AMD announces Never Settle Reloaded bundle

[3DVagabond]

You see these ridiculous "business moves" because they do not have any other options. They have no new technology to overtake anything out there now, and to even move one of their products off the shelves, will give away money to make it happen.
Ughh... I feel bad for them, but this is getting quite tiresome. I think they should be forced at this point to sell off their IP before it becomes utterly worthless instead of letting them hemmorage whatever it is they have left. I can't actually believe the stockholders are happy with this.
Time to scavenge what is left and sell it. If nobody is buying, then close the doors.

"AMD is shipping game codes, not bundles of cash. You, nor I, have any idea what the real cash cost is to AMD. For all we know they could be free for support given during development. They most certainly aren't paying retail for them, though. "

Yeah, and for all we know, it could be the exact opposite of what you're saying and costing AMD full price. You don't know either.
What it LOOKS like is it's costing AMD money. That is A LOT of games to give away freely.

According to you they weren't going to make it until the end of 2012. When you have some figures then we can decide whether or not this is a ridiculous business move.

 

[sontin]

AMD is shipping game codes, not bundles of cash. You, nor I, have any idea what the real cash cost is to AMD. For all we know they could be free for support given during development. They most certainly aren't paying retail for them, though.

Support? There is no support in Crysis 3. It's a strict business advertising deal: AMD payed money to get the right to advertise their cards with Crysis 3, get their logo in the game and can buy keys from EA.
It's like Farcry 3. How in the world need they more time to optimize the drivers when they had a development partnership?

 

[Keysplayr]

According to you they weren't going to make it until the end of 2012. When you have some figures then we can decide whether or not this is a ridiculous business move.

And if they hadn't received bail out funds again from the middle east?

Look, Bill Gates could suddenly have a brain aneurism and donate 5 billion to AMD and that still probably would only just prolong AMD's departure. I admire your dedication, but at this point, you just need to know when it's over man.

 

[raghu78]

A quick look at AMD's most recent quarterly report would disagree with the assessment that the AMD cards are outselling their Nvidia counterparts. AMD is in deep financial trouble, and its graphics division is barely profitable.

While gamers cheer that AMD is handing out free money, they don't realize that the "great value" AMD offers them isn't because AMD is some benevolent entity that really loves selling cheap gear to gamers, it's because AMD can barely sell any product. Without the funds to invest back into the business, you will see Nvidia's products pull substantially ahead of AMD's, very much in the same way that Intel's products pull ahead of AMD.

It is time to worry about AMD's very survival if they've resorted to shipping bundles of money with each of their large-die cards. I know I am.

Even though this is off topic I want to show that AMD has a much better clue about the industry and technology than some ordinary person on the internet.

Actually AMD's graphics division revenue has reduced because of some strategic decisions. AMD has definitely lost market share in mobile discrete graphics. But AMD has also stopped chasing low volume OEM mobile discrete graphics design wins upto 50,000 units. AMD said this clearly in their Q4 2012 earnings call. AMD also is completely focussed on APUs and sees the trend where the low end of the mobile discrete graphics market will get eaten away by CPU integrated graphics.

With Haswell and Kaveri and future CPU/APUs those cheap entry level discrete GPUs which are found in the USD 600 notebooks will gradually disappear. Nvidia has gained a lot of mobile market share but its clear that these are going to be of no use in the long run as Intel and AMD are going to devote more die space to GPU power, use stacked DRAM and kick the guts of the entry level GPUs.

Discrete GPUs below USD 80 -100 in the desktop space will also eventually disappear. While this is happening, over the next couple of years AMD will see its game console and embedded revenue increase significantly starting from Q4 2013 when its expected to hit 20% of total AMD revenues. This is expected to grow to 40% by 2015 which is the time by which the next gen consoles will be in full throttle. AMD has wrapped the GPU on all 3 consoles this gen and the CPU on two of them (Xbox next and PS4). So AMD has clearly reduced its exposure in the mobile discrete GPU market and has increased its presence in the console market. And for people who forget the last generation has lasted 7 - 8 years. Xbox 360 - Nov 2005 to Nov 2013. PS3 - Nov 2006 to Nov 2013. So AMD is all set to keep milking the console wins till 2020. Over this period the discrete GPU will become a niche product. the discrete GPU market would still exist but would be half its current size or even one fourth.

there used to be a time when sound cards, LAN controllers, USB controllers all used to be sold as separate PCBs. Now everything is integrated into the motherboard and CPU. Today we don't even think about these peripheral chips. there are still sound cards used by professionals and enthusiasts. But the vast majority of consumers now use whats integrated into the motherboard and CPU. thats going to be the case with discrete GPUs. You will still have users buying USD 500 graphics card for multi monitor and new ultra resolutions like 4K. But the overall discrete GPU market will shrink to a fraction of its current size.

