More post-FX thoughts - 1/28/03 2:04 am - By: Typedef Enum - Source:
It looks like that time of year when we all ponder a lot more than usual. Either that, or it sorta feels like a strange journey into the Twilight Zone.
When I think about nVidia, there's one quote that has always stuck with me. nVidia's CEO basically said that they would be just one cycle away from being out of business. That has been the mentality that has driven nVidia to the top over the last several years.
I have taken a good look around to see the general feeling by enthusiasts from around the net, and quite frankly, I cannot recall an episode quite like it. In many regards, this has actually more to do with the impressive engineering at ATI than what nVidia has done with this product.
But without going down that road, I will tell you one of the reasons why this product has underwhelmed so many people. Let me preface it by stating that I, by no means, am pointing the finger at one one individual . However, let me point you to an example from Anandtech's final review of the ATI Radeon 9700.
<<Based on the current specs of NV30, believe it or not, it will be faster than the Radeon 9700. Since both ATI and NVIDIA must support DirectX 9, you can already guess at a lot of the specifications for NV30. It will obviously have support for Pixel and Vertex Shader 2.0; you can expect it to have 8 pipes and with ATI and Matrox both sporting a 256-bit DDR memory bus, you can also expect it to have one too. The one benefit NVIDIA will have with NV30 will be that it will be manufactured on a 0.13-micron process. Not only does that mean that NVIDIA?s chip will be smaller but it also means that they can run at higher clock speeds, which can give it the edge over the Radeon 9700.>>
There you have it, a champion has already been crowned well before the product has even finished the final design phase. Folks, this quote was taken from July of 2002! Clearly, there was speculatory information in that quote that didn't even pan out. The way it was worded, it sure didn't sound like speculation, did it?
This is a website that's visited by millions of people, and they have been hyping NV30 to the extent that there was no doubt that NV30 would, indeed, be flat out faster than the ATI part.
In yet another article, a less pronounced statement was made:
We've said this before and it still holds true to date, NV30 is faster than the R300 on paper.
At any rate, I think you see the point. The fact of the matter is that many online websites contributed, in my opinion, to the absolute belief that NV30 was going to destroy all competing products, well before the darn thing was even finished. All this does is hype expectations to...well, basically, what we seemingly have witnessed today. Again, I'm not here to flame Anand, as I have a good deal of respect for the guy, not to mention he attends my alma mater
There are just as many websites out there guilty of it as they, and I just think it's a good lesson in life. As they say in NFL? That's why they play the game, no?
These are some of the thoughts swirling in my head. And of course, just my opinion.
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