How will NVidia counter the release of HD5xxx?

[Valzic]

John,

It's not an opinion on the game... its preference. I have watched a youtube of the game and it looks great. Its just not a game genre I would typically buy so having people point out to me that Batman has great PhysX so you should buy nVidia when the games I play don't use PhysX, is moot.

If it was a genre I played - yes it would potentially influence me.

 

[suryad]

I voted for Powerpoint slides. Nvidia has zilch and they know it. Sure Physx is a strong point but at the end of the day fps and bragging rights matter. If DX 11 provides a performance boost over DX 10 along with improved visuals, ATI has got Nvidia beat...period. Nvidia will have their spinners working full time on this. I have no doubt about that.

While Physx is great, I think DX 11 support is equally as important if it results in visuals that DX 10 cards cannot produce so easily. Its like the console version of Batman AA not having the cool Physx visuals...DX 10 vs DX 11 could maybe provide a similar kind of visual difference...but maybe something more substantial than just cloth and some silly particle effects that Physx seems to do.

Before I get flamed please note I have run Nvidia hardware

 

[Scali]

John,

It's not an opinion on the game... its preference. I have watched a youtube of the game and it looks great. Its just not a game genre I would typically buy so having people point out to me that Batman has great PhysX so you should buy nVidia when the games I play don't use PhysX, is moot.

If it was a genre I played - yes it would potentially influence me.

I don't think this is a particularly strong response when you're trying to defend the DX11 side of things.
Any game with PhysX has the potential to influence a group of people who happen to like that type of game.
So if you want to dismiss that influence just because you don't like that game, then DX11 can't possibly have any influence at all, because there aren't any games to like in the first place.

 

[Scali]

While Physx is great, I think DX 11 support is equally as important if it results in visuals that DX 10 cards cannot produce so easily.

That's a big 'if'. So far we've had 'tessellation'...

 

[Razor1]

Question is: How soon (or in other words: before or after nVidia and Intel released their DX11 hardware)? And how much of an impact will it make?

If nV and Intel get thier hardware out this year, they should have no problems at all, games with tesselation shaders are slated for next year. But of course tesselation is really only a viable option for high midrange to high end hardware. Its possible to create the shader to have different level's of tesselation too, but I think the "penalty" for the shader will hurt lower end chips.

Depends on what they will see, doesn't it? I doubt they'll see much, to be honest. At least, not before other IHVs also have DX11 parts out.
Microsoft tried to use DX10 as a reason to upgrade to Windows Vista, but people just didn't see it, so they stuck with XP and DX9.

That is true, I don't expect much from Dx11 in the short term. Its like any Dx, plus *if* nV is delayed we will see a much slower uptake of Dx11 games, this is also due to the fact console's are the driving force for development right now, so uptake will be rather slow anyhow. But of course sales are still going to be good for those how have Dx11 hardware out. Unlike Dx10.1, MS will be marketing Dx11 much more, because of Win 7.

 

[Scali]

Unlike Dx10.1, MS will be marketing Dx11 much more, because of Win 7.

I can't recall Microsoft ever marketing any version of DirectX at all.
Aside from that, why would they market DX11 as a Windows 7 feature, when Vista supports it too?
And even if they're going to market DX11, they'll probably market the API, not the DX11-specific hardware functionality. But why would they even need to bother marketing the API? I think any developer will adopt the new API as soon as possible, because it's basically just a superset of the DX10 API, and also allows DX9 hardware support.
Ofcourse all that has nothing to do with DX11 hardware.

 

[Valzic]

So if you want to dismiss that influence just because you don't like that game, then DX11 can't possibly have any influence at all, because there aren't any games to like in the first place.

First of all, that was just information to John who was showing the numbers of sales and he obviously likes the game. I was not dissing game, I was just mentioning that not all people like all games.

I am not dismissing the the influence, I am pointing out that all influence is not equal to all as everyone likes different games.

But it seems according to you... nVidia has unbelievable marketing advantage because of PhysX. ATI might as well just not bother to release the 5800 because the nVidia will fly off the shelves this fall and increase their dominance in the graphics field.

Well it seems like there are a lot of people here that have a different point of view. That the combination of performance, newness, DX11, Windows 7 may sell a lot of product for ATI. Did not ATI even say that they expect that they will move to 50% penetration. (at least they are positive and they know the product and what OEM deals thay have made) If nVidia really believed that PhysX is enough, why the renaming of all products to make them look like there are new ones to buy. PhysX should be enought to sell last years product with last years brand.

