Well we are here at Computex, and the buzz surrounding NVIDIA and DX9 [particularly Half-Life 2] hasn’t let up. As a matter of fact, it is the hot topic of many under the table talks between video card manufacturers and their respective customers. Our latest mobile look into the latest and greatest for NVIDIA and ATI didn’t leave much room for argument on the DirectX 9 front. Meanwhile, the industry buzz is still debating about who has legitimate claim in this controversy. There are suggestions that ATI and Valve have been conspiring, and Valve specifically coded their image quality paths to ATI hardware. This is really hard to validate since there are other DX9 games that show similar [though with less intense margins] results between NVIDIA and ATI hardware.

Due to all of this we turn back to the concept of our Forum articles: basically, inquiring about the thoughts and opinions of various manufacturers anonymously. While Half-Life 2 may be centralized toward the American market, DX9 is a concern for consumers, manufacturers, and programmers worldwide. Consumers are less likely to buy a certain graphic solution should he or she know that image quality and rendering abilities are inferior of its competitor. Those that have already chosen the “unfavorable” graphics solution will likely then be alienated. Manufacturers, therefore, are directly effected due to sales [or lack of] relating to the limitations of a graphic solution, in this case NDIVIA and ATI. Programmers, as we noted before, are frustrated on two different levels. First is the topic of resources, typically, developers have an optimal frame per second range, which they try to hit on all graphic solutions. Regardless of the reasons behind it, ATI and NVIDIA graphic processing parts can’t hit the same frame per second range in an intensive image quality game, at least for now. This means that to keep up to par with the competition, developers have resorted to coding special code paths for these frames per second ranges to be hit. Obviously, this means image quality settings need to be lowered and this directly points to our second conundrum: consumers not being able to enjoy the full DX9 experience the way the developer intended. Programmers are artists, and for this reason; they hate to see their effort and artistic talent go to waste. On the other hand, they also understand that not creating a special code path could possibly lead to low sales or even undercutting them.

At Computex, we have had to chance to sit down and chat with a few tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 video card manufacturers, all of which have given some interesting comments on the fiasco bubbling around the industry. First of all, the majority [regardless of which graphic solution they produce] have told us that they believe that ATI is not cheating. They believe that if NVIDIA requires certain questionable optimizations in their drivers and ATI does not all while still leading benchmarks, the consumer is going to catch on very fast about who they should choose for their next graphics solution purchase. Additionally, most of these manufacturers are sure that this will play out very soon. We have been informed by manufacturers that NVIDIA was back in Taiwan about 3 weeks prior to Computex, to supposedly answer for their actions and reassure consumers. This was strategic move an anticipation of AquaMark 3 and Half-Life 2 benchmarks that were going to pop up soon. The basic content of the discussion between NVIDIA and their respective manufacturers were to reassure them that they were doing fine and to expect everything fixed with newer and better drivers. However, those traditionally considered NVIDIA strongholds told us that they are seriously discussing the possibilities of ATI internally. Despite this, it seems that the executive management of such companies have decided to wait and see what fully materializes from the controversy, basically, if NVIDIA can deliver on these promises. If they can’t, they risk alienating the manufacturers, which they partnered with. On the other hand, choosing ATI means competition almost against one’s self, because ATI also sells their brand of cards. Much of these topics still need to be addressed. The war on NV4x and R4xx is still a ways off from duking it out. Only one thing is for sure, the heat has been kicked up a notch, and now we will wait for the ensuring battle fog to clear.

Due to our mobile coverage of ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (M10) and NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5650 (NV31M), we got a lot of inquiries for Mobility Radeon 9600. In our corresponding emails to readers, I have been citing ATI’s already announced design wins as a reference point, since all of these products have passed NDA, we are free to talk about them. But we are at Computex now, so we decided to hit the show floors to find this seemingly elusive notebook, and instead of finding one, we found four made by either Clevo or Arima. These two companies ODM their products, so we will very likely see them pop up in North America soon. The strange thing is that GeForce FX Go5650 (NV31M) is no where to be seen here, at least from what we have seen so far. It is possible that the ODMs here know something system designers back in the US do not. In our talks with Clevo and Arima, they told us that they are actively considering NVIDIA mobile products, but outside of that there is no gurantee that they will actually produce them.

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These are the offering from Clevo, who produces products for companies like Sager, Eurocom, and Hypersonic. In fact, the two Sager notebooks (NP5680 and NP8890) and two Eurocom notebooks (D800P and D500P) that presently feature the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro both are dubbings of the D800P and the D500P from Clevo.

Meanwhile, Clevo's D470V also uses the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro, and is the ODM version of the Hypersonic ZX7 and Sager's NP4760. However, both shipping versions of this ODM desktop replacement notebook in the states use Mobility Radeon 9000. The sample present at the booth had a Mobility Radeon 9000, which the presentation board mentioned Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro. It turns out that there is an precusor version to the D470V that uses the Mobility Radeon 9000, and that the D470V is the newer version that uses the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro.

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Arima is another ODM but heard less of compared to Clevo. This is the only Mobility Radeon 9600 based notebook we have seen at Computex and will quality for the thin and light status. It is likely that ATI and one of their mobile system partners will announce a mobile system based on the Arima M620 soon, but since we are at the manufacturing hub, we get a heads up.