AMD Roy Taylor "GK110 is not something which was designed to be a gfx"

csbin

Senior member
Feb 4, 2013
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http://www.techpowerup.com/180345/C...adeon-Graphics-Teleconference-Transcript.html

**Conference coordinator welcomes participants, briefs on the technical format of the teleconference**

"...thank you for standing by, and welcome to the AMD graphics strategy update. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question & answer, at which time if you wish to ask a question, you need to press * and 1 on your telephone."

"…I would now like to hand over the conference to your speaker for the day, Chris Brown, please go ahead."

**Speaker for the day Christine Brown takes over, welcomes journalists, and makes opening remarks**

"Thank you [coordinator], good afternoon everyone, my name is Chris Brown, from AMD EMEA PR, and I'd like to thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. During our call today, we'd really like to focus, and provide you with an update on the AMD graphics strategy, so to be clear, we're not providing any major announcements today, we really brought you together, because this week we've seen some confusion, I think, in the markets, and we wanted to clear the air, and answer any questions you may have. So, to that end, we brought together some key AMD executives to support this call. On the line, we have Roy Taylor, vice president of worldwide component channel sales; we have Darren McPhee, director of worldwide graphics product marketing; and we have Devon Nekechuk and David Ballman, product managers from the graphics team. Our update will last just about five minutes, and then we plan to open up the call to your questions. There's no presentation, and no NDA, this is really your chance to have your questions addressed on AMD's GPU strategy for 2013, as well as for us to provide any insights on what we're seeing in the current marketplace. So with that, let me hand you over to Darren.

**Darren McPhee takes over**

"Thanks Christine, thanks everyone for joining. I'm going to just talk just a couple of points to build on what Christine was saying. The first place I want to start is talking about "Sea Islands," because that's something that there's been a lot of misconception, and maybe a little bit of confusion about what that is. "Sea Islands" is basically a codename for a series of products on our roadmap this year, for both notebook and desktop, and prioritized especially for our OEM business on the notebook side. When you saw us launch the 8000M in January of this year, it was part of the "Sea Islands" series of products, we'll be releasing other products this year, as part of that series. There was some perception that "Sea Islands" was desktop-only, but that's actually not the case. "Sea Islands" was very much about notebook and OEM design cycles, as well as some desktop parts."

"That said; let's talk about the first half of this year. The first half of this year, as of today, and going forward, for us and the channel, the 7000 series is very strong. We have performance leadership at every single price-point, we see that family continuing to gain momentum, and we have plans in the first half to actually add into that product family as well, with some new editions. We have right now what we think is the best promotion we, or anyone else, has ever done, with the "Never Settle Reloaded" bundle, and we're getting fantastic feedback from customers and partners on that, and that's really driving additional momentum for the 7000 series."

"We have the world's fastest graphics card with ASUS, when they launched the ARES II, a few weeks ago, and that gives us performance leadership, and 7990. So the first half for us, 7000 series is very strong, and we see it just doing nothing but better. As we go into the second half of this year, we are on track to continue to execute our graphics roadmap plan, and you'll see us starting to ship new products in the channel by the end of this year. Hopefully, that is a very quick summary of where things are, but hopefully that clears up things a bit, based on some of the coverage that was out there, in the past week or two. With that, we can open it up for some questions, Christine?"

**Christine takes over; coordinator opens up the participants' lines for questions**

Coordinator: "your first question comes from [journalist A], go ahead."

[journalist A]: "Hi guys, are you releasing a reference 7990 anytime soon? Obviously we've seen them from the partners, and that ARES card from ASUS, but AFAIK nothing from yourselves?"

Devon: "Yeah, we have a couple of partners that have launched HD 7990 SKUs, this includes VTX3D, it includes PowerColor, it includes ASUS, and I can't give you any specific details about what else is coming up, but we definitely do have more 7990 goodness for you guys, coming up in the next couple of months. We definitely are not sitting still there, but we're in a very good situation right now with the world's fastest graphics card, partnering with ASUS on that, and we'll continue to hammer on that drum, bringing really cool SKUs to gamers all over."

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist B], go ahead."

[journalist B]: "Hi, I wanted to ask about the 8000M series, you said that this is the "Sea Islands" family, is that correct?"

