Mining vs Gaming Products or something *spawn*

[DavidGraham]

This is simply NVidia trying to figure out how to stop the quarterly [market share] hemorrhaging, which they're experiencing. Going from 73% to 66% market share, is quite a big deal, especially when all signs are pointing towards more gains (larger share) for AMD.

Market Share numbers are prone to ups and downs, especially with the mining craze and stock manipulation so close to an imminent new generation (NVIDIA stopped producing GP102). It doesn't mean squat in the grand scheme of things. In Q4 NVIDIA made more money than ever. This GPP thing has nothing to do with this.

In fact I argue it has everything to do with AMD turning into Advanced Mining Devices, their brand recognition is in the toilets now, Nobody cares about AMD GPUs anymore, not even AMD themselves (except miners of course). Their GPUs don't exist among gamers, professionals, AI crowd, or even HPC .. all they care about is just the mining folks and the ways to appease them. They don't even have the performance to show for it in most segments, nor the price.

This has allowed NVIDIA to propose such an aggressive act, and allowed AIBs to consider accepting it with little resistance. Even AMD's own AIBs see AMD GPUs as mere mining solutions. The representative of the AMD even had the audacity to ask gamers to suck up the high price and mine on their GPUs or even CPUs, what a disgusting sentiment! They even prostituted their own prosumer line for miners.

And If AMD's response to this whole shenanigan is indeed just a pathetic hint to Kyle, then all hope is truly lost. They have no power over the market anymore, and because of their own actions no less. As such they probably deserve this, no sane company would completely displace it's own footing in several markets like this for the sake of a fleeting craze. They don't even have a space to fall back onto any longer. They successively locked themselves out and stopped competing alltogether, how stupid! It's truly funny when people accuse NVIDIA of anti consumer practices, when AMD has completely abandoned their consumers, thus forming a monopoly of their own doing. It's their own fault, nobody else. And again they deserve it 100%.

As for us consumers, all we are left to do is watch this whole facade unfold itself out.

 

[Anarchist4000]

In fact I argue it has everything to do with AMD turning into Advanced Mining Devices, their brand recognition is in the toilets now, Nobody cares about AMD GPUs anymore, not even AMD themselves (except miners of course). Their GPUs don't exist among gamers, professionals, AI crowd, or even HPC .. all they care about is just the mining folks and the ways to appease them. They don't even have the performance to show for it in most segments, nor the price.

Yet mining only accounts for a small part of AMD's revenue, their brand is being picked up by additional OEMs and AIBs, and the GPUs are on pace to leave Nvidia a distant 3rd in graphics market share? Largely thanks to Vega and the APUs. Earnings reports showed a huge gain in professional revenue from Vega and major cloud providers like Alibaba adopting the cards. It seems odd to suggest they don't exist while being widely adopted with an 8% market share swing in the fourth quarter. Prior to some of the higher volume APUs getting established. The 2400G and KabyG are only starting to ship. Or are you suggesting Nvidia's margins are so thin relative to AMD that they can't outbid AMD for components?

Back to the original topic, GPP definitely appears an attempt to cut losses in the short term. Both APU/MCM designs from AMD/Intel would be destined for some "gaming" oriented lines in the mobile or possibly tablet(Switch) market. At least that's where both companies appear to have been marketing them so far. GPP would seemingly limit both those options from gaming brands if partners wished to maintain higher tier Nvidia options as part of the lineup.

 

[DavidGraham]

AMD released a driver just the other day with new gaming optimizations/bug fixes. I don't see how your claim meshes cleanly with reality...

That's called bare minimum effort. What do you call the rampant prices for their GPUs and the total lack of any measures to offer gamers product at MSRP? The reality is AMD is pushing mining heavily, more than gaming and pro. They don't care if gamers bought their GPUs or not. As long as they keep selling mining GPUs, all is well and dandy. Tomorrow they will wake up with no market penetration whatsoever, and it still wouldn't bother them, because of mining!

