Terrible news for Nvidia
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A rather apologetic, somewhat "ignore the man behind the curtains, nVidia is still doing great!" article...
http://www.penstarsys.com/editor/company/nvidia/2q_2004/index.html
http://www.penstarsys.com/editor/company/nvidia/2q_2004/index.html
I guess Josh hasn't heard of RV410.
thatdude90210
Regular
The "Smooth Transition to PCI-E" part is a complete denial - a "very robust lineup of PCI-E cards" that every tier one oem has rejected so far...Ratchet said:
Haha, you are right, I haven't heard of the RV410! I can't wait to see it!
As for being an apologist, I guess I don't see it that way. While reading all the stock news and articles, I was reminded of chicken little yelling that the sky was falling. The sky isn't falling, and NVIDIA weathered a pretty brutal 2nd quarter while still pulling a small profit. Here NV released the NV40's, but didn't have any product. OEM's and retail buyers knew the NV40's were coming, so how many were willing to pony up the money to buy old technology when "the next best thing" was right around the corner? Of course it turned out the NV40's were very late to market, which certainly didn't help things.
PCI-E inventory is pretty overrated, and I am surprised that Huang was blaming Intel for this. If part of NVIDIA's original forcast was to ship x amount of PCI-E cards in 2Q, then I can see where their forecasts would be off. As for NVIDIA having far too much PCI-E inventory and no buyers, that constitutes probably around $12 million in inventory (and out of 264 million total, that isn't very much).
So, not trying to sugar coat anything, and my final word is that they would see some growth in 3Q due to them ACTUALLY HAVING NV4x PRODUCTS SHIPPING FOR REVENUE. They had a crap 2Q, and a large part of that was due to their inability to ship revenue making quantities of NV4x parts.
Edit: BTW, while taking a quick look at Tier 1 OEM's and their offerings, all of the majors are using a mix of ATI and NVIDIA PCI-E cards, except Dell (which only features ATI's cards). Not exactly the "unmitigated disaster" of "no major OEM's supporting NV PCI-E". And the base card for several of the big guys (like HP and Gateway) is the GeForce PCX (yes, edited from GeForce FX PCI-E) product.
As for being an apologist, I guess I don't see it that way. While reading all the stock news and articles, I was reminded of chicken little yelling that the sky was falling. The sky isn't falling, and NVIDIA weathered a pretty brutal 2nd quarter while still pulling a small profit. Here NV released the NV40's, but didn't have any product. OEM's and retail buyers knew the NV40's were coming, so how many were willing to pony up the money to buy old technology when "the next best thing" was right around the corner? Of course it turned out the NV40's were very late to market, which certainly didn't help things.
PCI-E inventory is pretty overrated, and I am surprised that Huang was blaming Intel for this. If part of NVIDIA's original forcast was to ship x amount of PCI-E cards in 2Q, then I can see where their forecasts would be off. As for NVIDIA having far too much PCI-E inventory and no buyers, that constitutes probably around $12 million in inventory (and out of 264 million total, that isn't very much).
So, not trying to sugar coat anything, and my final word is that they would see some growth in 3Q due to them ACTUALLY HAVING NV4x PRODUCTS SHIPPING FOR REVENUE. They had a crap 2Q, and a large part of that was due to their inability to ship revenue making quantities of NV4x parts.
Edit: BTW, while taking a quick look at Tier 1 OEM's and their offerings, all of the majors are using a mix of ATI and NVIDIA PCI-E cards, except Dell (which only features ATI's cards). Not exactly the "unmitigated disaster" of "no major OEM's supporting NV PCI-E". And the base card for several of the big guys (like HP and Gateway) is the GeForce PCX (yes, edited from GeForce FX PCI-E) product.
Josh - there are no GeForce "FX" PCIe products; the PCIe versions of FX are "GeForce PCX"
Want to know a secret. Ati went for quite awhile with out making any profit at all. A huge loss of profits is bad, but they are still not in the red. AMD was in the red for years and years. Sorry I just find it strange that people are freaking out, as long as they make a profit they make a profit and it is good enough. It may not be stellar but companies that never go intot the red dont go bankrupt either.
edit: But I don't care aboput jsen whatever his name is, by all means fire him and most of the pr staff as well. Especially if you think it would make Nv better off and make faster cards for cheaper... that is all I am interested in how good a card I can get for the money. And btw 6800's in sli mode next year sounds cool.
edit: But I don't care aboput jsen whatever his name is, by all means fire him and most of the pr staff as well. Especially if you think it would make Nv better off and make faster cards for cheaper... that is all I am interested in how good a card I can get for the money. And btw 6800's in sli mode next year sounds cool.
I haven't checked lately, but the initial offerings of pci-e from tier 1 oems was pretty much exclusively ATI products. Perhaps Nvidia discounting their chips at the end of July has gotten them some inclusion.
