ATI admitted today it is working on a high-end, high-margin 3D graphics chip. Speaking to Reuters, CFO Jim Chwartacky said: "We will be announcing a high-end product that reinforces and extends our reach into the higher margin part of the PC market." Not that we're entirely surprised. Surely Chwartacky is referring to the upcoming Rage 6, which the company has already scheduled a 24 April (the first day of the WinHEC event) booze-up during which company president and CEO K Y Ho will unveil the next-generation chip. Some of the technologies Rage 6 will contain were unveiled at last month's Game Developer Forum, though they were rather overshadowed by Microsoft's X-Box launch. ATI engineers showed of their Charisma Engine transform and lighting system and its Pixel Tapestry Architecture. Incidentally, Nvidia will use WinHEC to launch the successor to the GeForce 256 - or, as the company puts it, "usher in a new era of 3D graphics". The launch will take place on 25 April - the day after ATI's - and we expect to see the NV15 and/or the mobile NV11. ATI earlier this week announced revenue and income growth of 28 per cent and 136 per cent, respectively. The company attributed the results, for its second quarter, to strong sales of its Rage 128 Pro and Rage Mobility 128 chips. However, it noted that margins are on their way down, reaching 33.2 per cent from Q1's 34.1 per cent, thanks to the shift toward the low-end of various ATI products plus rising production costs. Chwartacky said ATI is poised to take advantage of the mobile computing market, which suggests the company has signed up some more notebook manufacturers to join Apple, which offers the latest Rage Mobility in its high-end PowerBook G3. ® Related Stories ATI records 136 per cent profit hike ATI to demo gigatexel renderer, animation accelerator Nvidia NV11 goes mobile too Nvidia hides NV11, NV15 under CeBIT bushel