Three Technologies On Every System Builder's Radar

System builders have a lot to look forward to in 2008—with advances in graphics, storage and data center technology quickly coming down the pike. But is it for real, or just hype? We take a look at those three areas and offer some insight.

GRAPHICS
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. spent $5.4 billion to buy ATI, in the process racking up a $1.68-billion impairment charge related to its 2006 acquisition of the Canadian graphics maker. Those are serious numbers, but Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD insists that it's all worth it. The future of computing, AMD says, is in the fusion of CPU and GPU capabilities into one number-crunching powerhouse. AMD, which in late January released the first dual-GPU graphics card, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, is in a pitched battle with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia Corp. for graphics supremacy. At the same time, the chipmaker is in a horse race with larger rival Intel Corp. to get a GPU and a CPU on a single piece of silicon. That should happen sometime next year.

But is all this jockeying just a lot of enthusiast noise signifying nothing for the mainstream PC user? Let's weigh the arguments:

PRO: Graphics power is already a mainstream PC requirement. Independent graphics cards are already mainstream, said Joe Toste, vice president of marketing at Minneapolis-based Equus Computer Systems Inc.: "The strongest part of a mainstream [whitebox] business is the $1,000 system. That's not the biggest part of the market, but we see it as the strongest and the biggest growth area. Every single one of those systems has a GPU in it, so that tells you something."

Meanwhile, the microprocessor battlefront in 2008 is going to feature lots of fighting over graphics platform supremacy, said Rahul Sood, CTO of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Global Gaming Business. Sood said Nvidia "can do no wrong," but that "AMD's ATI graphics are getting better all the time. The drivers, well, that's another story."

CON: User experience is outpacing graphics horsepower as the hot spot for OEMs and developers.

The Nintendo Wii and the Apple iPhone showed us that the interface part of the GUI is at least as important to users as the graphics part. Expect more OEMs to focus on interface improvements across all manner of devices and form factors, said Intel CEO Paul Otellini during his keynote at January's Consumer Electronics Show.

"To picture the transition to a more natural interface, think about the Wii. The popularity of it lies with the interface and not the graphics. You don't expect to play a game on the Wii; you expect to interact with it," Otellini said.

VERDICT: Graphics are for real in 2008.

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