Scarlet said:
Actually the whole thing about who announced what first and there being an audience touting the supposed virtues of one product/company over another is kind of dumb and pointless.
The only thing I find of real interest in all of this froth are the questions of :
When you should announce a product?
Should products be available on the shelf at announcement? (or within a month at least)
Is is unethical to announce before product is available?
I actually don't think it's necessarily unethical to announce a product well in advance of its availability. However, I believe that if the company provides a timeframe to the consumer and does not release the product within that timeframe, it would be considered unethical if the company did not do all it could to fulfill its declaration. Basically it boils down to sincerity and good faith.
It seems like the IHVs announce when it suits their purposes, and those may not be in the consumer's interests.
I would take that as a given, and actually assume that unless consumer interests are materially harmed, most corporations will behave that way. And with good reason -- they exist to generate profits. Fortunately, consumer interests and corporate interests do not necessarily have to be at odds with each other.
If there are no NV40s available why did nV announce now? (my opinion isn't so favorable) And what will ATI do? Will they announce just to blunt nV's momentum, and be equally tardy for availability? (if ATI does that, I will have an equally poor impression of them)
We can only speculate about all the strategizing that has been going on behind the scenes. I'm sure there are a number of factors. nVidia has been losing market share to ATI over the past couple of years; the status quo is advantageous to ATI, so it seemed more likely that nVidia would be the one who would have to show their hand first this time. There are other players involved, including OEMs, who may have requirements which dictate the schedule in some rough form.
I suspect ATI will not have a long period of time between the announcement and availability... It could simply be a coincidence, but I have noticed that some local stores have had somewhat lower pricing on some ATI products in the past week or two. If that's true more generally, then it could indicate that ATI has already started trying to clear out inventory. I seem to recall that after the R300 release, ATI felt that they could have managed their inventory better -- perhaps we are already seeing the result of the lessons they learned. In any case, if they really are trying to clear out their inventory, it does seem to indicate that R420 product availability is going to happen sooner rather than later.
And of course we've seen the article in Digitimes indicating nVidia doing the same. All of this tells me that nv40 availability shouldn't be too far away either.
In the end, nVidia and ATI can only play so much of these games before the fiscal reality of managing the (product inventory) pipeline comes into play.
As for the rest of the froth that is being whipped up here and there, it really is pointless until we see what ATI has to offer as well. Another question occurred to me - Why are there fanbois at all? I mean - what is the point?
Shrug. Fanboys exist for the same reason that people paint their face with their home team's favouriate colours and jump up and down like idiots during the playoffs, the same reason that some people will always vote for the same policital party no matter what, and so on. Attempting to use rational arguments when debating with someone so emotionally involved with their "team" is bound to end in frustration.
