AMD RDNA3 unveiling event

[Poneros]

The 6900 XT was a 3090 competitor and they sold it for $1000.

It wasn't a competitor to the 3090 though. When you're competing for #1 GPU spot you can't be waiting for RT support for months post-launch, then have half the performance at best, and not have a DLSS solution for >1 year. Nevermind the extra vram, features etc.

Not that it mattered in a GPU mining world, but still.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Is just greed, the rest are excuses.

At some point people were like "is not just the BOM, is the R&D", but when you look at how many they sell, that cost also goes down...

You posted a while back their margins( for AMD and nVIDIA) and they were around 50-60% for the OLD lower MSRPs. They just jacked up price out of pure greed.

I work in consumer electronics, in the UK. We import and export. It's not just greed. Greed is a part of it, but not the entire cause.

The costs of literally everything that goes into a GPU has gone up significantly: PCBs, capacitors, inductors, ICs. Then you've got the difficulty of of actually getting a viable design that you have allocation for the components, which is currently non-trivial. You have increased R&D costs due to higher rent and salaries.

Then factor energy and shipping are both at historic highs, the UK border is a mess and importing absolutely costs a bomb.

 

[cliffy]

I work in consumer electronics, in the UK. We import and export. It's not just greed. Greed is a part of it, but you know nothing if you blindly claim greed is the entire cause.

The costs of literally everything that goes into a GPU has gone up significantly: PCBs, capacitors, inductors, ICs. Then you've got the difficulty of of actually getting a viable design that you have allocation for the components, which is currently non-trivial. You have increased R&D costs due to higher rent and salaries.

Then factor energy and shipping are both at historic highs, the UK border is a mess and importing absolutely costs a bomb.

The forget teh one everyone always forgets, they have staff to pay also who all want pay rises, the pay rises have to come from somewhere

 

[kjaerligkatt]

I work in consumer electronics, in the UK. We import and export. It's not just greed. Greed is a part of it, but you know nothing if you blindly claim greed is the entire cause.

The costs of literally everything that goes into a GPU has gone up significantly: PCBs, capacitors, inductors, ICs. Then you've got the difficulty of of actually getting a viable design that you have allocation for the components, which is currently non-trivial. You have increased R&D costs due to higher rent and salaries.

Then factor energy and shipping are both at historic highs, the UK border is a mess and importing absolutely costs a bomb.

Spot on. Like you I have direct (painful) experience of this. Much of the profiteering is going on at component level. For example, I recently had to agree to pay an 8000% increase for some FPGAs to keep production rolling. Inevitable that end up being passed on …

 

[Calin Banc]

I work in consumer electronics, in the UK. We import and export. It's not just greed. Greed is a part of it, but not the entire cause.

The costs of literally everything that goes into a GPU has gone up significantly: PCBs, capacitors, inductors, ICs. Then you've got the difficulty of of actually getting a viable design that you have allocation for the components, which is currently non-trivial. You have increased R&D costs due to higher rent and salaries.

Then factor energy and shipping are both at historic highs, the UK border is a mess and importing absolutely costs a bomb.

Funny how that affected only the GPUs in the pandemic and largely still does now.

 

[SpellowHouse]

It's the same with the large overengineered coolers on the 4080 although I believe this is done more so to hide what's under the hood similar to the kids who stick an RS badge and a body kit on their 1.0L fiesta.

I think what happened there was that everyone was expecting much more heat dissipation than they got. NVIDIA and AMD have to predict what their chips will do and manufacturers, including themselves, plan on that. They clearly got the heat dissipation completely wrong for the 40 series and it was simply too late to change everything when they found out real figures.

 

[SpellowHouse]

If you listen to what AMD has been saying on Twitter they are blaming Nvidia for the weird naming. They say it's called 7900xtx because that's their best GPU and it's $999 because that's where their best was price last time.

So why does it not compete with Nvidia's 90 series like it did last time - blame Nvidia, AMD says they didn't do anything differently, it's Nvidia who decided change their stack - implying that the 4090 is basically a Titan being sold as a 90 series product

I think there is a certain truth in that. GPU manufacturers aim their performance increase at about 30% per generation. AMD stuck to that rule. NVIDIA did not. It caught AMD by surprise.
The 4080 is a little over but the 4090 they got very wrong. I am not sure what was going on in their head because 4090 owners have several generations in one go - no need to buy one in two years time.