Nvidia sees this and thats why they have gone with Tegra and are looking at their own CPU design codenamed Denver by 2014 or 2015. The desktop and mobile discrete Geforce cannot fund future GPU research. The GPU tech has to it finds its way into SOCs in phones, notebooks, desktops and then as stand alone discrete GPU products in servers, workstations and high end gaming desktop/notebooks.

Far from what people think AMD is better positioned for the future and you will see the results starting from Q4 2013 and into the future.

 

[3DVagabond]

Support? There is no support in Crysis 3. It's a strict business advertising deal: AMD payed money to get the right to advertise their cards with Crysis 3, get their logo in the game and can buy keys from EA.
It's like Farcry 3. How in the world need they more time to optimize the drivers when they had a development partnership?

And if they hadn't received bail out funds again from the middle east?

Look, Bill Gates could suddenly have a brain aneurism and donate 5 billion to AMD and that still probably would only just prolong AMD's departure. I admire your dedication, but at this point, you just need to know when it's over man.

Still waiting for either of you to present any figures that show this is a bad business deal.

 

[Aristotelian]

And if they hadn't received bail out funds again from the middle east?

Look, Bill Gates could suddenly have a brain aneurism and donate 5 billion to AMD and that still probably would only just prolong AMD's departure. I admire your dedication, but at this point, you just need to know when it's over man.

It isn't over, man, until the fat lady stops giving out great gaming bundles like this, in addition to highly viable video card options.

I've enjoyed gaming bundles since my tnt2 ultra, I think - Sacrifice was the game? I've never seen someone complain so much that a bundle was 'too generous'.

 

[raghu78]

It isn't over, man, until the fat lady stops giving out great gaming bundles like this, in addition to highly viable video card options.

I've enjoyed gaming bundles since my tnt2 ultra, I think - Sacrifice was the game? I've never seen someone complain so much that a bundle was 'too generous'.

Some people are not bothered about the value AMD provides with their game bundles. They are going to complain, criticize, ridicule whatever AMD does. leave them be.

 

[blackened23]

First it was "AMD doesn't work with developers enough". Now it's "Why would AMD work with developers and include game bundles"

It's a never win situation I suppose.

Financial performance aside, I think it's pretty good for everyone no matter which brand you prefer - It's a good value and likely to prompt nvidia to re-up their old games bundle or create a new one. Again, good for everyone no matter which side you're on. Despite what some may say, SKYMTL @ hardwarecanucks did mention that these bundles do spur sales by an incredible amount.

 

[raghu78]

You see these ridiculous "business moves" because they do not have any other options. They have no new technology to overtake anything out there now, and to even move one of their products off the shelves, will give away money to make it happen.
Ughh... I feel bad for them, but this is getting quite tiresome.

Did Nvidia give away coupons for Borderlands 2, Assassins creed 3 and Call of Duty Black Ops II because they could not move product ? Nvidia is supposed to be the industry leader and superior brand. That alone should have been enough. Why did Nvidia have to bundle games ? :whiste:

And there are quite a few TWIMTBP games due in Q1 and Q2. so don't be surprised if Nvidia comes with their own game bundle again.

 

[Olikan]

First it was "AMD doesn't work with developers enough". Now it's "Why would AMD work with developers and include game bundles"

It's a never win situation I suppose.

/win thread

 

[sontin]

Even though this is off topic I want to show that AMD has a much better clue about the industry and technology than some ordinary person on the internet.

AMD's gpu business decreased a second time since 2010. How have they "a much better clue about the industry and technology than some ordinary person on the internet" when their business failed to grow?

Actually AMD's graphics division revenue has reduced because of some strategic decisions. AMD has definitely lost market share in mobile discrete graphics. But AMD has also stopped chasing low volume OEM mobile discrete graphics design wins upto 50,000 units. AMD said this clearly in their Q4 2012 earnings call. AMD also is completely focussed on APUs and sees the trend where the low end of the mobile discrete graphics market will get eaten away by CPU integrated graphics.

nVidia's Geforce business is up 15% over the last year. AMD's whole graphics business is down 15% from last year.
AMD's processor business is down over 30% from last year. AMD is eating nothing, they got eaten by Intel and nVidia.

With Haswell and Kaveri and future CPU/APUs those cheap entry level discrete GPUs which come with GDDR3 and are found in the USD 600 notebooks will gradually disappear. Nvidia has gained a lot of mobile market share but its clear that these are going to be of no use in the long run as Intel and AMD are going to devote more die space to GPU power, use stacked DRAM and kick the guts of the entry level GPUs.

