The GPU war is over.

[humbug]

The problem is AMD didn't do what ATI and concentrate on cheaper to make chips. The last few years Nvidia has beaten them using smaller chips and not using fancy and probably expensive memory standards.

I really hope the smaller Vega/upscaled Polaris chip uses GDDR5 or GDDR5X and not HBM2. Because if it cannot convincingly beat a GTX1080,they will again using a more costly to make card to compete with Nvidia.

I also hope the rumoured RX490 is not some sort of dual chip otherwise it only takes one or two big titles to not work well and it looks an utter failure.

CAT, it didn't work.

The 4850/70 was half the size, half the power, half the price, same performance or faster..... ATI made $8m profit, Nvidia over $500m, why; because the 260/80 sold in vast numbers and the 4850/70 didn't.

 

[rtho782]

If I think back....

I bought the 8800GTX (sli) on launch day. I also had a 2nd rig back then with 2 Radeon 2900XTX's. The Radeons overheated and died (couldn't cope with out a slot between them).

I stuck with the 8800GTXs until the 4870X2, then went 4870X2 Quadfire, before going 7970, 7970+7990 Trifire.

I had so many issues with those AMD GPUs. Drivers were always awful. Crossfire support was always dire, etc.

I went back to nVidia with the 980. I just feel like AMD cards are often poorly built, with poor support. I don't think I'll go back unless they have a massive advantage.

 

[humbug]

CAT, it didn't work.

The 4850/70 was half the size, half the power, half the price, same performance or faster..... ATI made $8m profit, Nvidia over $500m, why; because the 260/80 sold in vast numbers and the 4850/70 didn't.

And theres more, the HD 6000 series was smaller, less expensive, more efficient and faster than the GTX 400 series.

What did AMD get as a reward? debt. and what did Nvidia get for the calamity that was Fermi 1, massive profits.

That is not competition.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What a ridiculous statement. You may not agree with his conclusions but he is hardly a "moron". He seems very intelligent and knowledgeable about said GPU market.


Side note. I wonder if Vega will be the last cards we see from AMD? Hope not.
Few people saying the 480 sold well. But it apears it didn't. Maybe to us folk browsing forums it sold well. But look at the figures. It sold terribly compared to the 1060.

It's all about branding and marketing and Nvidia has won.

We don't know - the AMD cards also sold a lot to mining folk,which last time also upped the price of the AMD cards so much people just bought a NV one.

I should know - I bought a GTX660 as it was cheaper than most HD7850 cards as prices shot up.

CAT, it didn't work.

The 4850/70 was half the size, half the power, half the price, same performance or faster..... ATI made $8m profit, Nvidia over $500m, why; because the 260/80 sold in vast numbers and the 4850/70 didn't.

You forget Nvidia cratered pricing to compete and they had nearly 100% of the professional markets too.

But if you even look at his video,the HD4800 series was ahead in the Steam charts of the GTX200 series in November 2008.

Edit!!

Most of AMD's losses are down to WSA,and write-downs on the CPU side for unsold stock.

Their GPU sector has always been profitable.

Now Nvidia has smaller chips than AMD,so no wonder AMD is making relatively less money.

Remember,with GCN1.0 AMD marketshare was around 40% in 2012 which was roughly where they have been for years.

Look what happened once they released cards like the HD7790 and so on?? Screwed up the R9 290 launch??

It started moving downwards towards 35% or thereabout.

Then Maxwell launched and it crashed within a year to 18% or thereabouts.

AMD just strung along their tech with minor changes and then wasted $300 million on buying Seamicro only to wind it up a few years later.

That $300 million invested into improving their cards would have made them far more money.

 

[humbug]

We don't know - the AMD cards also sold a lot to mining folk,which last time also upped the price of the AMD cards so much people just bought a NV one.

I should know - I bought a GTX660 as it was cheaper than most HD7850 cards as prices shot up.





You forget Nvidia cratered pricing to compete and they had nearly 100% of the professional markets too.

But if you even look at his video,the HD4800 series was ahead in the Steam charts of the GTX200 series in November 2008.

Edit!!

Most of AMD's losses are down to WSA,and write-downs on the CPU side for unsold stock.

Their GPU sector has always been profitable.

Did you watch all of his video? a few months later the GTX 260/80 overtook the 4850/70, it ended up 4 to 1. the 4850/70 ended up way down the field with a sea of green above it.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Did you watch all of his video? a few months later the GTX 260/80 overtook the 4850/70, it ended up 4 to 1. the 4850/70 ended up way down the field with a sea of green above it.

