I'm not implying I know a whole lot about 3D rendering, but I do know the trickle down effect.
Whether it's "Next year" or not, I can't say either way...but when it gets here, the 3D gaming market will definately be pretty hot.
In all honesty, I'm sure the gaming technology for example, ATI or Nvidia or 3DLabs is developing, is feeding the professional market, as well.
As for Carmack having cards to play with...he was raving about the R300 at the last QuakeCon, back in February, mind you, from the engineering specs. I read somewhere he was consulted through the development of the card, so I'm sure he had one in his hands long before any others.
The cards he mentioned being on the horizon are already here to a degree...look at the 3DLabs Oxygen GVX420, while not as fast as what Carmack is alluding to, these cards are monsters.
A full length AGP card (18" or there abouts), with a PCI daughter card.
Think about it this way, a few years ago, the 3Dfx Voodoo was IT. Look at the strides the video card industry have taken in just the last couple years. We are getting excited now about the early reports on the R300, and the speculation on the NV30 is heating up. These cards are going to be old news in the spring, and the next batch is going to be faster. This time next year, these cards will be two generations old, and GPU's will be approaching 1GHz.
I don't think John Carmack is too far from the truth.
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