AMD’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Graphics Business Unit Scott Herkelman Announces Departure

[Nexus18]

What for? Cyberpunk? I just completed Starfield which was a game I really looked forward to. Moving onto Cyberpunk which I already completed almost 3 years ago. I ain’t buying a 4090 for that. There would have to be a bunch more must play games that need that performance for me to do that and even then I would play them and sell the card with minimal loss.

You don’t need to assume that I see Nvidia 4000 series as bad value. I flat out said it multiple times to you. I even said I think AMD 7000 series is bad value, not sure if you forgot or don’t read my posts properly

12GB has been fine. Nothing I play has needed more. As you know I don’t intend to keep this card for 5 years or something. As soon as an opportunity comes along I will upgrade. I got it for £575 a year ago and had tons of fun with it.

You make fair points, but be honest, you have said it before. You prefer AMD. There is definitely some loyalty there. I have no loyalty. I even hope Intel do well so in a couple of gens and buying their cards become an option. More competition the better for me

Get yourself a 4080 for £18

Completely agree though, given I have owned far more amd hardware than intel and nvidia combined, safe to say I did/do have a preference to amd, I had zero interest in physx but RT and upscaling is a completely different story alone. Whoever provides for my wants/needs get my money (within reason) and amd simply aren't giving me that "option" and nvidia this time round aren't providing me any upgrade options from a bang per buck perspective, well the 4090 is decent value (given 3090 was 5-15% better depending on the game and all for a huge markup, however, I digress....) but I can't justify the cost when reality is there is only a couple of games out there to make use of that power. I think intel are the real underdog here, they have already shown they're pretty committed especially surrounding their ray tracing performance and upscaling.

 

[Joxeon]

Yea but Nvidia didn't did they. Everyone seems to want Nvidia to pocket loads and AMD to come in way cheaper with less profits and still buy Nvidia and for me that makes no sense for AMD to do so. Price under Nvidia and offer deals now and then to keep profits up. Until AMD can beat out Nvidia hardware wise they gotta just stick in and make money off what they have like they did to Intel. Unlike Intel Nvidia seem not to falter and keep pushing boundaries. With chiplets i think AMD can get there but years off atm. Personally with AMD's current hardware i don't see a way forward bar giving there gpu's away to gain big market share.

No one wanted to see Nvidia do well this gen and cards like the 4080 were flatly rejected by the consumer on release yet sales of those actually picked up after AMD dropped the 7900 series.

AMD wouldn’t have known in advance that Nvidia were going to jack up prices on cards like the 4080 by $500 or that the 4070 would be labeled as a 4080 12gb for a $400 increase so would have designed these cards to be profitable at similar prices as last gen and we were even told the move to chiplets was all about cost savings yet they wanted $350 more for an 80 competitor and $300 more for the 70 competitor a 50%+ mark up over last gen.

When both companies are charging over the odds by such a large amount then things like features tend to be the deciding factor for those few that are actually willing to pay the higher prices.

Now whether or not Herkelman had a big input over the pricing strategy this gen is unknown but what his tenure does show is that during his time at RTG he's presided over a race to the bottom with marketshare now almost half of what it was before he started.

 

[melmac]

Still better than 'copium'. Either way, the real answer is because AMD makes much more money from CPUs than GPUs. They are higher margin, a better use of fab capacity. Gaming GPUs are pretty low margin in comparison.

This isn't true. On the Client side of things, AMD makes more revenue out of GPUs than CPUs. GPUs are a higher margin product than CPUs.

On the business side of things, GPUs are already a massive chunk of their revenue with the Instinct line of cards. This will continue to grow as AI grows.

 

[TNA]

This isn't true. On the Client side of things, AMD makes more revenue out of GPUs than CPUs. GPUs are a higher margin product than CPUs.

On the business side of things, GPUs are already a massive chunk of their revenue with the Instinct line of cards. This will continue to grow as AI grows.

