How will NVidia counter the release of HD5xxx?

[ninelven]

Actually, I'd have to agree that GPGPU will supersede game performance (for most users) in the long term (but certainly not today); the irony, in my eyes, is the ALU:TEX ratios of the two architectures ATM. AMD is kicking their ass in flops/mm^2; the only thing Nvidia has going for it is AMD hasn't been nearly as active in that area... so far.

 

[ChrisRay]

Yeah that is an effective strategy. But it's completely dependent on consumers perceiving what they're doing as value creation. And of course, it will blow up in their face spectacularly if AMD is able to match them at their compute game while continuing to pursue their "cheap" strategy.

I think Nvidia is barking up the wrong tree trying to position general computing as a competitor to their core graphics business (which is still their bread and butter by far). Yes developers will integrate more and more compute stuff into their engines through DXCS but there's no indication that AMD's hardware will be deficient at that in any way and Microsoft isn't going to favor Nvidia hardware the way Nvidia can with CUDA. And PhysX can only do so much. While I agree that higher framerates probably aren't the focus in this consolized world we live in I'm not really seeing where else they can leverage general compute functionality in games to improve the user experience....

I can understand this position. But I'd also argue that this is not really surprising. Nvidia has been barking up this tree for a long time. And their perspective here hasn't really changed. Since Nvidia is really pushing GPU Compute in a big way for a long time now. Nvidia has been marketing Graphics Plus for a long while now.

 

[LunchBox]

I've re-read the whole thread... I am exhausted LOL.. but I think the disagreement came from the initial stab and snowballed that is summarized and lazily incorporated as the quote "DX 11 won't matter because PhysX is available and it offers all these dynamic graphic bling that wows Joe Dumbpants who won't see the difference between DX 11 and DX 10".

I think what they meant was just misconstrued by a lot of us. I think they meant what they said "as of now" which was neglected or forgotten to be placed after such comments were posted. From what I've read, they meant that PhysX will make a splash because of the added "graphic bling" and the enticing price point which it will be set. From what I've experience, til this day a lot of people can't even tell the difference between DX9 and DX10... but they do see the difference between PhysX and without PhysX, because of the destructable glass, walls and the flowing flags. They tune to that more than the complex lighting and shadows and whatnot....

I guess the point that I am trying to say is that. The some of the people who are "pro PhysX" see that Nvidia is playing their marketing cards right. Because the common consumer is behind a couple of seasons from tech junkies on what's new in technology land. Nvidia knows that and they are going to use it. By the time their DX11 card comes out, there will be a good amount of DX11 games out that they can showcase their "new" hardware on. And at that time, they will be singing a different tune, or better yet (for them), they will be singing about DX11 and it's union with their PhysX.

I know that a lot of us (including myself) feel that Nvidia is playing really, really dirty. I think I might even boycott their stuff just for the principle. But then again, that's what business is all about. And It's sad to admit but their marketing team is just as good as Apple's, when it comes to talking to Joe Dumbpants... IMO. And admittedly, their technology does have some interesting things.

But, I personally think that ATI will make a killing in sales with their DX11 cards. Because most of the people that periodically renew their computer parts are tech junkies and casual techies that are knowledgable enough to know that DX 11 is the newer technology.

 

[Scali]

Scali, DirectX 11 will support DX10 hardware, and even DX9 hardware

Why are you telling me this? I've ported my DX9/10 engine over to DX11 in the early stages, all the while running in DX10 downlevel obviously.
I really don't see what your point is either.

 

[Scali]

I think what they meant was just misconstrued by a lot of us. I think they meant what they said "as of now" which was neglected or forgotten to be placed after such comments were posted. From what I've read, they meant that PhysX will make a splash because of the added "graphic bling" and the enticing price point which it will be set. From what I've experience, til this day a lot of people can't even tell the difference between DX9 and DX10... but they do see the difference between PhysX and without PhysX, because of the destructable glass, walls and the flowing flags. They tune to that more than the complex lighting and shadows and whatnot....

