Intel's recent announcement that it has working 45nm chips again staves off rumors of the demise of Moore's Law, that famous observation that computing power doubles every 18 months. The corollary of that is that the cost of computing will decrease correspondingly. For processors, it would seem that this still holds true. Moving to the graphics scene, the same seems to be happening - ATI has already moved to the 90nm process with its latest generation of graphics processors, with NVIDIA set to convert its full lineup very soon. However, to the casual observer, there has been a snag in Moore's Law here. While the graphics cards are increasing in complexity as scripted, the cost of high-end cards is anything but falling. If the launch prices of subsequent generations of the top graphics card are any indication, consumers have to pay more for the best new cards now than in the past. The latest cards from ATI debuted at US$549 - 649 compared to US$399 for the Radeon 9700 PRO.
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HardwareZone
Jan 29, 2006, 06:06 AM
