Is NVIDIA Becoming the Intel of Graphics Cards?

Gregster · 28 Feb 2015 at 11:43

I could go and buy 4x290Xs right now but why would I? What is the appeal? What would make me want to go AMD? What would make anyone want to buy AMD? These are the questions that the big wigs at AMD should be addressing. They need stronger marketing and I am not talking about trolling forums. They need to get the products they have and are coming into peoples heads by damned good PR.

Zzzzz all you like Shankly but the big picture is more than your loyalty. They need to win potential buyers with a strong feature set, strong drivers and give people a reason to want AMD products over the competitor.

chaparral · 28 Feb 2015 at 11:53

Gregster said:
The biggest problem I see AMD face is winning over nVidia owners.

That going be even much harder now as many NVidia owners have also bought G-sync monitors....

AMD would need to release one hell of a special new GPU to make me pay out for the new pair of GPU's plus a Free-sync monitor

tommybhoy · 28 Feb 2015 at 11:56

Gregster said:
from a complete neutral POV

It's anything but neutral...

Gregster said:
I always remember the 7970 Vs the 680 being something of a victory for the 7970 and even the 7950 could beat the 680 at certain higher end resolutions and some games

7970 v 680 oc'd at launch it was a tie, you started a thread that stated people didn't oc any more and people were only interested in out the box performance....

Gregster said:
when you look at drivers from the off, they were not the best and the 680 and 670 beat out the 7970 and 7950 pretty much as a standard but then 10 months in, AMD released the super drivers (which they sure were) and took a nice lead.

It only took 2 years to launch the 337.50 beta driver, offering a significant performance boost in certain games, but it's aplauded. :eek:

Gregster said:
They had the extra 1GB of VRAM and the bigger bus, so it was appealing to those with higher resolutions however, 10 months to get the performance drivers out is a long time in the tech world and I imagine that most had already made their choice of what to buy long before they were released. I myself had wanted to swap out for the faster cards but I couldn't be bothered to drain loops for a marginal gain in fps.

10 months in the 7950 was faster at 1080p than the 670 at least kept up with the 680 at 1080p, higher res AMD smashed Nvidia out the park.

Gregster said:
Then we move to now and people who keep up with the GPU news can see that AMD last released a driver back in early December 2014 and we are now about to start March. This isn't a good advert and regardless of what the fanboys say, that doesn't help on gaining new customers.

90+% of AMD users crying out for a driver is mgpu owners-rightly so, they paid for it.

AMD brought out constant betas, breaking some things in the process, while Nvidia had long gaps between drivers but they were generally very stable, fast forward and the roles are reversed.

Gregster said:
You look at the 290/X and they are great cards. They are cheap compared to the competition and they should be selling really well but when you look at the latest figures from JPR, it is clear this isn't the case.

Titans/780 users screaming out how much power/heat they use while some of them running modded bios surpassing 290 heat/power...

Victim of their own success with mining, flooding the second hand market with cheap gpu's.

Gregster said:
I don't give two hoots what people accuse me of and it is all water off a ducks back but I want to see AMD do well

Doesn't help when you post so many pro Nvidia/negative AMD items, besides you were never selling up and going AMD, you 'hate AMD' admittedly mainly due to the Titan slaughtering debates that you took personally, you told me enough times.

Minstadave · 28 Feb 2015 at 11:57

The GPU section should be renamed - where the finances/market share/marketing strategies of Nvidia/AMD are cut and pasted for discussion. Yawn.

StrongSad · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:02

If you look at the marketing of both brands then Nvida, seems to me, to have more appeal.
With the whole 970 debacle all I saw AND do was swipe at Nvidia rather than pressing home the technical advantages and keen pricing of their cards.

We absolutely need a strong AMD, to counter Nvidia and drive innovation. However that is only as good as the marketing and more importantly the products.

JediFragger · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:07

Gregster said:
I could go and buy 4x290Xs right now but why would I? What is the appeal? What would make me want to go AMD? What would make anyone want to buy AMD? These are the questions that the big wigs at AMD should be addressing. They need stronger marketing and I am not talking about trolling forums. They need to get the products they have and are coming into peoples heads by damned good PR.

Good point tbh. All the features that nVidia have been pushing this last couple of years is obviously having the desired effect. Now AMD seem to have some proper investment, it's certainly something that they need to plan for.

Gregster · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:16

I was a massive Amiga fan and owned an A500, A1200 and a CD32 and couldn't ever believe they would be in trouble but burying my head in the sand didn't help save Commodore. They failed due to poor marketing. The CD32 was a great idea and was well ahead of its time but marketing was a failure.

I don't want to see AMD fail for obvious reasons (regardless of what you keep insinuating Tommybhoy). I want to pick and choose and whilst I favour nVidia personally, if AMD give me a reason to jump ship, I have no problems doing that.

StrongSad · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:24

JediFragger said:
Good point tbh. All the features that nVidia have been pushing this last couple of years is obviously having the desired effect. Now AMD seem to have some proper investment, it's certainly something that they need to plan for.

None more so than G-SYNC

How many Freesync monitors do OCUK sell as opposed to G-Sync?