I guess the point that I am trying to say is that. The some of the people who are "pro PhysX" see that Nvidia is playing their marketing cards right. Because the common consumer is behind a couple of seasons from tech junkies on what's new in technology land. Nvidia knows that and they are going to use it. By the time their DX11 card comes out, there will be a good amount of DX11 games out that they can showcase their "new" hardware on. And at that time, they will be singing a different tune, or better yet (for them), they will be singing about DX11 and it's union with their PhysX.

Yup, that, pretty much.

 

[madyasiwi]

The most important aspect of DMM (but certainly not the only aspect) is that anyone can play the game with it. As long as you meet the hardware requirements.

90% of PhysX games runs purely on software. The other 10% has the essential physics content running on software plus some *optional*, extra physics content running with hardware acceleration. Anyone can play with it. Anyone who meet the hardware requirements can play the hardware accelerated extra physics content.

Again, I am not sure why this isn't being marketed for PC games as of yet though. Perhaps this is AMD's opportunity to either buy them or promote them along with their developer's relationship program.

They obviously market it, but nobody except LucasArts is currently using it apparently.

In either case if Nvidia is trying to counter with just Physx AMD can counter with DMM IMO.

Comparing PhysX to DMM today is much like comparing a car to a nice wheel. That's why ATI still need to use it with Bullet on their demo.

Inwhich we will now have equality as far as having 2 physic technologies that were already developed.

Great things about ATI + Havok has been said last year. But as it turn out, the numbers speak for themselves. Currently PhysX appears to have the biggest market share with 80 new titles added to its games list during last year alone. And will likely to only get stronger at least for another couple of years. Imagine what their next generation DX11 card could possibly do with a lot more compute power to spare for physics.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I just don't see how marketing a "DX9 card + Physx" is going to trump marketing "Win7 + DX11 + double the performance + lower price". Nvidia can say it's meaningless all they like, they should know the marketing will beat them as much as the technology.

And that's before you consider the core functionality of creating and running graphics for the majority of games is going to be much more powerful, impressive, and cheaper on a next gen ATI part (let alone with DX11) than with anything Nvidia can field. Sure you get some graphical extras with Physx in a few games - but you can run at higher resolution, speed, and with all the other graphical goodies turned up to full with a 5xxx card.

Win7 and DX11 are two big inflection points coming together, and Nvidia have nothing to bring to the party. Sure, Physx is an advantage for Nvidia right now, but I just don't see how it's anywhere near enough to go up against everything arrayed against them when ATI have speed, performance, performance/watt, price/performance, DX11 compatibility, Win7 marketing, etc.

Nvidia is barely reaching the minimum requirements to compete, and they need to get a genuine new part out as soon as possible.

 

[Scali]

I just don't see how marketing a "DX10 card + Physx" is going to trump marketing "Win7 + DX11 + double the performance + lower price". Nvidia can say it's meaningless all they like, they should know the marketing will beat them as much as the technology.

'See' being the operative word there (and I also fixed your DX9 typo).
nVidia can simply show games with PhysX effects.
'Double performance' seems a stretch, as is 'lower price'.
nVidia really has the stronger position here. They can do the 'lower price' thing just as well as AMD, and when it comes to PhysX, they'll have the performance and visual advantage.

And that's before you consider the core functionality of creating and running graphics for the majority of games is going to be much more powerful, impressive, and cheaper on a next gen ATI part (let alone with DX11) than with anything Nvidia can field. Sure you get some graphical extras with Physx in a few games - but you can run at higher resolution, speed, and with all the other graphical goodies turned up to full with a 5xxx card.

Again, they can't show this, so the consumers can't see how DX11 is going to be more powerful, impressive, cheaper etc.
How do you market DX11 when you have nothing to show? DX10 wasn't exactly a success either, it just didn't work. It didn't even work when the first DX10 titles came out, because they were slower than DX9 ones, and consumers just didn't see the difference in visual quality.