Devon: "Yeah, that's correct, a kind of a subset-codename in the "Sea Islands" is "Solar System," for the 8000M series, that's another codename that you may have seen out there."

[journalist B]: "Okay, and what is basically the difference between the 7000 series and the 8000 series when it's called by a new codename, because I know there was a new chip released with 8300 and 8400, and the rest of the family was rebranded 7000 series?"

Devon: "For the parts that we've already announced for the 8000M series, there are new chip configurations; "Mars" is a new chip, that's also the equation to "Oland" on the desktop side, which we've announced as 8600 series for OEMs, but a roadmap name does not designate a specific set of IP (intellectual property), it's always been the case that we have mixed IP within a roadmap, sometimes there has been a tighter correlation to one single set of IP, other times there hasn't, so "Sea Islands" is a mix of different IPs."

[journalist B (sounding confused)]: Oh, okay, so that means there will be another, perhaps, some new chips under the "Sea Islands" family name but with newer technology than GCN (Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture)?"

Devon: "Yeah, well, we're not making any specific references at this point in time."

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist C], go ahead."

[journalist C]: Hi, just to confirm, what you said means that Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition stays AMD's fastest single-GPU graphics card until the end of the year?"
Devon: "Yes."

[journalist C]: "…and, if I may ask another question, how do you plan to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce Titan?"

**5 seconds' silence**

Devon: "Are you referring to the GK110?"

[journalist C]: "Yes."

**Roy Taylor interrupts**

Roy: "Basically from what we've seen so far, we don't think there's any conc…[stops short of saying "concern"]…of course things could change, but early indications are, that this (GeForce Titan) is not something which was designed to be a graphics card."

[journalist C]: "Yeah, but performance-wise, it seems to be that it's going to be faster, based on the rumours that we're hearing, than 7970 GHz Edition, so actually you're competing with dual-GPU cards, so there's no competitor from your side, talking about single-GPU?"

Roy: **choppy audio** "I may appear so, however the [leaks?] that we've seen, and certainly from an article written on "Bright Side of News," would indicate that indeed so far, it will not be the fastest product around."

[journalist C]: "Okay, thank you."

**Coordinator reminds participants how they can ask questions**

**Brief silence**

**Christine speaks**

"While we're waiting for other questions, Roy, since you've recently joined AMD, it would be great to get your perspective on our current product stack, and what you're hearing in the markets, at the moment."

Roy: **speech is choppy and inaudible due to technical problems, Roy was joining the call over Skype.**

Christine: "[coordinator], have we received any other questions, or does anyone like to come back to Roy with any questions?"

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist D], go ahead."
[journalist D]: "Hi folks, I'm just wondering if it's just me, or was everybody having a bad line when Roy was speaking, it was very hard to understand some portions?"

Christine: "Sorry [journalist D], good point, I was catching most of it, so I thought it would be quite clear…"

Roy: "…you know what Christine? Can you just let everybody know that I'm on Skype, I'm gonna dial-in on my phone directly, gimme two minutes, and I'll repeat what I just said."
Christine: "Wonderful."

**Brief pause**

Christine: "So, while Roy is dialling back in, any questions for Darren, or Devon, or David?"

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist E], go ahead."

[journalist E]: "Hi, I'm just wondering what your feeling is towards the 7700 series and 7800 series, getting towards the second half of the year; whether or not it's going to be capable of frame-rates people are expecting from new games like Crysis 3."

Devon: "The products have great performance, and they have the feature-set, that are very aligned to, or perform very well with the latest set of games, especially with our DirectCompute capabilities, which new titles are leveraging more and more. We have the best compute architecture out there, at the moment, but additionally, as Darren mentioned, we are augmenting the 7000 series, and it's in that segment that precisely we'll see some additional product updates, so some good things coming up fairly soon."

Darren (addressing [journalist E]): "The key difference there, that I'd like you to help in making clear to gamers, is that keeping the 7000 series branding for the rest of the year is different from not introducing any new products. We definitely have more products up our sleeves that we will be launching. The perception out there that we don't have new product because the naming (7000 series) is not changing, is something I'd like you help to clear up."

[journalist E]: "Okay, thank you."

