I have never had much interest in this company. The high-end requirements of the hardcore gamer have never been met by any of ATIs products . . until the Radeon appeared. The Radeon line has erased all previous jokes about how lame the Rage series was. ATI is no longer lame, in fact ATI is now the one major reason nVidia is kept on its toes.

So, let's see what the history of the Radeon line tells us :

• The story starts with the harbringer of heightened competition, the Radeon 256
• Next in line is the Radeon 7500
• Followed by the Radeon 8500
• And then the Radeon 9000 series, unremarkable at first, but destined to spawn a monster
• Which, sure enough, appears with the Radeon 9700 Pro
• And, for nVidia, the torture continues with the Radeon 9800

This is capitalism working at its best. Two heavy-duty competitors duking it out for all they are worth. Next to these two guys, the efforts of Kyro or SiS are rather pathetic.

And now, we may go on to the lighter side of the industry, the joke shoppe