Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang On How His Big Bet On A.I. Is Finally Paying Off - Full Interview

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There was never actually a market to expand into. They were already servicing creatives before Turing launched, with its dedicated RT cores.

Some backstory, GPU offline raytracers has been around since the maxwell GPU days (900 series). So creatives who could fit their scenes within the VRAM of a GPU were already buying GPUs to do their rendering on (I know of a person who had 7 GTX 1080s in his system), because it was faster than CPU rendering. The people who weren't rendering on their GPUs before Turing launched were not doing because GPU rendering was too slow and they needed RT cores to make it faster. They were not rendering on GPUs because of a lack of VRAM.

So there was never really a market to expand to, it was just a normal release cycle. Something that Nvidia is almost certainly aware of. Just some clever CEO spin.

I was trying to point out Nvidia makes all these big statements but there are several examples of them,like Intel,of them being spin or not working out. In the end they are just still depending on their traditional markets and trying to squeeze water from a stone.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Right, but then out pops this odd defence brigade thinking the products are great value, seriously cannot see the woods from the marketing trees.

 

[Nexus18]

Right, but then out pops this odd defence brigade thinking the products are great value, seriously cannot see the woods from the marketing trees.

They're bad value but so is every other competitor card especially when you look at the "overall" package, when you're the best in the market and leading the way, those companies are the ones that can price at whatever they want, this is nothing new and certainly not just applicable to only the gpu market.... but hey, here a great idea, cry about it on the forums and try to create a movement about how bad these companies are and then go and disregard everything that was just said by throwing your money at said evil companies products especially their "halo" range of products.... that will show Lisa and Jenson:

 

[KompuKare]

Great value is a strange one.
"Are worth it [because I'm special]"
Might be closer to it.
Pay to win in games makes some feel they are extra skilled.
Pay to brag? Well, £5K gaming rigs are not owned by everyone.
Us bitter cynics might say even if we could afford it, we are not mugs.
The pay-to-brag crowd, on the other hand feel buying only the most expensive makes them a special elite gamer.

 

[TNA]

They're bad value but so is every other competitor card especially when you look at the "overall" package, when you're the best in the market and leading the way, those companies are the ones that can price at whatever they want, this is nothing new and certainly not just applicable to only the gpu market.... but hey, here a great idea, cry about it on the forums and try to create a movement about how bad these companies are and then go and disregard everything that was just said by throwing your money at said evil companies products especially their "halo" range of products.... that will show Lisa and Jenson:

Exactly. Guy forgets he has a 3090 which he parted with 1400 notes

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They're bad value but so is every other competitor card especially when you look at the "overall" package, when you're the best in the market and leading the way, those companies are the ones that can price at whatever they want, this is nothing new and certainly not just applicable to only the gpu market.... but hey, here a great idea, cry about it on the forums and try to create a movement about how bad these companies are and then go and disregard everything that was just said by throwing your money at said evil companies products especially their "halo" range of products.... that will show Lisa and Jenson:

Well dGPU sales have collapsed to their lowest for a decade, Nvidia inventory levels are increasing, etc. The only moaning is from Nvidia wondering why nobody is buying:

Nvidia Stock: Inventory Glut And Revenue Decline (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Nvidia's Q4 revenue decreased by 21%, significantly impacted by its gaming market platform which saw a YoY decrease in revenues. Read my thoughts on NVDA stock here.

seekingalpha.com

Discrete GPU Sales Plummet to Historic Lows

The days of record profits quarter-after-quarter during the pandemic are officially over as GPU shipments have fallen off a cliff.

www.extremetech.com

PCMR enthusiasts on forums are in utter denial on how grim things are in the PC market. Consumers are not buying since the products are not good enough. It's so bad, that AMD consumer graphics revenues are close to Nvidia now because of consoles:

Nvidia and AMD Gaming Revenues Are Closer Than You Think

And Nvidia shares are up 10% afterhours, due to better than expected results and a booming AI business.

www.tomshardware.com

AMD’s gaming segment results are derived from the sum of its income from PC GPUs, as well as its significant semi-custom business for both Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation consoles. The latest AMD figures were published at the end of January and showed that its gaming segment revenue totaled $1,644M during its most recent quarter. Thus, we observe the gaming revenue difference between the green and red teams from their latest financial statements is a measly 10 or 11%, and could turn either way in the coming months.

In the UK PS5 sales have tripled in a year:

PS5 UK sales are up over 300% year-on-year | VGC

PlayStation 5 sales have seen a large surge at the beginning of 2023, new data has revealed.

www.videogameschronicle.com

It appears more PC gamers are probably getting a console now.

February console sales are up 65% over the same month last year, and up 14% over January, to 143,000 hardware units sold (GfK panel data, not upweighted).

