It's not like we're living in the 90's where there was still a ton of VGA chip vendors. Today we only have a handful, and the three of them, Intel, AMD and Nvidia are big players unlikely to go down any time soon (well, let's hope not, anyway). The only ones who should really think about whether they should stay in the GPU business are Matrox and S3. I mean, who uses Matrox anyway? Like a few hidden labs out there? Or S3? You can't even buy an S3 card at your local store. Truly, I wonder how these two survive.

DirectX 9 came out in December 2002, DirectX 10 January 2007. Whether DirectX 11 lives up to it's promises remains to be seen.

@Erik

Intel's Atom DOES implement X86-64, and the desktop models use it. For some reason, most likely to help keep netbooks from eating into laptop sales, Intel disabled x64 on all the low power netbook versions of "Diamondville"

Similarly, the ultra low power UMPC "Silverthorne" models also have X64 disabled.

Good point, however I think with GPGPU, better use is made NOW (Badaboom and Photoshop methinks apart from the odd tesla-powered supercomputer) compared to when 64-bit CPUs and OSes and Dx10 games lauched (no benefit for the vast majority of users). Nvidia going small (Tegra, Android) and large (Tesla, G300) is pretty smart for them at least, I think. Just missing Charlie complaining about G300`s large and expensive die. Cheers

I deem you and Charlie agreed on being shtuum on why, how and when Charly left the Inq (for semiaccurate.com, that I know). In case there is an article on this thanks everybody for telling me. Nvidia legal team or what? I am just curious and sad also. My much beloved anti-Nvidia rants and, above all the comments, disappearded silently all of a sudden. Not anywhere near as polarising on semiaccurate. How about hiring (or maybe looking for a free volunteer) new personell, e. g. one for bashing AMD, one for Nvidia? I know times are difficult, but hey, otherwise no one will argue (in the comments) e.g. for Nvidia Tesla (which made it to the top500) or against it (faulty chips information,...), or discuss about Larrabee, the discussion of which I had been longing for to happen with Charlie in the then ongoing comments flamewar/information mixture. I do appreciate neutral journalism such as Silvie`s, but Charlie left a hole to be filled I think. Maybe create a "biased rant" section where current posters for the Inq and their readers could have some fun? Cheers

Oh... in the end what I wanted to say boils down to one point... They industry need a new vapourware to raise consumers interest.... GPGPU is that new one...

I agree with ANdy...

DX10 made to GPU sales what 64 bit support did for CPUs... it made those parts seem as "future-proof", but in the end, it only served as marketing fluffies.

Sure there's 64 bit OSes and DX10 games... But the benefits of DX10 and 64 bits OSes, besides using more than 4GB of RAM on Windows systems, is negible...

It is SO negible that the super-new Intel Atoms doesn't even support 64 bit OSes... come to think, if 64 bits was really a deal breaker, Atoms would do it.

But we really NEED those vaporware in the end... it keep deep pocket enthusiasts paying premium for golden parts with support for technologies that may never be fully used which keep GPU makers spinning better GPUs which keep the olders getting cheaper which keep us, mainstreamers, the bread n' butter of the GPU industry buying the second/third last generation.

So, in the end... Thank you very much 64 bit support, thank you very much DX10, for making your older brothers cheaper so I could afford them.

Come fast DX11, so I'll be able to afford a 4890 :)

Since we havnt had much new stuff since DX9 cards got released.. in what 2006??

DX10 never was much of a big deal.. but now with soon, major DX10+ acceptance on the Windows platform (a few SP's for Vista and the release of Win7).. and the the new DX11 witch promises of better graphics and utilization of multiple cpu cores..

Of course there will be better sales now when there is new tech not just rebranding of old tech and having it slightly faster.

Is the industry going to face the steady growth of the laptop, and decline of the desktop, with new standards in affordably and power efficiency?

I plan to buy one more pc over the course of the rest of my life; however, I also plan to buy a new laptop every 3-4 years over the same period. I hear nothing from the hardware vendors about their plans to sell me their products?

Maybe some day tv sets will come with embdded computers (and be upgradable too), but until that day comes, I think my only graphics hardware purchase will be as part of an Xbox or PSn splurge.