Nvidia GT300 core: Speculation

[CarstenS]

Yes, and it's why I can not understand DegustatoR's claims that they(ATI) are killing the market.

I can - in a way. They force the competition to sell way below the anticipated margins for their high-end, which would be fine, since that is business. But at the same time, they're not making money themeselves, because their bread-and-butter product (HD4850) is not significantly faster than the competitions volume-chip (G92) and so they're into a price war at that level too, but without the significant cost advantage they probably have in the 200 - 300 Euro segment, i.e. HD 4890 vs. GTX260-285.

[strike]Proof: Their recently announced losses in this Q2/2009.

This is not healthy competition but self-destruction - IMO.[/strike]
Apparently, I should have read more closely. AMD has stated their GPG business to be break even. Not healthy, but nonethelesse.
"In the Graphics segment, revenue for the quarter was $222 million, down 18% sequentially and down 15% from the first quarter of 2008. Units and ASP were down quarter over quarter. ASPs were up year-over-year as a result of richer mix of the HD4000 family of products, and the Graphics segment broke even at the operating level."

Also, these are euro prices for American products. Prices of all American products have come down in the past year, because the dollar is very weak now.
I'd like to see some US chart next to this, I bet in the last year, the US price didn't drop nearly as much as the European prices did.

I am not too familiar with US price search engines - maybe someone can up with the respective data.

Depends on how you look at it.
For ATi it was their fastest and most expensive part at the time, so in that sense it was high-end.
But consumers look at nVidia aswell, and compared to nVidia it certainly wasn't the fastest... So to them it wasn't high-end.
Hence nVidia dictated prices, and ATi had to price it according to nVidia's performance, and sell it cheaper than intended.

I don't think so, that it depends on how I might look at it. Nobody in their right mind designs a performance-chip from scratch which requires insane amounts of power (for that time, compared to other performance-chips), which uses a double-digit-layer board, a 512 Bit memory bus (from which, as it turned out, the product didn't even profit) and a GPU far north of 400mm².

This argument is groundless. Yield issues were never mentioned in relation to R600, there were no problems with R600 supplies and both performance and cost-down derivates had good OC headroom.

It is, as the existence of HD2900 Pro and GT proves. If they had not had any parts to salvage, there'd be no reason to offer such a variety (1 only downclocked (pro) and two partly disabled (GT, 256-bit-pro)) parts.

Even the full blown 2900 XT had its share of problems with 8800 GTS and their derivates were far to strong to compete against 8600 GTS - and on a remotely different performance level to produce I'd presume.

 

[Scali]

I don't think so, that it depends on how I might look at it. Nobody in their right mind designs a performance-chip from scratch which requires insane amounts of power (for that time, compared to other performance-chips), which uses a double-digit-layer board, a 512 Bit memory bus (from which, as it turned out, the product didn't even profit) and a GPU far north of 400mm².

Yea, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make.
Obviously ATi went for a high-end part.
That doesn't mean consumers see it as high-end.

The exact same situation happened with the AMD Phenom. It was supposed to be the fastest quadcore on the market (some pretty funny videos on Youtube of AMD executives boasting Phenom's performance and superiority), and it had pretty insane power requirements... But its performance was appalling. Slower than the slowest quadcore that Intel offered.

So yes, designed as high-end, but not performing as high-end. Consumers mainly look at price, and price is a result of performance. So they don't see 2900 or Phenom as high-end parts.

 

[compres]

I can - in a way. They force the competition to sell way below the anticipated margins for their high-end, which would be fine, since that is business. But at the same time, they're not making money themeselves, because their bread-and-butter product (HD4850) is not significantly faster than the competitions volume-chip (G92) and so they're into a price war at that level too, but without the significant cost advantage they probably have in the 200 - 300 Euro segment, i.e. HD 4890 vs. GTX260-285.

Pardon my ignorance. Is AMD's graphic division taking a loss after the 4800 series release? Specially compared to when they had the 3800 would be nice to know.

Somehow it seems to me when AMD had not so competitive products it was fine that they loss money, but now when they have a good product you claim they hurt the industry. I think the one they are hurting is their competitor, but would like to see the facts behind your reasoning.

Edit: Ahh CarstenS, sorry I missed that bit, did not refresh page in time.

 

[CarstenS]

Pardon my ignorance.

Please read on in the posting, you've just quoted.

 

[Razor1]

I don't necessarily agree with the veracity of razor's argument but I get the gist of what he's saying. A price cutting strategy only works if you have a sustainable competitive advantage and can outhustle the competition. So AMD is golden if they're simply smarter and more productive (doing more with less) than everyone else. They can keep prices low and still put out good products. Let's hope that's the case because if not they will get left behind and simply branded as the cheaper/lower-quality option.