PS5 sales are up 316% over the same period the year before, and up 27% over January. Year-to-date, PS5 hardware is up 180% over the first two months of 2022. The PS5 was severely impacted at the beginning of last year due to stock shortages.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Pressing X to doubt that nVidia are crying about this situation considering they've manifested it, if they were worried about inventory levels increasing they'd be releasing cards like the 4070 at a price point where very few are sat in the warehouse for long.

It seems both nVidia and AMD are just using this generation to really test the waters on what customers are willing to succumb to.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Pressing X to doubt that nVidia are crying about this situation considering they've manifested it, if they were worried about inventory levels increasing they'd be releasing cards like the 4070 at a price point where very few are sat in the warehouse for long.

It seems both nVidia and AMD are just using this generation to really test the waters on what customers are willing to succumb to.

The reason they are releasing the new generation at stupid pricing,is to try and not discount the old ones and get people to buy the old stock. Have people forgotten the same tactic with Turing? Nvidia overproduced Pascal because of the mining craze,so had to clear inventories. So Turing was jacked up in price,and people went and thought Pascal was better value,so Nvidia had to barely discount it for long.

PCMR on tech forums,need to stop thinking that gamers are crying/moaning when they are quite clearing not buying. It's companies like Nvidia who are in denial,with the company last year was trying to spin to his own investors,that all the extra sales during the pandemic were gaming sales and not mining sales. Nvidia is desperately realising their pandemic pricing model is not sustainable,so is trying to push margins up to make up for less volume.

Nvidia have already booked the TSMC 4NM volume and cut as much back as possible:

NVIDIA reportedly wants to cut TSMC orders for next-gen RTX 40 GPUs 5nm wafers amid lower demand - VideoCardz.com

TSMC customers want to lower their silicon orders The consumer electronics market is slowing down rapidly. The interest in new TVs, mobile phones and PCS and has declined as quickly as pandemic has ‘ended’ and inflation struck global markets. Both AMD and NVIDIA are revising their TSMC orders...

videocardz.com

So they have no choice but to make new RTX4000 series dGPUs,because the TSMC capacity is already booked. At least AMD can use its TSMC orders for a different range of products.

During the fourth quarter of FYE 2023 NVDA recorded a decline in revenue of 21% to $6.1 billion.

Inventory Problems: Similar to many semiconductor companies, NVDA has seen an inventory glut during the year. For reference at the end of FYE 2022 NVDA had inventory levels of $2.6 billion, fast forward 12 months and the inventory levels are now at $5.2 billion. Now the question is, will NVDA be able to offload this inventory at full price or will it need to offer heavy discounts to go back to more efficient inventory levels? I am weighting my answer towards heavy discounts.

Nvidia had unsold inventory of $5.2 billion and that decrease in revenue was during Christmas which is the biggest sales period. That is a report from a few weeks ago.

You can already start to see deep discounting,but not for PCMR enthusiasts buying individual parts from retailers. You can see it in a lot of prebuilt systems which have the older cards at lower pricing.

AMD,OTH,is pricing relative to Nvidia with it's newer dGPUs. But AMD RX6000 series parts are already discounted. The RX6600/RX6600XT/RX6650XT can all be had for well under £300 now. The RX6700/RX6700XT a few months ago was discounted. The RX6800/RX6800XT had prices closer to £500 at one point. The RX6900XT was below £700.

The Nvidia cards,hardly had a discount at retail. Whatever Nvidia is doing,is not working in terms of inventory build-up.

 

[gpuerrilla]

It appears more PC gamers are probably getting a console now.

Will agree. I know a few in my circle and the younger gen like my nieces/nephews dont really have PC's. When enthusiasts are laughing at Radeon's releases, they misunderstand that instead of nvidia dominating AMD in the dGPU world the reality is their own cards are becoming more expensive (tribal loyalty) and AMD is not bothered because of the hardware sales into consoles and cpu's. As some already mentioned over the various threads.

 

[Murphy]

Why is it whenever i hear Jensen's opinion on GPUs i think he revises history to make it seem like he knows what he's doing beyond just trying to increase profits.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Will agree. I know a few in my circle and the younger gen like my nieces/nephews dont really have PC's. When enthusiasts are laughing at Radeon's releases, they misunderstand that instead of nvidia dominating AMD in the dGPU world the reality is their own cards are becoming more expensive (tribal loyalty) and AMD is not bothered because of the hardware sales into consoles and cpu's. As some already mentioned over the various threads.

Sony and MS are no doubt subsidising AMD GPU R and D to some point. So even if it's "lower margin" it's also lower risk too.

Why is it whenever i hear Jensen's opinion on GPUs i think he revises history to make it seem like he knows what he's doing beyond just trying to increase profits.

