Nvidia sees record profits, serious growth

[ALXAndy]

No,its more a case you had an issue with your HD7970,and hence all AMD cards will have a problem. Its called flip-flop. You did it when you had your HD7970 too.

The approximate die size of the GK110 is estimated at around 520MM2 to 550MM2. This makes it between 77% to 87% larger than a GK104 and 33% to 41% larger than Tahiti.

It is also a second generation Kepler part as the GK100 was cancelled.

So,a second generation Kepler part with a massive die launched in February 2013, is faster than an older generation GCN card launched in December 2011 with smaller die. Wow! That is amazing!

But alas, that's how the world works. Reputations are made or lost on experiences, mine were absolutely terrible.

I try as hard as I can to remain objective but when I was charged £439 for something (with no free games and not even a DVI adapter) I have a right to be upset and jaded.

I don't care how good they are now tbh. They had their chance and they had my money and I gave it six months (was August before I finally caved and got rid) and up until that point they still couldn't fix the issues I was having.

It was nearly a year before they finally got some drivers out there to make them perform as they should. That's a joke in any one's language.

I would recommend an AMD gpu to any one who wants one tbh. Pays your money, makes your choice. I know what my choice is and always will be.

Had it been £250? fair enough. But it wasn't it was ridiculous. You want to charge that much for a GPU it had better work first time. It didn't.

 

[arc@css]

One persons definition of "better" can deviate quite drastically to someone else, it all depends on what card they own at the time

+1

 

[ALXAndy]

Was well before the fx series, phenom and phenom 2 weren't as qood as intels equivalents.

Yes they were.

The Phenom 2 was never designed to take on the I7 series. It was designed to trade blows with the 45nm Core 2 Quads and did so admirably.

I think a lot of people got a bit confused when the Phenom 2 came out thinking it was released to take on the I7 920.

AMD had already issued a statement to say that they were no longer going to compete at the high end and would go back to doing what they did before the FX series. IE - making a cheap and cheerful CPU that would give its counterpart a few price slaps.

 

[Suarez7]

Yes they were.

The Phenom 2 was never designed to take on the I7 series. It was designed to trade blows with the 45nm Core 2 Quads and did so admirably.

I think a lot of people got a bit confused when the Phenom 2 came out thinking it was released to take on the I7 920.

AMD had already issued a statement to say that they were no longer going to compete at the high end and would go back to doing what they did before the FX series. IE - making a cheap and cheerful CPU that would give its counterpart a few price slaps.

Rofl, so because AMD said they released it to take on the older Intel quads it made it better? That's like releasing a 7 series AMD card once nvidia has moved ahead then comparing it with nvidia's last series.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

snip.

So again Tahiti is a "stinker" because the GK110 which is a huge die,second generation product with loads of VRAM is faster??

Was the GK100 a "stinker" since Tahiti made it and the former did not??

So is the GK104 a "stinker" if the GK114 is faster then??

Was the GF110 a "stinker" since the GK104 was faster??

Was the G92 a "stinker" compared to the G80 since the latter had less declared transistors,was older older and still was faster??

 

[ALXAndy]

Rofl, so because AMD said they released it to take on the older Intel quads it made it better? That's like releasing a 7 series AMD card once nvidia has moved ahead then comparing it with nvidia's last series.

Compared to their counterparts they were very good CPUs. I paid, from memory, £130 for my Phenom 2 940 and used to run it at 3.9ghz on a NH-D14. At that price the closest Core 2 Quad Kentsfield was nowhere near as good. They didn't clock as well as the AMDs either.

It didn't need to be better it was good enough. How could you get your wires crossed and think a £130 CPU could compete with an I7 costing twice as much?

Then you needed a £200+ board and triple channel memory kit. I think the only one who made the mistake mate was you.

 

[Suarez7]

Compared to their counterparts they were very good CPUs. I paid, from memory, £130 for my Phenom 2 940 and used to run it at 3.9ghz on a NH-D14. At that price the closest Core 2 Quad Kentsfield was nowhere near as good. They didn't clock as well as the AMDs either.