PhysX is pretty obvious, look at what kind of responses the Batman AA trailers managed to evoke. nVidia can market PhysX to Joe Schmoe, not going to be any problem at all.

 

[SimBy]

I was reading this thread:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1452415

Was Huang saying something about their $150 something GPU is faster than ATIs latest and greatest?

It seems their beloved PhysX in the so very hyped game Batman: AA brings even their mid high end GTX275 to the knees. Forcing nV users to use a second card for PhysX only.

So we came all this way to use a dedicated card just for physics again

So much for that.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

nVidia really has the stronger position here. They can do the 'lower price' thing just as well as AMD, and when it comes to PhysX, they'll have the performance and visual advantage.

Can Nvidia lower the price? They are already making a loss/near loss on too many of their products. They can't afford to keep bleeding cash in return for keeping market share. I don't think they are going to want to make the pain even worse than it already is.

And I don't think you can call Physx a performance advantage when it tanks the framerate and affects so little in so few titles. Its a marketing advantage that Nvidia are using to leverage sales of their current products in lieu of having any next-gen DX11 products.

Again, they can't show this, so the consumers can't see how DX11 is going to be more powerful, impressive, cheaper etc.
How do you market DX11 when you have nothing to show? DX10 wasn't exactly a success either, it just didn't work. It didn't even work when the first DX10 titles came out, because they were slower than DX9 ones, and consumers just didn't see the difference in visual quality.

PhysX is pretty obvious, look at what kind of responses the Batman AA trailers managed to evoke. nVidia can market PhysX to Joe Schmoe, not going to be any problem at all.

Consumers will "see" because the OEMs like Dell and HP are going to go for DX11 cards in their DX11/Win7 machines, rather than tired old Nvidia chips that have been rebadged once too often and that have bitten the OEMs in the ass with Bumpgate. Consumers will "see" the 5xxx reviews all over the internet showing massive performance increases over current and competitor cards in DX9/10/11 benchmarks and games. Consumers will "see" all the DX11/Win7 compatibility stickers and advertisements. You keep saying "you can't see DX11" but you seem to be ignoring the fact that the new ATI cards will also have next-gen performance in DX10 and DX9 as well - performance benefits you will see in today's games.

Do you really think consumers are going to say "gee, that Nvidia card is slower and isn't compatible with the latest DX/Win7, but I'll buy it because I get Physx"? No, they'll go for faster, bigger, better, newer, more resolution. And the marketing from the OEMs will encourage that, because they can only sell newer and better stuff, not "it's the same old, same old from Nvidia, but there's some middleware that will show a few things in a few games if you want to kill your performance". Physx is not an inflection point - DX11 and Win7 is.

You can't hold back progress as Nvidia are trying to do. You might as well expect people to stay with WinXP32 when people are switching over to Win7 64. Nvidia know this, that's why they are working desperately on their own DX11 cards. All this BS from Nvidia is just their marketing department treading water whilst they desperately sort out their own execution mess in order to get some kind of parity with ATI six months down the line.

The market is a voracious beast that eats up new technology constantly, demanding new and improved products at a phenomenal rate. You can't survive unless you have new stuff to sell, and re-badging and marketing old tech only gets you so many months of free passes.

People will buy ATI 5xxx because they will be perceived, reviewed, sold and marketed as "newer and better". You can't take an old Nvidia card and call it new and better just because it has a Physx capability that has a minor impact on a few titles.

 

[stevem]

They can do the 'lower price' thing just as well as AMD, and when it comes to PhysX, they'll have the performance and visual advantage

The point, though, is that they don't want to play the low margins game anymore. Their way out is to bundle up ancillary value as a "system co-processor". People were bitchin' that 5870 is too expensive @ $399. Nvidia want to return to $599+ ASAP, hence the often recited complaint that AMD only served to drive industry margins down. We'll see whether running useful GPU physics causes FPS to tank in DX11 gen HW. I'd be more impressed with better HD transcoding options.

