The LAST R600 Rumours & Speculation Thread

They didn't but they should have, don't you think so?

End of January is when Windows Vista hits the retail and not having DX10 capable card available in stores is going to hurt bad even though DX10 is not a requirement. That was the launch window I was talking about, not to mention missing Christmas and New Year shopping frenzy.

Furthermore, when I say "hurt bad" I am talking only about money and sales, I don't have any doubts as to whether ATI will have better performing DX10 card in the near future because after all that is the meaning of the word "progress".

 

...and I'll try to show you once more where and why I disagree...

In a market where power consumption for each unit is probably at the highest priority, wouldn't also want to think that any delay is less relevant than what each GPU consumes in the end? What convinces you for that particular point that things would have been vastly different if R520 launched at the same time as G70?

You make it sound like ATI was either desperate to be taken over or that AMD made a hostile takeover. None of the two seems to be the case IMO.

Trouble being that you cannot hang it all on one factor alone. I never said that there's no influence at all. Shall we crank out older numbers from the entire NV3x era and compare quarterly earnings for NV instead, which would get us where exactly?

That belongs to the entire strategy ATI has adopted since R3xx, to which I also disagree with. What I'm not certain of is whether they have good reasons or if there are specific interests behind such strategies, since no one can easily convince me that ATI is not aware of the risks and implications of consistently picking the lowest available high performance manufacturing process.

You still haven't told me though what ATI looked like before R300, since I neither remember any particular timely releases, nor as competitive hardware and drivers as since R300.

I said above that ATI and margins don't fit well for me in the same sentence for a reason. I look at the grander scheme of things though and it includes both advantages and disadvantages. If there's one IHV that really can stand up to NVIDIA it is ATI.

Granted ATI could do a lot better, but if you really want to hang the blame on just one individual (which isn't particularly fair) then at least have the decency to also acknowledge his positive contribution; and in that regard IMHO always there are more positives to count than negatives. Unless of course you consider the pre-R300 or Lord help the Rage era as something that is close to ideal.

There are so many improvements ATI achieved for it's own products ever since that someone would have to be blind to not see them; and no I'm not concentrating on the underlying technology itself but from what I as a consumer can benefit from fierce competition.

 

No. Because there are only a minute number of people out there who are willing to spent more than $450 on a DX10 GPU to go with Vista whether it is NV or ATI.
And so far there is no confirmation of there being any other DX10 GPU's at Vista Launch.
Besides it is still unclear if NV has any true DX10 compliant card.

 

Not again, not in this thread please.

 

Nvidia has gross margins in the low 40's and EPS of about .43 cents on quarterly revenue of over $860 million. ATI has slipped to gross margins in the high 20's, negative EPS of at least (.23) on quarterly revenue under $400 million. ATI used to be higher in all three metrics several quarters ago and now Nvidia has basically doubled up on ATI because of ATI's inability to feed the mobile, midrange, server and flagship desktop markets. Nvidia has clear pricing power, is gaining market share and has displaced ATI as king of mobile GPUs. THIS is what ATI has lost by being routinely late on product launches under the leadership of Orton.

You know the technology better than I but I know the companies financials better than you...and numbers don't lie. Orton has failed miserably by ANY metric as CEO. Market share is declining, gross margins have crumbled, mobile leadership has been lost, revenue is crumbling and ATI follows Nvidia's lead...PERIOD. All this started way back with R420 and has gotten steadily worse as time has passed.

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"In a market where power consumption for each unit is probably at the highest priority, wouldn't also want to think that any delay is less relevant than what each GPU consumes in the end? What convinces you for that particular point that things would have been vastly different if R520 launched at the same time as G70?"
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Every delay has cost ATI market share, has negatively impacted gross margins and has resulted in Nvidia gaining mind share. When ATI finally shows up to market, Nvidia is ready to either cut pricing or push clocks on a refresh to take away any pricing power ATI would normally have had if ATI had launched first. The financials and market share data clearly bear this point out.

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"You make it sound like ATI was either desperate to be taken over or that AMD made a hostile takeover. None of the two seems to be the case IMO."
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ATI's stock price was in the $16 range, they had negative eps, they were losing market share to Nvidia and it was only getting worse. Couple that with the eventuality of Intel reclaiming their 3rd party chipset business to fill their fab capacity and we have seen what happened to ATI's revenues. From $650 million to less than $400 million in less than 2 quarters. ATI was warning on guidance, missing their forcasts and otherwise fumbling financially. Yes ATI was desperate and unable to execute and were happy to be saved by AMD.

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"Trouble being that you cannot hang it all on one factor alone. I never said that there's no influence at all. Shall we crank out older numbers from the entire NV3x era and compare quarterly earnings for NV instead, which would get us where exactly?"
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Why on earth would you want to go back 4 years or more? That is ancient history and has no bearing on where either company is now save that Nvidia learned their leasson and ATI did not.

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"That belongs to the entire strategy ATI has adopted since R3xx, to which I also disagree with. What I'm not certain of is whether they have good reasons or if there are specific interests behind such strategies, since no one can easily convince me that ATI is not aware of the risks and implications of consistently picking the lowest available high performance manufacturing process."
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Yet it has cost them time to market and gross margins in every single case. Nvidia is has been using a 1 step older process and has shown the value of that...on time to market, higher gross margins and big profits.


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"You still haven't told me though what ATI looked like before R300, since I neither remember any particular timely releases, nor as competitive hardware and drivers as since R300."
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R3xx is where I entered this saga and don't know crap about what happened before nor is it relevant to where both companies are today.


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"I said above that ATI and margins don't fit well for me in the same sentence for a reason. I look at the grander scheme of things though and it includes both advantages and disadvantages. If there's one IHV that really can stand up to NVIDIA it is ATI.

