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Graphics
ATI confident about its mobile lineup
Nvidia's mobile mess should help, too
We asked AMD spinners what they thought about Nvidia's recent mobile GPU troubles and what they expected from the mobile graphics market in the next few months.
AMD didn't seem to think that Nvidia's faulty chips were a big deal, claiming ATI market share in mobile had gone through the roof long before the latest Nvidia controversy. Still, although the chaps from AMD didn't gloat over Nvidia's troubles, we don't think they feel too sorry for them, either. Every little bit helps.
In spite of AMD's growing mobile market share, Nvidia seems to be doing rather well in the high-end mobile market. Although this is a small niche market of marginal direct financial importance, it still means a lot from a prestige, or marketing point of view. This is where AMD truly stands to reap the benefits of the Nvidia 8-series issue. Many of the affected notebook models were pricey machines with high-end graphics, as most consumers tend to be very sensitive when it comes to expensive hardware which fails to live up to expectations.
Of course, we didn't get much info on actual upcoming products, mobile GPUs usually follow their desktop brethren within six months, although AMD told us it could be done a bit faster, too. As RV710/730 chips are supposed to show up in mid-September, you should probably expect mobile versions in mid or late Q1 2009.
ATI is very optimistic about its future in the mobile market and this time around we think their optimism has solid ground, thanks to good products and, partly, Nvidia's bad luck.