Graphics card sales set to increase?

[PD HEXUS]

A shortage of PCIe capable chipsets with onboard graphics will lead to increased graphics card sales in the second half of this year, according to the general manager of NVIDIA Taiwan Sales.

Talking to Taiwanese news website Digi Times, Paul Sun of NVIDIA expects one million extra graphics card to be sold each month as a result of the onboard graphics shortage. Right now, only Intel and ATI have PCIe capable chipsets featuring onboard graphics, and solutions from SiS and VIA won't appear for another few months.

Couple the lack of chipsets with motherboard manufacturer dissatisfaction in integrated graphics, particularly on AGP based chipsets, and the result is more purchases of graphics cards. What remains to be seen is whether this will increase system prices, or if PC buyers will simply benefit from a half decent graphics card in their new system.

how are you reading all this? let us know...

[herulach]

Nvidia seems to be in the perfect position to sort that out, but i guess it benefits them more if people buy more gpus, although of course people could just move to ATi.

The thing is, PCi express is still not required for budget chips, which is what most integrated gpu mobos are bundled with (i would have thought). And people buying from OEMs that buy budget chips with integrated graphics arent too bothered about pciexpress or whatever, they just want cheap.

Personally i dont think itll be an issue until there are no AGP chipsets for the budget chips (which is gonna be a long time imho)

[pman]

I think there was a rumour that nVidia was going to release the nf4 chipset with intergrated 6200 graphics to compete against Ati's offerings. Onboard decent graphics I would like as at the moment I need to wait to get ebough money to upgrade to AMD64 as I need a graphics card aswell. Onboard graphics would plug the gap until I have enough money to get a pci-e card.

[exAndrzej]

Originally Posted by PD HEXUS

...how are you reading all this...

To give you a little context before I start, I got the very first nForce 2 chipset mainboard ever in the UK, partnered it with the very first 2700+ from AMD and a 9800 Pro from ATI in order to take the 'A-List' position in PC Pro...

...and that system sat on top of the pile for several months !

A few years back I was at an nVidia conference to see presentations by Jen Hsun, Dan and Drew among others

During my conversations with some pretty senior execs, I asked why there did not seem to be clear plans on how to develop decent onboard graphics for the nForce chipset

I was told that 'there is no demand in the market' for quality graphics integrated into a mainboard and that they did not see a need to create such a product because it would be too expensive and no one would want to buy it

I left the conference with my first small form factor chassis, and I was really certain that great integrated graphics would find an audience

Now we seem to find ourselves in a situation where only ATI has an Intel and AMD solution for both desktop and laptop designs which integrates DX9 graphics into a high-performance mainboard chipset

Data from Mercury Research seems to suggets that ATI has taken taken 27% of the AMD chipset business alone over the past 12 months...

...so maybe there is some demand out there after all

[DR]

Data from Mercury Research seems to suggets that ATI has taken taken 27% of the AMD chipset business alone over the past 12 months...

27% of what though? full AMD chipset market? integrated market?

I am very very sceptical if that is truly the case (all the market) when you look at the volume of Opteron and 8XXX core logic?

Does it take in to account the growth of the AMD market place?

[exAndrzej]

Originally Posted by David

...sceptical...

Someone has to be

Think about it this way...

Enthusiasts live in an AMD-centric world that does not match the wider reality

I do not know the exact figures - but let's imagine that HEXUS readers are split 50:50 between the CPU vendors

In the whole world, the split might be more like 80:20 in favour of Intel (maybe 70:30 - but you get what I mean - yes ?)

Also, if I remember one of your recent polls correctly, something like 90% of the HEXUS Massive will buy components and build their own system

That is not reflective of the worldwide market as a whole

Although they have very high visibility to the HEXUS Massive, mainboards sold in shops and online account for a fraction of the market

Picking up a design win from a company like HP generates absolutely huge orders (sorry - cannot be specific on numbers )

To many people, a page like this might not generate much interest - but it means volume in the market

When a company like Mercury Research compiles data - they are looking at the global market rather then focusing on the large, local e-Tail stores...

...which is why the numbers make you skeptical

If you ever find yourself over in sunny San Francisco at an Intel event - ask them about global market research data Vs the local enthusiast experience...

...I am sure that they will have an opinion


To (specifically) answer your question - I believe that it was the whole AMD desktop chipset market - but if anyone else (Adam ?) has better data - then please let me know