Because Nvidia slashed prices - I know I was there when it happened.

The GT200 cards were better cards overall especially in DX10,but ultimately if ATI had not made smaller dies for the HD4000 and HD5000 series they would have been screwed. AMD as a whole were in a horrible postion at the time - they nearly went belly up especially with all the issues of the fab divorce.

Plus look at my previous comment as I edited it. GCN1.0 was fine - AMD die sizes and power consumption(outside probably the HD7900 series) was broadly competitive to Nvidia. Their marketshare was close to 40% or thereabouts.

But the problem is they started loosing marketshare over 2013 with the GTX780/Titan series and frankly pointless cards like the HD7790 which really had no real place in the line-up.

They also spent $300 million buying Seamicro which they wound up in 2015.

Imagine if they had spent that on their GPUs?? Their performance per watt stagnated and it barely moved anywhere. They also the spent money on ARM designs which barely made any impact.

This is why Maxwell was a big deal since it meant so many OEMs bought Nvidia for laptops and desktops as a result.

 

[humbug]

Edit CAT... you didn't watch the video ^^^^ most of that ^^^^ is the opposite of the facts, watch it... no don't just watch it; study it.
---------------------

There is an argument that i see over and over again, that somehow if AMD make faster and cheaper GPU's it keeps Nvidia in check.

Complete and utter naive rubbish, Nvidia name the GTX 670 the GTX 680 and the GTX 680 the GTX Titan, stick an £850 price tag on it and even Nvidia themselves are flabbergasted at how many they sell.

The only one who can keep Nvidia in check is you, just you, reap what you sow.

 

[D.P.]

That said he has an interesting point there that despite AMD in some cases having the technology lead they were starved of the money to really push it by consumers buying nVidia regardless.

Also has the numbers that support what I was saying before - despite the RX480 often being the better choice the 1060 overall is outselling it more than 4:1 and a lot of that is purely down to brand association (as well as the overall "mindshare") with the 1070/80 cards - despite what some said here for the RX480 to fully make the impact it could AMD needs that card that can atleast compare to the 1070 (and/or 1080) even if they don't have the performance crown otherwise sub-consciously the 1060 already has a big advantage in the mind of the general consumer.

None of that is new or unusual though. Marketing and branding is far more important than small differences in products. Its just the classic VHS vs Betamax case that every MBA student learns.


Nvidia have a long history of successful GPU launches, high performance, solid drivers, game support, in-game marketing, developer support etc. MD is pretty much the opposite, some generations were excellent, some poor, drivers decent now but years and years of terrible drivers etc. There is a big lag between these facts and changes in market share. Most people upgrade cards only every 3-4 years or even less. If they had a Nvidia card before and it were formed well with no real issues then they will simply be tempted to do it again without thinking to much. This is especially true if they had a bad AMD experience 8 years ago, had a good NVidia experience 4 years ago, and now its time to upgrade and review sites say the 10600 is decent then its kind of a no-brainer. A RX480 might give a tiny additional performance per dollar but no one really cares about that. Having faith in decent drivers or seeing the nvidia logo in your favorite game is more important to most consumers than playing 104FPS vs 112 FPS.


Cae in point:

If I think back....

I went back to nVidia with the 980. I just feel like AMD cards are often poorly built, with poor support. I don't think I'll go back unless they have a massive advantage.

There are a lot of people out there with the same thoughts. It will take a very convincing win by AMD combined with a a terrible failure like the FX5800 to make many people even give 2 hoots abut AMD. They did that to themselves.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There is an argument that i see over and over again, that somehow if AMD make faster and cheaper GPU's it keeps Nvidia in check.

Complete and utter naive rubbish, Nvidia name the GTX 670 the GTX 680 and the GTX 680 the GTX Titan, stick an £850 price tag on it and even Nvidia themselves are flabbergasted at how many they sell.

The only one who can keep Nvidia in check is you, just you, reap what you sow.

Except ever since Kepler Nvidia has fought AMD with similar or smaller dies with smaller memory buses and they have made more and more money.

Their focus on performance/watt has meant they cut down on the cooler costs and PCB costs and AMD has gone the other way.

Maxwell was brilliant since Nvidia cut the costs of almost every card across the range compared to their Kepler equivalents. The GTX970 was the only card they probably made less on than the GTX770 but they sucessfully managed to get many people who spent £150 to buy a £250 card.

Enthusiast sales doubled in a year.