 

[DavidGraham]

Yet mining only accounts for a small part of AMD's revenue

Nope, the RTG revenue has been largely from mining sales.

the GPUs are on pace to leave Nvidia a distant 3rd in graphics market share?

More like in a dreaming pace, NVIDIA holds a terrifying 90% presence in dGPUs for gamers right now. Good luck changing that anytime soon. AMD can't even design a proper gaming chip or get out of the sinking hole that is GCN. They don't even have anything new for 2018 and the good first half of 2019.

major cloud providers like Alibaba adopting the cards.

That's one major provider, no idea about the quantities they ordered, it's probably a token support, nothing more.

Earnings reports showed a huge gain in professional revenue from Vega

That's crap and you know it. AMD just mixes professional CPU sales with GPU sales. Those sales are mostly Zen. Vega is only sold for miners right now.

The 2400G and KabyG are only starting to ship

What does APUs have to do with dGPUs? These two couldn't even dethrone a lowly castrated 1030 in any convincing manner.

 

[Grall]

That's called bare minimum effort.

So they haven't completely abandoned their gaming customers then?

Vega is only sold for miners right now.

Well, it is in the iMac Pro as well.

 

[DavidGraham]

So they haven't completely abandoned their gaming customers then?

They have, drivers don't sell hardware, prices do.

 

[DavidGraham]

That's not what AMD's CEO said, but perhaps you know more?

Again, this is crap! She stated that mining is only a fraction of AMD, we know that. But it's not a fraction of RTG. Mining accounted for almost ALL of AMD's GPU sales these past few quarters, customers are seeing this, stores are seeing this, AIBs are seeing this. Everyone is seeing this.

No reason to abandon GCN when it's becoming so widely adopted and Nvidia is still working in a counter for async.

What Async? You are still banging this drum again? the whole DX12 concept is in the trash can right now. AMD can't make GCN scale well with power, we have seen this with Hawaii, Fiji, Polaris and now Vega. If they don't plan on changing this, then they are not planning to compete anymore.

AMD doesn't need anything new if they start scaling chips, which Vega should be able to do.

Yeah they don't need anything new, that's why they don't have anything new, and they are not planning to have anything new for quite sometime!

It's what the official numbers and company officials said with the last earnings report. As it's legally binding,

They never stated Vega accounted for anything substantial in the professional segment.

Why limit comparisons to dGPU and not the broader graphics market? If dGPU is completely phased out, are numbers really relevant?

They won't. That's the difference. Mining just gave them a whole new meaning as well.

Those options are dethroning the 1030 and haven't scaled to 1060 range yet.

They don't, last time I checked Vega 11 barely competed with the 1030.

Intel took the entire bottom out of the dGPU market and performance wasn't the deciding factor.

Because the bottom is an area with diminishing returns, but once you go gaming, you need to have the performance, or you are out. Simple as that.

 

[DavidGraham]

But, AMD has no control over pricing. In fact, in some/many countries it would be illegal for them to even try.

I don't fault them for that. I fault them for prostituting their GPUs for miners (with mining drivers, propaganda and incentives to buy), I fault them for not even trying to offer gamers any way to buy GPUs at MSRP. They don't even think about that anymore, instead they think gamers should suck up the difference in price and mine with their hardware to make up for it!

Prices are probably more important too, but you don't think good drivers and driver support are a critical part too? .

It is when you can find the hardware first. And let's not talk about competitiveness, right now, they are outmatched in performance, price, power consumption, noise, and other aspects too! No gamer is buying their GPUs with this much disadvantage in every category.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I don't fault them for that. I fault them for prostituting their GPUs for miners (with mining drivers, propaganda and incentives to buy), I fault them for not even trying to offer gamers any way to buy GPUs at MSRP. They don't even think about that anymore, instead they think gamers should suck up the difference in price and mine with their hardware to make up for it!

