Duke of URL: Linux Buyer’s Guide #4

[ Thanks to Patrick
Mullen for this link. ]

“I knew it would happen! What happened in the world of Linux
hardware this month? Virtually nothing. Of course, there is always
new products coming into the market, which bumps prices around and
creates new possibilities for our high-end machines.”

“One recent development has been NVidia’s lawsuit against 3dfx.
While I’m not a particular supporter of 3dfx, I do appreciate their
advances with FSAA and work to push the machine of NVidia to create
better cards. I think even if 3dfx isn’t number one, they’re still
integral to this market, and without 3dfx, I think NVidia can
certainly start taking advantage of its customers like it has been
accused of doing with webmasters. Will they? It’s hard to say, but
we’ve seen the effects of diminished competition many times in this
industry, and it just isn’t pretty.”

“With ATI moving in, that can raise some eyebrows. Their Radeon
has made an excellent bid, but has already been bested by the
pre-production NVidia GeForce2 Ultra. One thing we do know from
experience is that NVidia has a history of changing specifications
on their cards right before release, which has happened more than
once in the past. On top of that, if you don’t have $500 to spend
on a graphics card, you’ll need to either settle on a cheaper card,
or empty your bank account.”

“The graphics card industry is no stranger to quick movement,
and the same goes for the microprocessor industry.”

Complete
Story