Nvidia isn't sweating the fact that AMD has already released a GPU that supports the shiny new DirectX 11. Sure, AMD was first to the market with a compatible product, but Nvidia is looking at the larger picture, and a few months isn't going to hurt its overall plan to dominate the market. Michael Hara, senior vice president of investor relations and communications of Nvidia, made this quite clear at the Barclays Capitol Global Technology Conference in San Francisco last week.
"To us, being out of sync with the API for a couple of months isn't as important as what we're trying to do in the big scheme of things for the next four or five years," he said at the conference. "We're just around the corner from preparing our next GeForce and the experience of what you'll see in 3D, what you'll feel in physics, and the improvements you get in graphics will be obvious to the market."
According to Computerworld, Hara also talked about how DirectX 11 was the start of the next big evolution in the API, offering tessellation for smooth curves and support for multi-core processors. DirectX 11 also brings DirectCompute, the ability to utilize the GPU via parallel processing in applications such as video editing and more.
Nvidia's DirectX 11 Geforce GPU, codenamed Fermi, is slated to appear in Q1 2010. Hara addressed the issue of low production yields and the mock-up graphics card shown at its GPU Technology Conference back in September by saying the company will be "vindicated" when Fermi actually arrives. Hara also called AMD's 60-day gain "insignificant" which really sound like fighting words. We love a good fight.