Granted ATI could do a lot better, but if you really want to hang the blame on just one individual (which isn't particularly fair) then at least have the decency to also acknowledge his positive contribution; and in that regard IMHO always there are more positives to count than negatives. Unless of course you consider the pre-R300 or Lord help the Rage era as something that is close to ideal.

There are so many improvements ATI achieved for it's own products ever since that someone would have to be blind to not see them; and no I'm not concentrating on the underlying technology itself but from what I as a consumer can benefit from fierce competition."
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This is the fundamental difference between the 2 of us. I see things thru the glasses of an investor and you see things thru the glasses of a consumer. While I have a basic understanding of the products my real expertise is with the financials. ATI would still be its own company today had they not fumbled so badly and needed help from AMD. In the end, both ATI and Nvidia are companies that are in the business of making money first and great products second. Although you need great products to make money...you need them in the market on time.

 

I don't think that many people would even consider buying a PC with DX9 graphics card when DX10 is available. At least that is the impression I get from hearing everyone talk about Vista and games.

Perhaps unclear in terms of performance, but in terms of "yes" or "no" it is clearly yes because I have an EVGA 8800GTX box sitting here in front of me which says Full Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Shader Model 4.0 support.

As for cheaper cards supporting DX10, NVIDIA is more likely to have an upper hand there also, since ATI has to introduce top models first. Now talk about not being late.

 

D3D10 has no caps, so you either support all of it or not.

 

I'm sorry, Ailuros, but I have to side rather firmly with overclocked_enthusiasm on this one. This is a business issue, not a technology issue. ATI is out of touch, and their market share is showing it.

 

I am hopefull that R600 is as good as they say because my AGP system is getting very long in the tooth. My x800 XT PE is still humming along well but I know I am starting to miss out on some eye candy as time passes. I will wait before buying to see how good Vista is and then jump on either R600 or 8800 GTX and build my system from there. I just hope the March time frame from the Inq is wrong so i don't have to wait that long. My son is eager to get my x800 and replace his old 9700 pro.

 

DX10 is not just SM4.0.....

but go ahead and see if you can download the DX10 driver from NV's website..

 

I agree with most of your points, but you act as if the companies are fated to bring out equal products. Therefore it's just a question of how small they can get their dies.

That's not true at all. Bigger dies, even more heat, are great, provided they provide a commisurate performance increase. That was ATI's problem..

ATI should have been about twice as fast as Nvidia last time around. That's the bottom line..what would the market share have looked like then? (this is a seperate issue from delays though..)

Big does not equal inefficient..

 

Ummm, what exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean they have the R600 ready, but they are like, "you know what, why don't we delay the damn thing for a couple of months, just for the fun of it?".

 

You can still support some aspects of D3D10 and loudly proclaim that on the boxes you sell your products in..

Unfortunately I cannot check on Nvidia's website what their exact statements on the subject is because I can not see anything other than a white and grey bar on their site (IE+FF)..

 

Oh, certainly not. What I think is that they're not putting enough focus on the market. I think that the mistake that resulted in not getting the R600 out on time was likely made more than six months ago, perhaps as long as two years ago.

Here is, personally, what I think ATI needs to do:
1. Step up developer relations. From everything I've seen and heard, they're still far behind nVidia here.
2. Increase interaction with consumers. ATI seems to be focusing on the technology, not the consumer. They seem to have forgotten that the best video card in the world won't earn you sales if the customer doesn't want it.
3. Focus on an accelerated release schedule. nVidia is not sitting down on the job, and ATI is going to have to release earlier if they want a chance of competing.

 

Financials don't render any pixels on my screen; technology does. I never claimed to be better informed on the technology front that's your impression, as for the financials the world is full of armchair analysts and it takes only a couple of clicks to copy/paste sterile numbers from according internet sources.

I seem to be addressing a brick wall here; do you understand the importance of power consumption in a laptop yes or no?

Ok. Thank God that graphics IHVs aren't driven by any stock analyst then....

Just because it has no bearing for you it doesn't mean the same for others too.

Did I say otherwise?

Then spare me the financial lecture if you please, since some of us have been around for quite a bit longer and some of use have a wider picture for what ATI stood and stands for both on the financial as on the technology front.

This is a technology oriented site and forum last time I checked. Why should I care in the slightest about your interests when you apparently don't care either what I get for my money and in extension on my screen?

In order to have income - let alone any profit - it takes a great product first. There's no chicken-egg dilemma here.

If you're so good in financials as you've repeated for so many times in one single post, then let me know if ATI's financials would be any better if they would had released for several product cycles now in a timely fashion yet with less competitive products in the end. Want to bet that if R600 was released say a month before G80 that ATI would had been accused for a large flop?

 

So, I've been at home from college for a while and was really bad about checking my B3D mail. So, when cleaning out the spam today, I noticed something you guys might find interesting:

Never talked to these guys before, and I've got no idea who they are. This was totally out of the blue. Dated 12/30/06, 06:29:19 -0800.

I need to get better about checking my email. Occasionally, fun things show up!

 

Two days huh...?!

Hehe.. I think it will be some time before we'll get to see those benchmarks at the higher resolutions...

 

comments@level505.com is the return address.

 

With as many different architectures, one significant PC product cancellation and what not, the period might even be longer.

Someone told me some time ago when I asked why ATI consistently choses the smallest manufacturing processes that they might have some sort of special agreement with TSMC to get better prices for those. I haven't the slightest clue if such agreements even exist, but if yes then it would at least explain part of the whole reasoning behind it.

That still obviously isn't anywhere close as being better to the "minimize risk/maximize margins" strategy of NV, but it would at least explain why ATI hasn't as rapidly changed strategy as NV did after the NV30 flop.