Discussion Ada/'Lovelace'? Next gen Nvidia gaming architecture speculation

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biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
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Possibly more. As Gamer's Nexus pointed out multiple times in his review, if the 4070Ti was still called a 4080 then it would have been seen as having even less generational improvement over the 3080.
Yeah saw that too, basically it’s all about the price.
 

utahraptor

Golden Member
Apr 26, 2004
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I started my hunt November 18th and finally got an order placed. I decided to hold out for the Aorus Master which made it harder. Assuming it does not get cancelled I just hope it fits in my case.
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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Would nvidia have gotten the same flak if they had named the 4080 -> 4080Ti and the 4070Ti -> 4080 (and launched it @ $799)?

Name's are irrelevant to me other than the confusion aspect (different products sharing a name).

What matters is perf/$.

The 4070 Ti is has better than average perf/$ for the new generation (NV 4000 and AMD 7000), plus it's the cheapest of the new gen so far, so the most accessible.

So really doesn't seem that bad for this generation, definitely no worse than the rest of the new gen stuff.
 

Aapje

Golden Member
Mar 21, 2022
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The 4070 Ti is has better than average perf/$ for the new generation (NV 4000 and AMD 7000), plus it's the cheapest of the new gen so far, so the most accessible.

So really doesn't seem that bad for this generation, definitely no worse than the rest of the new gen stuff.

But everything in this generation is bad, so slightly less worse than bad is still bad.

It's not all that much faster than a 3080 but $100 more, so just a slightly improved perf/$.

I wouldn't suggest upgrading to it unless you have a dog of a GPU or the dog ate your GPU.
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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But everything in this generation is bad, so slightly less worse than bad is still bad.

It's not all that much faster than a 3080 but $100 more, so just a slightly improved perf/$.

I wouldn't suggest upgrading to it unless you have a dog of a GPU or the dog ate your GPU.

So slightly improved is bad?

I know everyone dreams of massive improvements for the same money, but is that realistic? If it is, why didn't AMD provide it and take massive market share. Doubly so, since AMD's MCM chips give it a production cost advantage...
 
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DooKey

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Nov 9, 2005
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So slightly improved is bad?

I know everyone dreams of massive improvements for the same money, but is that realistic? If it is, why didn't AMD provide it and take massive market share. Doubly so, since AMD's MCM chips give it a production cost advantage...
LOL. Don't bring stuff like that up. NV is the debil.
 
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biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
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So slightly improved is bad?

I know everyone dreams of massive improvements for the same money, but is that realistic? If it is, why didn't AMD provide it and take massive market share. Doubly so, since AMD's MCM chips give it a production cost advantage...

Yes, it is Intel 14+++++ bad. If it has roughly the same performance for roughly the same price, then why even call it an improvement? And the card it should be compared to is the $699 3080, which in specs it is most closely related to. Is it now a good deal?
 
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jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
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Yes, it is Intel 14+++++ bad. If it has roughly the same performance for roughly the same price, then why even call it an improvement? And the card it should be compared to is the $699 3080, which in specs it is most closely related to. Is it now a good deal?

You probably should compare it to the 3080 12 GB, which only got an official price when it was cut to $799. So it is better at least.

The 4070 OTOH is looking like roughly 3080 10 GB performance and would most likely be $699. The 4060 Ti is looking like somewhere between the 3070 and 3070 Ti and would most likely be $599.
 

Aapje

Golden Member
Mar 21, 2022
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So slightly improved is bad?

Yes, compared to a normal generation where the price/performance gets a decent bump each generation it is bad. Compared to the 3080's improvement over the 2080 for the price that it was supposed the be, the 4080 and 4070 Ti are really bad. Do you realize that we can just calculate the price/perf improvement per gen and compare?

I know everyone dreams of massive improvements for the same money, but is that realistic?

Yes, it should be very realistic, because reasonable calculations of the cost changes for the new cards do not suggest that such a huge price increase is warranted for the 4080 and the 4070 Ti.

Nvidia's price changes are also completely inconsistent with the cost price going up by a huge amount, because any such increase would impact the 4090 the most, since it is the only tier where the chip didn't shrink significantly. Yet that is the card with the smallest increase in MSRP. So then you have to believe that Nvidia would accept a huge loss in margin for their top tier. I have a bridge to sell you if you believe that.

Also, we know that the 4070 Ti's price was initially inflated, because they lowered the price by $100 when they relaunched it as this tier instead of as an identical 4080 12GB. So again, I have a bridge to sell you if you think that they couldn't just decrease the price of the 4080 by $100 without blinking an eye.

If it is, why didn't AMD provide it and take massive market share. Doubly so, since AMD's MCM chips give it a production cost advantage...

It doesn't provide AMD with a massive advantage, because N31 underperforms significantly. N31's GCD is about on par with the monolithic AD103 that is slightly bigger, but doesn't have the cost of 6 MCD's and the interconnects and has a smaller bus. No way this is what they planned for.

Also, Lisa Su consistently chooses to make long-term commitments for relatively few wafers and aim for relatively high prices, rather than volume. This is also why they lost market share during the mining boom, as each company then clearly sold all they had, so we know that AMD hadn't even bought enough wafers to keep their low market share, let alone fight for growth.

There are strong indications that lots of TSMC orders are getting reduced in size and you can bet your boots that once contracts come up for renewal or when a contract for a product ends, new contracts will be smaller in size. Since fixed costs of chip production are very high, it is likely that TSMC will have to reduce their prices again, to increase demand for wafers, (partially) undoing their price increases during the boom. That makes it more attractive to sell volume rather than go for larger margins.

