Nvidia’s new Fermi cards can help you model climate change and collision physics better than Intel or AMD cards

Last week, Nvidia announced its new Fermi line of “supercomputing” graphics processing units (GPUs) targeted initially at high-end professional users.  Nvidia has a strong position within the professional segment of the graphics processing market and the new Fermi processors will reinforce Nvidia as the leader within the segment.  The Pro Graphics Cards business constitutes about 37% of the $11.81 per share Trefis price for Nvidia making it the company’s most valuable business.

Although the Fermi is targeted at high-end users, Nvidia has indicated that it is easy to strip down some of the advanced features of the Fermi to create less expensive but highly capable cards that would be targeted at lower-end professionals and gamers.  By illustrating the full potential of the Fermi, Nvidia has set a high bar for rivals AMD and Intel while providing game developers the hardware to create richer and more demanding games that can drive demand for Nvidia’s technology.

Nvidia’s market share within the professional graphics cards market has increased from 70% in 2005 to about 87% today.  We have forecast a slight decline in Nvidia share due to increasing competition from AMD and the recessionary environment favoring lower-cost graphics cards from Nvidia rivals.  Despite this, Nvidia is expected to remain the leader in the space over the Trefis forecast period.

Within Nvidia’s content on our platform, you can see how Nvidia’s stock is impacted by changes in its Pro Graphics Cards Market Share.