As you probably know, the performance of the GeForce FX is way below the high expectations that were set into her. Even with more optimized drivers, it can only marginally beat its concurrent, the Radeon 9700 Pro, even though it has much higher clock rates. Also, the Radeon 9800 Pro is already coming, making matters even worse for nVidia. So as not to be left too far behind ATI, nVidia has said that they will now cease any further development on the GeForce FX and instead devote their entire efforts to the (as of yet unnamed) FX successor so they can bring it to the market as fast as possible - currently they are planning the summer (around August) as release date.
ATI, not willing to give up its lead, has already reacted on this notice and said that work on the Radeon 9xxx successor (which will probaly be named Radeon 10000) is already fully underway, and that they plan to be able to release it this summer as well, to coincide with the release of the FX successor, or even predate its release, if this should be possible.
Finally, as has already been announced by SiS at an earlier time, they also plan to release their new Xabre II this summer. Should it really be as good as they promise, we'll have a third contender for the performance crown.
Well... looks like we'll have a really hot summer this year