Nvidia learnt from the GTX200 and Fermi problems very well - they are doing what ATI did to them during the HD4000 and HD5000 series but more sucessfully.

AMD is only in this place,since they stagnated at performance/watt and performance/mm2.

Until they at least reach parity Nvidia will still rake in more money.

AMD making bigger and bigger chips means they can't compete in performance or price.

AMD when they used smaller more efficient chips they had between 35% to 45% of the market on average - not even during the dark days of the HD2000 and HD3000 series did they even drop to 18% - that is how badly they misjudged things.

AMD spending $300 million on SeaMicro,etc was examples of them wasting money on things that sounded great but were pointless especially when they are so financially constrained.

 

[beany_bot]

I've seen it 100x even on this tech forum. Someone would come along and ask "best card for 1080p". And the unanimous cry would be "GTX 970". Even though we all know that the 390/390x was a much better choice for the same money. Hell it's got 8gb vram to the 3.5 on the 970. I watched that 100x times in the last 12 months.

 

[FoxEye]

What this thread proves is that to be a succesful business, you need a good business strategy, as well as a good product.

Can anyone really defend AMD's marketing at any time in the last 10 years or so?

It's not enough to have a great product. AMD prove this time and time again.

To my knowledge nVidia never pulled an Intel - using market dominance and monopolistic (illegal) practices to stifle AMD. AMD caused their own problems.

Sure they might have great engineers - but imagine how good those engineers could be working for a company that actually understood business.

 

[humbug]

Except ever since Kepler Nvidia has fought AMD with similar or smaller dies with smaller memory buses and they have made more and more money.

Their focus on performance/watt has meant they cut down on the cooler costs and PCB costs and AMD has gone the other way.

Maxwell was brilliant since Nvidia cut the costs of almost every card across the range compared to their Kepler equivalents. The GTX970 was the only card they probably made less on than the GTX770 but they sucessfully managed to get many people who spent £150 to buy a £250 card.

Enthusiast sales doubled in a year.


Nvidia learnt from the GTX200 and Fermi problems very well - they are doing what ATI did to them during the HD4000 and HD5000 series but more sucessfully.

AMD is only in this place,since they stagnated at performance/watt and performance/mm2.

Until they at least reach parity Nvidia will still rake in more money.

AMD making bigger and bigger chips means they can't compete in performance or price.

Making smaller, faster, more power efficient GPU's than Nvidia at a lower cost to themselves and the consumer is exactly what AMD did with the HD 4000 series, the HD 5000 series, again with the HD 6000 series....
It was during this time that AMD lost all their money while Nvidia made massive amounts of it.

By the time it came to the HD 7000 series AMD had nothing left for R&D and rumours of AMD imminent collapse were already swirling..... since then its been year after year of more and more losses.

I'll say that again, AMD lost their money to Nvidia during the time AMD was making much better GPU's at a much lower cost to themselves and the consumer.

 

[beany_bot]

What this thread proves is that to be a succesful business, you need a good business strategy, as well as a good product.

Can anyone really defend AMD's marketing at any time in the last 10 years or so?

It's not enough to have a great product. AMD prove this time and time again.

To my knowledge nVidia never pulled an Intel - using market dominance and monopolistic (illegal) practices to stifle AMD. AMD caused their own problems.

Sure they might have great engineers - but imagine how good those engineers could be working for a company that actually understood business.

Oh AMD understands business very very well. It's B2B is fantastic.
It just doesn't understand the business of selling a product to a 15-30 year old male.

 

[Toss3]

Edit CAT... you didn't watch the video ^^^^ most of that ^^^^ is the opposite of the facts, watch it... no don't just watch it; study it.
---------------------

There is an argument that i see over and over again, that somehow if AMD make faster and cheaper GPU's it keeps Nvidia in check.

Complete and utter naive rubbish, Nvidia name the GTX 670 the GTX 680 and the GTX 680 the GTX Titan, stick an £850 price tag on it and even Nvidia themselves are flabbergasted at how many they sell.

The only one who can keep Nvidia in check is you, just you, reap what you sow.

Nvidia sell cards because they are better than the competition at the time of purchase/release, simple as that. They also keep their marketing simple and spend more money on developer-relationships than AMD, and most people care about that kind of stuff (just look at physx and other nvidia-sponsored gimmicks that people wanted/want!). It doesn't matter to people if the RX 480 is going to be the better card in the long run, because most people will have moved on by that time! AMD should focus on creating the best GPUs for games that people are buying and playing right now, instead of focusing on far-off technologies that won't make a difference anyhow.

