14 DAY TRIAL // No one can really say that AMD is doing all that well these days but, as far its graphics business is concerned, things appear to be shaping the way the Sunnyvale-based company wants them to. And that's mainly because, for the first time in years, ATI, AMD's graphics subsidiary has managed to bring out a card that can compete with NVIDIA's GeForce cards. By the looks of it, the future Radeon cards will continue this new trend, only that for the mainstream and entry-level markets.
The RV770-based graphics card series we see today will soon receive a couple of new additions that will not be targeted at high-end users. Word in the industry has it that the new cards, based on the RV710 and RV730 chips, of which we said a few things in the past, will arrive at least two months ahead of schedule. This ultimately means that AMD is going to get a bigger market share than NVIDIA, if the Santa Clara-based chip manufacturer doesn't succeed in releasing its new cards just in time.
The recent rumors certainly put AMD in a favorable light, especially since the Christmas holidays are drawing near, which means that AMD will get a bigger slice of the pie - that is, of the shopping frenzy around the holidays. But even so, until the new chips arrive, we can't say for sure whether they will be capable of competing with NVIDIA's current offer. The GeForce 9500GT is NVIDIA's only weapon against the RV710, but the upcoming 9800GT might also do the trick.
In other news, the rumors about AMD replacing the HD 3000 series with the HD 4000-branded cards are still gaining momentum. According to the Fudzilla website, AMD is not going just to rename the old HD 3000 cards and will completely replace them with the new RV710 and RV730 chips. Apparently, AMD doesn't want to do the same as NVIDIA, which is known for releasing re-branded versions of the GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 cards.