The only thing that is hurting them is bad reputation among gamers who think NVIDIA is the best, alway will be, and conclude benchmarks are stacked because they don't agree with their pre-conveived view of the world.
The reason the PCB looks cleaner is because ATI was the first in the to use digital Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), a technology never seen before on high end desktop graphics cards. Digital controllers eliminate the dangers of overheating and exploding capacitors, giving users a safer and better monitored control over their video cards. By moving over to a digital PWM, ATI was able to save space on the PCB, but didn't shrink the size of the card as they wanted to stick with good low noise cooling solution.
ATI and NVIDIA have been using analog signals up to this point and it hasn't been a problem, but it's been proven in the labs that digital signals are the way of the future. One of the disadvantages of an analog circuit is that they tend to drift with time and they are difficult to tune. Analog circuits are also usually hot and are sensible to noise. A digital signal is easier to implement, requires a smaller circuit, can be fine tuned, is easily reproducible, dissipates less heat, is immune to noise and weights less meaning that it is the best way to dial a graphics card in. ATI uses an RoHS compliant Multi-Phase SMD Coupled Inductor (part #59PR9852) by Vitec Electronics Corporation to make sure the digital signals are in check and hopefully enthusiasts will end up getting clean power.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/406/3/
