AMD pushed ahead in the CPU space because Intel has had it's finger up it's butt for the last 5 years.
Nvidia has not made that mistake, they are consistently innovating and out innovating AMD, so it's really hard for AMD to actually beat them if they don't slow down their innovation and RnD.
At this point, we have to admit that AMD can't out innovate Nvidia and they're going to keep struggling until Nvidia makes a mistake like Intel did
This is the point people seem to miss. Intel ran a veyr different game to Nvidia and the 2 aren't comparable at all.
Intel likely did reduce R&D into CPUs and instead made a focus into broader markets and different hardware. That is a sound business decision when you are dominating. Intel is very large and has the resources and experience in many different product markets. The second issue Intel has is they develop their own silicon fabrication. For a number of reason they ran in to problems so 10nm is greatly delayed. Nvidia on the other hand can pick and choose between TSMC, Samsung and GF. Looks like they might go with samsung who will be quicker to market EUV 7nm+ , which not only offer substantially more performance than the current TSMC 7nm but is actually cheaper and easier to produce with likely higher yields once ready.
Nvidia didn't cut GPU R&D, they increased it massively. While Nvidia's product portfolio is broader, they all relate to GPUs. Deep learning, HPC & datacenter, automotive and autonomous vehicles, all leverage the same technology and all support each other. As the HPC and DL parts continue to diverge in hardware form consumer gaming, there may become a time when R&D budgets get split more heavily but currently Nvidia still enjoys a relatively tight R&D focus. This has allowed Nvidia to continuously innovate and make big gains in performance, efficiency and innovative features.
People might complain that RTX is a gimmick because it doesn't perform fast enough, but this is extremely short sighted thinking. Every big step in graphics came along with massive performance issues. when pixel shaders were introduced all we got was pretty demos but non of the hardware was really up to par for a couple of generations. yet ATi made a big impact because they could run tech demos faster on a 9700pro than Nvidia could. Nvidia will gain tremendously with RTX. They are forcing AMD's hand here, forcing them to diverge additional R&D they hadn't anticipated and may not have to hand. They are getting game developers on nvidia's side, they are setting the narrative. While RTX is exposed under industry standard APIs in Direct X and Vulcan, the actual implementation in hardware will vary and that means optimizations and design approaches to RTX in games may differ. Developers are getting used to how nvidia does RTX , and that will reap benefits down the line.
Moreover, Nvidia wins the marketing and PR, e.g. Punk2077 just announced with full RTX will already mean people on the fence between 5700 and 2070 have one more reason to buy nvidi'a at equal price and performance.