 

[Scali]

Consumers will "see" because the OEMs like Dell and HP are going to go for DX11 cards in their DX11/Win7 machines, rather than tired old Nvidia chips that have been rebadged once too often and that have bitten the OEMs in the ass with Bumpgate. Consumers will "see" the 5xxx reviews showing massive performance increases over current and competitor cards. Consumers will "see" all the DX11/Win7 compatibility stickers and advertisements.

I don't think consumers really know what DX11 means.
And nVidia has Win7 compatibility stickers aswell. You don't need DX11 to get a Win7 sticker.
5xxx with massive performance increases? That remains to be seen.
Even so, as long as the price is right, you don't need to have the fastest card on the market. As long as nVidia gets its price/performance right, they can be a worthy competitor in the budget and mainstream markets (which ironically is the strategy that AMD has been using throughout their 3xxx and 4xxx series, because they just didn't have the performance).

Do you really think consumers are going to say "gee, that Nvidia card is slower and isn't compatible with the latest DX/Win7, but I'll buy it because I get Physx"? No, they'll go for faster, bigger, better, newer, more resolution.

I doubt it. They have no idea what DX11/Win7 means, because there's nothing to show them.
Faster, bigger, better, more resolution... why? Even current cards can run many games at 60+ fps even at HD resolutions, where do you go from there?

PhysX however, well, pretty obvious. "Hey look, on those AMD cards, nothing moves, but on the nVidia cards I see smoke, wind, flying leaves, breaking glass etc".
Yes, I really think consumers are going to prefer that over the vapourware that is DX11.

You can't hold back progress as Nvidia are trying to do.

I don't think nVidia is trying to hold back progress at all. They are working on DX11 hardware, and fully support the DX11 API with their current products, as far as the featureset allows.
In addition, nVidia is offering accelerated physics, while AMD has... nothing.
AMD is holding back accelerated physics as much as nVidia is holding back DX11. Both will eventually support both technologies, but they aren't there just yet.
I think it's likely that nVidia will have DX11 hardware out before AMD has some actual acccelerated physics games running.

People will buy ATI 5xxx because they will be perceived, reviewed, sold and marketed as "newer and better". You can't take an old Nvidia card and call it new and better just because it has Physx capability that has a minor impact on a few titles. Physx is not an inflection point - DX11 and Win7 is.

Correction: PhysX IS an inflection point, accelerated physics are here to stay.
DX11 and Win7 WILL BE inflection points, but they haven't quite reached critical mass yet. PhysX is already well on its way.
By the time DX11 and Win7 become relevant, nVidia will have its hardware ready, so it's a moot point. Physics however... AMD is at Intel's mercy, not a good place to be.

Basically you're saying that consumers are going to prefer a DX11 sticker over obvious PhysX eyecandy in actual games.
No marketing department is THAT good, especially not AMD's
AMD is just good at pissing off developers.

 

[Scali]

The point, though, is that they don't want to play the low margins game anymore.

I'm quite sure with AMD dangling on the verge of bankrupcy for many quarters now, AMD also would rather not play the low margins game.
So far, AMD simply has been unable to, because neither their CPUs nor their GPUs were performance leaders, which is what you need to dictate prices.
AMD is a commercial company, out to make as much profit as they can, just like other companies. Their low prices are the only way to survive, it's not because they want to do their customers a favour.

 

[Florin]

Can Nvidia lower the price? They are already making a loss/near loss on too many of their products. They can't afford to keep bleeding cash in return for keeping market share. I don't think they are going to want to make the pain even worse than it already is.

Oh c'mon, statements like that are driven by wishful thinking. Nvidia is hardly bleeding cash, but if that's what it is going to take, they're in a much better shape for a war of attrition than ATI, who have been trading profitability for market share for quite some time now.