"In the long run"? Like it will happen with SB and Llano? Or with IB and Trinity? Next year we see 20nm which will give another 50%+ perf/watt boost. Right now a GT640m is 50-100% faster than IB and 30-70% faster than Trinity. Haswell will only catch up with the second slowest offering from nVidia.

Discrete GPUs below USD 80 -100 in the desktop space will also eventually disappear. While this is happening over the next couple of years AMD will see its game console and embedded revenue increase significantly starting from Q4 2013 when its expected to hit 20% of total AMD revenues. This is expected to grow to 40% by 2015 which is the time by which the next gen consoles will be in full throttle. AMD has wrapped the GPU on all 3 consoles this gen and the CPU on two of them (Xbox next and PS4). So AMD has clearly reduced its exposure in the mobile discrete GPU market and has increased its presence in the console market. And for people who forget the last generation has lasted 7 - 8 years. Xbox 360 - Nov 2005 to Nov 2013. PS3 - Nov 2006 to Nov 2013. So AMD is all set to keep milking the console wins till 2020. Over this period the discrete GPU will become a niche product. the discrete GPU market would still exist but would be half its current size or even one fourth.

You have absoluty no clue how the marktet will evolute over the time.
The discrete market will not shrink - thx to china, brazil, india...

there used to be a time when sound cards, LAN controllers, USB controllers all used to be sold as separate PCBs. Now everything is integrated into the motherboard and CPU. Today we don't even think about these peripheral chips. there are still sound cards used by professionals and enthusiasts. But the vast majority of consumers now use whats integrated into the motherboard and CPU. thats going to be the case with discrete GPUs. You will still have users buying USD 500 graphics card for multi monitor and new ultra resolutions like 4K. But the overall discrete GPU market will shrink to a fraction of its current size.

And why has the discrete markt grown over the last years when the bottem would be enough? IB is as fast as a high end card from 8 years ago. An yet we have much faster chips.

You know what is funny that even tablets will have a much higher resolution than notebooks. Good luck to drive a notebook with 1080p+ with an integrated gpu.

Nvidia sees this and thats why they have gone with Tegra and are looking at their own CPU design codenamed Denver by 2014 or 2015. The desktop and mobile discrete Geforce cannot fund future GPU research. The GPU tech has to it finds its way into SOCs in phones, notebooks, desktops and then as stand alone discrete GPU products in servers, workstations and high end gaming desktop/notebooks.

nVidia's desktop and notebook business did $846 millions, AMD's compute solution with CPUs and APUs did $829 millions.
Explain me: How can AMD fund future R&D, when their main business is going down? Their Opex is $450 millions per quarter but yet their graphics business is only bringing $320 millions.

But i know: Embedded system will be at 20% at the end of the year - with magic. :hmm:

I guess i know more over the market than AMD. And that even as an "ordinary person on the internet"- :awe:

 

[Grooveriding]

First it was "AMD doesn't work with developers enough". Now it's "Why would AMD work with developers and include game bundles"

It's a never win situation I suppose.

LOL, basically this.

AMD starts to offer an amazing bundle with their cards, which are performing just fine as stands, competitive or faster than their nvidia counterparts.

Sounds like a complete positive for any gamer looking for a card, some great games and great hardware for a good price. In descend the nvidia shills/fanboy armchair financial analysts explaining why this is awful, looking for pillows for their sore posteriors.

Endless nonsense on this forum.

 

[zebrax2]

I think this actually might have a positive effect financial wise in the long run on both parties. People (average joe) usually recommend to their acquaintances product that they currently have or products from the same brand as long as the product performs satisfactory. The same is true for games wherein people usually recommend games to their friends that they found enjoyable. So in the end it might spur sales thus profit that outweigh the initial investment

 

[Jaydip]

Awesome move from AMD not sure why so many people are upset over this.I like NV but I think its high time they offer something similar.

 

[raghu78]

nVidia's Geforce business is up 15% over the last year. AMD's whole graphics business is down 15% from last year.
AMD's processor business is down over 30% from last year. AMD is eating nothing, they got eaten by Intel and nVidia.

AMD's GPU division is profitable. What AMD is doing is systematically getting rid of exposure to the most vulnerable part of the GPU market. AMD's cpu business is their single biggest concern towards long term survival. the negligible presence of AMD CPUs in high margin segments like servers, workstations , high end desktops / notebooks is their biggest concern. For that they need an Athlon 64 moment. To survive in the short term they are looking at improving efficiency, optimizing their CPU design and manufacturing processes (synthesis tools instead of custom designs), reducing opex and choosing where they want to compete very carefully. the focus on dense servers for cloud and the console designs sweep is a good indication of that. They can't afford to take on Intel in every market segment.

