** The AMD Navi Thread **

[4K8KW10]

It is bad for AMD because they had to wait 1 year for 7nm to be mature enough for large dies at high yields.

I would also be far more optimistic of AMD's GPU future if they radically changed the architecture and improved efficiency on the same 14nm node as Vega. AMd desperately need their own Maxwell jump, 70% plus efficiency gain.

Unfortunately, AMD haven't done so major changes and Navi is just GCN, its fifth or sixth rework... I hope you realise that if Radeons get 70% performance/watt uplift, nvidia will be done.

 

[D.P.]

And never once did they gain significant market share by doing so. You would think then that, at some point, somebody would say "hang on, perhaps we should change our approach somewhat". But then a great man once said the definition of insanity is repeating the same action yet expecting a different result.

They also didn't loose much market share, and went on public record stating they can no longer be considered a budget brand. You have repeatedly talked about limited R&D budgets, yet fail to realzie that nothing will reduce R&D budget more than reducing net profits. AMD need money, the best way to achieve that is to maximize net profit rather than subsidize revenue growth.

It's funny what bankruptcy will do to R&D budget and the capability to design and produce graphics cards. For every "blind AMD fan" there's similarly a "blind AMD detractor"; you accuse the former of being oblivious to "the nature of business and economy" and yet you lambast them for being late to the party when they almost went under. Pray tell, how exactly do you propose a company struggling financially keep parity with a juggernaut competitor with budget and operating capital significantly larger? And you claim "fans" are blind to the nature of business and economy?

You are the one seemingly with great wisdom on how AMD should run their business and set price points so why do you first explain what great ideas you have?
My problem with AMD is they slashed R&D, laid off key staff, and set up a work environment that wasn't favorable to maintaining talent. Once that happens you are in a very deep hole spiraling ever downwards with a lot of momentum against you. The other advice would be to focus architectures on the design of current APIs and game engines and support the standards and expectations that exist with clever solutions to software limitations, instead of trying to force developers to change their approach to suit a play with a small market share. It is only now with NAvi that AMD are admitting to the limitations of GCN and are modifying the frontend to sit real-world workloads. Something nvidia jumped on back with Kepler.
A simialr issue is AMD chasing technologies that are not ready yet such as HBM which lead to a number of issues and has since been dropped. AMD put their bets on 7nm but that meant added delays. If Navi was released on 12nm last year with Turing it would sit in a very different market.

Except that Nvidia has skewed market value. None of Nvidia's offerings are "worth" the price point, and Navi is not "worth" the price point. So yes, AMD should be selling GPUs at market value, but the actual market value which will generate sales, not Nvidia's bloated vision.

You clearly have no clue about economics. Market value is set by the market. Nvidia are simply exploring that market landscape. You may not think Turing is worth the price but certainly the buying public have accepted the price points with Turing outselling Pascal. You can be sure that Nvidia will lower prices if they think that will generate more net profits.

You again seem completely contradictory. You say AMD do not have a sufficient R&D budget but simultaneously claim AMD shouldn't maximize net profit and should subsidize their GPU sales just to suit what your personal value. I rather believe in AMD's strategy in maximizing net profits. Investors evidently seem to agree with this approach.

Um...bankruptcy? Tell you what, you go pay off AMD's $1B debt so they can ramp up their R&D and production and expedite the next few generations of graphics cards. Then if/when AMD still can't keep up with Nvidia you're welcome to cry about how they get it so wrong.


AMD's financial history as of late as precluded them from pushing their GPU tech harder. It is that simple. Now that is not an excuse, it is merely a fact. If their cards are poor because of the near-bankruptcy then that's AMD's own fault. Or you can accept they've done the best with what they have available and judge it on its own merit. But you cannot have it both ways and cry about how woeful they are yet ignore the circumstances which contributed to it.

Why should a consumer care about AMD's debt? Why are you so keen to defend AMD. They are responsible for their financial position.

TBH, this is just a weird rant of yours that doesn't at all seem related to my post.

Of course you can have it both ways. As a consumer you shouldn't care about the companies financial incompetence in the past, only on the current products and their performance and value. If you care about the technology and the future of GPUs, then the fact that Navi is lacklustre because AMD was nearly bankrupt and has no R&D budget is even more damning.

 

[D.P.]

Unfortunately, AMD haven't done so major changes and Navi is just GCN, its fifth or sixth rework... I hope you realise that if Radeons get 70% performance/watt uplift, nvidia will be done.

err, if AMD get a 70% efficiency boost they would only catch up with Nvidia.

 

[LePhuronn]

Unfortunately, AMD haven't done so major changes and Navi is just GCN, its fifth or sixth rework...

It's not GCN though. RDNA uses the GCN instruction set for backwards compatibility, but the architecture itself isn't GCN any more.

 

[Martini1991]

Is VII considered GCN? Has less shaders than a V64 doesn't it?

 

[D.P.]

