According to an interview with Eoin Leyden, Creative’s European Brand Manager for Graphics, one of Europe’s largest graphics board vendors is going to stand pat with Nvidia-based boards rather than go with the P10 chips designed by Creative subsidiary 3Dlabs.
If any more evidence were needed about the independence of Creative’s various divisions. This interview with Eoin Leyden of Creative Europe should put them to rest. Leyden describes his view of the differences between workstation graphics and consumer graphics as being the difference between accurate pixels and fast pixels. Companies like Nvidia specialize in fast pixels. Companies like 3DLabs have traditionally specialized in accurate pixels and Leyden implies that 3Dlabs attempts to create a “fast pixel” processor in the VPN might not result in the kind of low cost mainstream part the European operation is going to need in the short range.
It’s interesting to note that Creative’s Asia division is going with ATI’s Radeon 9700, while the North American side of Creative is pledging allegiance to its new acquisition. One of the factors that should be kept in mind here is that Creative in the U.S. has the luxury of time since they’ve pulled out of the graphics board market and can pick the their re-entry date while Europe has never left and thus is more obligated to keep its customers supplied even while Creative evaluates options.
This article is especially worth reading as it provides Leyden’s analysis of the European graphics board market in contrast to the U.S. and Asia markets. http://www.guru3d.com/interview/creative-092002/