"In the long run"? Like it will happen with SB and Llano? Or with IB and Trinity? Next year we see 20nm which will give another 50%+ perf/watt boost. Right now a GT640m is 50-100% faster than IB and 30-70% faster than Trinity. Haswell will only catch up with the second slowest offering from nVidia.

Till now the biggest issue was bandwidth. with TSV (through silicon vias) and stacked DRAM solutions the path has been laid down for the GPU to be fed vast amounts of bandwidth. With every node shrink the GPU will get more and more die space. For traditional desktops and notebooks a 4 core , 8 thread Intel CPU is going to be more than enough. Microarchitectural updates like Haswell will increase core size to a small extent but the overall ratio of the CPU and GPU will tilt in favour of GPU. Once bandwidth is taken care of addressing super high resolutions on even tablets is no issue.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6600/...rformance-compared-to-nvidias-geforce-gt-650m

see this. its just the start of the eventual demise of the low end discrete GPUs. but it will be done in 4 - 5 years time.

nVidia's desktop and notebook business did $846 millions, AMD's compute solution with CPUs and APUs did $829 millions.
Explain me: How can AMD fund future R&D, when their main business is going down? Their Opex is $450 millions per quarter but yet their graphics business is only bringing $320 millions.

Just watch the Nvidia discrete GPU revenue in 2 - 3 years time. you will know what everyone is saying including analysts. AMD's problem for the last 2 years has been they took market share at the low end using brazos from Atom and gave up market share everywhere else to Intel . Now tablets from Apple, Google and Samsung have decimated the low end notebook / netbook space. Since AMD was exposed to a larger extent they are getting hit the most. With Kabini and Temash (their first tablet SOC) they have a chance to improve.

But i know: Embedded system will be at 20% at the end of the year - with magic. :hmm:

You are willing to ignore the AMD sweep of the consoles this gen - 2 CPU and 3 GPUs. AMD is in final validation of these parts and they are going to go into volume production in H2 2013 in preparation for the next gen consoles launch by year end. So its not guess work.

 

[Keysplayr]

Awesome move from AMD not sure why so many people are upset over this.I like NV but I think its high time they offer something similar.

Where do you get the idea that anyone is upset over the free game bundle other than a few AMD fans saying so? Free games are great for us consumers. So, I don't see anyone unhappy about that.
No. What this is, or what it appears to be is a death throw. One of the first. That is why these people are deflecting the issue into getting people to think we're upset about a bundle. Don't fall for that. It don't make sense for anyone to new upset about a bundle.
It DOES make sense to see the desperation in this move to get their products off shelves.
So, no matter what Aristotlean or 3DVagabond say, nobody is upset about the bundle itself, but upset its necessary to move AMD product. Or at least feel that way after looking at numbers sontin presents.

P.S. I'm not preaching doom and gloom. I just have zero faith in anything AMD does. Zip.

 

[sontin]

AMD's GPU division is profitable.

nVidia's quadro business did nearly the same operative income in Q3 than AMD's whole graphics business in 2012.

Till now the biggest issue was bandwidth. with TSV (through silicon vias) and stacked DRAM solutions the path has been laid down for the GPU to be fed vast amounts of bandwidth. With every node shrink the GPU will get more and more die space. For traditional desktops and notebooks a 4 core , 8 thread Intel CPU is going to be more than enough. Microarchitectural updates like Haswell will increase core size to a small extent but the overall ratio of the CPU and GPU will tilt in favour of GPU. Once bandwidth is taken care of addressing super high resolutions on even tablets is no issue.

And how is this helping AMD? Haswell will kill everything AMD will offering for nearly 9 months. But i guess that's part of the plan to dominate the world, gell?

Just watch the Nvidia discrete GPU revenue in 2 - 3 years time. you will know what everyone is saying including analysts. AMD's problem for the last 2 years has been they took market share at the low end using brazos from Atom and gave up market share everywhere else to Intel . Now tablets for Apple, Google and Samsung have decimated the low end notebook / netbook space. Since AMD was exposed to a large extent they are getting hit the most. With Kabini and Temash (their first tablet SOC) they have a chance to improve.

nVidia's discrete market business grew over the last three year. There is no reason to believe that this market will shrink with people in countries like china, brazil and india getting richer and richer so they can buy more stuff.
"Having a chance" to improve says nothing. With A15 ARM CPUs are as fast as Jaguar. There is a whole new world coming after their market share in the low end.