As a matter of fact they have to execute flawlessly for a while. They don't have a pile of cash to fall back on when times are rough. It's almost certain that Nvidia poured a lot more cash into R&D in the past year or so than AMD did since the acquisition. I think they're actually lucky that Nvidia got sidetracked by this whole CUDA business else it could have been messy. On the other hand I think Jawed pointed out the potential cash cow that GPGPU could be in the future if it takes off. So AMD could miss that boat if they don't shift some focus that way as well.

And in terms of hurting the industry - well if everybody follows AMD into low-ASP/low-margin territory eventually things will slow down.

Thats a little different then what I was getting at, AMD's whole stratagy was to gain marketshare, and if anyone says anything else it really doesn't make sense, they have a chip that is cheaper to make then the compitition and the pricing of their cards, was to undercut nV. But by doing so they forced nV's hand, if they didn't expect nV to follow suite that is a major mistake, if they throught nV would follow suite then there is no benefit to thier price cuts. Only thing they were going for is marketshare at any cost, did they get it, no, so they failed. Now on the other side, they just hurt nV. Thats why I'm saying the entire market.

First they weren't able to accomplish what they wanted, instead they didn't get money which they should have, secondly, screwed up the other company. Thirdly add in the economy, its just a crap shot now.

 

[Scali]

I think AMD has bigger worries than ATi/NV right now.
Intel is forcing AMD out of the server market now, and in a few months, Core i5 will push AMD out of the mainstream desktop market aswell.
Since AMD wasn't doing very well as it is, this is probably the end of the line for AMD, and therefore ATi.

 

[LordEC911]

Thats a little different then what I was getting at, AMD's whole stratagy was to gain marketshare, and if anyone says anything else it really doesn't make sense, they have a chip that is cheaper to make then the compitition and the pricing of their cards, was to undercut nV. But by doing so they forced nV's hand, if they didn't expect nV to follow suite that is a major mistake, if they throught nV would follow suite then there is no benefit to thier price cuts. Only thing they were going for is marketshare at any cost, did they get it, no, so they failed. Now on the other side, they just hurt nV. Thats why I'm saying the entire market.

First they weren't able to accomplish what they wanted, instead they didn't get money which they should have, secondly, screwed up the other company. Thirdly add in the economy, its just a crap shot now.

What, you are saying a 3.5% increase in marketshare for discrete GPUs is a fail?
Edit- those are numbers from Q2 '08 to Q3 '08. I, for one, think they have had an even bigger impact in marketshare for Q1 '09.

 

[Speccy]

they have a chip that is cheaper to make then the compitition and the pricing of their cards, was to undercut nV.

Cheaper chip = badly undercutting. This is fantastic logic.

Could it not just be that the pricing is "fair" pricing given the size of the chip? Remember, G92 is about the same size and NVIDIA initially launched that lower than RV770, it it quickly fell even below 4850's price. The logic of blaming AMD for damaging the market is astonishing, when indications are that the pricing of the chips is fair, given what happened with G92 in the prior months.

 

[Razor1]

What, you are saying a 3.5% increase in marketshare for discrete GPUs is a fail?
Edit- those are numbers from Q2 '08 to Q3 '08. I, for one, think they have had an even bigger impact in marketshare for Q1 '09.

JPR's numbers don't agree with you just check they are available. Last Q and the Q before that.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1286359&postcount=600


Interesting isn't it

Cheaper chip = badly undercutting. This is fantastic logic.
Could it not just be that the pricing is "fair" pricing given the size of the chip? Remember, G92 is about the same size and NVIDIA initially launched that lower than RV770, it it quickly fell even below 4850's price. The logic of blaming AMD for damaging the market is astonishing, when indications are that the pricing of the chips is fair, given what happened with G92 in the prior months.

No in the end both companies got hurt, AMD didn't reach any signficant goal, remember this http://arstechnica.com/hardware/new...nificant-market-share-gain-by-end-of-2008.ars, did that happen, no. Hmm look above

 

[Speccy]

No in the end both companies got hurt, AMD didn't reach any signficant goal, remember this http://arstechnica.com/hardware/new...nificant-market-share-gain-by-end-of-2008.ars, did that happen, no. Hmm look above

This asinine line of reasoning appears goes against your prior assertion. Given that we have prior history to indicate that the prices of RV770 were fair market prices it seems like they didn’t further “trash” pricing to gain marketshare.

There’s nothing to indicate that AMD’s pricing was set too low. All that we see is GT200 was woefully under-competitive given its size.

 

[Razor1]

This asinine line of reasoning appears goes against your prior assertion. Given that we have prior history to indicate that the prices of RV770 were fair market prices it seems like they didn’t further “trash” pricing to gain marketshare.

