Industry Update - Q4-2004: AMD adds SSE3 Support, Intel's 925/915 not selling and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 3, 2004 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ATI vs. NVIDIA
Just a couple of years back and a motherboard manufacturer producing both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards would find themselves kicked off of the nForce2 partner list. These days things are very different, most manufacturers are producing both ATI and NVIDIA cards thanks to around 12 months of NV3x slip-ups. That being said, there are still incentives for a manufacturer to only deal with one of the two companies. For example, ATI is only willing to share a certain amount of information with their partners if the partners in question happen to produce NVIDIA cards as well. If you are ATI-exclusive, then you get more information. Makes sense, right?
Despite having access to more information, there's little I could find out about what's coming next for ATI and NVIDIA. Despite close relations with their partners, ATI and NVIDIA can keep their board vendors in the dark for much longer than Intel can, for example. The reason being that most of the time ATI and NVIDIA simply hand their vendors a reference design, and the vendors do nothing more than duplicate the relatively simple design. In some cases with NVIDIA, the board vendors must purchase both the GPU and the memory from NVIDIA, leaving very little work other than assembly for the board manufacturers to do. Combine that with very short product cycles and you can see why there's not much information floating around.
The big discussion in Taiwan about ATI and NVIDIA is with the current state of PCI Express. Without a doubt, Intel did a wonderful job of convincing all of their partners that the transition and ramp to their 915 and 925X platforms would be extremely aggressive. The reality obviously was completely different, as 2004 has almost come to a close and the only demand that we've seen for the latest PCI Express platforms comes from the OEMs themselves. Intel's efforts are very evident from the most recent product releases we've seen from ATI and NVIDIA; the GeForce 6600GT and X700 XT were both PCI Express-only parts initially, with AGP versions due out in the coming weeks.
The supplies of PCI Express graphics solutions from both ATI and NVIDIA are limited as you've heard over the past several weeks, and unfortunately there were no signs of a fix from the manufacturers in Taiwan. We received varying explanations for the shortages - with everything from low packaging yields to demand miscalculations. There is light at the end of the tunnel and most manufacturers were optimistic that PCI Express graphics supplies should pick up in the new year, until then we can expect sparse availability of the more desirable PCI Express GPUs.
Memory
The memory market is pretty unchanged from what you'd expect, the strengths are definitely in DDR sales right now. With poor 915 and 925X sales and no AMD support for DDR2, there are simply not enough platforms out there to drive up DDR2 demand. The only real demand for DDR2 comes from, as you can guess, the OEM platforms.
We would expect better adoption of DDR2 in 2005 as more 915 and 925X platforms make their way into the hands of more and more end users. Towards the end of 2005 Intel will have DDR2-667 support on their platforms, and without AMD here to force an early adoption of DDR2 standards we can expect that Intel's upcoming Glenwood/Lakeport platforms will be the only driving force behind DDR2-667 adoption.
Final Words
I hope you enjoyed this little update on the industry, if you'd like to see more of these types of articles just let us know - the flight to Taiwan isn't too bad and the information is usually top notch :)
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ArneBjarne - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
#36HyperThreading is not a part of SSE3, two instructions for thread synchronization are:
"Monitor and mwait instructions provide a solution to address Hyper-Threading Technology performance of the operating system idle loop and other spin-wait loops in operating systems and device drivers."*
Somehow I don't think the AMD processors have any issues with Hyper-Threading Technology that need to be addressed in the first place. Furthermore are you suggesting that Intel processors will stop supporting the rest of SSE3 if HyperThreading is turned off? I don't think so.
*http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/2004/vol...
ShadowVlican - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
wow.. i registered just to comment on how true and great this article is... great stuff Anand!it's true intel should know better than that... who in their dumb minds would pay MORE for something that's SLOWER... answer? the dumb public. nasty intel is targeting the average and ripping them off... GO AMD!!! i'm glad i have a XP-M 2400+ in my rig
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
A superb article, this kind of news straight from the troops (mobo manufacturers) on the front-line is far more informative than what you get from the generals (Intel and AMD). At least two, ideally three of these a year would be fantastic for giving us a look at what is really happening in the computer market. Any more than that would probably reveal little new.btw- my use of military terminology above does not mean I condone any real action occuring, it was just a good way of describing my point in a way everyone would understand.
thebluesgnr - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
#36,dual-core. ;)
Live - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Very nice report. I want more, more, more...This kind of articles is basically the only place I want to read about Intel. They have nothing to offer the enthusiast right know and probably wont until late 05. Since Intel very well might be what Microsoft is on the OS side they will continue to be the market-leader and earn more money then all the rest put together.
But for us AnandTech readers AMD is the CPU of choice and should be treated like that.
While we are on the subject of wants: follow ups to motherboard and GPU reviews when new bios/drivers appear would be most appreciated. Since you here at AnandTech often are very fast with getting out the reviews when products are new (which is a good thing) many bios/driver related problems seem to crop up. Are they later fixed? If so that might make a bad product shine. Now I don't mean you should follow every new bios or driver. But just do a re-roundup once in a while. Helps a lot cause when the prices of products have fallen and the time has come to buy the reviews are often old. Certainly nowadays when the next generation seem to offer less and less over the old follow-ups seems like a good idea, or?
quanta - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
I doubt the revision E of Athlon 64 will truly be SSE3 compatible. AMD did not show any signs of including HyperThreading, which is part of SSE3 instruction sets. You can expect workstation apps are going to cripple this CPU because of this technical issue.glynor - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
[Q]In fact, many of the Taiwanese manufacturers were confused as to why DTRs sold so well in the U.S., with ultra portable designs selling much better in Japan; after all, who wants to lug around a 10+ lbs laptop?[/Q]I suppose they aren't taking into account the sheer lazyness of the American public. They don't want to lug around a 10+ lbs laptop ... but they don't [i]walk[/i] anywhere anyway. What difference does it make if you have a 1 lb. laptop or a 15 lb. laptop when you only ever transport it in your SUV?
Marsumane - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
I am also in favor of these types of articles. Very informative. Good work! :)Gnoad - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
We need more articles like this more often.avijay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link
Great Article Anand! Many more of these kind of articles would be very welcome! Its a pleasure to read your articles.