**Roy returns to the conference, this time over a proper phone, and repeats his statement**

Roy: "I'm really glad to be back, and to able to talk to the press again. On this call I recognize some old names, and some old friends, and it's good to be back. What I wanted to say to you all was that right now, as it stands, AMD has the fastest GPUs at every point in our stack. I don't think it feels like that, and I don't think that it's been widely reported in the press. I'd like to ask you (the press) to make that clear to your readers, and I'll tell you why that's good for you. The reason I think it's good for you is because in the good old days of the fight between NVIDIA and ATi, it created a lot of good fun press. It was exciting to wake up in the morning, grab a coffee, and read the latest instalment in the battle [someone reads TPU] , and so I'm here to tell you that that battle is back on! So let's have some fun with it! We have the fastest GPUs, and until we've clearly established our performance leadership, we don't necessarily start talking about new products, because first of all we need to make it clear that we already have the lead, and as Devon just mentioned, we have some new products coming, and having got the lead back, we don't intend to drop it. Even in the latest games, and the latest benchmarks, we're in the lead. Now, we have more games coming, that will continue to show that leadership. Unlike our competitor [NVIDIA], we have game bundles which are both exciting and fun. We have more of those coming, too. I also said that I'm personally going to be in Europe in a few weeks, Christine is organizing some meetings for me now, and if any of you would like to meet me one-to-one, and hear more about the coming battle, and how that would extend to Intel as well on the CPU side, I'd really enjoy the chance to meet old friends, and make new ones."
Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist F], go ahead."

[journalist F]: "Actually it's not on the little speech I'm afraid, but an earlier question that was answered, which stated that the 7970 would still be your most powerful single-GPU product until the end of the year, why is it so? Are there any technical reasons for that, because at that point you would have announced that part almost two years ago? Is it a technical issue, or is it simply because you don't feel the need to put something newer out there?"

Darren: "Definitely, I got a two-part answer for that one. We launched the 7970 in December of 2011, and then we followed up with the GHz Edition in July of 2012. So the GHz Edition has been out there for the better half of the year now, and that will continue to live on until the end of 2013. From a technical perspective, no, there's absolutely no technical reason; from a product perspective, we have the world's fastest GPU now, with the GHz Edition, and as Roy mentioned, the GK110 is coming, but is something NVIDIA is leveraging from a completely different space. It's a Tesla product, it's a workstation product, it really was never intended for the consumer market, and I think that way they're kinda shoe-horning that product into their GeForce stack. So, we took them by surprise by having the world's fastest GPU, and you see all these kinds of reactions from them right now, but we're very confident that the 7970 GHz Edition is the best GPU for enthusiast gamers out there. So this is purely for marketing performance reasons, nothing technical."

[journalist F]: "And just as a quick follow-up to Roy's point that, if there's such a battle between you guys and perhaps Intel, and if it's for marketing reasons and not technical, is there really a battle going on, or are consumers being left with the same product basically for two years?" [he meant how can AMD have a "battle" and a slow product cycle at the same time]

Roy: "Can I jump in on that? The recent sales success of our "Never Settle Reloaded" bundle shows us the appetite of consumers for that product [7970 GHz Edition] is wonderful. I know this is a European call, but Newegg.com in the USA were sold out. We're seeing record sales throughout Europe. So as measured by people spending money, I'd say that we're in pretty good shape."

Devon: "Also, some of the stuff coming out, as I mentioned, stuff like Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, those are real reasons for end-users to buy high-end GPUs right now. So if people didn't upgrade last year, and they're generally on an 18 to 24-month upgrade cycle, there are a lot of really good reasons to buy a 7970 GHz Edition."

Roy: "…and Darren touched on it earlier, that the simple fact is that the 7000 series is still ramping. We're still seeing higher sales, growing sales on the 7000 series, so yeah, there's an appetite in the channel for product stability, and we're seeing that it actually accelerates the sales. You can argue that the channel cycles previously were a bit too forced."

Darren: "The only thing that I want to throw in there too, is that one of the luxuries of being able to have a long lifecycle for these parts, is because of our games strategy, where we've been investing in all these titles, and you're seeing these huge AAA franchises working with AMD. We're optimizing for our architecture, and that's why a product like the 7970 GHz Edition still has such great performance, and such a healthy standing versus the competition. So that's a big part of our long term strategy, and that also adds in value to the customers who bought the same products last year, who will be getting the most out of the latest games."

Roy: "I think we've also improved the drivers incredibly too, so their experience has improved along the way."

