Thanks creamhackered
ATI is feeling its oats right about now. Landing one of the most prestigious endorsements a graphics company--the blessing of 3D guru John Carmack on its upcoming 3D GPU--is a first for ATI in several ways. Not only did they get the endorsement, but ATI got this endorsement over nVidia"s GeForce Ti 4600. Given that ATI has sometimes been seen as "that other graphics company" in the shadow of nVidia, this has to be considered a pretty major coup.
if the Doom3 showcase of R300 at this year"s e3 is any indicator, we"ve got quite a showdown in store when nVidia"s NV30 arrives this fall. R300 has been given the brave, bold and daring commercial name of Radeon 9700 (Why are code names always better than product names?), and arriving with it is ATI"s value-focused DX8 GPU, which has been code-named RV250 and now goes by the handle of Radeon 9000. ATI, like 3DLabs, prefers VPU, but ATI has it standing for visual (unlike 3DLabs" virtual) processing unit, for its core chip, instead of the more generic GPU moniker favored by nVidia.