Also you know a G-Sync monitor by the Green icon, Don't see a red on for Freesync

It's these sort of marketing miss matches that make a difference

Ayahuasca · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:26

Strudders said:
Also you know a G-Sync monitor by the Green icon, Don't see a red on for Freesync

The Acer has a red base and bottom bezel...

StrongSad · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:36

Ayahuasca said:
The Acer has a red base and bottom bezel...

I should have qualified that, in the marketing of the monitors, All the G-Sync monitors have the Logo prominently displayed. At a glance you know it's Nvidia G-Sync. There does not seem to be one for Freesymc and even worse if you type Freesync into the rain forest...

Ayahuasca · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:42

Well when I seen the red it instantly made me think AMD, a lot more so than if I looked at a picture of the GSYNC monitors with a tiny logo.

The only one I would take a guess at being GSYNC is the AOC G2460PG.

I don't think marketing in this area particularly matters anyway, if you're going for a monitor because of freesync or gsync then it's because you have cards from either side already.

StrongSad · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:45

Ayahuasca said:
Well when I seen the red it instantly made me think AMD, a lot more so than if I looked at a picture of the GSYNC monitors with a tiny logo.

The only one I would take a guess at being GSYNC is the AOC G2460PG.

I don't think marketing in this area particularly matters anyway, if you're going for a monitor because of freesync or gsync then it's because you have cards from either side already.

Or you are thinking of buying a card to take advantage of it.

That is the difference.

Boomstick777 · 28 Feb 2015 at 12:47

Is NVIDIA Becoming the Intel of Graphics Cards?

Nvidia aren't becoming the Intel of graphics cards, they are the Intel of graphics cards. 70% market share, even able to sell products in stacked tiers like Intel's extreme CPU's. 5960X $1000. GTX Titan $1000.

What's stranger is whereas Intel's CPU's have a real tangible performance improvement over AMD's CPU's, in GPU's Nvidia's aren't that much faster, yet they are still able to command these price points. It's down to excellent marketing. Even in the face of controversy nothing will seem to slow down the Nvidia business machine.

AMD need a card that is a lot faster now to really penetrate Nvidia's market share.

Also I have to say my experience with this 980 has been flawless so far. There is something to be said about Nvidia's hardware / drivers. AMD need to hit the next one out of the park imho.

Also worth mentioning, AMD are a smaller company in terms of revenue than Intel / Nvidia and have diversified their company. Aiming away from just the 'PC' market. They have done really well with the consoles / APU's. Maybe a direct comparison of AMD VS Intel VS Nvidia isn't as fair as it once was, as the AMD of today is a very different company.

chaparral · 28 Feb 2015 at 13:06

Ayahuasca said:
Well when I seen the red it instantly made me think AMD, a lot more so than if I looked at a picture of the GSYNC monitors with a tiny logo.

You better not look at a ASUS ROG G-sync monitor or you get confused..

As it has a large RED ring light with a NVidia G-sync logo next to it

tommybhoy · 28 Feb 2015 at 13:39

Gregster said:
regardless of what you keep insinuating Tommybhoy

Not hinting anything, clearly stating otherwise, your posting style dictates your stance of your overall opinion on anything AMD, evident by the amount of times pointed out by various different users on a weekly basis=majority of OcUK posters general perception, not just mine.

Only this morning you were RTM'ing a freesync thread probably because it involved positive AMD spin aka-freemium yet you want to see AMD do well?

Gregster · 28 Feb 2015 at 13:59

tommybhoy said:
Not hinting anything, clearly stating otherwise, your posting style dictates your stance of your overall opinion on anything AMD, evident by the amount of times pointed out by various different users on a weekly basis=majority of OcUK posters general perception, not just mine.

Only this morning you were RTM'ing a freesync thread probably because it involved positive AMD spin aka-freemium yet you want to see AMD do well?

I can pick out the many times you have accused me of "wanting AMD doomed", which is clearly a lie and pretty childish. At your age, you should know better.

And yep, I did RTM your thread, as it was clearly in the wrong section. I am quite happy that you have set up a Freesync owners thread though and good shout.

I don't really care what the overall perception of me is and I have met a few hardware enthusiasts from MLG and they know what is what with me. I like to consider myself a bit of a comedian and a bit of a wind up merchant (hear me on TS for evidence) but I don't care much for seeing AMD finished and wish them well.

Anyways, I am out on a all day session with mates, so hopefully people will see where I was coming from in this thread and maybe someone from AMD can get a few pointers. I really do want to see a competitive, even balanced market, with both AMD and nVidia slogging it out for our hard earned (or mine at least) money.

tommybhoy · 28 Feb 2015 at 14:10

Posting the obvious does not make you a liar, nice try though

, however, I'll save your blushes this time and refrain from posting any sauce.

Have a nice day.

Mei · 28 Feb 2015 at 14:16

why does RTM have to mean so many things? cant u make up a new acronym!
so confusing
i think it means reporting eachother which is lame lol

Ayahuasca · 28 Feb 2015 at 14:20

What's even more lame is those who always need to have the last word.

Orangey · 28 Feb 2015 at 15:16

There was a gsync owners thread here for the longest time. Started by guess who.