With these tech companies, why are they sometimes not able to do what is blindingly obvious to us consumers?

because consumers are not experts, do not have all the facts, do not have detailed models of pricing, revenue, profit margins, production costs, market intelligence.

Rest assured, AMD have paid a department of people mega bucks to come up with a pricing model that will maximize AMD's profit and take into accunt the companies goals for revenue and market share. Given the rpice parity, one assume they don;t expect a lower priced Navi to gain much market share and total revenue is less important for a company without cash, especially since they have the low margin high revenue market sown up with consoles.

 

[LePhuronn]

@D.P.

Low-volume, high margin sales vs high-volume, low margin sales. Which one can net you the biggest profit? Discuss.

Also, where are the numbers on Turing outselling Pascal? I was under the impression that the only people saying that were Nvidia in the face of shareholder backlash and their stock value plummeting. My memory messes up on days that end with a "Y", but I do recall reading at the 6 month mark for Turning its sales were nowhere near those of Pascal in its first 6 months.

because consumers are not experts, do not have all the facts, do not have detailed models of pricing, revenue, profit margins, production costs, market intelligence.

Rest assured, AMD have paid a department of people mega bucks to come up with a pricing model that will maximize AMD's profit and take into accunt the companies goals for revenue and market share. Given the rpice parity, one assume they don;t expect a lower priced Navi to gain much market share

Then these mega bucks market analysts need to get out of their little bubble, stop looking at their own bank balance and look at other peoples. The simple fact that everybody on this forum, other tech forums, TechTubers and commenters all singularly say "Navi can **** off at $450" means these analysts have got it so very wrong: we are enthusiasts who can weigh up pros, cons, specs, performance and price/perf to make a considered choice, and if we enthusiasts are all saying "no", imagine what Common Joe must be thinking. You keep suggesting we are all AMD apologists or we're somehow defending them, but it seems you're the one putting the most effort in to justify, even defend, just how badly AMD have dropped a bollock with Navi's price.

Impromptu forum poll:

Who's buying a 5700 XT at £450?
Who would buy a 5700 XT at £370 ish?

 

[4K8KW10]

It's not GCN though. RDNA uses the GCN instruction set for backwards compatibility, but the architecture itself isn't GCN any more.

Maybe it's only me who views it as minor rebalancing........

 

[4K8KW10]

Low-volume, high margin sales vs high-volume, low margin sales. Which one can net you the biggest profit? Discuss.

Obviously high volume low margin sales is the better strategy. AMD must try it once.
As pointed by @D.P. , so far AMD has released only products at the same price points with worse benchmark charts.

 

[flea.rider]

I'm still thinking there going to surprise us ..and I do think it's got something to do with pci 4..
ryzen2 and navi may work better together ?
could infinity fabric be used cpu to gpu ? over pci 4.. ?
on a normal card release we would have had more leaks ?

 

[Illuminist]

@D.P.

Low-volume, high margin sales vs high-volume, low margin sales. Which one can net you the biggest profit? Discuss.

Also, where are the numbers on Turing outselling Pascal? I was under the impression that the only people saying that were Nvidia in the face of shareholder backlash and their stock value plummeting. My memory messes up on days that end with a "Y", but I do recall reading at the 6 month mark for Turning its sales were nowhere near those of Pascal in its first 6 months.


Then these mega bucks market analysts need to get out of their little bubble, stop looking at their own bank balance and look at other peoples. The simple fact that everybody on this forum, other tech forums, TechTubers and commenters all singularly say "Navi can **** off at $450" means these analysts have got it so very wrong: we are enthusiasts who can weigh up pros, cons, specs, performance and price/perf to make a considered choice, and if we enthusiasts are all saying "no", imagine what Common Joe must be thinking. You keep suggesting we are all AMD apologists or we're somehow defending them, but it seems you're the one putting the most effort in to justify, even defend, just how badly AMD have dropped a bollock with Navi's price.

Impromptu forum poll:

Who's buying a 5700 XT at £450?
Who would buy a 5700 XT at £370 ish?

I would get a 5700xt for £370 any day
But if you want to see how badly the "market analysts" got it wrong, I was amd for 20 years and just bought a 2080 and sold my radeon 7, and on the MM there are people selling their vegas for the same reason

 

[TNA]

Don't be fooled, AMD would take their place in a *heartbeat* along with some of their less desirable practices. $$ is King.

They have some upsides like supporting more open standards but yes I agree overall, pretty much any company would do the same.

Agreed.

As for Navi, it's the old adage that there's no such thing as a bad graphics card, rather bad pricing. And that's exactly what the 5700XT is.

If the 5700XT launch at £300-£350 I'd have swapped out my Vega 64 for it, but unfortunately it's closer to £450.

Yep. Navi is late and pricing of is no good.

 

[opethdisciple]

I'm still thinking there going to surprise us ..and I do think it's got something to do with pci 4..
ryzen2 and navi may work better together ?
could infinity fabric be used cpu to gpu ? over pci 4.. ?
on a normal card release we would have had more leaks ?

