The PC graphics market resembles a more closely matched version of the epic Intel/AMD rivalry. ATI and Nvidia have been competitors since the early days of 3D accelerators, but since last year -- when the former shipped the Radeon 9700 Pro and put Nvidia behind the eight-ball -- the stakes have been climbing steadily. Both companies have ambitious plans for making the market theirs for the rest of 2003 and into 2004, especially in the performance and mainstream market segments.

High-End Happenings

The current high-price, high-performance, gamer's-paradise market is led by ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro and Nvidia's GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, with both cards getting top marks all around. These are DirectX 9/AGP 8X products, each with a ton of power and all the deluxe features you'd expect at this price range.

The next wave is due to hit in early 2004, with ATI expected to move first. Developing new graphics processors takes time (12 to 24 months), and the Canadian company's Radeon 9700/9700 Pro core shipped well ahead of the current GeForce FX -- since its debut last August, it's seen duty in revised form in the Radeon 9500 Pro, then been enhanced for the 9800 Pro and 9600 Pro.

ATI is expected to ship one more, higher-clocked version of the current Radeon 9800 Pro. This product, ATI's short-term answer to the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, has been tentatively named the Radeon 9900 Pro. In our testing, we've taken the R350 core well over 400MHz, so there does seem to be adequate headroom for a higher-clocked revision.

Shipping in 2004, ATI's new R420 core will be a true next-generation part, supporting DirectX 9.1 and PCI Express. Not a lot is known about its architecture, but prerelease hype of double Radeon 9800 Pro performance suggests a major enhancement to current ATI technology. Hopefully, this amounts to an increased number of pixel pipelines, but ATI may go the marketing route and simply incorporate additional texture mapping hardware.

Nvidia will counter with NV40. Even less is known about this core, other than that its hype matches the ATI R420's in terms of allegedly doubling the power of Nvidia's best extant technology, as the archrivals continue their never-ending race for ultra-cinematic-quality, hyper-speed game domination. It's hard to think of a market where so much attention is paid to such a tiny, top-end percentage of products sold, but it sure is fun to watch.

Mainstream Marvels

Stepping down to saner price points, Nvidia's and ATI's latest mainstream video cards are an odd couple that have garnered a lot of press for their lowering of the price/performance bar. ATI's Radeon 9600 Pro replaced the popular but costly-to-manufacture 9500 Pro and yielded lower frame rates, while Nvidia's GeForce FX 5600 offers DirectX 9 features, but little else to attract potential buyers at its relatively high price.

This is an extremely important market, as sales volumes are high and profit margins exceed those of the entry-level sector. The current inability of either company to deliver a killer mainstream card will spark some hectic changes here.

Nvidia is rumored to be following the ATI strategy, and releasing a new mainstream product based on its NV35 (GeForce FX 5900) technology. This solution (GeForce FX 5700?) is designed to surpass the Radeon 9600 Pro in performance, while offering the enhancements of the upgraded NV35 core.

Depending on its release date, a more competitive mainstream product from Nvidia could spell trouble for ATI, especially as the desirable Radeon 9500 Pro has been discontinued and an all-new mainstream part, based on the R420, is some time off. For now, ATI looks to be counting on third-party vendors to fill the void, using a variety of Radeon 9600- and 9800-based products.

ATI allows vendors to play with Radeon 9600 Pro clock speeds, which has resulted in several tiers ranging from "special edition" overclocked hot rods to stock-reference-design solutions. The company's exact strategy concerning the Radeon 9800 Pro is still unknown, but lower-clocked versions are a distinct possibility, as is one with fewer pipelines. Whatever the final product matrix turns out to be, ATI seems likely to counter Nvidia by somehow transitioning the Radeon 9800 Pro into the mainstream market. This could be the Radeon 9700/9500 experiment all over again.

Economy Class: The More Things Change ...

With both Intel and Nvidia working hard to boost the performance of cheap integrated-chipset graphics, we don't expect to see a lot of action in the budget or entry-level video-card segment, apart from some of today's mainstream products trickling down in time-honored fashion.

ATI and Nvidia both have strengths and weaknesses here. The former's Radeon 9100 and 9200 cards sport adequate performance, but only support DirectX 8.1. Nvidia's GeForce FX 5200 line meets tomorrow's DirectX 9 specifications, but simply doesn't have the juice to deliver adequate application and game performance. Our hope is that one of the Radeon 9600 or GeForce FX 5700 variants can somehow hit the under-$100 price point, and finally permit features and performance to coexist in entry-level graphics.

PCI Express Emerges; Valve Problems May Sink Ship

Meanwhile, the glamorous new PCI Express interface is expected to supplant AGP beginning early next year, with high-end desktops and video cards being first to make the move. This will entail some risk, along with strict adherence to release schedules: PCI Express is the future, but AGP is so prevalent that its installed base is nearly overwhelming.

The key is that video silicon will be designed from the ground up for PCI Express, and without hardware adjustments may be incompatible with AGP standards. So the exact time and place that ATI and Nvidia choose to embrace PCI Express will be something to watch for in 2004.

Finally, it's not often that a single software application has a chance to determine hardware market share, but it's not unprecedented -- if a graphics card crashes Microsoft Office or the latest version of Doom, it's time to worry. This is exactly what's happened to Nvidia with this month's buzz that Valve's Half-Life 2 will have problems running with full speed and quality (more specifically, with multisample antialiasing) on Nvidia cards. While this is reportedly a snag in the API itself, ATI owners can use a workaround to solve it, while Nvidia fans can't. Given that anticipation for Half-Life 2 is second only to that for Doom III, which we learned this week isn't going to ship in time for the holidays, this could be a major headache for Nvidia.

The Year of Living Dangerously

The next 12 months should be fascinating, as the ATI-versus-Nvidia war has been fought to something of a stalemate, but looks primed to break out and heat up all over again. The expected new product releases are nothing out of the ordinary, but when combined with a quantum shift toward PCI Express technology, 2004 will reward the company that makes the right choices at the right times.