No argument against this or your other reply to my comment. While I don't find it biased that Jason Evangelo wrote up a bit on Kyle's GPP story, I DO find it a bit convenient that he was pimping gamers to mine with their rigs when not gaming with them there by negating all the negative effects of this insane hardware market right now. It was a story shared on Facebook and it pissed me the hell off, I responded:

No, bad, wrong.

"Running your cards 24/7 does come with an inherent risk of shortening their lifespan, though I'm unable point to any hard facts to back this up."

How about common sense or logic? Cards have a lifespan, the harder you use the card the shorter the lifespan. Running a gaming card 24/7 ages the bejeebus out of them as they typically just aren't built for that.

Sorry Jason, I mean no offense. I just hate mining right now with a passion because it is absolutely killing my upgrade options and I am dying a slow death of lack-o-gaming.

I don't agree with that position AT ALL and bloody hate it! The idea that someone who knows anything about hardware can say with a straight face that running it full speed 24/7 won't age the hardware prematurely is just beyond ridiculous to me, at best it's a real reach.

I'm not defending AMD at all here, I'm just arguing over the GPP thing. Just thought I'd let you know that I don't disagree with your comments about AMD right now at all but think they're probably best left to another thread. I don't want to turn this in to an AMD/nVidia debate, I want to figure out what's going on with the GPP and how it'll affect things. Fair?

 

[Grall]

The idea that someone who knows anything about hardware can say with a straight face that running it full speed 24/7 won't age the hardware prematurely is just beyond ridiculous to me

It ages the hardware, sure, but typically it's the fans that go, because hardware manufacturers put really shitty fans on their cards with the crappiest el cheapo bearings they can get away with. The solid state components should all last long enough to essentially never fail during the lifespan of the product (IE, until it is so old and slow that you just don't want to use it anymore.)

I've had four ASUS boards develop bad fans, on two boards the fans were so badly affected one of the two impellers became completely stuck. The other two boards, one of the fans make rattling noises and on one board, also turns sluggishly. And none of those boards ran 24/7 constantly.

 

[hoom]

I don't fault them for that. I fault them for prostituting their GPUs for miners (with mining drivers, propaganda and incentives to buy), I fault them for not even trying to offer gamers any way to buy GPUs at MSRP.

Bullshit. If it was NV selling everything they can make to Miners, prices through the roof because of demand & NV making dedicated Mining drivers you'd think its a fantastic masterstroke.

But if it was NV, they wouldn't stop there: they'd produce an NV exclusive mining language & API, spend brazillions on marketing it, pay the mining software companies to embed NV exclusive code into the software, produce a 'mining' chip the code keys to (whether the chip actually does anything useful or not) & charge AIBs an extra royalty to use it.
And you'd be creaming yourself at the brilliance.

Much as I think the whole Mining thing is pretty much retarded & a massive waste of electricity, you really can't blame AMD for going 'oh wow our stuff is really popular with this market segment, maybe we should dedicate some engineering resource to it'.


Regarding Sapphire: isn't the relationship between AMD & them much much closer than merely AIB?
Like its been my understanding Sapphire designs (or has a big part in the design) & manufactures the reference PCBs going back to DX8 times -> understandable there would be closer ties & a bunch of exclusivity involved.

 

[DavidGraham]

Bullshit. If it was NV selling everything they can make to Miners, prices through the roof because of demand & NV making dedicated Mining drivers you'd think its a fantastic masterstroke.

They are already selling everything they can, just not to miners alone, and no I wouldn't think it's a masterstroke because I don't care for mining, and I never will. Thank you very much. I am a gamer and a graphics enthusiast. That's it.

DO find it a bit convenient that he was pimping gamers to mine with their rigs when not gaming with them there by negating all the negative effects of this insane hardware market right now.

Just wanted to add, Jason Evangelho only regurgitated what Damien Triolet (the technical marketing manager at AMD) already stated a while back.

I want to figure out what's going on with the GPP and how it'll affect things. Fair?

Fair enough.