<edit> HP/Compaq do not offer nvidia pci-e products, ATI only. For Gateway I couldn't find any pci-e products for sale.
I think my quick look was a little too quick! After going back over those pages I looked at, I noticed that the HP offering only comes pre-built with the i915G integrated graphics, while the custom system is based on the i848 chipset (so it is AGP only).
The Gateway stuff is a bit confusing, as it doesn't say whether it is AGP or PCI-E. Some of their offerings indicate one or the other, but I couldn't nail anything down.
Hmm, makes me wonder if you guys are in fact correct and that every major Tier 1 player has turned their back on NVIDIA PCX products. I am going to have to dig more.
The Gateway stuff is a bit confusing, as it doesn't say whether it is AGP or PCI-E. Some of their offerings indicate one or the other, but I couldn't nail anything down.
Hmm, makes me wonder if you guys are in fact correct and that every major Tier 1 player has turned their back on NVIDIA PCX products. I am going to have to dig more.
I recall Bridged Quadro's getting some Tier-1 OEM workstation slots, but off the top of my head I can't think of any PCX wins with the Teir-1's.
Doomtrooper
Veteran
Ratchet said:
Wrong, ummm the 6800 launched before the X800 ..like a month before.
I also can't believe how much weight that Josh put into Doom 3 being the savior for Nvidia...
You could get a hold of X800 Pro's at the end of May (I can attest to that, as I bought one), but you couldn't get a hold of a 6800 as easily as that until mid-July.
Doom 3 is not the savior of NVIDIA, but it does provide a much greater impetus for the average gamer (who plays Doom 3) to consider upgrading to an NVIDIA based card instead of ATI. In the past several days, more than 150,000 copies have been sold in the United States (and that is probably a conservative estimate). Now, if perhaps even 1/10th of those people are so unhappy with their performance that they will go out and buy a video card the next day, what do you think their choice of video cards would be? I would say overwhelmingly it would be for a 6800 based model (if they want to spend more than $250 that is). Within the next three months, how many of those Doom 3 users will want to upgrade? I would say a good portion of them who have GeForce 4 class cards and below. Again, NVIDIA may get the majority of users to upgrade to their cards simply due to their overall competence in DX9 titles as well as what is viewed as significantly better performance in Doom 3 (and its eventual spin-offs).
Now, if Half Life 2 had been released 6 months ago, the story would have been very different. ATI cards would have had the upper hand, and those with slower NVIDIA and ATI cards would have probably been more apt to buy ATI due to what Gabe has proclaimed as "20% faster performance". Of course, six months ago nobody knew about the 6800 in detail.
So, I am basically trying to say that Doom 3 is not the end all be all for video card sales, but when a company can expect up to a 5% jump in sales due to this single factor, that is very significant in itself.
Doom 3 is not the savior of NVIDIA, but it does provide a much greater impetus for the average gamer (who plays Doom 3) to consider upgrading to an NVIDIA based card instead of ATI. In the past several days, more than 150,000 copies have been sold in the United States (and that is probably a conservative estimate). Now, if perhaps even 1/10th of those people are so unhappy with their performance that they will go out and buy a video card the next day, what do you think their choice of video cards would be? I would say overwhelmingly it would be for a 6800 based model (if they want to spend more than $250 that is). Within the next three months, how many of those Doom 3 users will want to upgrade? I would say a good portion of them who have GeForce 4 class cards and below. Again, NVIDIA may get the majority of users to upgrade to their cards simply due to their overall competence in DX9 titles as well as what is viewed as significantly better performance in Doom 3 (and its eventual spin-offs).
Now, if Half Life 2 had been released 6 months ago, the story would have been very different. ATI cards would have had the upper hand, and those with slower NVIDIA and ATI cards would have probably been more apt to buy ATI due to what Gabe has proclaimed as "20% faster performance". Of course, six months ago nobody knew about the 6800 in detail.
So, I am basically trying to say that Doom 3 is not the end all be all for video card sales, but when a company can expect up to a 5% jump in sales due to this single factor, that is very significant in itself.
Doomtrooper
Veteran
Josh you realize that PC gaming for EA GAMES makes up 12% of overall game sales, 150,000 copies doesn't touch The Sims. The best selling PC game of all time is MYST with 5.5 million copies sold. The reason why these titles dominate, low system requirements.
Shooters make up 9.5 percent of overall sales....I get really tired of the Doom 3 is the savior to us all BS.
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features_new/pc_game_biz/index.asp
People are not so quick to pay $400 for a video card when a console is half the cost...this is not Quake 2 1989.
Shooters make up 9.5 percent of overall sales....I get really tired of the Doom 3 is the savior to us all BS.
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features_new/pc_game_biz/index.asp
People are not so quick to pay $400 for a video card when a console is half the cost...this is not Quake 2 1989.
