With today’s more official reveal of the Titan X and its massive 12GB framebuffer, Nvidia has now introduced four unanswered graphics cards into the market since AMD’s Radeon 285 in August 2014, and these GPUs have targeted a broad consumer demographic, ranging from the $200 GTX 960 all the way up to the $999 Titan X.
That’s 8 months without a new desktop GPU product from AMD, nearly an eternity in the tech world. That’s 8 months Nvidia has had to continue eroding AMD’s market share. 8 months to steal away new fans, from the mainstream PC gamer all the way up to the ultra-enthusiast.
This adds some color to what we learned last month about Nvidia’s Q4 2014 market share. As a refresher, it signaled a record high for Nvidia, with discrete desktop shipments up 5.51% quarter-over-quarter, and overall PC graphics shipments up 2.9%. Meanwhile, AMD’s discrete desktop shipments slipped dramatically, down 15.97% from the previous quarter, with overall PC graphics shipments down 7%.
Let analysts get super granular with their explanations, but the reality is simple: AMD has nothing new to sell, and in a rapidly evolving landscape like this that’s crucial. That doesn’t mean its existing products aren’t worth your money. The Radeon 295×2 is an outstanding, liquid cooled enthusiast part ideal for 4K gaming, and less expensive GPUs like the Radeon 285 offer great performance for the price. But Nvidia keeps hitting us over the head with Maxwell’s excellent power efficiency and evolving graphics technologies like GameWorks. (What happened to “FreeWorks,” AMD?) They keep expanding their Shield ecosystem, they keep building their relationships with game developers. Not to mention their “Netflix NFLX +1.33% for PC gaming” streaming service GRID is preparing to emerge out of Beta when the Shield Console launches.
Where is the Radeon 300 Series?
I had a short conversation with an AMD representative about this situation, and their response was that they haven’t exactly been silent. Since launching their current stack of products (the R7 and R9 200 Series graphics cards), AMD’s contributed to the overall ecosystem with Mantle (which undoubtedly influenced DirectX 12), a more open solution to Nvidia’s G-Sync called FreeSync, the Catalyst Omega driver, and LiquidVR, a development platform for what will undoubtedly be a future battleground in the GPU space. These aren’t as forward facing to consumers, but they still impact the company’s bottom line.
AMD’s message to me was clear, saying they “have a commitment to giving our customers, partners, and game developers the best possible experience.”
But the GPU industry needs competition, and AMD’s new 300 Series graphics cards are overdue. While there’s been no shortage of rumors — even leaked benchmarks for the 390x — AMD’s been silent to the press. Judging by these leaks, I’m guessing they only recently briefed their AIB partners (the companies like Sapphire, MSI, and ASUS who infuse the GPU technology with their signature stamp, be it cooling, aesthetics, or overclocking), which is the logical first step before reaching out to the media.
Right now GTC is happening. That’s Nvidia’s own GPU Technology Conference. Last year, AMD’s guerrilla-style marketing was in full effect, snatching members of the press from outside GTC’s doorstep (voluntarily, don’t worry) and whisking them away in black SUVs to show them the Radeon 295×2. That card was a direct, and much cheaper competitor to the Titan-Z, a $3000 dual-GPU Nvidia had just unveiled. Obviously the underlying motive for AMD was to threaten the Titan-Z as early as possible using their historically strong price/performance advantage.
With today’s comprehensive reveal of the Titan X, a repeat performance seems unlikely. I imagine it’s a classic rock and a hard place dilemma for AMD. If they announce the 300 series now but don’t release it for several weeks or months, people won’t snatch up existing product in the channel, opting instead to wait for what’s new and shiny. But if they don’t announce, they obviously risk losing more market share to Nvidia.
Here’s the thing though: AMD’s Radeon 290x was a blow to GTX Titan owners, offering equivalent performance for a significantly cheaper price. Same story with the Titan-Z/295×2. At every possible turn, AMD attempts to undercut Nvidia, forcing the occasional price drop. As a marketing strategy, it seems to work well for them. Whether that translates into revenue is another matter. Right now the company has to, at the very least, give consumers a solid tease — some example of how their 300 Series may trump Nvidia’s GTX 900 line. A promise of performance, and a reason to hold off spending their money on Nvidia hardware. A reason to keep their hands out of their wallets until a new AMD alternative appears.
I won’t pretend to have a solution to this situation. AMD obviously has more market share information and relevant data than we have. But what I know with certainty as a tech reporter and someone constantly hearing this very concern from his readers, however, is that the time to challenge Nvidia is right now.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonev...an-x-nvidia-has-introduced-4-unanswered-gpus/
A long article but some very valid points.
) makes me think they have nothing anywhere near ready yet.
