Intel's 945G chipset may hurt ATI's and NVIDIA's low-end sales

The Inquirer reports about a new chipset war as Intel's upcoming Intel GMA 950 graphics solution might mean another boost for Intel's marketshare in the graphics market.

Many people don't realise this but the real number one in the graphic chips market is Intel thanks to the many chipsets it sells with integrated graphics solutions. The Inq says Intel is now trying to conquer 50 percent of the graphics market with the new GMA 950 which will be faster than the GMA 900 that was featured by the i915G chipset.

Many computer manufacturers like Dell and HP will introduce systems based on the upcoming i945G chipset and while the performance of the GMA 950 won't be superb it's reputed to be a great solution for the casual gamer who wants to play games like Doom III once in a while.

Competitors NVIDIA and ATI fear the Intel 945G chipset is going to hurt sales of their low-end graphics cards such as the 6200TC, 6200 or X300SE, X300HM, X300 and X550. These kind of chipsets are interesting for OEMs as they lower the total system cost and boost profit.

Intel still has to go a long way to make better drivers for gamers, but from the corporate market point of view, you don’t need to be able to play a Doom III if you are an accountant or manager.

Intel has one huge advantage over Nvidia and ATI. It does not has to earn money on chipsets and it can be much more price competitive than any of the other chipset companies including Via, SIS and UlI. Intel's competitors fear that Intel might even make some Centrino style "marketing platform" for desktops and hurt their business even more.

ATI currently ships the RD400 chipset with integrated graphics and NVIDIA will soon ship the new C51G integrated graphics chipset.