Tomorrow! At least that is what we all expect. The Ontario-based canadian company will unveil the details of the Radeon 9700, a desktop graphics chip based on a new architecture that will provide greater realism when it comes to 3D. The fastest versions of the new chips will offer considerably higher performance than Nvidia's current GeForce4 roster, giving ATI the edge with gamers as well as PC makers, analysts said. And even after Nvidia - which began to chip away at ATI's leading spot in graphics in 1999 - comes out with its GeForce 5 in a few months, the competition between the two will remain close. "This is not the first time they've had the fastest graphics chip on the market ... but it is unusual for ATI to have both significant features and performance advantage," said Peter Glaskowsky, editor in chief of influential industry newsletter Microprocessor Report. "That's exactly what you need when you're competing with someone as aggressive as Nvidia ... This is ATI's strongest opportunity in some years to retake the lead over Nvidia." "It is very clear that the (new) generation of graphics accelerators are probably the most competitive graphics chips we've seen in five years," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. Source: News