 

[Gregster]

AMD digging their own grave and they have nobody to blame except themselves for it. They had the money, they had the cards but didn't have the brains to compete. I don't sympathise with them and it is down to them to get themselves back to black. I quite like Richard Huddy and his attitude towards gamers and sure he made some mistakes and had to retract statements a couple of times but I couldn't fault his passion. Roy was a different kettle of fish though and just ****ed me off in truth but releasing a 480 that competes with NVidia's 4th tier card and releasing that alone isn't going to do them any lasting favours in the long run.

AMD need a miracle with Zen and Vega and I hope for the future of PC gamers they do it but I won't hold my breath with their track record.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Making smaller, faster, more power efficient GPU's than Nvidia at a lower cost to themselves and the consumer is exactly what AMD did with the HD 4000 series, the HD 5000 series, again with the HD 6000 series....
It was during this time that AMD lost all their money while Nvidia made massive amounts of it.

By the time it came to the HD 7000 series AMD had nothing left for R&D and rumours of AMD imminent collapse were already swirling..... since then its been year after year of more and more losses.

I'll say that again, AMD lost their money to Nvidia during the time AMD was making much better GPU's at a much lower cost to themselves and the consumer.

Because in the end it is still 10x better than being in the same place and using more expensive cards to fight cheaper to make Nvidia ones.

FFS,look at an R9 380 or R9 380X?? 365MM2 chip with a 256 bit memory controller fighting against a GTX960 with a 212MM2 chip and half the RAM chips.

Nvidia could price it under a R9 380 and still make more money.

The same goes with cards like the R9 390/390X. The equivalent Nvidia cards had less than half the RAM chips and cheaper RAM chips,a 10% smaller chips and far cheaper PCB costs.

Look at how AMD marketshare has increased mostly on the strength of cheaper cards(apparently the R9 380/380X helped).

If they were cheaper to make,AMD would make more money.

Plus during the times of the GT200,etc Nvidia dropped prices to compete but still sold loads of 9000 series cards. Cards like the HD4850 and G92 rebrands had similar performance.

 

[Bonjour]

Nvidia sell cards because they are better than the competition at the time of purchase/release, simple as that...

I'm not certain that's the case. People buy Nvidia regardless of whether it's the best product at the time of purchase / release, as evidenced by the 4800 / 200 series.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not certain that's the case. People buy Nvidia regardless of whether it's the best product at the time of purchase / release, as evidenced by the 4800 / 200 series.

But not initially though as they did well - ATI lost momentum once Nvidia dropped prices,and the lower ends of the range had older generation G92 cards which had similar perfomance to the HD4830 and HD4850.

 

[Griffildur]

Edit CAT... you didn't watch the video ^^^^ most of that ^^^^ is the opposite of the facts, watch it... no don't just watch it; study it.
---------------------

There is an argument that i see over and over again, that somehow if AMD make faster and cheaper GPU's it keeps Nvidia in check.

Complete and utter naive rubbish, Nvidia name the GTX 670 the GTX 680 and the GTX 680 the GTX Titan, stick an £850 price tag on it and even Nvidia themselves are flabbergasted at how many they sell.

The only one who can keep Nvidia in check is you, just you, reap what you sow.

I don't agree with you and I am not even sorry.

You can make whatever red fan arguments you want you are simply wrong. I am one of the people who switched from AMD to Nvidia because I got tired of how many issues I had. Been on Nvidia cards for a decade and I love it. No reason to change since I get everything I want. AMD have only themselves to blame and the image of poor components and rubbish drivers is not going away that easy. Do you know how many issues I had with drivers since I switched? Exactly 0 and that counts for a lot in my book.

Even with all this I am still willing to give them a shot with Vega as I do believe competition is healthy. I am however really tired of seeing the same arguments plastered all over these forums and the stereotypes some people here have.

Get off your high horse please, you are not right at all. Nvidia sells for very good reasons you really need to see that for what it really is not what you hope it was.

 

[Toss3]

I'm not certain that's the case. People buy Nvidia regardless of whether it's the best product at the time of purchase / release, as evidenced by the 4800 / 200 series.

AMD were outselling nvidia until nvidia lowered their prices. As someone already mentioned the GTX 260 outsold the competition because of insane deals at the time, not just because it said nvidia on the box. Also I don't really get where he got his benchmarks from, as I remember the GTX 280 being quite a bit faster than the 4870, with the gtx 260 matching it in most games? Just check out this review from back then, and tell me the GTX 280/260 weren't the better cards, especially after nvidia lowered their prices?