How will NVidia counter the release of HD5xxx?

[Miksu]

AMD is releasing their new DX11 cards in September and currently it seems that NVidia will get its first DX11 cards to the market somewhere around the December. If the history repeats itself, NVidia will somehow try to steal the thunder from the AMD's release. What will they do?

My bet is that we're going to see performance previews from selected group of hardware sites but I wouldn't be surprised to see even a new G200-based card. What do you think? Will NVidia release software, hardware or ppts to counter the release of HD5xxx series?

 

[Davros]

FUD

 

[digitalwanderer]

Paper launch!

 

[thatdude90210]

It's pretty obvious. There will be some "leaked benchmarks," rumor release dates (multiple dates, the optimists will always believe the closest ones), and supposed specs. In other words, get people to wait.

I don't think they'll paper launch. It's something that the enthusiast-market, the very market the the gt3xx is targeted, has grown to dislike.

 

[no-X]

Jen Hsun will remind, that they are the largest producer of 40nm chips, DX11 isn't necessary, beacause theye are not DX11 games and you can buy their DX10.1 - W7 compliant - hardware in brand new PCs and NBs.

Maybe they'll also prepare some nice slides - e.g. comparision of GTX275 in a PhysX enabled game to Radeon HD5870, where the crippled PhysX CPU code will sink performance enough. Why to buy a DX11 GPU and wait for DX11 games, why you can buy a GeForce GPU and enjoy PhysX games, which are available today?

 

[Pressure]

I went with their ridiculous powerpoint slides...

 

[2senile]

Professional assassins if FUD fails or doesn't live up to expectations.

 

[no-X]

Do you think they'll try to sink USS Hornet?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

FUD, via "leaked" powerpoint slides.

 

[CarstenS]

[ x ] Something physx-related. Like Direct Compute.

 

[Kaotik]

Do you think they'll try to sink USS Hornet?

Yes, and then put up powerpoint slides on how they couldn't have planned and executed this without CUDA and PhysX
This however leaves still open on what happens in London, the event is 2 days earlier there IIRC?

 

[hoom]

I voted 'other' = all of the above.

I expect a massive PR campaign about Physx, Cuda, Ion & how mind bogglingly awesome the G300 will be (you can get an early experience of the awesome by buying one of these other cards now & you won't miss out on anything because DX11 games aren't going to be out till next year anyway).

But ultimately all they can really do is sit & watch.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I suppose Nvidia could cherry pick a few high quality 280s, overclock them to buggery, rename then and ship them to reviewers claiming it's a new best-of-class product. As usual no one will actually be able to get one of the couple of dozen that ship.

I voted 'other' = all of the above.
But ultimately all they can really do is sit & watch.

Yeah, Nvidia will make a lot of noise and dismiss anything from ATI (including DX11), but in the face of a full product line up of next-generation ATI cards with full DX11 support and a die-size advantage/profit arriving in concert with Windows 7...? Nvidia's going to get a good kicking, no two ways about it. All Nvidia can do is weather the storm and hope to mitigate a bad situation.

ATI's going to make hay while they can, and then drop prices inside their larger profit margins to screw any reply Nvidia can make.

The last couple of years we've seen ATI's execution get better and better, at the same time as Nvidia's has got worse. When Nvidia can't compete on products, they resort to FUD, namecalling and lies.

 

[CJ]

My wild guess.... a marketing campaign focussed on ComputeShaders & PhysX and a campaign to tell people that DX10.1 is "enough" for Windows 7.

Furthermore I expect them to release some D10M, D10P and D10U GPUs in Q3-Q4 '09 and they'll probably rebrand some other GPUs like G92 -> D10P2 which will stick around for another 9 months (yay!) and they'll give GTX260 a refresh (1792MB versions) as well as flood the market with GTX275s.

In Q1 and Q2 2010 they'll most probably transition to D11 GPUs which look to be refreshed/rebranded GT21x parts falling in the 300 Series range... and I wouldn't be suprised if we even see a D12U coming.

So basically I expect them to spread FUD to counter the HD5000 Series, release a slew of DX10.1 cards (GT216, GT218 and maybe GT215, depending on how well Redwood does) and of course the rebranding of good old G92 to D10P2. And yes... they'll probably release some tech-demo of their 'upcoming' DX11 GPU, which probably won't be available until a little way into 2010.

Ofcourse this is all just a wild guess...

 

[CarstenS]

But DX10.1 is "such a minor upgrade hardly worth putting new stickers on the boxes" LOL

 

[hoom]

I guess there is always the possibility that out of the blue they'll dump a 'new G80' on ATIs lap & totally steal their thunder

 

[Anteru]

I assume that they will heavily focus on CUDA 3, OpenCL and DX CS -- especially as AMD is a bit behind with OpenCL obviously. Plus, nVidia already supports OpenGL 3.2, while AMD claims 3.1 support, so nVidia has something for the professional market as well (not sure how much marketing we will see on there). But I really expect them to talk about CUDA 3.0 and OpenCL quite a bit, less so about DX11 compute.

 

[Ailuros]

I guess there is always the possibility that out of the blue they'll dump a 'new G80' on ATIs lap & totally steal their thunder

True. But that's within the limited chances and the ultra super douper surprise factor.

 

[mboeller]

I expect FUD in form of strange powerpoint presentations and using insiders in different foren to "help" guide the masses as pointed out by rjc in the AMD: R8xx Speculation thread [here=[URL]http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1324914&postcount=1896[/URL]]

 

[trinibwoy]

Anything PhysX related will be a weak counter and they obviously can't successfully down play DX11 like some people suggest. The GPU compute stuff is consistent with their existing marketing efforts so that can't be considered reactionary but they will definitely ramp it up as it's their only synergy with Windows 7. Other than that the best thing they can do is slash prices and hope for the best.

CJ paints a pretty grim picture but it seems reasonable enough.