I guess time will tell if PhysX is enough to compete against the release of a new line of Video cards by ATI.

 

[Razor1]

I can't recall Microsoft ever marketing any version of DirectX at all.
Aside from that, why would they market DX11 as a Windows 7 feature, when Vista supports it too?
And even if they're going to market DX11, they'll probably market the API, not the DX11-specific hardware functionality. But why would they even need to bother marketing the API? I think any developer will adopt the new API as soon as possible, because it's basically just a superset of the DX10 API, and also allows DX9 hardware support.
Ofcourse all that has nothing to do with DX11 hardware.

Its more of a marketing scheme, MS won't directly market it, sorry I should have wrote that differently, its going to be a bullet point with Win 7 though, and people aren't going to read too much into what that bullet point means, its just going to be there and when they see the hardware out there with the same thing........ sheep I'm telling you sheep!

 

[Razor1]

Well it seems like there are a lot of people here that have a different point of view. That the combination of performance, newness, DX11, Windows 7 may sell a lot of product for ATI. Did not ATI even say that they expect that they will move to 50% penetration. (at least they are positive and they know the product and what OEM deals thay have made) If nVidia really believed that PhysX is enough, why the renaming of all products to make them look like there are new ones to buy. PhysX should be enought to sell last years product with last years brand.

I guess time will tell if PhysX is enough to compete against the release of a new line of Video cards by ATI.

Oh I wouldn't put too much stock into ATi's expectations, they have said that since the launch of the HD3xxx series, until recently they haven't even garnered marketshare that would even show they are capable of getting to the 50% marketshare.

 

[Valzic]

I agree with the sheep comment - 100%

I owned and ran a hardware/software store for 5 years. The knowledgeable person was the exception. The rest looked at box, stickers and marketing stuff in store.

When something new came along... we got big bright stickers to add on boxes to make them more appealing. There were always questions and stuff like DXxx would be one if it was emphasized. That would be bad for nVidia.

I hear great things about nVidia but I noticed DXxx sticker on that ATI card. What is nVida's version. You can explain well no games really use it now but will in future, but the killer is when you explain that well nVidia will have a DX11 card out next year. All of a sudden, that makes in their mind.. what they are holding is OLD.. even the companyt that made it is coming out with NEW one.

By the way when I had teh store it was ATI that suffered and nVidia was the winner as it was when they were miles ahead.

 

[Scali]

First of all, that was just information to John who was showing the numbers of sales and he obviously likes the game. I was not dissing game, I was just mentioning that not all people like all games.

I am not dismissing the the influence, I am pointing out that all influence is not equal to all as everyone likes different games.

I think everyone already knew that.

But it seems according to you... nVidia has unbelievable marketing advantage because of PhysX. ATI might as well just not bother to release the 5800 because the nVidia will fly off the shelves this fall and increase their dominance in the graphics field.

If you're going to be that irrational about it, and totally blow things way out of proportion, we're done here.

Well it seems like there are a lot of people here that have a different point of view. That the combination of performance, newness, DX11, Windows 7 may sell a lot of product for ATI.

Thing is, I haven't heard very compelling arguments for this point of view.
Even the nay-sayers on PhysX had to reluctantly agree that PhysX is just easier to market at this point.
I think that's the point. Deep down people know that what I'm saying makes sense, but they aren't willing to admit it because of their preference for AMD.

If nVidia really believed that PhysX is enough, why the renaming of all products to make them look like there are new ones to buy. PhysX should be enought to sell last years product with last years brand.

Perhaps PhysX is actuappy part of the reason? Perhaps they think it's easier to pretend that it's a new card with PhysX, than to try and explain to people that the same card that has been on the market all this time, can now do PhysX, when it couldn't back when it was introduced?
What does it all matter anyway?

I guess time will tell if PhysX is enough to compete against the release of a new line of Video cards by ATI.

It's only going to be for a few months anyway, then nVidia has DX11 aswell (and let's not forget Intel)... and it remains to be seen who the performance leader is by then.

 

[Scali]

Its more of a marketing scheme, MS won't directly market it, sorry I should have wrote that differently, its going to be a bullet point with Win 7 though, and people aren't going to read too much into what that bullet point means, its just going to be there and when they see the hardware out there with the same thing........ sheep I'm telling you sheep!

Yea well, we all know how you can get around that.. Remember the "Vista capable" fiasco?
You could put "DX11 capable" on any DX9 card and higher, since they do support the API, just not all features (much like DX9 with the mess of ps1.1, ps1.4, sm2.0a, 2.0b, sm3.0, DX9c and all that).