They are trying to paint a picture of it not being a big deal that they can't compete at the top with Nvidia no more. It is a big deal.

What happened to AMD being premium and all that crap? Nothing premium about only targeting mid range

It is probably temporary anyway. I am sure they will be back at it come 9000 series.

Can you imagine if they did a 9700 pro quality jump like ATI did all those years ago? That would be awesome. Not holding my breath through. Maybe if they get Raja back?

 

[Joxeon]

What happened to AMD being premium and all that crap? Nothing premium about only targeting mid range

They're getting rid of the premium products but keeping the premium pricing.

 

[TheRealDeal]

They're getting rid of the premium products but keeping the premium pricing.

They can as now Mid range chips sell at close to old high end pricing. Nvidia with the 4070/ti are actually selling Mid range at high end pricing. As some have said though having a Halo card like the 4090 does bring in sales for all the gpu's below it. AMD have not been able to trump Nvidia for a long time at the very top, the closest they got was the 6900xt v 3090.

It's been known for a while AMD are wanting to focus on small chiplet Gpu's that will be used to scale up from bottom to top. Perhaps this just ain't going to be doable on the 8 series as leaks suggest.

 

[Joxeon]

They can as now Mid range chips sell at close to old high end pricing. Nvidia with the 4070/ti are actually selling Mid range at high end pricing. As some have said though having a Halo card like the 4090 does bring in sales for all the gpu's below it. AMD have not been able to trump Nvidia for a long time at the very top, the closest they got was the 6900xt v 3090.

It's been known for a while AMD are wanting to focus on small chiplet Gpu's that will be used to scale up from bottom to top. Perhaps this just ain't going to be doable on the 8 series as leaks suggest.

It’s worse than that when you consider the 4070ti has an almost identical hardware spec to a 3060 12gb, Nvidia must be laughing all the bank asking £800 for a card that is very cheap to produce and would likely be profitable even at £350.

 

[TNA]

They're getting rid of the premium products but keeping the premium pricing.

And they will get cheered for it to by some.

They can as now Mid range chips sell at close to old high end pricing. Nvidia with the 4070/ti are actually selling Mid range at high end pricing. As some have said though having a Halo card like the 4090 does bring in sales for all the gpu's below it. AMD have not been able to trump Nvidia for a long time at the very top, he closest they got was the 6900xt v 3090.

It's been known for a while AMD are wanting to focus on small chiplet Gpu's that will be used to scale up from bottom to top. Perhaps this just ain't going to be doable on the 8 series as leaks suggest.

Thing is it is not alright that they charge silly prices just because Nvidia do. I mean they can. But only diehard fans which are a small percentage will buy them.

They need to be passing down those savings from going chiplets. They need to be making a huge impact on price to performance in mid range. Then everyone can cheer them on.

AMD depleted all my good will around 4 years ago. If they want any back they need to start pricing their products properly and stop being greedy like Nvidia just because they can.

 

[srekal34]

It’s worse than that when you consider the 4070ti has an almost identical hardware spec to a 3060 12gb, Nvidia must be laughing all the bank asking £800 for a card that is very cheap to produce and would likely be profitable even at £350.

Tsmc 5n is more than 3x as expensive per mm2 as Samsung 8nm.

 

[humbug]

Tsmc 5n is more than 3x as expensive per mm2 as Samsung 8nm.

That's because Samsung 8nm was dirt cheap.

At 294mm they would get about 220 dies out of a 300mm wafer, at $16,000 that's about $73 each, add die packaging costs $40?, Memory IC's at $12, PCB and components $60?, cooler $40?, manufacturing $20? shipping.... very rough estimate about $250 to get it in the supply chain.

 

[TheRealDeal]

And they will get cheered for it to by some.



Thing is it is not alright that they charge silly prices just because Nvidia do. I mean they can. But only diehard fans which are a small percentage will buy them.

