Well, 3Dlabs as a company have had a rough time but their products have always been great, as far as i'm aware.
Price/Performance has been lacking in recent years, but as professional cards compared to the comparitive trash Nvidia brought out to the market (there is a reason I hate them), they had the edge on quality.
I found it next to intolerable to see an obviously better product being pushed to the side simply because of low prices and more FPS.
with any luck 3Dlabs can scale this chips' clockspeed up nicely to compete with any competitors products, although i'd like to see Matrox do well too.
As i explained to a post by Blitz_Lightning - a designer cannot afford to not whether know the work being done is accurate or not. It has to be accurate, the extra cash is worth it in the end.
If everyone, not just one chip design company, had the same standards of quality the world would probably be a much better place.