 

[Deleted member 2197]

Apparently yes - even more than the possibility of catching fire
(one still sees people saying how NVIDIA drivers are so much better than AMD despite the fact that NVIDIA is the only one with several different driver revisions setting cards on fire)

At least if they do catch fire I'll get a refund. What really sucks is getting a card with advertised phantom features and drivers incapable of enabling any of those features. So yea, I guess drivers do matter.

 

[DavidGraham]

Or when a new API update such as Vulkan 1.1 lands AMD has driver support unlike Nvidia.

Just as we have been accustomed to seeing over the years with OpenGL and now Vulkan, NVIDIA is first out the door with Windows and Linux drivers for this new graphics API update.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-Vulkan-1.1-Driver

 

[Kaotik]

Wasn't the catching on fire thing a PCIe issue? Where the AMD cards that didn't adhere to the spec we're a fire hazard and the Nvidia cards that did "safe" despite catching on fire? Or were more cards catching fire and I missed it?

They've had 2 or 3 WHQL driver releases which completely crapped the fan control, causing cards to overheat and die. Those who used 3rd party OC'ing or fancontrol tools like Afterburner were safe though

 

[DavidGraham]

The Asus situation, some or many (no-one really knows) will not be happy unless the GPU says ROG STRIX rather than just STRIX.

Let's look at this from a different perspective, shall we?

Why would anyone think what is happening is damaging the AMD brand? I mean seriously? The AMD brand itself is botched all to hell right now, it's just a brand for miners, nothing else. Why would they even deserve the gaming sub-brand -currently- is beyond me. They -through their constant pandering to miners- helped raise prices so high no gamer can buy their products anymore. They don't even want to sell to regular gamers.

AMD repeatedly valued the act of selling cards to whomever over selling cards to actual gamers, thus AMD values it's gaming brand less. Heck gamers value AMD more than they value themselves! They know -from experience- what they are doing isn't doing them any favors gaming market share wise, they did the same already during the Hawaii era, and they lost massive points of marketshare. Now they did it again with Vega and Polaris (you know the card for the masses? Oh the irony!), and the divide between them and NVIDIA has NEVER been larger. NVIDIA literally controls the whole market. And AMD allowed them so, so why would anyone care if their gaming sub-brand disappears? I certainly wouldn't, and I know many others wouldn't too.

There is no sympathy or apology from me here. Is what NVIDIA doing wrong? Yes, ethically it is. Is it illegal? Could be, I don't care, they should be sued and fined if it is. Does AMD deserve this? HELL YES, they allowed themselves to become the second tier brand, both at a technical level, and at a marketing level, when they whored themselves to miners. NVIDIA has every right to justify their actions as a way to stand apart from the competition's solutions that are just canon fodders for miners. They have every right to claim this is to distance themselves from the whole mining mess.

Some people actually forgot that AMD has the greatest part to play in this mining mess, where is the promise of the Radeon rebellion? The better red? The 200$ VR capable solution? The justification for Vega locked bundles? All gone at the first sight of a new mining craze. They literally destroyed the duality of the dGPU market, they fucked up the market so much for everyone, it's nearly unrecognizable. A lot of gamers actually HATE them now just for that. And for flipping gamers off they hardly deserve to exist in the PC gaming space right now, so screw them a 100 times for that. Maybe next time they will carefully consider their moves before they bury themselves in the dirt like that.

So once again, none of this is damaging AMD anymore than their current actions are. If they want to regain brand value, they know they way: competitive solutions at competitive prices, for gamers, no one else. When -and only when- they truly begin building their brand up once more for gamers, then people could start worrying about some pathetic sub-brands. Otherwise, this whole discussion is an exercise in pettiness and ridiculousness.

 

[Bondrewd]

Let's look at this from a different perspective, shall we?

Why would anyone think what is happening is damaging the AMD brand? I mean seriously? The AMD brand itself is botched all to hell right now, it's just a brand for miners, nothing else. Why would they even deserve the gaming sub-brand -currently- is beyond me. They -through their constant pandering to miners- helped raise prices so high no gamer can buy their products anymore. They don't even want to sell to regular gamers.

