2007 Review/Preview - Graphics Cards

nVidia isn't going to do much in 2007; their top of the line product was released in late 2006, before ATI had an opportunity for a prompt response. The nVidia 8800 was the first GPU released that supported DX10. In 2007, nVidia had upgraded all their GPUs to support DX10 from top to bottom. These hit the mainstream early this year. At that time ATI was still working on a response for DX10, so the market quickly saturated with nVidia cards for all those that wanted DX 10 cards then and there.  nVidia decided to bump up the bar a little and introduced an Ultra version, a slightly higher clocked card.

ATI has some work to do in 2007; so far they have not disappointed. They released their new graphics cards that were DX 10 compatible. Their press release talked about a Radeon HD 2900 XTX with 1 GB RAM. While this would be their top of the line card, it isn't anywhere to be seen.  he year is half way over; where is this card ATI? 

Hopefully we can get this card soon. nVidia is cleaning up with the 8800 GTX and Ultra, and still ATI isn't putting up a fight at all. The rest of their products came out pretty even with nVidia's cards, however the champion is still the nVidia 8800 GTX, and without any competition, it looks like nVidia has won this round.

2007 Winners and Losers

2007 is shaping up to be an exciting year for the whole industry, from the hardware to the operating system to other gadgets. Intel is doing very well after a few bumps with Netburst. They found a great core in the Core Duo. They have always been great with their chipsets and we don't see any hints that the next release will be any different. 

AMD isn't looking so hot.  They had their run with the Athlon 64 and Athlon FX, but now the tides have changed.  AMD needs dig deep into the R&D in 2008 for another great core.  While the A64 and AFX have been great cores, they are aged, and in the electronic industry, old gets left behind. 

Apple is gaining on Microsoft, and it looks like they will continue to do so. Vista is finally out, but hacked up and without many of the features initially envisioned for it. Apple put some hard work into OS X and it looks like it will pay off with the release of Leopard. 

nVidia is at full gears with their 8000 Series and doing well.  AMD/ATI finally got their next generation cards out, but late and missing the king card. AMD/ATI as a whole doesn't look very promising. I hope 2008 will bring a different tune from AMD/ATI.