Nvidia withholding the launch of GeForce4 Ti 4200

[Sabastian]

http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/A...atePublish=2002/02/19&pages=04&seq=25

Nvidia withholding the launch of GeForce4 Ti

Graphics chip designer Nvidia has quietly withheld the launch of its new GeForce4 Ti 4200 chips, a move reportedly to avoid further positioning overlap of its products. However, the company will continue to roll out its other products as scheduled.

Originally, Nvidia planned to introduce six new chips this month: the NV25 core-based GeForce4 Ti 4600, 4400 and 4200 targeting the high-end market and the NV17 core-based GeForce4 MX 460, 440 and 420 aimed at the medium-end sector. However, in the graphics card market, although most manufacturers have launched a series of GeForce4 cards, none has developed products based on the GeForce4 Ti 4200 chips.

Card makers said that the GeForce4 Ti 4200 chip should be Nvidia’s low-price version of the NV25-core products, designed to replace the company’s GeForce3 Ti series. However, as the chip designer only introduced its GeForce3 Ti 500 and 200 chips in the fourth quarter of last year, positioning the new product appears to be difficult, the latest chip in danger of significantly affecting the sales of the older GeForce3 Ti 500 and 200.

Manufacturers said that due to growing competition, graphics chip designers are forced to introduce newer products faster, which inevitably leads to increasingly shortened product life cycles and market positioning overlap of products.

Graphics card makers believed that Nvidia’s decision to hold the launch should be able to prevent the overlapping problem from being aggravated. They also predicted that after the current GeForce3 Ti series gradually phases out of the market, Nvidia is very likely to reintroduce the chip to complete its GeForce4 portfolio, especially as its rival ATI Technologies has planned to roll out an RV250-core chip shortly. The new chip is a low-price version of its Radeon 8500.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sabastian on 2002-02-21 22:17 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sabastian on 2002-02-21 23:02 ]</font>

 

[Dave Baumann]

Makes sense. Plus, the Ti 4200’s are likely to be the NV25 chips that don’t ‘cut the grade’ for Ti 4400 or 4600’s so they are likely to want a little stockpile before they have to waste good NV25’s on the low end parts that’s aren’t going to have anywhere near the margins the high end will.

 

[Sabastian]

On 2002-02-21 23:21, DaveBaumann wrote:
Makes sense. Plus, the Ti 4200’s are likely to be the NV25 chips that don’t ‘cut the grade’ for Ti 4400 or 4600’s so they are likely to want a little stockpile before they have to waste good NV25’s on the low end parts that’s aren’t going to have anywhere near the margins the high end will.

I read somewhere that this was to be competitive card against Radeon 8500 in mainstream market. But it appears that nvidia wants to put the GF4MX(or whatever it is.)mainstream.(Pardon me for saying this but isn't that kind of like downgrading the mainstream market i.e. a DX7 card?) Yeah if I owned a GF3Ti500 and paid alot of cash for it a couple of months ago and now here this card comes(GF4200) for substaintialy less $$ I would be pissed royaly.

Sabastian.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

...so they are likely to want a little stockpile before they have to waste good NV25’s on the low end parts that’s aren’t going to have anywhere near the margins the high end will.

Higher margins, no, but higher volumes, yes. The price-point for the Ti4200 ($200 MSRP) would sell in MUCH higher volues than the $299 and $399 brackets.

My assumption is that nVidia and its partners wants to
1) Clear out Ti-200 inventory
2) Give The GeForce4 MX as much time as possible to sell before launching the Ti-4200.

One can make a semi-reasonable case for buying a GF4 MX-460 vs. a GF3 Ti-200 which are priced in a similar range. GF4 Mx-460 is ideally both a high-volume AND high margin part. A real cash cow.

But put a Ti-4200 anywhere NEAR the price of a GeForce4 MX, and all the sudden the cash-cow is gone.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Actually, I think that last part of that report is quite interesting. I'm really beginning to wonder if Rv250 is a .13um part. If not then I'd guess it would be a cut down version of R200.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

There have been so many conflicting rumors about the RV250, I don't know what to think.

 

[Sabastian]

On 2002-02-21 23:36, Joe DeFuria wrote:

...so they are likely to want a little stockpile before they have to waste good NV25’s on the low end parts that’s aren’t going to have anywhere near the margins the high end will.

