Taipei (Taiwan) – Taiwanese companies are growing increasingly concerned over Nvidia’s and ATI’s market strategies. Both companies seemed to be more interested in making their partners stamp Nvidia and ATI stickers on their boxes and industry sources we talked to aren’t exactly happy with these two companies. It appears many are already hoping that Intel’s Larrabee will solve their problems.

Larrabee, in fact could become a major hit right out of the gate when it launches in the 2010 time frame, at least if the current market trend continues. TG Daily had a chance to chat with numerous graphics card companies, which combined account for more than 70% of ATI and Nvidia boards on the market, and the general view appears to be the same.

The CEO of one of the largest manufacturers told us that he happily would ditch AMD and Nvidia completely and go for Larrabee alone since he would be able to secure his company’s future with Intel's design policy.

The apparent problem is a cutthroat price war between Nvidia and ATI pushing add-in-board (AIB) companies into a margin of 2% or less. Most of companies are even believed to lose money with every card you buy, since some ATI and Nvidia parts have a negative margin.
 
Why negative? Because both AMD and Nvidia push partners to keep the prices as low as possible, and in a lot of cases this means there is no money left for research and development. In the end, AIB vendors may be forced to buy boards from ATI and Nvidia. The result may be that a company is caught in a downward spiral. According to our sources in Taiwan, two current graphics card manufacturers may actually be on the verge of bankruptcy because of this policy.

Some manufacturers suggested that ATI and Nvidia should just reestablish their own brands (Built by ATI, 3dfx) and sell the boards directly to the consumer, but right now, it appears that there is not a lot of motivation for this change. The trend is believed to be clear: Smaller companies will fold and larger players will go somewhere else where money can be made.

If Larrabee is as good as Intel claims it is, that may be good news for graphics cards manufacturers and Intel, since our sources indicated that top tier vendors will happily jump on board. And even if it is not that great, Intel may still have an easy play.

What are you smoken??Author

Jun 04, 2008 08:14     

When in the history of computers has INTEL ever produced anything of a real graphics card with high end specs?? I bet when Laughabee comes out that the boards all have PCIe2.0 slots in them. The problem i see is that how will consumers be able to disable the crappy INTEL graphics so it won't interfere with highend gaming.
Mr_anderson report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -10

I think it is rather silly to think that intel can ...

Jun 04, 2008 08:33     

I think it is rather silly to think that intel can compete in the add on graphics market. If the performance isn't that great, the companies that market the nvidia and ATI hardware will not make any money by switching over, Even if the margins are higher.
Jacob report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -6

bollocks

Jun 04, 2008 08:52     

"Larrabee, in fact could become a major hit right out of the gate when it launches in the 2010" Can you back up this claim? This is hogwash
Kin report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

Smoken or Smokin' ...

Jun 04, 2008 08:56     

Mr_anderson -- the answer to your first question is back in the mid to late 90's Intel attempted a discrete graphics product, the i790 as I recall. Though it was not terrible, it was not competitive with offerings at the time, and as such competition being competition, you either profit or die. Intel killed the product. Intel is currently the leading supplier of graphics, simply because they do not currently make high end products, but 'good enough' to make a computer functions (believe it or not, most people do not purchase a PC or laptop for gaming). Second point -- you seem to infer that Larabee will be a IGP product, it is not. Larabee, unlike other Intel graphic endeavers, has been announced with the intentions of being a high end graphics product -- this is the first time Intel has attempted to address this market in 'history'. Of course, the boards that come out will have PCIe 2.0 slots in them, because Larrabee will go into a PCIe 2.0 slot. I guess ignorance is bliss.

Anon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +9

The Larrabee wont even be considered powerful when it comes out

Jun 04, 2008 09:00     

let's say that Intel succeeds in the 1tf margin for the Larrabee what are the current GPU's doing these days? the new 4k range from ATI is hitting almost 900gfs, right? uhh, does Intel think the graphics market isn't going to advance until 09/2010? the ATI/nvidia GPU's will beat the living daylight out of the Larrabee by the time it's out if the Larrabee wants to beat anything by ATI/nvidia they need to bring it out NOW. Even if the drivers are buggy, it can be sorted Intel will never get any respect in the GPU market

meow report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Larrabee not until 2009/2010 - Some AIB Probably already Bankrupt

Jun 04, 2008 09:21     

These AIB's do realize that Larrabee won't be released until 2009/2010, right? If they really are this close to bankruptcy, nothing will save them because of the timeframe Larrabee will finally be released in. Even then, Larrabee will be competing with 2-3 generations later versions of Nvidia and ATI chips; Larrabee is going to have a really tough time out there just like their previous i790.
G report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Intel's PR at it's nasty best

Jun 04, 2008 09:36     

Looks like an obvious work of Intel's PR Firm. Mr. Author, can you back up this claim .. or do you like painting a pretty picture in thin air ?
giantzz report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Competition is good...

Jun 04, 2008 10:00     

Price come down, product performance goes up, consumers win. Nothing wrong with that.
GWolfman report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +6

User

Jun 04, 2008 10:17     

Yeah - Intel is famous for treating their partners with kid gloves - what a useless article
Doggie report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Its "smoken" where im from!

Jun 04, 2008 11:20     

Although your copy and paste from wikipedia.org might sound like a right answer. The article was written before a prototype was even shown. Mabye you should look at the INTELROAD MAP and hit some more tech sites, so you can see just what is planned and when it may/maynot be released. I've seen some first product slides and they showed chips integrated on the motherboard. Ya, "ignorance is bliss", can I please have some of yours I seem to be fresh out!

Mr_anderson report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -7

HAHAHAAHA

Jun 04, 2008 19:21     

look at you fanbois argue with each other.... your a bunch of girl scouts. my 2 cents worth is that intel will never have any decent chance for high end graphics and will never be able to wipe out NVIDIA. NVIDIA PWNS... AMD sux... ATI is just dead to me. NVIDIA is going to wipe Intel off the MAP!!!
R report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -12

RE: bollocks

Jun 04, 2008 22:20     

I agree! This statement is pure rubbish: "Larrabee, in fact could become a major hit right out of the gate when it launches in the 2010" " First of all, no one has ANY IDEA how Larabee will actually perform, nor if the idea of a 20 core x86 processor will be able to efficiently run modern 3D APIs like OpenGL and Direct3D. The only thing we have to go on is Intel's reputation in prior graphics hardware projects, and it is TERRIBLE. Each year for the past DECADE they have said "oh, you just wait to see what we have in the labs! Our new integrated graphics chipsets are blazing fast!". And every time a new chipset comes out, they are found to be 5X slower than even the competition's integrated chipsets. They are usually missing modern features that don't allow them to run many modern computer games, and the drivers are always buggy as hell and crash prone. With all this in mind, how in the hell can you make such a bold claim about Larabee????

loosely_coupled report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Intel is the devil

Jun 05, 2008 18:42     

Intel is the devil
John report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

What Intel doesn't know...

Jun 09, 2008 13:51     

I would be more worried about Nvidia taking over the CPU market than I would about Intel taking over the GPU market. Who in this industry listens more to the customer than Nvidia?
Jeffrokilla report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0