There’s nothing to indicate that AMD’s pricing was set too low. All that we see is GT200 was woefully under-competitive given its size.

really tell me what the last 4 gens pricing was like. Instead of just talking show me where your statistical data is coming from, or is that being asinine?

I just showed you two links, qaurterly numbers and what AMD's position was, and that was my two original points, also in a conference call or interview they specifically stated the % they were going after in desktop discrete for Q4.

 

[Entropy]

It seems that some make the assumption that ATI/AMD and nVidia would have gotten higher profits if they simply had priced their cards higher. The underlying assumption is that their market is captive, and that graphics ASICs will sell in the same (total) numbers regardless of what is offered to the market.
While there is some truth to that, their sales the last couple of quarters also show that the assumption of a captive audience is largely false. Higher prices could have been productive for the respective companies if it didn't cause their sales to drop even further, and if OEMs didn't decide to move even more strongly towards IGPs for cost reasons, and if that lower market penetration didn't further weaken the position of graphics as a sales driver.
The ASPs of desktops and notebooks are falling. Gaming, with the misguided(?) help of Microsoft is moving away from PCs.
I don't think AMD or nVidia has a choice.

 

[Speccy]

really tell me what the last 4 gens pricing was like.

G92 was launched just 7 months before RV770 for an intented pricing of $199-$249 - this launched in a very similar segment to where RV770 was clearly targetted. The die size of G92, the best indicator to cost, is 30% larger than RV770.

If you want to suggest that AMD's pricing of RV770 is dragging the market down, then you should look to NVIDIA and G92 prior to RV770.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I think it's pretty safe to assume that GT300 will be a G80/GT200 evolution i.e. it won't be as drastic architectural change as NV20->NV30 or G70->G80 was.

I somewhat disagree.

I believe GT300 will be a major architectural change, even if perhaps not an extremely drastic one.

I expect GT300 to be more of a change from GT200 than NV40-->NV47/G70, or G80-->GT200.

Perhaps somewhat less than NV25 ==>NV30. I'd say going from GT200 to GT300 will be somewhat like going from NV47/G70 -->G80.

GT300 is supposed to be Nvidia's first new architecture since G80 in 2006, and, it'll be Nvidia's answer to Larrabee. The GT300 is, finally, NV60, whereas everything we've had after G80/NV50 has been basicly NV5x.

 

[Razor1]

G92 was launched just 7 months before RV770 for an intented pricing of $199-$249 - this launched in a very similar segment to where RV770 was clearly targetted. The die size of G92, the best indicator to cost, is 30% larger than RV770.

If you want to suggest that AMD's pricing of RV770 is dragging the market down, then you should look to NVIDIA and G92 prior to RV770.

You know you aren't making much sense here, because with the g92, nV was able to maximize thier margins (net and gross profits too) for 2 quarters straight (2 q's prior to the economoic down turn)

 

[Speccy]

You know you aren't making much sense here, because with the g92, nV was able to maximize thier margins (net and gross profits too) for 2 quarters straight.

What? The launch pricing was lower than RV770 models launched at despite a significantly larger die size.

 

[Razor1]

What? The launch pricing was lower than RV770 models launched at despite a significantly larger die size.

what cards are you talking about, g92+? or g92 because first you are saying 7 months before the launch of the rv770, then you talking about launch price was lower, doesn't make much sense, the 9800 gtx was launched 7 months before, but then you have 8800 gt, both these cards are still more expensive then the range you are stating. The g92+ came out at the price you stated but not in the time frame you stated.

 

[no-X]

It is, as the existence of HD2900 Pro and GT proves. If they had not had any parts to salvage, there'd be no reason to offer such a variety (1 only downclocked (pro) and two partly disabled (GT, 256-bit-pro)) parts.

PRO and GT were only short-term products - clearance of stock before RV670 arrived. Majority of them were re-flashed HD2900XT boards with 512bit memory bus despite the former plan was to use cheaper 256bit PCB.

Cost-down products aren't good indicators of yields - manufacturers often use full-fledged GPUs, because demand of these cheap products is higher than the number of defective parts. It's better for the manufacturer to sell some GPUs for lower prices, than to leave the segment to competitor.

You can also notice, that there are even HD4830 boards, whose SIMDs are not even disabled to 640...

 

[fellix]

Hm, I think the 2900GT's were all 256-bit. The VRM circuit was also simplified, no Rage Theater ASIC and so on - clicky!

 

[LordEC911]

JPR's numbers don't agree with you just check they are available. Last Q and the Q before that.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1286359&postcount=600


Interesting isn't it

Ummm... talking about Nvidia vs AMD/ATi, I wasn't including Intel in those numbers, see "discrete."
Obviously we get our numbers from different sources.