 

[stevem]

So far, AMD simply has been unable to, because neither their CPUs nor their GPUs were performance leaders, which is what you need to dictate prices.

That's strange, I thought when 4870 was released it was Nvidia that changed their price structure. I got a "cheap" GXT280 that way... The point being that Nvidia think that leverage of proprietary features will allow them to differentiate & raise margins. They're not fully enamored of the straight-jacket of MS's DX even...

AMD is a commercial company, out to make as much profit as they can, just like other companies. Their low prices are the only way to survive, it's not because they want to do their customers a favour.

Everyone wants to be Intel, charging $1k/ASIC. Ultimately you can only price to market, as Nvidia found out. However, you can design from the onset for a cost/performance price-point more effectively by abandoning the top end. I'm not entirely sure that's what AMD's done this time 'round. Nvidia's view is to value-add.

Call me a GPU physics skeptic at this stage. I'm yet to be fully convinced that enough GPU alu power is sitting idle during current gaming, that feeding even effects physics is a big win.

 

[Scali]

That's strange, I thought when 4870 was released it was Nvidia that changed their price structure. I got a "cheap" GXT280 that way... The point being that Nvidia think that leverage of proprietary features will allow them to differentiate & raise margins. They're not fully enamored of the straight-jacket of MS's DX even...

I don't think you understood what 'dictating the price' means.
We were talking about profit margins. AMD drove nVidia prices down by having low margins (which means they lost their profitability). They couldn't sell the 4870 at higher prices than nVidia (and actually get good profit margins), because they weren't performance leader.
They were just close enough to GTX280 performance to make nVidia drop their prices. But until then, nVidia dictated prices with the GTX280 and actually made a healthy profit. AMD didn't take that position from nVidia.

Call me a GPU physics skeptic at this stage. I'm yet to be fully convinced that enough GPU alu power is sitting idle during current gaming, that feeding even effects physics is a big win.

I think it's a bit late in the game to still be skeptic. There's plenty of PhysX games out, and they generally run fine on a 9800GTX or better (although newer games like Batman have a new 'ultra' PhysX setting that only the fastest cards can handle, but there's the 'normal' setting that most other cards can deal with just fine).
If you aren't convinced by now, you can no longer claim skepticism, you're just in denial.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Basically you're saying that consumers are going to prefer a DX11 sticker over obvious PhysX eyecandy in actual games.
No marketing department is THAT good, especially not AMD's

You're seriously suggesting that with a few games and a few effects Nvidia is going to be able to use the marketing of Physx (which has come in for more criticism than praise for it's performance hit and minimal additional content) on it's old cards in order to beat out the combined marketing power of AMD with it's higher performing new cards and MS with it's new OS and DX11? You really belive that recent Nvidia PR statment that the old-gen $100 Nvidia card is better than the new ATI cards just because of Physx?

Do you really think consumers are going to prefer a few effects that they can't see unless they already own a Nvidia GPU and some of the few games that actually use Physx over a massive performance jump and DX11 support from ATI? At the same time as MS will be telling everyone how Win7 is the best thing ever and DX11 is the next coming and everyone must have it?

I think you're the one that's attributing undeserved power to the marketing department. You can't beat "newer, better, faster" with "older, slower + a few minimal eyecandy moments" no matter how you spin it. It goes against everything we've ever seen in this industry. We've seen propriety features from vendors before, and they don't last in the face of open APIs like DX unless they too become open and subsumed.

 

[Scali]

You're seriously suggesting that with a few games and a few effects Nvidia is going to be able to use the marketing of Physx (which has come in for more criticism than praise for it's performance hit and minimal additional content) on it's old cards in order to beat out the combined marketing power of AMD with it's higher performing new cards and MS with it's new OS and DX11?