AMD repeatedly valued the act of selling cards to whomever over selling cards to actual gamers, thus AMD values it's gaming brand less. Heck gamers value AMD more than they value themselves! They know -from experience- what they are doing isn't doing them any favors gaming market share wise, they did the same already during the Hawaii era, and they lost massive points of marketshare. Now they did it again with Vega and Polaris (you know the card for the masses? Oh the irony!), and the divide between them and NVIDIA has NEVER been larger. NVIDIA literally controls the whole market. And AMD allowed them so, so why would anyone care if their gaming sub-brand disappears? I certainly wouldn't, and I know many others wouldn't too.

There is no sympathy or apology from me here. Is what NVIDIA doing wrong? Yes, ethically it is. Is it illegal? Could be, I don't care, they should be sued and fined if it is. Does AMD deserve this? HELL YES, they allowed themselves to become the second tier brand, both at a technical level, and at a marketing level, when they whored themselves to miners. NVIDIA has every right to justify their actions as a way to stand apart from the competition's solutions that are just canon fodders for miners. They have every right to claim this is to distance themselves from the whole mining mess.

Some people actually forgot that AMD has the greatest part to play in this mining mess, where is the promise of the Radeon rebellion? The better red? The 200$ VR capable solution? The justification for Vega locked bundles? All gone at the first sight of a new mining craze. They literally destroyed the duality of the dGPU market, they fucked up the market so much for everyone, it's nearly unrecognizable. A lot of gamers actually HATE them now just for that. And for flipping gamers off they hardly deserve to exist in the PC gaming space right now, so screw them a 100 times for that. Maybe next time they will carefully consider their moves before they bury themselves in the dirt like that.

So once again, none of this is damaging AMD anymore than their current actions are. If they want to regain brand value, they know they way: competitive solutions at competitive prices, for gamers, no one else. When -and only when- they truly begin building their brand up once more for gamers, then people could start worrying about some pathetic sub-brands. Otherwise, this whole discussion is an exercise in pettiness and ridiculousness.

If you haven't noticed it, both vendors happily enjoy selling GPUs to miners (Jensen literally said so, buddy).

 

[DavidGraham]

If you haven't noticed it, both vendors happily enjoy selling GPUs to miners (Jensen literally said so, buddy).

Nope, not both, one is actively encouraging it through drivers, propaganda, PR speeches, and even hardware instructions in some cases. And the other is suffering some mining sales as a trickle down side effect and is actively pushing against it. One is focusing attention on miners, the other on gamers.

 

[Bondrewd]

Nope, not both, one is actively encouraging it through drivers, propaganda, PR speeches, and even hardware instructions in some cases. And the other is suffering some mining sales as a trickle down side effect and is actively pushing against it.

Jensen literally said he sees crypto as a solid revenue stream (CEO words are not enough for you? What about NV AIBs building crypto boards?).

the other on gamers.

Other focuses on datacenter and emerging markets, trying to wash away the "gaming company" stigma.

 

[Deleted member 2197]

They -through their constant pandering to miners- helped raise prices so high no gamer can buy their products anymore. They don't even want to sell to regular gamers.

Agreed. The Vega product release pricing strategies were a joke, but seems to be the way AMD operates and in this case with the losers being gamers.

The fact that we initially were skeptical can be attributed to three years of direct incorrect AMD prices, which means that we always need to confirm the prices of third parties. That is, dealers. Prior to each launch in the last three years, the company has published a recommended price to the media, which can therefore be used for assessment, but later proved to be a purchase price that naturally amounts to several hundred kronor below the retail price.

What is worth mentioning is that AMD is the only operator to communicate prices in this way, as others usually manage to deliver Swedish prices that are correct when the product is found in the store on the launch day. Whatever the manufacturer, SweClockers has the practice of double checking that prices are correct.

When AMD is placed against the wall about this we get no wise answers, but they fall back on an inconsistent response that it is the dealers who put the prices.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1997447/