Video Card History (1996 to the present) - FastSilicon.com

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Video Card History (1996 to the present)

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Video Card History (1996 to the present)
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As time went on, ATI and NVIDIA battled between themselves, releasing card after card. The cards released during this period were significantly faster than their predecessors, but nothing truly groundbreaking came to market. The game would not get too exciting until later on, when NVIDIA boldly went out on a limb and announced "The Cinematic Gaming Experience" that would come with their next generation of cards. During this time NVIDIA was busy with the XBox, which undoubtedly influenced the direction of the research and development surrounding their new chipset, codenamed NV30. The NV30 boasted 128MB of DDR2 memory and a .13-micron chip design, rather than the .15 micron chip design that ATI used on their 9700. ATI, being the competitors that they are, answered with the Radeon 9700 Pro around the time the GeforceFX (NV30), was scheduled to be released. When the new Radeon hit the shelves, people were stunned - it was quite possibly the best card to hit the market for a long time. But where was the GeforceFX? It was delayed, unsurprisingly because of a lack of manpower. Fastsilicon.com was at the launch of the GeforceFX, and it was a very interesting event. The GeforceFX was so hyped, that when it came out it couldn't help but be a disappointment. The frame rate was there, but unfortunately it just couldn't match the picture quality of the Radeon 9700. The cooling solution, teasingly called the Dust Buster or Leaf Blower by consumers, also left a lot to be desired. This monster of a fan took up a PCI slot, and ran at two speeds depending on the GPU usage. The higher speed was much louder than most consumers could tolerate, and definitely hurt sales.

ATI took a huge lead with the Radeon 9700, and has extended their lead with the 9800. Slight revisions to the chipsets of both NVIDIA and ATI, but the market is currently in a holding pattern. Both companies have been accused of cheating on benchmarks to varying degrees, and the market on the whole seems to be ready for the next big thing to come down the pipeline.