 

[humbug]

Funny how that affected only the GPUs in the pandemic and largely still does now.

You're not sugesting GPU's are the only things that are more expensive?

 

[humbug]

I think there is a certain truth in that. GPU manufacturers aim their performance increase at about 30% per generation. AMD stuck to that rule. NVIDIA did not. It caught AMD by surprise.
The 4080 is a little over but the 4090 they got very wrong. I am not sure what was going on in their head because 4090 owners have several generations in one go - no need to buy one in two years time.

That's not been true since the 2080Ti, for both.

 

[kieran_read]

I don't see the point of working out the costs of these GPUs.

Lets be realistic for a second, Nvidia and AMD are both making an absolute killing out of the 4090, 4080, 7900xtx and 7900xt

They will have hundreds of dollars of margin on each one of those cards.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Funny how that affected only the GPUs in the pandemic and largely still does now.

It has effected everything electronic, however certain markets have seen dramatic drops in demand, so shortage of supply went to surplus quite quickly. That's why you're seeing cheap phones for sale at the moment.

Automotive has been hit really hard, and continues to be hit.

I absolute agree that greed is a factor here though. You have two choices.

1. Make less, restrict supply and charge higher prices. The easy route with great gross margins.
2. Make more, reduce prices. Gain market at the cost of being hard work with supply shortages and increased costs.

NV have confirmed #1. AMD appear to be following suit, although their release was obviously rushed and they obviously had some real technical issues. Maybe supply will ramp up soon... Ha!

The situation sucks for consumers.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Spot on. Like you I have direct (painful) experience of this. Much of the profiteering is going on at component level. For example, I recently had to agree to pay an 8000% increase for some FPGAs to keep production rolling. Inevitable that end up being passed on …

Ah man, it is rough at the moment. I've had like 5 designs go long lead in the last year, 2 of which hadn't even gone into manufacture... It has been woeful...

I then hire engineers who come in and complain the component selections aren't right *sigh*.

Volumes I do now are low. Like 20k per year per design. I was working on 2M units per year designs previously, and the situation was the same. KEMET reneged on some specialised caps on a switching node last minute... Stuff of nightmares.

Good luck going forwards!

 

[kieran_read]

It has effected everything electronic, however certain markets have seen dramatic drops in demand, so shortage of supply went to surplus quite quickly. That's why you're seeing cheap phones for sale at the moment.

Automotive has been hit really hard, and continues to be hit.

I absolute agree that greed is a factor here though. You have two choices.

1. Make less, restrict supply and charge higher prices. The easy route with great gross margins.
2. Make more, reduce prices. Gain market at the cost of being hard work with supply shortages and increased costs.

NV have confirmed #1. AMD appear to be following suit, although their release was obviously rushed and they obviously had some real technical issues. Maybe supply will ramp up soon... Ha!

The situation sucks for consumers.

This.
This is also not what I expected I expected AMD to go route 2 and go hard for market share like they did with Ryzen 1 and 2.
This was such an open goal for AMD, imagine if they brought out the 7900XTX for £800 with AIBs being £1000 that would have been huge. At those price point 4080 would be completely obsolete and would have gained them a hell of a lot of market share because all the unfounded concerns about drivers that people still associate with 10 years ago all "fan boy" arguments would have been left to one side and they would have made massive gains in market share which only helps AMD for the next 2 generations of cards in that if people are willing to buy them and have a good experience next time around they will be far more open to AMD cards in the future.

This is what AMD done with Ryzen, Ryzen 1 launched at killer prices to really drive for market share people were excited they kept the momentem going through Ryzen 3 and 4 with Ryzen 5 and the X3D chips proving to be exceptional and their market share continuously grew.

I don't really understand what AMD were thinking with the 7900xtx and especially the 7900xt it just appears to me like a really missed opportunity to really drive for market share and grow peoples opinions of AMD GPUs, it's going to be interesting how it plays out when the initial hype dies out and people who want it no mater what will buy them.

With the 7900xtx being £1050 and the cheaperst 4080 manufactured by Claires Assessories now being £1099. The prices are too close together to even consider AMD personally (assuming you have the PSU and Case for a 4080 already)

If AMDs stock ramps up I don't know how much momentum will continue into sales.

