Quote Originally Posted by STEvil View Post
Bad FAB/R&D means burning $$ while you wait for your new part to become viable.
Since when does it cost money to NOT place an order? Rushing to be the first to release big complex chips based on a very young and costly cutting edge manufacturing process is simply foolish. Both nVidia and ATi did this back when Fermi and HD5xxx were released, resulting in very limited product availibility and dismal earnings for close to half a year. Bragging rights are all fine and dandy until you have to explain to the board of directors and all your share holders why earnings are flat and why you chose to show the world your e-peen instead of doing what they hired you for.... to make money.

As I said earlier, if you already dominate the market ... it would be foolish to release a brand new costly chip ,manufactured on an immature process, where you'd essentially be competing against your own product. A smart manager would stick with the chips currently made on the very reliable and mature, yet slightly larger process where there are little to no wafer-loss... thus allowing you to maximize profits. Additionally, it gives your third party manufacturers time to sell off the any cards on store shelves or in their warehouses.