It was only last week that nVidia announced their upcoming NV25 and NV17 chips and ATI has already targeted them. ATI's top chip, codenamed R300, will go after the NV25 and the RV250 will directly challenge the NV17. Although precise clock speeds have not yet been announced, preliminary information suggests that the RV250 will have quite a strong speed advantage over the NV17. The RV250 will be designed as the natural heir of the R200 which is currentlly available as the Radeon 8500.
While the new vVidia chips are getting ready for launch next month, problems in DirectX 9 implementation mean that it's not clear whether the new chips will be able to fully utilize DirectX 9.
ATI, on the other hand, is preparing to release samples of the R300 to its partners during the first days of February and is determined to fully support DirectX 9, although details of how this will be achieved have not yet been released. First indications suggest that the R300 will be faster and cheaper than the NV25, possibly creating the same feel to the competition as that of the long running AMD V Intel story. It is however, extremely early for any definite conclusions about the two competing chips to be drawn.
ATI intends to launch its new cards in the SnoBIT 2002 exhibition in Hannover, Germany.