Yes I do. Partly because PhysX is easier to market than DX11 (just show movies of actual games with and without PhysX), partly because nVidia has one of the best marketing departments in the business, and AMD has one of the weakest.
It wouldn't be the first time that AMD/ATi actually had superior technology but failed to turn it into a win in the marketplace.

You really belive that recent Nvidia PR statment that the old-gen $100 Nvidia card is better than the new ATI cards?

In the correct context (PhysX games), there is actually truth to this statement.
I don't know if you've ever actually tried any PhysX games on such hardware... but I happen to still use an 8800GTS, which has about the performance level of a $100 nVidia card today (GTS250-ish, right?). I can run PhysX games quite well (I've tried Mirror's Edge, Batman AA, UT3)... However, if I want to enable the extra PhysX effects using my 3 GHz Core2 Duo, it will come to a grinding halt. I don't need to actually try the new ATi card to know that it's not going to make any difference, as I'm completely CPU-limited. I also don't need to actually upgrade to a Core i7 to know that it STILL would be completely CPU-limited.
So yes, the old-gen $100 nVidia card will be better than the new ATi cards in PhysX games.

Do you really think consumers are going to prefer a few effects that they can't see unless they already own a Nvidia GPU and some of the few games that actually use Physx over a massive performance jump and DX11 support from ATI?

What do you mean with "already own a nVidia GPU"?

I think you're the one that's attributing undeserved power to the marketing department. You can't beat "newer, better, faster" with "older, slower + a few minimal eyecandy moments" no matter how you spin it. It goes against everything we've ever seen in this industry.

That's where you're wrong. See..."newer, better, faster" only work if you can demonstrate it to the consumers. AMD has nothing to show. nVidia can show PhysX games and make the consumers believe that this is "newer, better, faster", because that is exactly what they will be seeing. They'll see these new effects that they don't see on the AMD cards, so it's newer, better... and if you enable the effects on the AMD cards, the nVidia ones are much faster.
So yea, I agree "newer, better, faster" can't be beat. But I think you're missing the point that it's very easy for nVidia to spin PhysX into the "newer, better, faster"-format, where AMD currently can only show existing DX9/10 titles. What's newer and better about that? Might be faster, but that's rather hard to prove when the old cards already ran at 60+ fps. You can't see it. We've reached 'fast enough' a while ago now.

 

[Valzic]

Basically you're saying that consumers are going to prefer a DX11 sticker over obvious PhysX eyecandy in actual games.

I am afraid the last time I just went to a computer store - the boxes containing nVidia Graphic cards did not seem to be running obvious PhysX games. They just sat there displaying their box art and their STICKERS.

You quote may be correct for some of the Beyond3D crowd, but we are an extremely small part of that consumer group.

Also the choice for a lot of these consumers has been taken away from them by virtue of the OEM's building the machines for those people. If the OEM's prefer PhysX versus having DX11 selling features then nVidia is golden. We will see what the machines will have built in them when Windows 7 comes out. Those will be a good chunk of the consumers - the ones that get pre-built boxes... I really think the ones that build their own or upgrade is not that huge a number.

 

[Scali]

I am afraid the last time I just went to a computer store - the boxes containing nVidia Graphic cards did not seem to be running obvious PhysX games. They just sat there displaying their box art and their STICKERS.

You quote may be correct for some of the Beyond3D crowd, but we are an extremely small part of that consumer group.

I'd hate to break it to you, but there's lots of online sites with game trailers and reviews and such, and they are also on YouTube everywhere. These are sites that many consumers WILL visit, so you bet that nVidia reaches its target audience. YouTube is a big thing with Joe Schmoe, probably bigger than with the Beyond3D crowd.
The tons of games starting with "nVidia, the way it's meant to be played" will also have a big impact on Joe Schmoe. People recognize the nVidia brand, they recognize the PhysX logo, because they see it everytime they start their game.
So yes, when they walk into a store and see boxes with nVidia and PhysX on it, they'll see something they recognize.