The last year was quiet for the industry of video cards. The architecture of the graphical processors did not get many changes. At the same time a permanent progress was noticed and some new approaches and tendencies were developed.
ATI proposed the new 3D video cards architecture with a SM3 support and a responding range of chips. In fact, the acceleration industry is working slowly due to the expectation of the OS Vista release and expected update of the requirements to the hardware all over the world.
The main direction of the 3D video cards development nowadays is making it closer to the user. There is more new hardware and kernels with new frequencies and power and also new user's interfaces and design solutions. Producers prefer to meet the users' interests, who tend to watch TV or use a remote control device rather than to develop a new index in the name of CPU or GPU, which has a low effect on real users' feelings. This development on the external side of the performance 3D video cards requires lower attention to the architectures and parameters enhancements.
Simultaneously, there are more activities it the market of gaming computers and graphical solutions. We can see more announces, including the most desired playing platforms - the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3. NVIDIA and ATI divided the market of v3D video cards in two parts accordingly.
There are some recent interesting events in the world of 3D video cards-for instance the release of NVIDIA G70. Actually, this chip does not perform any significant change of the video card generation or the architecture, though it has an absolutely new name, NV 47, since it is an enhanced NV45 with a big number of pixel conveyors, an integrated support of PCI-E, new opportunities for work with a FP16 buffer and textures. These 3D video cards propose a high performance of ALU in the pixel conveyors. These changes seem to be very modest, but these properties are sufficient for work, taking into consideration a good potential of a clock rate and an absence of the production level.
The appearance of the SLI solution, proposed by the Nvidia Company, improved the performance of 3D video cards. This technology is another step for the further obliteration of the AGP slot. ATI provided a response to this development with the CrossFire technology. They also shoot R520, RV530 and RV515 desktop architectures with the SM3 support. These 3D video cars provide an efficient execution of the branches with long and complex shaders. Moreover, these systems have an unclear discordance of speed characteristics. Their clock rates are too low for the G70 potential, thus these video cards are much worse than they might be.
The announcement of the graphical architecture Xbox 360 on the Xenos chip is a very interesting event, since this solution is a type of prototype for the future graphical architecture ATI for Vista that will meet requirements WGF 2.
The video industry is not restricted with PC video cards. That is the reason why the announcement of the graphical architecture PlayStation 3 is also a breathtaking fact. From the graphics point of view this accelerator is a full copy of the G70.