[journalist F]: "Thank you."

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist G], go ahead."

[journalist G]: "Hello everybody, you (Roy) said you would be coming to Europe, are you going to be at the Mobile World Congress, and second question is that there were some rumours that AMD would focus more on the chips for the PlayStation 4, and that's why you decided not to launch in January or February, the 8000 series?"

Roy: "Oh boy, let me answer this one! So first of all, I sadly won't be at the MWC…"
Christine (interrupting): "…we will actually have spokespeople at the MWC, but Roy won't be joining us this year, but I can check later if it makes sense for you to meet the folks coming over. So Roy, please carry on."

Roy (continuing where he left off): "We can't comment on unannounced products and unannounced partnerships, but I can tell you that no decision that we're making has been any external factors. They're entirely influenced by our desire to make it clear that we have GPU leadership. Once that's done, then we're going to be back with you very, very soon."

[journalist G]: "Okay, thank you very much."

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist H], go ahead."

[journalist H]: "While I'm really hear you in the price-performance side of the product, what about image and marketing? I mean, even if NVIDIA only pumps out a handful of GeForce Titans, they can still run around saying they have the fastest GPU for gamers, how are you going to compete with that?"

Darren: "Actually I'm happy that they're launching this, because it's a proof point that the ARES II will continue to be the world's fastest graphics card. From all the data that we have, they aren't going to be able to beat the ARES II."
Devon: "…and frankly from a marketing perspective, you know, we're tied up with all the latest AAA titles at the moment, so how can NVIDIA compete? They're launching GeForce Titan as a reaction to us being signed up with all the best game developers right now. Also as a marketing point, I assume everyone's seen the game bundles that NVIDIA has launched recently, right? I thank them for launching their game bundle, because it goes to show have great "Gaming Evolved" (developer program) has become. Just look at the titles in the "Never Settle Reloaded" bundle versus their "Free to Play" bundle, and you'll see which company is more serious about gaming for desktop and PC users."

Roy: "We should make it clear that NVIDIA is a good company, and we respect their attempted transition into being a smartphone company."
Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist G], go ahead."

[journalist G]: "Yeah, just a follow-up to that question, are we going to see this becoming a war of ISV relations, rather than electronics engineers or semiconductor engineers, because you mentioned that you guys have got most of the new AAA titles, and I assume by "got" you meant that you're working with them to optimize the games to GCN…I mean are we going to see advancements in performance rather with software optimizations than away from silicon?"

**some chorus among AMD speakers**

Darren: "Let me assure you that we're a Radeon company, we're still behind creating these products and bringing them to the market. That is not going away. In fact you'll see throughout our lineup, we're offering more and better "Radeon," so absolutely, not that we're moving away from that segment, but by winning in that segment, as Roy mentioned, we get more ability and focus to go out to the ISVs, and augment that product stack. We get more engineers to develop great drivers, and performance optimizations, as you've seen with Catalyst 12.11, and put engineers alongside developers to get more features and performance, to make the games run better on the product."

Devon: "Yeah I think you'll see some really exciting things coming out of the partnerships in the "Never Settle Reloaded" bundle. The Crysis 3 partnership is not just about that specific game, it's about the exciting things we're working on with Crytek that we'll be developing over the course of the first half of this year, Bioshock has already come out with some great press on how much they've invested on the PC side of the game with us, and Tomb Raider will ship with a new feature we've been working on with them. So it's about performance optimization, but also creating a great experience on the Radeon graphics, and kind of pushing industry forward in terms of new effects as well…"

Darren: "A criticism that has probably been levelled against the historical ATI and to a certain extant AMD, is that we're an engineering company first, without understanding the content side; but over the past five years, we got more serious on the content side, so our engineering focus is still a 100% there, but we're paying a lot more attention to the content side."

Roy: "Many of you know many of the leading celebrities and starts of the gaming world, and you'll know that these people are very independent-minded, you cannot push a games developer to use your product. He would use whatever one he thinks is best. I can tell you that developers are using Radeon, because it's the best GPU around, and they wouldn't use it for any other circumstances. And I can assure you that they are developing on Radeon. At this coming GDC (game developers' conference), for any of the European press that's visiting, we'll be able to make some introductions for you and set up some interviews, so you could hear that for yourselves, first-hand."