It didn't need to be better it was good enough. How could you get your wires crossed and think a £130 CPU could compete with an I7 costing twice as much?

Then you needed a £200+ board and triple channel memory kit. I think the only one who made the mistake mate was you.

You're talking crap fella. You don't base performance on the price as you're well aware, that's like saying a £260 AMD card (7970) cant beat a £360 quid Nvidia card (GTX 680). You base it on what is available from the competetion at the same time. For your information I owned a Phenom 2, my 2500k was my first intel.

 

[ALXAndy]

You're talking crap fella. You don't base performance on the price as you're well aware, that's like saying a £260 AMD card (7970) cant beat a £360 quid Nvidia card (GTX 680). You base it on what is available from the competetion at the same time. For your information I owned a Phenom 2, my 2500k was my first intel.

Of course you base performance on price !

Every pound counts on performance it's how the human race lives its life on everything but boutique items.

People will buy the cheapest food they can get their hands on. Supermarkets continually compare prices with each other. It's how society works.

Right now in price to performance Nvidia cards are absolutely shocking. People have to have a very good reason to pay the extra £60 for the same performance and they have it in my case. I don't mind paying extra for something I know will work.

You are comparing apples to spanners. There is no comparison with the I7 compared to the Phenom 2. None. The I7 has Hyper threading and shows up to 8 cores in device manager. The Phenom 2 is simply a quad cored 45nm CPU so you compare it like for like, apples to apples. Thus, you compare it to the CPU it was designed to compete with and that's the 45nm Core 2 Quad.

The I7 has triple channel memory controllers - etc.

If you really thought the Phenom 2 was designed to take on the I7 then you really need to have a serious word with yourself.

After the FX series (the proper ones Intel had no answer to apart from rebadging a Xeon a P4 Extreme and charging a grand for it) AMD's dual cored CPUs were shocking and costing them a fortune to produce. They were losing money on every one sold as they would have to break company philosophy and charge Intel prices (a grand instead of £600) and they couldn't do it because no one would have paid that for an AMD CPU no matter how good it was (brand loyalty again).

Thus when they got their rear ends handed to them with the Core 2 Duo they realised they had better stick to what they knew (making good budget CPUs) or go under. They couldn't compete with Intel.

They don't compete with Intel now. That's why they are concentrating their efforts on APU solutions as they have the GPU technology to bolt onto their CPUs. Intel doesn't and it shows.

 

[Suarez7]

Of course you base performance on price !

Every pound counts on performance it's how the human race lives its life on everything but boutique items.

People will buy the cheapest food they can get their hands on. Supermarkets continually compare prices with each other. It's how society works.

Right now in price to performance Nvidia cards are absolutely shocking. People have to have a very good reason to pay the extra £60 for the same performance and they have it in my case. I don't mind paying extra for something I know will work.

You are comparing apples to spanners. There is no comparison with the I7 compared to the Phenom 2. None. The I7 has Hyper threading and shows up to 8 cores in device manager. The Phenom 2 is simply a quad cored 45nm CPU so you compare it like for like, apples to apples. Thus, you compare it to the CPU it was designed to compete with and that's the 45nm Core 2 Quad.

The I7 has triple channel memory controllers - etc.

If you really thought the Phenom 2 was designed to take on the I7 then you really need to have a serious word with yourself.

After the FX series (the proper ones Intel had no answer to apart from rebadging a Xeon a P4 Extreme and charging a grand for it) AMD's dual cored CPUs were shocking and costing them a fortune to produce. They were losing money on every one sold as they would have to break company philosophy and charge Intel prices (a grand instead of £600) and they couldn't do it because no one would have paid that for an AMD CPU no matter how good it was (brand loyalty again).

Thus when they got their rear ends handed to them with the Core 2 Duo they realised they had better stick to what they knew (making good budget CPUs) or go under. They couldn't compete with Intel.

They don't compete with Intel now. That's why they are concentrating their efforts on APU solutions as they have the GPU technology to bolt onto their CPUs. Intel doesn't and it shows.

