Why does new technology always look cooler at Tom"s Hardware guide? Perhaps its because its named after me - who knows eh.
"Simply put, the graphics card market is divided into two large segments. One is the retail segment, which provides its customers, the do-it-yourselfers, with a single card packaged in a colorful box along with some nice extras like games. The other is the much more lucrative OEM market for off-the-shelf PCs. This second segment is definitely the more interesting one for card and chipmakers alike. After all, when a company like Dell or Gateway decides to use a certain card in one of their product lines, it means an order of several thousand cards right there. This is exactly the market NVIDIA is targeting with its refreshed GeForce4 chips NV18 and NV28. AGP 8x is the new buzzword in the OEM market and therefore the next "must-have" feature as well. After all, 8x is twice as much as 4x - right? Alright, frown if you will, but this kind of argument may well win over some first-time buyers looking through their home-order brochures. "