The optimistic narrative is then that AMD fixes their chip & Lisa Su grows some balls and starts to order more wafers & cuts the prices. It's plausible that TSMC will be open to more flexible contracts, so AMD doesn't get stuck with lots of unsold product if their attempt to gain market share fails. Also, regardless of if they do so, Nvidia seems to have priced the 4080 and 4070 Ti at a level where many people simply won't upgrade at all, even if AMD is not an alternative, so best case scenario is that they need to lower to previous gen prices to sell. A more pessimistic scenario still sees significant price cuts to get customers buying at moderate volume. To keep the prices at this level, you need an extremely pessimistic scenario, like a new GPU mining boom or Jensen actually being insane (which is probably the more realistic option of the two).
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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Yes, compared to a normal generation where the price/performance gets a decent bump each generation it is bad.

There are no "normal" generations anymore. Turing was just like this generation, with only a tiny improvement in perf/$.

Turing with it's tiny improvement, may have set up the deck for the bigger improvement in Ampere (that hardly reached consumer hands because of Scalpers and Miners).

I doubt any kind of big price cuts are incoming. Think back to Turing. We got a couple of "Super" cards to respond to AMDs 5700/5700 XT, but not much other price movement.
 

Aapje

Golden Member
Mar 21, 2022
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There are no "normal" generations anymore. Turing was just like this generation, with only a tiny improvement in perf/$.

Turing with it's tiny improvement, may have set up the deck for the bigger improvement in Ampere (that hardly reached consumer hands because of Scalpers and Miners).

You just need to keep in mind that Jensen is not a smart person. For a CEO, he is ridiculously dumb and seems only capable of the most elementary market analysis:
- 1000 too good sell. Value too good. Next gen perf/$ increase down
- 2000 too bad sell. Value too bad. Next gen perf/$ increase up
- 3000 way too good sell. Value way too good. Next gen perf/$ increase way down

If he was anywhere near intelligent, he wouldn't just look at the previous gen, but look at market conditions. If he had done that, he would have known that the huge demand for 3000 was due to Eth mining, would have seen the crash coming and been able to anticipate it, which he clearly didn't. And he would have know that the huge demand for Ampere wasn't due to the perf/$ being way too high, but due to mining and that this demand was gone. So then he would never have increased prices by this much.

Right now, the big problem for us consumers (and his stakeholders) is that he is still not smart and is probably utterly confused why the 4080 and 4070 Ti are not selling. He's probably got all kinds of insane theories in which these cards will be selling in massive volume any day now. However, I doubt that he can get away with that for the next 2 years, because I don't see shareholders accepting it. And I do expect AMD to lower their prices.

I doubt any kind of big price cuts are incoming. Think back to Turing. We got a couple of "Super" cards to respond to AMDs 5700/5700 XT, but not much other price movement.

But Turing still sold decently. Ada sales are going to be a drama if they don't cut prices. I don't see how Nvidia can explain this to their shareholders.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
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If the 4070 Ti doesn't sell, I think the play might be new Ampere SKUs. I wonder if they are considering selling the full GA103 as the 4070.

I do find it very weird that the 4090 is extremely unavailable. Guessing they are mostly selling the Quadro.
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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If the 4070 Ti doesn't sell, I think the play might be new Ampere SKUs. I wonder if they are considering selling the full GA103 as the 4070.

I don't see the point. 4070 is obviously going to be a cut down AD104. 4070 ti will sell, given a modest price cut if needed.

I do find it very weird that the 4090 is extremely unavailable. Guessing they are mostly selling the Quadro.

Big chip is going to have lower volume and this part is a total beast for the price insensitive crowd. Not remotely surprised it sold out quickly and remains unavailable.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
16,816
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Looks like nVidia could end up having two variants of the 4070 be released. My guess is the second variant has slower GDDR6 and/or has 10 GB instead of 12. Guess that explains why they didn't announce the 4070 at the same time as the 4070 Ti - they are still considering things.
 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
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How many hundred billion dollars is your company worth again?
I never saw that as a criteria for all encompassing intelligence. Jensen is smart on the technical side of things, not necessary in all other things under the sun. He has other ppl taking care of the business and marketing side that helped grow Nvidia into the behemoth its become. When he comes up with crap like a 192-bit bus 4080 and reverses course when realizing how dumb it was, maybe should indicate he is not the brightest bulb in sizing up the market or naming, pricing his products.
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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I never saw that as a criteria for all encompassing intelligence. Jensen is smart on the technical side of things, not necessary in all other things under the sun. He has other ppl taking care of the business and marketing side that helped grow Nvidia into the behemoth its become. When he comes up with crap like a 192-bit bus 4080 and reverses course when realizing how dumb it was, maybe should indicate he is not the brightest bulb in sizing up the market or naming, pricing his products.

It's kind of laughable to attribute the broad growth to other employees, but then look at low level design detail, and then claim Jensen did it.

These days he will be in charge of broad strokes, not the details.
 

amenx

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2004
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It's kind of laughable to attribute the broad growth to other employees, but then look at low level design detail, and then claim Jensen did it.

These days he will be in charge of broad strokes, not the details.
Very much doubt he had nothing to do with the 4080 12gb cock up. In fact, am willing to bet he sticks his nose into more details than necessary. CEOs in charge of broad strokes may apply to the majority of the industry, but doubt Jensen is one of them.