3dfx's future

[acejj26]

Anyone else think that 3dfx will be finished if they falter with the Rampage like they did with Napalm (VSA-100 based cards such as the V5 5500)?? They were 7 months late with the VSA-100 cards and allowed nVidia to get out two products (GF1 and GF2) before they could get one out the door.

If they are 7 months late again with this (for example), nVidia again, will have two products out before they have the Rampage-based cards out and nVidia will be way ahead in terms of performance and feature set. I don't see how 3dfx's future doesn't lie in the hands of their ability to get this future card out by Christmas. Any thoughts????

 

[Fireball]

Agree. I kinda believe that they may even have trouble getting the Rampage out due to the troubles that they are already having. They still have yet to produce the 6000.

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

Yeah - they can't afford to loose more ground to nVidia. They need to pull an Athlon out of their hat.

 

[NFS4]

I hope they make out alright, but if they are having problems with VSA-100 production, it's only gonna get worse with the more complex Rampage...

 

[acejj26]

That's funny you bring up the Athlon, which was a make or break for AMD as well. It should pretty much be agreed that if the Athlon flopped or if they had production problems ala K5 and K6, they would have probably folded. 3dfx needs to come out and say "Look, we're executing well, regardless of our problems with VSA-100!" If they don't, it looks like nVidia and even now maybe ATI and Matrox will force 3dfx out of the market they created.

 

[Czar]

If 3dfx can bring the Rampage in time for NV20 G800 and whatever ATI has then it should last at least one more year. If the Voodoo5 6000 will be the only thing awailable at that time and when the Rampage will performe worse then NV20 and G800 then 3dfx is finished.

 

[rickn]

I personally dont think Rampage will be all that much of a breakthru product. There was rumor that the T&L unit they will use will be off the shelf. Their purchase of gigapixel only strengthens my opinion that their engineering department has all but when to the sh!tter. 3dfx use to be very innovative, now they just recycle old technology, and buy new technology(gigapixel) - not that their isnt anything wrong with that.

I look for them to be bought out in the near future.