Higher margins, no, but higher volumes, yes. The price-point for the Ti4200 ($200 MSRP) would sell in MUCH higher volues than the $299 and $399 brackets.

My assumption is that nVidia and its partners wants to
1) Clear out Ti-200 inventory
2) Give The GeForce4 MX as much time as possible to sell before launching the Ti-4200.

One can make a semi-reasonable case for buying a GF4 MX-460 vs. a GF3 Ti-200 which are priced in a similar range. GF4 Mx-460 is ideally both a high-volume AND high margin part. A real cash cow.

But put a Ti-4200 anywhere NEAR the price of a GeForce4 MX, and all the sudden the cash-cow is gone.

So for mainstream market nvidia is putting the GF4MX vs Radeon 8500? They are gonna lose market share if that is the case. Not to mention the fact the Radeon 8500 is a much better card.Just saying.

Sabastian

 

[Galilee]

but Radeon 8500 is ATI's top card. They don't have anything faster. GF4-MX is cheaper and aren't competing in the same category.

 

[ben6]

Hrm , I don't think this is news. I thought Nvidia said at launch that Ti4200 would come out 8 weeks from launch which is April. Or is my recollection incorrect

 

[Joe DeFuria]

but Radeon 8500 is ATI's top card. They don't have anything faster. GF4-MX is cheaper and aren't competing in the same category.

Radeon was released on product cycle before GeForce4. The 64 MB Radeon 8500 (now retailing at $166), will not be ATI's "top" card this spring. (Should be the rumored Radeon 8800, based on the RV250).

The 64 MB "high-end" Geforce4 Mx 460, is supposed to retail for $179. So it is directly competing with the Radeon 8500.

Which one would you rather have? You're right, it really isn't much of a competition.

 

[pcchen]

IMHO GF4 MX 460 will not retail at US$179. Less than US$150 is more likely. Comparing MSRP with real retail price is not adequate.

I am not going to buy any GF4 MX product, though :smile:

 

[Exposed]

Have any of the newer Radeon 8500 drivers (beta or otherwise) allowed trilinear filtering to be used in conjunction with anisotrophy?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Have any of the newer Radeon 8500 drivers (beta or otherwise) allowed trilinear filtering to be used in conjunction with anisotrophy?

Thats a limitation on their Anisotropic filtering implemetation. No amount of driver changes is going to allow this unless ATi opt to use a completely different algorithm.

 

[nAo]

Thats a limitation on their Anisotropic filtering implemetation. No amount of driver changes is going to allow this unless ATi opt to use a completely different algorithm.

Never say never! Maybe they can but this is not exposed by drivers at the moment, cause it too slow on their architecture (fetching 2 mipmaps from memory on a crossbar-less architecture per fragment could be deadly slow..)

ciao,
Marco

 

[Dave Baumann]

Well, if they are going to use an implemetation similar to NVIDIA's then I would hazard a guess that the first place to look for this would be the FireGL variants of the boards.

 

[pascal]

Nvidia has to kill the GF3 Ti200 (which is now selling for as low as $130) to make room for the GF4 Ti4200.

It has only 5% more silicon but my guess the chip will cost 50% more

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Pascal...exactly.

I'm sure nVidia would have liked to avoid even bringing out the 4200, and just kept the price of the Ti-200 higher.

Competition won't allow for it though! :smile:

 

[jb]

On 2002-02-22 10:24, pcchen wrote:
IMHO GF4 MX 460 will not retail at US$179. Less than US$150 is more likely. Comparing MSRP with real retail price is not adequate.

Actually the MX 440 is retailing right now at 179.00 at CompUSA here in the states. Of course buying it on line is the only way yo go....

 

[pascal]

Joe DeFuria:
I'm sure nVidia would have liked to avoid even bringing out the 4200, and just kept the price of the Ti-200 higher.

Competition won't allow for it though!

That´s right. ATI is doing a good job :smile:

jb:
Actually the MX 440 is retailing right now at 179.00 at CompUSA here in the states. Of course buying it on line is the only way yo go....

Who is buying this ugly thing ???

 

[Galilee]

Well GF4-MX has great FSAA performance. Spanking most other cards.