So why in benchmarks were the phenom 2's always compared to the newer intel quads when they were released. If they were never have meant to go head to head trusted review sites wouldn't have bothered. What I was saying was AMD were already miles behind Intel when the phenoms came out, they couldn't match the performance. Whether they stated it wasn't meant to compete doesn't bother me, companies lie as you should know. My original statement was correct they were already behind Intel.

 

[melmac]

The tables turned. I'm not surprised after the Tahiti nightmare. Very seldom does a GPU manu who decides to go first have it work out well.

It was only really in the case of Fermi that hardly any one waited because the early cards weren't worth waiting for. But trying to convince an Nvidia fan to buy into an AMD card without seeing what Nvidia have was always hard, but Tahiti was just a complete flop at release.

It's amazing how much AMD have had to drop their prices while Nvidia are remaining steadfast. Good news for those who paid release prices as there's been hardly any drop.

They must have LOLed so hard when AMD released Tahiti and they clocked up cheap as chips Kepler GPUs and saw them outperform AMD's kitchen sink.

Ah well. No doubt AMD will do what they're good at (price to performance) and no doubt their drivers will always be a bit iffy. With any luck they'll stay afloat would be a shame if they went under.

This post makes me laugh. AMD have released first the last few rounds, ever since the 4xxx cards. They released the 4xxx before the GT200 cards from Nvidia and you can't deny that the 4xxx series cards were the return of AMD/ATI to some kind of competition in the graphics card market.

Then they release the 5xxx series before the fermi cards. And you even say yourself that you thought the radeon 5 series were pretty good.

After that AMd was first out the door with the Radeon 6, the 68XX cards coming in October 2010. The 6 series also did really well for AMD, the 6950 was a very popular card with it's dual bios and unlockable shaders.

You are also wrong about Tahiti as well. If you go back and check market share at the end of quarter 2 you will find that AMD increased market share in the discrete GPU market. The last quarter was very bad what with the restructing of debt and changes to wafer agreements with Global foundaries, it ruined their whole year.

But things seem to be looking good at the begininning of this year for the AMD graphics division, with a very successfull month of sales for the AMD 7000 series, probably due to the bundle deal they have at the moment. Also massive driver improvements have helped change perceptions of people. And lastly they seem to be trying hard to work with game developers, their new arrangement with EA as a good example.

Nvidia have always been very slow to drop their prices. And I don't think they were laughing at all when AMD released Tahiti. Not one bit. The GK100 had to be scrapped because of build and yield issues. The GK110 wasn't near been ready and remember they had big supercomputers waiting for these on preorder. In fact they were so desperate to release something to the compute market that they pushed out the K10 which is two GK104's on one card like the 690. The Gk104 sucks at compute as you know.

That meant they had to release the GK104 as the 680 and 670 knowing that the 7950 and 7970 competed very well, which Nvidia don't like, they always like to have that card that's top dog by a good margain. You just have to look at their history to see that. So, no they weren't laughing.

Oh, I don't know what you mean by cheap as chips kepler cards? With all the problems that both companies had with the change over to 28nm, I don't think any of the cards were cheap as chips as you put it.

So I don't really know what you mean by the Tahiti failure. The 7950 seems to be a very well recommended card on any forum I read. The 670 is also an extremely popular recommendation. In fact most people recommend these cards over the top two.

IF AMD go under, it won't be because of it's GPU division. Look at how they had to restructure their wafer deal with global foundaries, that should show how badly their CPU side is doing.

And yeah it would be a shame to see them go under, I don't think they will, well not this year anyway with the console deals they have.

 

[ALXAndy]

So why in benchmarks were the phenom 2's always compared to the newer intel quads when they were released. If they were never have meant to go head to head trusted review sites wouldn't have bothered. What I was saying was AMD were already miles behind Intel when the phenoms came out, they couldn't match the performance. Whether they stated it wasn't meant to compete doesn't bother me, companies lie as you should know. My original statement was correct they were already behind Intel.

Then they needed to pay more attention to what was going on around them.

Core 2 Duo was the turning point for AMD. Up until then they had been running rings around Intel for years. Pentium 4 was absolutely obliterated by the Athlon XP series and the FX CPUs buried anything Intel had.

