Nvidia eats industry alive

IT HAS technology that trashes its nearest competitor. It knows how to market its products. It took 3DFX apart, took ATI to unprofitability, dissolved S3, left Matrox to niche markets, is a major player in high-end 3D redering solutions, and is soon to be featured in the X-Box. It has eaten alive the video graphics industry, but it's still hungry.

Enter the CRUSH concept. CRUSH is GeForce power graphics combined with Dolby Digital Sound all built into this amazing chipset. If this chipset is stable and keeps what it promises, there will be some reajustment in the computing hardware industry.

There are two versions of CRUSH, which is 11 and 12. Think of CRUSH 11 (GeForce MX) as beating competitors with a police baton and CRUSH 12 (GeForce 2) beating competitors with a lead pipe.

I used to laugh at people that bought Tier-One OEM computers because their motherboards usually came with very weak video and audio solutions. Soon, times will change.

Soon many won't be able to contemplate buying a motherboard without CRUSH chipsets. Why? Right now, I have to pay $60 for a GeForce2 MX and $43 for a Creative Live Value sound card. I can add on the price of a new PC, less the delta between CRUSH and other offerings, such as Via, Intel, AMD, Sis, and Ali.

OK, I'm a gamer, but I also try to be frugal - I'm simply not willing to run out and buy the top of the line. There just isn't as pronounced a difference in performance anymore between the very top end of video and audio and lower end offerings that are great solutions for today's games like Unreal Tournament, Tribes 2, and Quake 3.

Two companies may well suffer quite dramatically.

Via will probably have to drop their prices and be relegated to the low end. As long as Nvidia plays nice and keeps their CRUSH chipset prices up a bit, VIA will survive.

And Creative? Creative will still sell high-end video and sound solutions, but face it folks, there are only so many gamers willing to shell out the big money for the best.

The performance differences are less dramatic than their price tags. This is truer with sound than 3D video. It will destroy Creative's low-end video card sales, hurt the middle-end, and erode the high-end offerings. µ