The dual company competition of the tech industry
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on April 26, 2002 at 2:41:24 PM
When I woke up this morning I though to myself that there are many sectors in the tech industry that only have two players. Think about it. The graphics card sector is Nvidia and ATI and the CPU sector is AMD and Intel which are some of the most expensive parts in the system. What would have happened if ATI or AMD suddenly went under?
As we can even see today, the prices of the bigger company are usually very high compared to their underdog counterpart. Why should this be? Marketshare and branding has a big factor in the cost of a product. When you really get down and think about it, what do most customers want? A large company that will back them. That is why people buy Intel. Why else when they have horrible performance compared to similiarly priced Athlons. Don't even say that they are comparable, because they aren't. You'll be sticking your foot way down your throat once the hammer line comes out.
Now how about graphics cards? Let's take ATI's Radeon 8500. The card ranges from $130-200 (64mb-128mb). And Nvidia's current flagship the Geforce4 Ti4600 goes for ~$350-400. Remember when the best graphics card on the market was under or near $100. I still remember buying my Voodoo3 2000 for $85 on sale. Graphics cards really don't offer any new features either, they just keep increasing the speed. This will all change once the R300 and the NV30 come out. I'm really looking forward to the NV30 as it will have some 3dfx technology in it. Yeah, remember 3Dfx? Too bad they went under, three players are better than two.
The graphics sector is also blooming with more people, ranging from SiS to Matrox (yes again). This year will be a great year for competition. Now if only the CPU sector would follow...
Rants and Raves can be made by discussing the topic below.
As we can even see today, the prices of the bigger company are usually very high compared to their underdog counterpart. Why should this be? Marketshare and branding has a big factor in the cost of a product. When you really get down and think about it, what do most customers want? A large company that will back them. That is why people buy Intel. Why else when they have horrible performance compared to similiarly priced Athlons. Don't even say that they are comparable, because they aren't. You'll be sticking your foot way down your throat once the hammer line comes out.
Now how about graphics cards? Let's take ATI's Radeon 8500. The card ranges from $130-200 (64mb-128mb). And Nvidia's current flagship the Geforce4 Ti4600 goes for ~$350-400. Remember when the best graphics card on the market was under or near $100. I still remember buying my Voodoo3 2000 for $85 on sale. Graphics cards really don't offer any new features either, they just keep increasing the speed. This will all change once the R300 and the NV30 come out. I'm really looking forward to the NV30 as it will have some 3dfx technology in it. Yeah, remember 3Dfx? Too bad they went under, three players are better than two.
The graphics sector is also blooming with more people, ranging from SiS to Matrox (yes again). This year will be a great year for competition. Now if only the CPU sector would follow...
Rants and Raves can be made by discussing the topic below.