Coordinator: "your next question comes from [journalist A], go ahead."

[journalist A]: "Yeah, just one last question on Titan, and a fairly pointed question. Do you concede that in a couple of weeks' time, you probably won't have the single fastest GPU in graphics?"

Roy: "How can we possible concede to what actually hasn't been delivered?"

[journalist A]: "Obviously, you know a fair bit of what's going on, do you believe that in a couple of weeks you'll still have the fastest single GPU? Let's flip the question around."
Darren: "I think what matters for end users, is the graphics card. And that's what ASUS' ARES II delivers. I see absolutely no threat to the ARES II's market position right now…"

[journalist A] (interrupting): "…with all due respect, I'm not asking that question about the world's fastest graphics card. I'm asking about the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card?"

Roy: "I don't think we can comment until we've seen it. Based on what we know so far, I don' think that this (GeForce Titan) is a threat to our business."

Darren: "…and it's not like it's a surprise. You know, the GK110 has been known about for a long time. Our roadmap stayed, once we knew about it. We didn't need to react."

[journalist A]: "Okay, fair enough."

Roy: "…however writing about this is going to create lots of fun for you, and lots of readership."

***Coordinator runs out of questions from the participants, Darren reiterates the key points of AMD's position, the meeting concludes on a lighter/personal note between AMD and some of the journalists***
 
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Tweak155

Lifer
Sep 23, 2003
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Well handled interview I must say. I presume they mean the price / performance ratio is still well in their favor.
 

tviceman

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2008
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This amazingly sounds like responses nvidia would give in the same situation.... which I guess isn't all amazing considering Roy Taylor used to work at nvidia.
 

zebrax2

Senior member
Nov 18, 2007
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Doesn't really matter if it was not really design to be a GFx card as long as they manage to make it work as one and that it performs well.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
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I like how they avoided the question about Titan being the fastest single GPU graphics card. They pointed to the Ares II and completely avoided answering.

I think they know it will be faster but it won't matter in the end because the market for that card is not the same market that AMD has a good position in. Very few people will be buying the Titan or Ares II price levels of cards compared to those who are willing to buy a 7950 or GTX 670. So they didn't have to adjust their position in the market because of it, it's not competing with their products at this time. Still kind of funny how they didn't want to say "yeah our single gpu card probably won't be as fast" which is expected, I mean who goes into an interview and says something like a competitor has a faster product.
 
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3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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Doesn't really matter if it was not really design to be a GFx card as long as they manage to make it work as one and that it performs well.

You need the original market it was designed for though (supercomputers) to justify the R&D costs. Something AMD doesn't have.
 

SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
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Similar thinking was offered when nVidia showcased Fermi at their GTC first -- nVidia forsaken gamers for compute! PR fun!
 

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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I'm not saying they have forsaken gamers. Just that with only the gaming market justifying the R&D isn't possible.
 
Mar 10, 2006
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Note to AMD : Having "price/performance" leadership just means you can't turn a profit. AMD's GPU division turned, what? $22M in profit this quarter? Yeah, the gamers "love" you, but you don't make any money and bash the one company that hasn't actually destroyed shareholder fortunes.

gg AMD.
 

ocre

Golden Member
Dec 26, 2008
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I really like the new push from AMD. Its something they should have done a long time ago. It would have had long lasting results. But this new push has come with some heavy baggage. No refined architecture-no real refresh. I am very sure that this decision was made to save millions in research. They are at least using some of the saved money for something very good. An excellent marketing push. Gaming evolved puts their brand out there in a big way. They have snagged so many hit titles that there is no way it will not be noticed. They are also pushing bundles like we have never seen before. I believe all this is possible because of the money they have saved by not refreshing. This is the only catch. And sadly its a big catch.

In this call they are talking some big game. But idk if they can really be all that confident, or how they could be. Do they really think that nvidia couldnt beef up the 680 like they did the 7970ghz? While i dont think titan is an immediate threat to them at all. i think its not wise to be selling nvidia so short. The 7970ghz is not that far ahead of the 680. Nvidia could catch up and surpass without very much trouble.