All these question where ask when Ryzen and Vega launched. We have seen little evidence thus far. No reason to assume this will change.

 

[flea.rider]

All these question where ask when Ryzen and Vega launched. We have seen little evidence thus far. No reason to assume this will change.

but if it did ? you would think ok board venders will back amd some what with a new cpu .. but there are loads of boards from every vender ..
yes ryzen 2 is good .. but that good just on it's own ?

 

[dragonslayer]

With these tech companies, why are they sometimes not able to do what is blindingly obvious to us consumers?

Because as a consumer we completely ignore and forget about the costs that they have to pay like R&D wages shipping tax etc everyone is saying it should be £100 less or whatever doesn't have a clue how much money AMD has spent on r&d and how much. They're actually making on the cards for all we know they could make £50 profit per card

 

[4K8KW10]

Because as a consumer we completely ignore and forget about the costs that they have to pay like R&D wages shipping tax etc everyone is saying it should be £100 less or whatever doesn't have a clue how much money AMD has spent on r&d and how much. They're actually making on the cards for all we know they could make £50 profit per card

Except the top management, I doubt the ordinary employees get much different than the minimum wage for the corresponding state, for instance 12$/hour in California.

 

[Poneros]

@D.P.
Impromptu forum poll:

Who's buying a 5700 XT at £450?
Who would buy a 5700 XT at £370 ish?

I would consider it at £350. To outright buy it think closer to £300. Nvidia's value added features are easily worth £50 to me.

 

[Chrisc]

These are so called AMD fans, blind to the obvious nature of bussiness and economy, let alone AMD's own product history.

AMD released the Fury at the same RRP bit higher street prices than the 980ti despite being slower.
AMD released the 480 at the same price as the 1060 despite being slower.
AMD released Vega 64 as same price as the 1080 but slower.


Wasn't hard for me to project that AMD would release Navi and not offer any price-performance advantage, despite being nearly a year late and offering less features.



IMO, AMD absolutely should be selling GPUs at the market value, which is what nvidia is exploring. What AMD should also do is release competitive products at the same time frame. If you are a year late then good luck seeing any reasonable sales.

Yeah exactly, i expected it to fall right inline with the 2070, maybe undercut slightly. Which ever way you look at it, graphics card prices from both teams are too expensive when entering the higher tier.

 

[D.P.]

@D.P.

Low-volume, high margin sales vs high-volume, low margin sales. Which one can net you the biggest profit? Discuss.

There is nothign to dicuss, only thing that matters is net profit. Lower your prices but maintaining the same sales volume doens't lead to more profit.

What gets you a bigger profit. Selling 250K units with $100 prift, for 280K units at $70 profit. Discuss.

Also, where are the numbers on Turing outselling Pascal? I was under the impression that the only people saying that were Nvidia in the face of shareholder backlash and their stock value plummeting. My memory messes up on days that end with a "Y", but I do recall reading at the 6 month mark for Turning its sales were nowhere near those of Pascal in its first 6 months.

Nvidia's number are legally required to be accurate. Nvidia's stock value tumbling has nothing to to with Turing prices. If it was then nvida could resolve that in an instant.

Then these mega bucks market analysts need to get out of their little bubble, stop looking at their own bank balance and look at other peoples. The simple fact that everybody on this forum, other tech forums, TechTubers and commenters all singularly say "Navi can **** off at $450" means these analysts have got it so very wrong: we are enthusiasts who can weigh up pros, cons, specs, performance and price/perf to make a considered choice, and if we enthusiasts are all saying "no", imagine what Common Joe must be thinking. You keep suggesting we are all AMD apologists or we're somehow defending them, but it seems you're the one putting the most effort in to justify, even defend, just how badly AMD have dropped a bollock with Navi's price.

Impromptu forum poll:

Who's buying a 5700 XT at £450?
Who would buy a 5700 XT at £370 ish?

So you think you are smarter than industry experts with all the data they have at their disposal, decades of experiences, official training and degrees in economics and finance?

Why don't you call up AMD and explain to them how they have got this totally wrong and they should hire you as CFO.


The fact is AMD have priced Navi the same way they priced Vega 7, Vega 64, 590, 480 and FuryX. They obviously don't share your opinion.



And your mistake is think I gives a rat's #### about either Nvidia or AMD. I am completely impartial so will happily defend or criticize AMD or Nvidia.
In regards to pricing, I am neither defending or criticizing either of them directly as there are 2 different questions. What is best for the consumer short term and what is best for the company are very different things. As a consumer, you want to get the best product at the lowest price. As a company, AMD and Nvidia want to maximize their profit. AMD legally have to do what is best for their shareholders.

 

[LePhuronn]

I would consider it at £350. To outright buy it think closer to £300. Nvidia's value added features are easily worth £50 to me.

Which is why I pitched the 5700 XT at around £80 less than the RTX 2070