and felt short were Matrox with their Parhelia 512 matching the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and 3Dlabs whatever it name it was that came with 16 pixel pipelines with an odd configuration and barely matched the Radeon 9700 PRO with its 8 pixel pipeline. (My mind is a bit cloudy on that regard), Via would be great too as they recently launched Chrome 540GTX which performs on par with a measly 9400GT at a nice price/power consumption package, but oh well.

http://8000.hillbillyhardware.com:8000/Reviews/540gtx/540gtx.html

 

[Lonyo]

Been saying it for a long time.
It's the main reason I hoped Larrabee would work, or at least be a valid entry, even if not top level.
Back before LB was cancelled, it was one of my main points used when people said it was fine to be locked in to a vendor by vendor specific technologies/etc.
If we had 3 players and a more competitive market through having 3 different choices, the ability for any one vendor to lock you in would be reduced because ti would have to offer VERY compelling reasons to stick to it.

 

[bryanW1995]

so you're saying that we wouldn't have all these "but, but, PHYSX!!" quotes from the FG anymore? sign me up for some larrabee!

 

[Idontcare]

I don't understand why it's not the case yet...

Barriers to entry

 

[Grooveriding]

It would take an already established giant in tech to pull this off, both capital and development wise and to have a name that garners the respect of buyers in this segment.

Intel or Microsoft seem the most obvious choices to me.

 

[taltamir]

we have more than 2 players...
The main players are nVidia and AMD.
The secondary players are Intel, Matrox, VIA, and AFAIK there are a few more... can someone name them?

The problem is that making a competitive top of the line GPU is really, really hard. Intel, one of the worlds most powerful and wealthy players actually tried that with larrabee and failed.

It would be nice indeed if more companies could break through those though.

BTW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGnrBu3N2QE
It would be nice if anandtech added some of those to their bench.

 

[SirPauly]

Via with S3, IMG, to name a few others.

 

[RavenSEAL]

IF there is anyone, it would be Intel. I really doubt anyone else has the bugdet and technology to do it.

 

[taltamir]

IF there is anyone, it would be Intel. I really doubt anyone else has the bugdet and technology to do it.

interestingly, there is the potential for 4 companies.
AMD has both GPU & x86 CPU

Intel scrapped larabee 1 but is working on it yet, they have IGP and have x86 CPU

VIA has their NANO x86 CPU + S3 GPU.

nVidia has their GPU and are working on an ARM based out of order CPU, and MS confirmed that windows 8 WILL support ARM CPUs.

The problem is that there is a difference between "potential" and a "a player"... I just sent VIA support an email asking them why there is no "where to buy" link on their S3 website. http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/class3.aspx?productId=19
I am sure anandtech and hardOCP would add those cards to their benchmark database http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/188 if they only bothered sending them a review sample... its just mismanagement to the extreme.

 

[tweakboy]

It's just you. As long as we have 1 , thats all I care about..:whiste:

 

[Arkadrel]

It's just you. As long as we have 1 , thats all I care about..:whiste:

for the good of everyone, Id like it that we have atleast 2 of both GPU, and CPU alternatives.

*if* everyone is dependent on only 1... prices will skyrocket.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

It's just you. As long as we have 1 , thats all I care about..

How much did that GTX 560 Ti cost you? What would you think if you had to pay 3 times as much for it?

 

[RavenSEAL]

for the good of everyone, Id like it that we have atleast 2 of both GPU, and CPU alternatives.

*if* everyone is dependent on only 1... prices will skyrocket.

The government won't allow it, it'd become a monopoly.

 

[TransistorsX]

It's just you. As long as we have 1 , thats all I care about..:whiste:

What? And then the company would rest on it's laurels like Creative and Blackberry did? No way, competition or nothing at all.

 

[Mopetar]

There are a lot of companies who make graphics for ARM SoCs. PowerVR for example makes the SGX lineup that are featured in several different companies chips.

Perhaps one of these companies will eventually try scaling one of their designs upwards and offering something aimed at the desktop market.

If anyone were likely to do it, it seems like it would be one of those companies.

 

[Zap]

It would take an already established giant in tech to pull this off, both capital and development wise and to have a name that garners the respect of buyers in this segment.

Intel or Microsoft seem the most obvious choices to me.

Intel already tried twice. That tells me it really isn't very easy.