Look, nvidia is a really aggressive competitor. This is where i think AMD might be messing up by underestimating. Once the bundles really start taking market share, nvidia isnt gonna sit still and bleed market share. See nvidia has billions in cash just laying around. billions at their fingertips. They have a lot more money to throw at developers if they feel they need to. All this, and they havent sacrificed their 2013 refresh. This could all go very badly for AMD and it can all happen very quick.

I do think this new push from AMD is amassing. I hate what else is coming along with it. Perhaps it still ends up extremely successful. I am just voicing my concerns.
 

SirPauly

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2009
5,187
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I'm not saying they have forsaken gamers. Just that with only the gaming market justifying the R&D isn't possible.

My post wasn't aimed at you but more-so the comment by Roy Taylor in the Op's title. Sorry, should of been more clear!
 

badb0y

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2010
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Basically they have no answer for the GK110 but I don't think they care because GK110 doesn't compete with any AMD card on the market.

If GK110 was close to $600 then they might have been pressured but as it stands someone who is in the market for 7970 Ghz Ed./GTX 680 is not in the market for GTX Titan.

What does Titan change in the current market? Nothing.
 

DiogoDX

Senior member
Oct 11, 2012
746
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Roy: "We should make it clear that NVIDIA is a good company, and we respect their attempted transition into being a smartphone company."

This Roy is a funny guy.:biggrin:
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
0
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AMD aren't wrong, they have it all in their favor. They have the fastest single card, dual card and 7990 will almost certainly be quicker than Titan. They also happen to have a faster compute card than NVidia on the desktop and all that along with being cheaper and with better bundles. One wonders why it is that NVidia is gaining market share off of AMD at the moment (as the steam survey shows).

What worries me however is how much more hardware it took them to do it. They use 30% more transistors to marginally outperform the 680 at the high end and in addition a much wider memory path. Their design must be more expensive to make than NVidia's once all is working well as NVidia has smaller chips. There is no point winning if in the end you loose because you aren't making much money.

Its probably a decent idea to wait to 20nm before doing your next card as the gains of change at the current process node are going to be pretty small especially if you are already as big as you want to go on your chip. NVidia could make a 30% larger/faster chip at price competitive levels but for AMD to do the same would be pushing the price a bit too much.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
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Note to AMD : Having "price/performance" leadership just means you can't turn a profit.

GeForce 3 Ti 200
GeForce 4 Ti 4200
GeForce 6800 non-U unlocked / 6800GT
7800GT/7950GT
8800GT 512MB / 9800GT
GTX460 1GB
GTX560 Ti

All had excellent price/performance; in some of those cases for most of that generation.

Yeah, the gamers "love" you, but you don't make any money and bash the one company that hasn't actually destroyed shareholder fortunes.

5-year return

AMD = -57.98%
NV = -42.83%

Both of those firms have been terrible investments in the last 5 years for investors.

The reason AMD's stock got killed is due to the decline of their CPU/APU/server businesses, not desktop GPUs.

Here is a fun tid-bit:

- When AMD had class-leading price/performance with HD4000 to 6000 cards on many levels, people bashed them for not competing with NV on the high-end, claiming they are a budget/ 2nd tier GPU brand, etc.

- When AMD had class-leading performance with HD7970, people bashed them for raising prices to ATI/NV historical levels

- When now AMD has both class-leading price/performance + performance, people still bash them, calling their game bundles and lower prices signs of desperation.

Notice a trend? No matter what AMD does, they won't ever please some people.

Let's take your 680 for instance. It's selling for $480 on Newegg. For $500 you can get the Asus Matrix 7970 Platinum, the fastest and the highest component quality single GPU card released in all of 2012.

Does a comparison even need to be made here?

We already know no matter what AMD does, people who have been buying NV for 10 years will still buy NV. They did when NV completely bombed with GeForce 5 and didn't do so well with GeForce 7 either. People even waited 6+ months to buy GTX400 despite HD5800 mopping the floor with GTX200. Even if you looked at our forum over the years, the same people keep buying NV year after year. It doesn't even matter what AMD does for them. Their decision is already made that NV is their next card no matter what. The difference is NV has a huge loyal brand following and AMD does not.