They need to be passing down those savings from going chiplets. They need to be making a huge impact on price to performance in mid range. Then everyone can cheer them on.

AMD depleted all my good will around 4 years ago. If they want any back they need to start pricing their products properly and stop being greedy like Nvidia just because they can.

I doubt that's going to happen as it seems higher margins trump more sales in the current AMD Gpu business plan. To gain a meaningful share in gaming i doubt this approach will work unless they make a break through and out class Nvidia gpu's.

 

[humbug]

Navi 32 with its 200mm 5nm die and 3X 6nm dies probably costs about the same, it will have the same PCB and cooler, they are selling that retail for $450, that's after a possible middle man supply chain and then the retailer have taken their profit slice out of it, so AMD are probably selling a $250 total cost GPU for $300, about a 20% margin.

 

[srekal34]

That's because Samsung 8nm was dirt cheap.

At 294mm they would get about 220 dies out of a 300mm wafer, at $16,000 that's about $73 each, add die packaging costs $40?, Memory IC's at $12, PCB and components $60?, cooler $40?, manufacturing $20? shipping.... very rough estimate about $250 to get it in the supply chain.

Yeah sounds about right, some design cost amortization, warranty etc would creep up to ~350. Double that for a 100% margin and you have $700

 

[Joxeon]

Tsmc 5n is more than 3x as expensive per mm2 as Samsung 8nm.

You'd get 194 dies at that size from a wafer minus say 10% for yields would give 175, now divided by $5000 for the cost per samsung wafer gives you $28.57 per die while TSMC 5nm $85.71 so a cost increase of $57.14 or £47 in our money yet the GPU itself has increased from £300 to £800.

 

[srekal34]

You'd get 194 dies at that size from a wafer minus say 10% for yields would give 175, now divided by $5000 for the cost per samsung wafer gives you $28.57 per die while TSMC 5nm $85.71 so a cost increase of $57.14 or £47 in our money yet the GPU itself has increased from £300 to £800.

Thats of course true(and I hope it will bite them in the a...e at some point, but it is
what it is). Altough, you are missing one important detail - Samsung was so desperate to sell wafers that they excluded faulty chips from pricing, while tsmc charges for entire wafer, faulty or not.

 

[TNA]

You'd get 194 dies at that size from a wafer minus say 10% for yields would give 175, now divided by $5000 for the cost per samsung wafer gives you $28.57 per die while TSMC 5nm $85.71 so a cost increase of $57.14 or £47 in our money yet the GPU itself has increased from £300 to £800.

Stop talking sense man. It does nit fit the narrative.

It is simple, both companies are charging way too much.

 

[Joxeon]

Thats of course true(and I hope it will bite them in the a...e at some point, but it is
what it is). Altough, you are missing one important detail - Samsung was so desperate to sell wafers that they excluded faulty chips from pricing, while tsmc charges for entire wafer, faulty or not.

A counter to that though is VRAM has fallen substantially now around a quarter of the costs they were so 12gb in the past would have been $156 compared to now being around $43, a cost saving over over $110 which is huge.

GPU GDDR6 VRAM Prices Continue To Fall, 8 GB Memory Now Available At $25

GDDR6 VRAM prices have declined significantly in the past few quarters and have dropped down to its lowest ever.

wccftech.com

 

[TheRealDeal]

Stop talking sense man. It does nit fit the narrative.

It is simple, both companies are charging way too much.

Without doubt that's the case.

 

[pete910]

This isn't true. On the Client side of things, AMD makes more revenue out of GPUs than CPUs. GPUs are a higher margin product than CPUs.

I find that very unlikely, Just look at what it takes to make a GPU compared to a CPU , It's really like comparing apples to oranges to be honest.

 

[melmac]

I find that very unlikely, Just look at what it takes to make a GPU compared to a CPU , It's really like comparing apples to oranges to be honest.

It's in black and white on their financial reports.