Defo going to wait until the Feb maybe even March now to see what happens, with Nvidia seemingly responding in smaller ways i'm hoping a little price war happens. I guess January will give away what happens based on the price the 4070ti will end up being. If 4070ti comes out at £900 or something we will know the 4080 is there to stay .

 

[kjaerligkatt]

This.
This is also not what I expected I expected AMD to go route 2 and go hard for market share like they did with Ryzen 1 and 2.
This was such an open goal for AMD, imagine if they brought out the 7900XTX for £800 with AIBs being £1000 that would have been huge. At those price point 4080 would be completely obsolete and would have gained them a hell of a lot of market share because all the unfounded concerns about drivers that people still associate with 10 years ago all "fan boy" arguments would have been left to one side and they would have made massive gains in market share which only helps AMD for the next 2 generations of cards in that if people are willing to buy them and have a good experience next time around they will be far more open to AMD cards in the future.

This is what AMD done with Ryzen, Ryzen 1 launched at killer prices to really drive for market share people were excited they kept the momentem going through Ryzen 3 and 4 with Ryzen 5 and the X3D chips proving to be exceptional and their market share continuously grew.

I don't really understand what AMD were thinking with the 7900xtx and especially the 7900xt it just appears to me like a really missed opportunity to really drive for market share and grow peoples opinions of AMD GPUs, it's going to be interesting how it plays out when the initial hype dies out and people who want it no mater what will buy them.

With the 7900xtx being £1050 and the cheaperst 4080 manufactured by Claires Assessories now being £1099. The prices are too close together to even consider AMD personally (assuming you have the PSU and Case for a 4080 already)

If AMDs stock ramps up I don't know how much momentum will continue into sales.

Defo going to wait until the Feb maybe even March now to see what happens, with Nvidia seemingly responding in smaller ways i'm hoping a little price war happens. I guess January will give away what happens based on the price the 4070ti will end up being. If 4070ti comes out at £900 or something we will know the 4080 is there to stay .

We don't really have enough information to judge. Maybe, just maybe, AMD are volume constrained by some component availability, or possibly production line limited (not necessarily their own, but a supplier). There are so many external influences at play, ones that we have no visibility of, that it make it impossible for any outsider to have an informed opinion. Which makes it all conjecture.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

This.
This is also not what I expected I expected AMD to go route 2 and go hard for market share like they did with Ryzen 1 and 2.
This was such an open goal for AMD, imagine if they brought out the 7900XTX for £800 with AIBs being £1000 that would have been huge.

If AMDs stock ramps up I don't know how much momentum will continue into sales.

+1

The xt is definitely just lost, and the xtx seems lackluster at launch. Sadly more waiting needs to be done until supply improves, and hopefully drivers bring performance inline with the 50% to 70% claims... No guarantees, expectations are pretty low.

 

[kieran_read]

+1

The xt is definitely just lost, and the xtx seems lackluster at launch. Sadly more waiting needs to be done until supply improves, and hopefully drivers bring performance inline with the 50% to 70% claims... No guarantees, expectations are pretty low.

Yep, the one advantage AMD has is they do have a strong history of better improvements over time.

Mind you, before this they also had a history of presenting realistic expectations so...

 

[Alt0153]

Yep, the one advantage AMD has is they do have a strong history of better improvements over time.

Mind you, before this they also had a history of presenting realistic expectations so...

taking the cp2077 approach, launch it jank and then spend 2 years making it work

 

[Cooper]

because 4090 owners have several generations in one go - no need to buy one in two years time.

Since when have 90 class GPU purchases been about 'need'?

 

[kieran_read]

taking the cp2077 approach, launch it jank and then spend 2 years making it work

Yep i don't really like the "fine wine" argument tbh, I don't see it as fine wine I see it more as an unfinished product. More like Nvidia just releases a product that's "more finished" than what AMD releases.

Though based on AMDs history I wouldn't be suprised to see the 7900xtx to pull ahead of the 4080 more regulary though in rasterization performance as the drivers are more tuned.

 

[SpellowHouse]

That's not been true since the 2080Ti, for both.

Where did you get your figures on that? ( I am interested to see a generational graph ).