As I said, Intel's only answer was to rebadge a £1500 Xeon as a "P4 Extreme Edition" and sell it for a grand.

AMD made statements soon after Core 2 Duo arrived to say that their dual cored desktop CPUs were not even going to come close.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-puma-intel,5225.html

And it just continued. As I said to you three times now the FX series were losing them so much money and had they continued they would have gone bankrupt.

If you'd done your research you would know that the Phenom (which was obliterated by the 65nm Q6600) and the Phenom 2 (which was obliterated by the I7) was not designed to compete with either. The first Phenom was designed as a cheap dual triple and quad cored CPU and the Phenom 2 was designed to be a cheap dual triple and quad cored 45nm CPU.

Why on earth people would compare them to the I7 in anything is beyond me.

Even now Bulldozer core for core is good value when compared to Intel. Remind me, how much does an 8 cored Intel cost again?

They gave up competing in the CPU market years ago now.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So why in benchmarks were the phenom 2's always compared to the newer intel quads when they were released. If they were never have meant to go head to head trusted review sites wouldn't have bothered. What I was saying was AMD were already miles behind Intel when the phenoms came out, they couldn't match the performance. Whether they stated it wasn't meant to compete doesn't bother me, companies lie as you should know. My original statement was correct they were already behind Intel.

Reviews should be compared on the price though. If you have £100 to spend on a CPU,its no point showing a £150 one is faster??

You forget that the Phenom II X4 955BE was actually competing with the Q9550 initially and was cheaper too. The Phenom II X3 730 and X2 550BE where competing against the E7000 series CPUs and the more expensive E8000 series. These CPUs were all broadly similar in performance,but AMD was cheaper.

Socket 1156 only arrived after AM3.

Socket 1366 OTH,had CPUs costing £200+ and motherboards which started at around £150. AMD had motherboards which started at £40.

The Phenom II X6 was what AMD released in the desktop space to compete with the Core i5 series and were similarly priced. The highest end ones were still cheaper than Core i7 CPUs. Moreover,the Phenom II X6 had better multi-threaded performance,but weaker lightly threaded performance.

Something like an FX6300 can be faster than a Core i3 3220 in many workloads including games like BF3 MP.

 

[Suarez7]

Reviews should be compared on the price though. If you have £100 to spend on a CPU,its no point showing a £150 one is faster??

You forget that the Phenom II X4 955BE was actually competing with the Q9550 initially and was cheaper too.

The Phenom II X6 and the Core i5 series were similarly priced.

Something like an FX6300 can be faster than a Core i3 3220 in many workloads including games like BF3 MP.

They should be compared on price I agree but in the real world they aren't.

 

[melmac]

So again Tahiti is a "stinker" because the GK110 which is a huge die,second generation product with loads of VRAM is faster??

Was the GK100 a "stinker" since Tahiti made it and the former did not??

So is the GK104 a "stinker" if the GK114 is faster then??

Was the GF110 a "stinker" since the GK104 was faster??

Was the G92 a "stinker" compared to the G80 since the latter had less declared transistors,was older older and still was faster??

I like this post. OH I would love to be able to write short posts!!

 

[ALXAndy]

They should be compared on price I agree but in the real world they aren't.

So what you're saying is if you can't afford an I7 you shouldn't buy anything because it's not as good?

AMD are raking it in with their APUs at the moment. So much so they can keep making Bulldozer and Piledriver CPUs. They've just secured contracts with (it seems) both Sony *and* Microsoft to power their new consoles. That's how good their APUs are. So good are they that you can actually build a desktop without a GPU and play numerous Steam titles on them.

That's what they got when they bought ATI - knowledge. Every time Intel have tried to make any sort of GPU whether it be off or onboard (they did used to make PCI cards) they have been absolutely terrible

Now if they bought Nvidia and slapped a Kepler on a I5 2500k I may turn my head

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They should be compared on price I agree but in the real world they aren't.

In the realworld they are though. Every single person I know(including me) considers CPU price,or at least CPU and motherboard price.