PCMR keep falling it for like with Apple. They also have very poor memories. Turing was high priced to clear Pascal inventories built up during the last mining craze,with the least amount of discounting. Nvidia is trying the same trick this time too.

 

[Ayahuasca]

The reason they are releasing the new generation at stupid pricing,is to try and not discount the old ones and get people to buy the old stock.

Well that seems a very bad strategy as plenty of time has passed now for them to see it isn't working. The only point I questioned is that nVidia are sat there crying about it when they have the power to change it in a heartbeat. I have no doubt they are deluded and that dent in revenue that loads of tech companies saw in their last reports will be a worry but with their market share, they certainly aren't crying about it just yet.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well that seems a very bad strategy as plenty of time has passed now for them to see it isn't working. The only point I questioned is that nVidia are sat there crying about it when they have the power to change it in a heartbeat. I have no doubt they are deluded and that dent in revenue that loads of tech companies saw in their last reports will be a worry but with their market share, they certainly aren't crying about it just yet.

I was just poking a bit at this comment from above:

but hey, here a great idea, cry about it on the forums and try to create a movement about how bad these companies are

The reality is dGPU sales are collapsing and in the UK people are buying more consoles. People are voting with their pocket. So any "crying" is more likely with Nvidia bemoaning the fact they have billions in unsold inventory and sales are starting to go down. Also despite all the spin about other areas,they still derive a huge amount of revenue from gaming,etc.

The worst thing,is that this is entirely a self created problem. They have been trying for the last 9 months to sell the Ampere stock at pandemic pricing,with the mining craze being over(for now).

 

[Murphy]

PCMR keep falling it for like with Apple. They also have very poor memories. Turing was high priced to clear Pascal inventories built up during the last mining craze,with the least amount of discounting. Nvidia is trying the same trick this time too.

It's far worse than that IMO. All this DLSS, FSR, and RT stuff is just Nvidia desperately trying to push things that are relevant for 'professional' users but generally not needed for consumers (gamers).

I maybe giving away more than i intend if you specifically have a good memory but IMO Nvidia are only pushing all those things because it's easier/cheaper to design a single architecture and make minimal changes and then sell it to both markets, they want to make things that 'professional' users want relevant to gamers.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It's far worse than that IMO. All this DLSS, FSR, and RT stuff is just Nvidia desperately trying to push things that are relevant for 'professional' users but generally not needed for consumers (gamers).

I maybe giving away more than i intend if you specifically have a good memory but IMO Nvidia are only pushing all those things because it's easier/cheaper to design a single architecture and make minimal changes and then sell it to both markets, they want to make things that 'professional' users want relevant to gamers.

DLSS/FSR are ways to sell dGPUs too weak for RT for a higher price. The same PCMR mocked consoles for doing such things,so they could hit a certain cost. I also have mentioned the latter before when Turing was released. Nvidia was trying to shoehorn dGPUs from one market into the consumer market. Hence,why RT support and DLSS support was so poor when it launched.

 

[KompuKare]

It's far worse than that IMO. All this DLSS, FSR, and RT stuff is just Nvidia desperately trying to push things that are relevant for 'professional' users but generally not needed for consumers (gamers).

I maybe giving away more than i intend if you specifically have a good memory but IMO Nvidia are only pushing all those things because it's easier/cheaper to design a single architecture and make minimal changes and then sell it to both markets, they want to make things that 'professional' users want relevant to gamers.

Unfortunately it was worked well for them. The tensor sensors no gamer really needed are now sold. But yes, upscalling is what elite gamers used to complain that consoles do it.

$5 billion stock? It looks like Samsung are down something like 40% in NAND/DRAM sales and the other big memory vendors are even worse. NVMe prices have been falling for ages and they still can't shift enough stock. Meantime GPU vendors - lead as usually by Nvidia - want to trickle inventory to keep prices high.

Wishes and reality must meet sometime soon.

Why is it whenever i hear Jensen's opinion on GPUs i think he revises history to make it seem like he knows what he's doing beyond just trying to increase profits.

He does very well at hiding any mistakes he makes (the Arm bid, modems, tegra subsidies, the millions of solder defect way back when, etc.). While the money is coming in, no shareholders ask too many questions.

 

[newuser]

His crowning achievment is pushing RTX onto board partners, reviewers and gamers so that they could pretend that they were doing us a favour when they were always building a rendering/AI platform.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Nothing really more to add to that. Game over man - its game over.

 

[rare]

Fair play to him, he took the company from its very foundation 30 years ago to where it is today, it’s a colossal achievement. As much as I dislike some aspects where Nvidia has taken the market (pricing related) without Nvidia this hobby and the pc as a gaming platform would have looked very very different.