What AMD can do is attract new generation of gamers entering the PC gaming space and who are considering buying their GPU for the first time, maybe 2nd time. It will take time but we know of real world examples where companies have been able to change consumer's tastes/preferences (Hyundai vs. Toyota/Honda or Audi vs. BMW/Mercedes). It just won't happen overnight. AMD GE/aggressive game bundles and focus on overclocking, price/performance are all steps that will help them win over younger Gen Ys / Millennials. AMD is less concerned about Gen X because those gamers more or less grew up with NV and are unlikely to switch just like Coca-Cola is huge for older people and Pepsi is more focused on the younger generations.

I still think some of those comments their management team made were not intelligent to say the least calling out their competitor in public. More action, less talking/hype.

NVidia could make a 30% larger/faster chip at price competitive levels but for AMD to do the same would be pushing the price a bit too much.

NV will continue to have an advantage over AMD in graphics unless NV messes up royally because:

1) NV's strategy lies with large die GPUs, AMD's does not. That automatically means AMD cannot beat NV's best chips. This has been the case since 2006 once AMD went small die strategy.

2) NV is a financially stronger company in every way. That automatically means NV has more financial and engineering resources than AMD. It's not as if AMD's engineers are 10x smarter than NV's. This means NV will have an advantages since they have more $ to spend on everything related to GPU design/engineering, etc.

3) NV is primarily a GPU company, AMD is not. That automatically means NV is more focused on being a class-leader in graphics since their firm depends on it. AMD does not depend on graphics leadership no matter what their graphics management guys say in interviews. AMD discrete graphics will not make or break the firm. That's their CPU/APU/server businesses. If NV messes up their graphics, they are toast since that would cripple 70% of their business. Because everyone at NV knows graphics are their bread-and-butter businesses (GeForce/Tesla/Quadro), they have more pressure, which means they work much harder on graphics than AMD does. Point #2 permits them to do so as well.

4) NV has a profitable GeForce and Tesla/Quadro businesses. That allows them to allocate the R&D and build monster-sized GPU chips. AMD does not have this luxury. This ties to Point #1.

Therefore, NV winning in the graphics leadership is a foregone conclusion and has been since 2006. Nothing should change with Maxwell either since NV should continue making 500mm2 monster chips and AMD will not because their underlying product strategies are different.
 
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SolMiester

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2004
5,331
17
76
AMD aren't wrong, they have it all in their favor. They have the fastest single card, dual card and 7990 will almost certainly be quicker than Titan. They also happen to have a faster compute card than NVidia on the desktop and all that along with being cheaper and with better bundles. One wonders why it is that NVidia is gaining market share off of AMD at the moment (as the steam survey shows).

What worries me however is how much more hardware it took them to do it. They use 30% more transistors to marginally outperform the 680 at the high end and in addition a much wider memory path. Their design must be more expensive to make than NVidia's once all is working well as NVidia has smaller chips. There is no point winning if in the end you loose because you aren't making much money.

Its probably a decent idea to wait to 20nm before doing your next card as the gains of change at the current process node are going to be pretty small especially if you are already as big as you want to go on your chip. NVidia could make a 30% larger/faster chip at price competitive levels but for AMD to do the same would be pushing the price a bit too much.

I didn't think AMD made the 7990, it's the partners, and at $1500 it's a harder pill to swallow than the Titan which will take the single GPU crown...I'm curious how the game bundles work?, does AMD or the game developer take the hit?, are AMD making any money at all on the 7 series?
 

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,193
2
76
I didn't think AMD made the 7990, it's the partners, and at $1500 it's a harder pill to swallow than the Titan which will take the single GPU crown...I'm curious how the game bundles work?, does AMD or the game developer take the hit?, are AMD making any money at all on the 7 series?

I'm sure AMD eats some of the cost, but not as much as you may think. They provide technical expertise to the developers to offset much of the cost.
 

Tweak155

Lifer
Sep 23, 2003
11,447
262
126
I'm sure AMD eats some of the cost, but not as much as you may think. They provide technical expertise to the developers to offset much of the cost.

Not to mention the advertising that goes with being listed on every graphics card. Even if the buyer doesn't end up with an AMD card, they could still end up with one of their games.
 

Lepton87

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2009
2,544
9
81
He's right, launching GK110 as a GF card is free publicity. Just look at this forum, GF titan is a topic number 1 in VC&G forum, even though very few people are truly interested in purchasing it. If it was really meant to be just a GF card, most of its DP prowess would be gone and I would wager a guess that it would have 512bit bus, memory bandwidth is just not as important in compute as it is in games.