ATI to bridge future chips

As we reported before, ATI is making two different cores - one using PCI Express and the other with a AGP interface so it can make what essentially will be two two native chips. Nvidia is using its HSI chips so doesn't have to make two cores. Two cores means two tape outs and that certainly cost you a few bucks more.

At some point in the future, ATI will just do a PCI-E card and it will bridge it down back to AGP, once that becomes necessary. ATI told us that this makes sense for an upgrade market that still wants to stick with AGP platforms but wants the latest and the greatest.

ATI's CEO said that whenever you bridge, you have to face some latency, so things will be a little bit slower. How much slower, he did not quantify.

It won't be an easy thing for ATI to explain to its customers why they are using a bridge now seeing as it gave Nvidia such a hard time over this. Still they won't happen anytime soon. I would suspect not even before end of this year but we the timings are up in the air.

What next? Nvidia cutting out a PS 3.0 unit and claiming PS 2.0 is a good thing? µ