Why Intel Is Kicking Itself Over Windows 7

After attending a Microsoft Windows Launch Event yesterday, along with a Developer’s Track, I can see how much change there is in Windows 7 that has largely been ignored by the press.

Though I still hate the lack of the hierarchical menu system, I can see that the changes to the taskbar are many, and again, mostly unheralded by the press. (The things I found most exciting about the taskbar are changes that will be implemented in programs, and the way they will interact with the taskbar, not any of the things highlighted by reviewers either not knowing, or unable to describe effectively what will change.)

All of that was brought home this morning, when I saw that the (fully) expected changes in the hardware market are that discrete graphics hardware is up by a large margin, though overall hardware purchases aren’t up nearly as much.

The number of people who are buying new graphics cards for existing hardware is much more than the gamer crowd, and after having the changes in the Windows 7 UI explained in detail, I can see that the graphics card market is going to explode. I’m certain that the fact that much more is visually available will lead to the average video card having more than 512MB of memory, where now it is much less, with the huge number of  motherboards having little or no dedicated video memory, due to the large number of business systems having Intel onboard graphics.

That is going to change quickly. With those changes in the taskbar, the evolution of multi-touch, and the need to see clearly what is happening in that small space of the taskbar, monitors will grow, and graphics memory to feed them will grow by leaps and bounds.

From PC Magazine we have news that AMD is up in graphics, nVidia is down, and S3 (remember what I showed you last week?) and SiS are up by good amounts.

In unit sales of graphics processors, AMD gained share at the expense of Nvidia, market researcher Jon Peddie Research said Monday.

In total, third-quarter graphics shipments soared 21.2 percent to 119.45 million units, with notebooks leading the way. Notebook graphics sales soared 36.2 percent to 56.2 million units.

It was the strongest overall sequential growth for the graphics market in nine years, Peddie reported.

“A total of 119.45 million units were shipped in the third quarter, exceeding the record 111 million units that shipped in Q3, 2008,” Peddie said in a statement. “So the market has caught up with, and exceeded, last year’s highs. The crash of fall 2008 is now behind us.”

Intel, as expected, continued to hold the top spot, bolstered by its installed base of integrated graphics chipsets. But AMD surged back, although it still lags behind Nvidia.

There is a chart on the page, but what is not clear is how much things are changing. Intel is still the leader, but that is going to be dwindling appreciably unless it can get Larrabee out quickly. Integrated graphics of the kind that Intel currently offers just doesn’t cut it with Windows 7. It would be far too slow and clumsy.

So Intel is certainly getting out the kicking boots, and those who are working on Larrabee are redoubling their efforts to get some meaningful progress before the market share for motherboards with Intel graphics on board slips away -  lets face it, if you like Intel chipsets, you can get them from other vendors that don’t force Intel graphics on you, so that it becomes one more unused feature you had to pay for.

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