You are willing to ignore the AMD sweep of the consoles this gen - 2 CPU and 3 GPUs. AMD is in final validation of these parts and they are going to go into volume production in H2 2013 in preparation for the next gen consoles launch next year end. So its not guess work.

No, i'm ignoring nothing. I don't believe the made up stuff from AMD. 20% of the revenue will be more than $1 billion.
Let me say it so: AMD is saying, that their console deals will made the same money than the their Q1 2013 business in less than two quarters.

Yeah, another bedtime story by AMD and yet people still believing that nonsense.

 

[Zanovar]

You see these ridiculous "business moves" because they do not have any other options. They have no new technology to overtake anything out there now, and to even move one of their products off the shelves, will give away money to make it happen.
Ughh... I feel bad for them, but this is getting quite tiresome. I think they should be forced at this point to sell off their IP before it becomes utterly worthless instead of letting them hemmorage whatever it is they have left. I can't actually believe the stockholders are happy with this.
Time to scavenge what is left and sell it. If nobody is buying, then close the doors.

"AMD is shipping game codes, not bundles of cash. You, nor I, have any idea what the real cash cost is to AMD. For all we know they could be free for support given during development. They most certainly aren't paying retail for them, though. "

Yeah, and for all we know, it could be the exact opposite of what you're saying and costing AMD full price. You don't know either.
What it LOOKS like is it's costing AMD money. That is A LOT of games to give away freely.

Jesus wept keys,do you have anything positive to say about amd?,atleast admit its a great bundle.

 

[Ibra]

AMD's collaboration with developers helping... Yeah right. :whiste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqnAbRpyqfI

 

[joshhedge]

Jesus wept keys,do you have anything positive to say about amd?,atleast admit its a great bundle.

Well he's a focus group member for Nvidia. Clearly not.

Considering AMD offers better performance cards at a lower cost than Nvidia currently and now they're bundling new games with their cards what reason at all is there to buy Nvidia anymore for this current generation. Obviously that's just my opinion.

 

[Zanovar]

Well he's a focus group member for Nvidia. Clearly not.

Considering AMD offers better performance cards at a lower cost than Nvidia currently and now they're bundling new games with their cards what reason at all is there to buy Nvidia anymore for this current generation. Obviously that's just my opinion.

Focus group member or not,i think he has breathing room not to follow the party line so religiously.*winks at keys*
Anyways back ot,i think its a great bundle fill your boots folks.

 

[hyrule4927]

You see these ridiculous "business moves" because they do not have any other options. They have no new technology to overtake anything out there now, and to even move one of their products off the shelves, will give away money to make it happen.
Ughh... I feel bad for them, but this is getting quite tiresome. I think they should be forced at this point to sell off their IP before it becomes utterly worthless instead of letting them hemmorage whatever it is they have left. I can't actually believe the stockholders are happy with this.
Time to scavenge what is left and sell it. If nobody is buying, then close the doors.

"AMD is shipping game codes, not bundles of cash. You, nor I, have any idea what the real cash cost is to AMD. For all we know they could be free for support given during development. They most certainly aren't paying retail for them, though. "

Yeah, and for all we know, it could be the exact opposite of what you're saying and costing AMD full price. You don't know either.
What it LOOKS like is it's costing AMD money. That is A LOT of games to give away freely.

You do realize that Nvidia does free game bundles too? Although I guess you're too busy giving them blowjobs so you can get your free cards every year.

Personal attacks like this are completely uncalled for. I'm giving you a couple days off to think about your posting style. -Admin DrPizza

 

[lavaheadache]

AMD's collaboration with developers helping... Yeah right. :whiste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqnAbRpyqfI

why do games get dumbed down like this in final release? Is it a bad thing if the graphics envelope gets pushed and hardware struggles for a couple gens? I think not, but then again I remember of the cries of wolf when Crysis got released (which destroyed current gen hardware) and even that appeared to have gotten neutered for release

 

[lavaheadache]

You do realize that Nvidia does free game bundles too? Although I guess you're too busy giving them blowjobs so you can get your free cards every year.

I predict a vacation in your future...


I think Keys stance is that giving away so many blockbuster games is a sign of desperation. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't... Either way, if I were in the market for a card it would get me to bite.

 

[SirPauly]

Awesome move from AMD not sure why so many people are upset over this.I like NV but I think its high time they offer something similar.

Agreed! The original never settle bundle was awesome and nVidia offered an impressive bundle as well -- Amd is raising the bundle bar and hopefully nVidia counters.

What's not to like?

I think it is awesome - especially the X-fire bundle.