 

[stevem]

I don't think you understood what 'dictating the price' means.

Heh, you might be surprised.

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.

While we can't possibly know total input/BOM pricing, etc, at the very least AMD saved on R&D costs at the top end. Less to amortize over the generation. The 4870 was designed/built with a margin at it's price point where we can infer competing SKUs were not intended by Nvidia (for various reasons). Indeed Nvidia slashed MSR in the quest for marketshare. I think they'll resist more this time 'round if they can help it. It was predatory pricing by AMD. Did it achieve its aims? (I won't even touch whole of business, regulatory reporting, etc)

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).

Gee, that seems damned by faint praise. I generally don't like the performance drop. Will have a closer look at BAS sometime next week, although it's not what I'd normally play.

If you aren't convinced by now, you can no longer claim skepticism, you're just in denial.

Then let me rephrase. I'm not convinced that we've reached the nirvana of graphics performance/IQ where the solution is current cards & performance dips with PhysX on current workloads. There's no doubt hw & titles will come with immersive gameplay physics, but they're not here yet. Time will tell, but there may be more than denial if PhysX goes the way of previous proprietary layers.

It's most unfortunate that it now has the nVidia brand on it, because of all the flack I now get from AMD fanboys.

Really? How odd. Do you think you'd get commensurate flak from Nvidia fanboys if the IHVs were pushing different barrows?

 

[ChrisRay]

You mean you're not in the focus group, you have no contact with nVidia PR or their representatives, nor do you participate in any form of nVidia evangelism on any public forums? Or are you talking about something else?

Heck, I thought you worked for 'em.

*sigh* Digi. I would have hoped you'd know better than that. The user group is supposed to have it their signatures. The only reason I dont here is because everyone essentially knows who I am. And I am essentially breaking Nvidia's rules. Secondly, I had honestly hoped we'd be past all this by now. The user group has in no way recieved any kind of message to discredit AMD's newest cards.

 

[Scali]

Really? How odd. Do you think you'd get commensurate flak from Nvidia fanboys if the IHVs were pushing different barrows?

No, actually.
I think it's just like with Intel... The company is too 'big' and 'evil' to really have a fanboy following. It's just not a cool brand to support.
AMD gets so much support, both for its CPUs and GPUs that sometimes you wonder if they're paying people to post on forums.
The other day I read some people ranting about how Intel's Turbo mode on the Lynnfield wasn't fair, and should be disabled when benchmarking against Phenoms.

Now, I can understand that someone gets excited about upcoming DX11 hardware. It's cool, it's fast, it's new... That's what enthusiasts like. I'm still an an enthusiast at heart myself, even though I also look at things from a developer point-of-view. I may actually get one of them AMD DX11 cards myself actually.

But how can one in his right might be supporting AMD CPUs? Come on, they've been getting their arses handed to them for years in benchmarks. Why go cry about some Turbo feature? Shouldn't you be happy that Intel has found yet another way to squeeze some extra performance out of a CPU? It's new technology, it's cool, it's fast... that's what enthusiasts should like.
I have nothing against AMD, but I haven't for a moment considered buying an AMD CPU ever since Intel launched the Core2. Nothing AMD makes whets my enthusiast appetite.

 

[MfA]

It's only going to be for a few months anyway, then nVidia has DX11 aswell (and let's not forget Intel)... and it remains to be seen who the performance leader is by then.

When will they have a mainstream card with DX11 you think?

 

[Scali]

When will they have a mainstream card with DX11 you think?

I don't know. Q2 2010?

 

[suryad]

I don't know. Q2 2010?

I think mainstream could be out before then but a high end card will def be Q2 2010...

Disclaimer : This is all gut feeling based.

 

[neliz]

I think mainstream could be out before then but a high end card will def be Q2 2010...

Disclaimer : This is all gut feeling based.

Nobody should be surprised when there will be no DX11 parts from either nv or intel before Q3-2010.
remember, nvidia isn't even launching it's low-end DX10.1 products untill next month.

 

[John Reynolds]

No, actually.
I think it's just like with Intel... The company is too 'big' and 'evil' to really have a fanboy following. It's just not a cool brand to support.

I think the existence of NV fansites belies that claim (disclaimer: I have nothing against the existnece of such sites <g>). Clearly both graphics IHVs have their sets of fans, to claim otherwise is just silliness IMO.

If your suggestion that AMD receives more support is indeed true/accurate, it's probably because people tend to root for the perceived underdog.