Even if you build to a total budget for a PC,CPU and motherboard price has to be balanced with the rest of the components too.

Everyone knows,a more expensive CPU is generally faster than a cheaper one in many cases.

However,if I need to spend 50% more to get 20% more performance is it worth it?? The same goes with a graphics card.

Most people will say "is it worth spending more" for example??

The sad thing is too many reviews focus less on price/performance and more on performance.

Why??

It is a business.

Getting people to buy cheaper parts is not good for the industry they rely on.

How many realworld comparisons are done by websites with cheaper and more expensive hardware for games??

How many cheap parts are tested??

 

[Suarez7]

So what you're saying is if you can't afford an I7 you shouldn't buy anything because it's not as good?

No that's not what my point is at all. If you can't afford something you go for the best you can get at the time. The thing is a lot of people can afford the better performance and will go for it. If price/performance was the only factor nobody would be buying 6 series nvidia cards.

 

[Suarez7]

In the realworld they are though. Every single person I know(including me) considers CPU price,or at least CPU and motherboard price.

Even if you build to a total budget for a PC,CPU and motherboard price has to be balanced with the rest of the components too.

Everyone knows,a more expensive CPU is generally faster than a cheaper one in many cases.

However,if I need to spend 50% more to get 20% more performance is it worth it?? The same goes with a graphics card.

Most people will say "is it worth spending more" for example??

The sad thing is too many reviews focus less on price/performance and more on performance.

Why??

It is a business.

Getting people to buy cheaper parts is not good for the industry they rely on.

How many realworld comparisons are done by websites with cheaper and more expensive hardware for games??

How many cheap parts are tested??

Not everyone does, a lot just go for higher priced stuff to show off or because they can.

 

[ALXAndy]

No that's not what my point is at all. If you can't afford something you go for the best you can get at the time. The thing is a lot of people can afford the better performance and will go for it. If price/performance was the only factor nobody would be buying 6 series nvidia cards.

Thankfully there are very very few people on this planet that spend as much as they can on the very best. Those few that do are slowly falling to the wayside since the recession.

It's a very very small percentage of people who run SLI for example, which is why it isn't very well supported.

With Nvidia you have a company who look big and powerful being chinned by the little guy. See also - Intel. Some people refused to buy Athlon XPs even though they were a country mile ahead of the P4. In fact, how Intel survived that four year all out onslaught I will never ever know.

It wasn't even like it was only the desktop sector, AMD were chinning them one in servers and workstations too with their amazing Opterons. I think that's why AMD were selling at a loss but it just wasn't enough and in the end something had to give.

Intel like Nvidia are a huge household name. AMD are not. Some people will always see them for what they are (cheap) and refuse to buy.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

No that's not what my point is at all. If you can't afford something you go for the best you can get at the time. The thing is a lot of people can afford the better performance and will go for it. If price/performance was the only factor nobody would be buying 6 series nvidia cards.

Its not that though. One is halo effect and you can see it with things like cameras,cars,etc. There are people who will buy the cheapest Mercedes even if it is worse than a cheaper Skoda?? Why?? Its got a Mercedes badge on it.

Secondly,marketing?? Putting their name on big titles for example is one aspect. The other is their use in commerical computing.

However,you should really should read up on the Nvidia Focus Group and their astroturfing which Nvidia uses(or used),to spread crap about competitors.

The whole AMD cards are unreliable and have useless drivers which people tend to sprout. OTH,where is all the noise about Nvidia having to spend $200 milliion on the bumps debacle?? I knew loads of people whose laptops died because fo that?? What about things like the driver update which borked cooling on Nvidia cards,etc.

Marketing and Halo effects help a lot.

Not everyone does, a lot just go for higher priced stuff to show off or because they can.

Almost every single non-hardware enthusiast I ever known is that way and that is dozens of people.

Even among hardware enthuasiasts like me,only a few would I have ever known would spend £200+ on either a CPU or GPU.

I went to a reasonably sized LAN down south recently. Dozens of hardcore gamers,ie,the types which have massive Steam libraries. I was suprised at how many were using sub £150 CPUs and graphics cards.