Originally posted by: Xentropy
Originally posted by: linkgoron
Xentropy, no offence, but nvidia isn't a one person company. It's not one guy that thinks what to do and what happens. They've got analysts and all that. They're not some guys that posts in AT forums. I'm sure that what you (and all of us) think of, they think of much earlier.
You haven't worked for any large companies, have you? Several thousand people thinking of ideas tends to actually move more SLOWLY than one or two. Bureaucracy, you see. It's bureaucracy that's going to make it take a month to get chips already in a bin onto cards and into stores.
If you think they're already in cards or in stores, then I'm shocked at your trust in NDA's. Information leaks. A LOT. We'd at least have seen an unreliable Inquirer article listing the proposed names of the rest of the 7800 line if it were already that far through the production/marketing process.
Edit: Also, it isn't just a matter of "thinking of ideas". You can come up with 50 different ideas, but you still have to decide which one is best and implement it. You can't change directions mid-stride, so you can't just implement every good idea. nVidia went with the excellent idea of killing the paper launch with day-0 availability to hurt an ATi that was already rumored to be having yield issues on their competing part.
The hole in their strategy is that they're milking the head-start by not releasing a midrange until ATi's cards come out. This is allowing ATi to surprise by releasing JUST a midrange earlier than expected. Since in the entire history of 3D graphics, the high-end has always come out either before or simultaneously with the midrange, it's quite possible nVidia, while sure THINKING OF it, dismissed that thought as unrealistic. However, if ATi does just that and throws history to the wind, they could catch nVidia off guard.