Intel and AMD each will be releasing a new generation of processors in the coming six months that through powerful integrated graphics circuits may completely change the shape of the graphics card market. Most analysts agree that budget graphics cards are coming to an end very soon.
With the first benchmarks starring Intel Sandy Bridge on the Internet it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that discrete budget graphics cards are in trouble. Analysts have now concluded that already in 2012 the market for discrete budget cards may be more or less gone.
And this is a direct result of the powerful graphics circuits found in the next generation processors. We have already witnessed how Intel Sandy Bridge performs on par with AMD’s minor Radeon HD 5450 and we can be pretty certain that AMD’s Fusion APU will be even faster.
If the information on the Radeon HD 6300 series “Caicos” is correct this could be AMD’s last real budget series of discrete graphics cards. Performance is rumored to be 30% better than what Radeon HD 5450 has to offer, a level we expect AMD’s integrated graphics circuits will be capable of matching.
Radeon HD 6350, the last real budget card from AMD?
Overall this is good news for consumers, not the least those interested in powerful graphics cards, but for NVIDIA it is another market that fades away.
