AMD's GPU Q3 2012 marketshare - 14% declines across the board to NVIDIA

[raghu78]

Some glaring omissions, 7970 didn't launch with 12.11 drivers,that [H] review didn't use the latest NV drivers.RS always says that people don't buy AMD cards even if they offer better price/performance so how many people actually spent $549 on 7970?680 was faster and cost $50 less, it was a master stroke.If we have to wait for special drivers to breath life to old products that isn't a sound strategy because that is a never ending scenario.

I agree GTX 680 was a better product when it launched. And thats the lesson AMD needs to learn from this generation. First impressions really matter in a big way. Kepler was a huge strategic and marketing success. Nvidia really nailed their product launch. Good performance, good price, great reviews and the market was blown away. AMD's drivers improved performance over time but the initial momentum that Kepler had gained was enough. Also with Nvidia's stronger brand and better marketing its easy to see why AMD lost market share.

But currently the situation is not the same. Peformance is better on HD 7970 Ghz. Once you look at high resolution and the most demanding games at the most demanding settings the GTX 680 is no competition. In fact at every price point AMD has the better product. AMD should be able to pull things back a bit on desktop.

But the notebook market is an unprecedented disaster for AMD. there is no hope for atleast 2 quarters until we see how well or bad AMD has done with design wins on Haswell notebook refresh cycle. Nvidia is reaping the benefits of a robust Optimus solution and AMD is seeing the repercussions of their extremely poor Enduro solution from robustness/ stability point of view. AMD needs to do much better from a software perspective if it wants to get back the lost market share.

 

[Jaydip]

Again - new architecture. The same thing happened to GF100. Nvidia 6XX/AMD 7XXX are not old LOL

I don't see the HD89xx and GTX7xx series anywhere.

They are already, I think we are seeing new cards from both camps on Q1 2013? My point is AMD's initial pricing was horrible.

 

[Jaydip]

I agree GTX 680 was a better product when it launched. And thats the lesson AMD needs to learn from this generation. First impressions really matter in a big way. Kepler was a huge strategic and marketing success. Nvidia really nailed their product launch. Good performance, good price, great reviews and the market was blown away. AMD's drivers improved performance over time but the initial momentum that Kepler had gained was enough. Also with Nvidia's stronger brand and better marketing its easy to see why AMD lost market share.

But currently the situation is not the same. Peformance is better on HD 7970 Ghz. Once you look at high resolution and the most demanding games at the most demanding settings the GTX 680 is no competition. In fact at every price point AMD has the better product. AMD should be able to pull things back a bit on desktop.

But the notebook market is an unprecedented disaster for AMD. there is no hope for atleast 2 quarters until we see how well or bad AMD has done with design wins on Haswell notebook refresh cycle. Nvidia is reaping the benefits of a robust Optimus solution and AMD is seeing the repercussions of their extremely poor Enduro solution from robustness/ stability point of view. AMD needs to do much better from a software perspective if it wants to get back the lost market share.

Agree but you know sometimes "First impression is the last impression".One thing that has always puzzled me about AMD is their inability to take leadership stances necessary.AMD could have come up with GPU boost right? but they didn't. Also look what NV is doing with BLOPS2, that is a solid marketing strategy.

 

[Rvenger]

They are already, I think we are seeing new cards from both camps on Q1 2013? My point is AMD's initial pricing was horrible.

I think both camps are holding off until 2q 2013.

 

[railven]

Sorry Mrk6, not that I was ignoring you, I got swamped at work. Back at it 😉

It's been like that for years. What games "brought PC's to their knees" in 2004? Doom 3 and HL2? That's a poor argument, especially when you consider the fact games now more than ever, obviously, take much more effort and time to have comparatively "better graphics" then previously. The fact that we're still only paying $50-60 for AAA games, sometimes less, is amazing and indicative of just how competitive the market is and how much better it has become for PC gamers.

This industry has turned cut throat as more and more suits get control and smell money. PC games were always about cutting edge graphics, now they're more about who can sell more copies. Console games literally subsidize PC sales. We get games for cheap because no one frankly cares about us. The PC market is almost a cash grab for devs/publishers.

There are only a few games I still pay $50+ for on launch day, and that is only because the publisher know it's a cash cow and refuse to reduce price.

This is such a poor argument that you didn't even bother defending it. PhysX is a proprietary physics solution that is supported by less than half of the market. It's a poor selling point. Making a game look better no matter the hardware running it is a major selling point. Graphics have always been the mainstay of video game ratings and approvals. The fact that you would try to tie the two together is ridiculous.

The issue was innovation, which currently is in a field of console ports. What little innovation we got is tied to a marketing slogan to promote a brand (another thing AMD is lacking.) I'm all for homogeneous innovation but I'm not a fool and will slam the company that is pushing their brand more through eye candy and flying debris. That is what sells, that is what consumers are obviously buying up when we look at finacial sheets.

We like to act like the PhysX and other crap is creating some giant schism, but when we look at sales trends, those without the "option" are the minority. nVidia is doing something right, whether we like it or not (or agree with it.)

You just changed your argument again. Looks like hardware isn't as far ahead as you previously stated, is it?

That was more of a play on the fact that a game as poorly optimized as Crysis (memory leak and all) can crush modern computers even though our hardware has advanced so much.

Look at BLOPs and the benches Russian posted of the game on Ultra @ 1600p getting ~50-60FPS on high end rigs. Add enough fluff and ANY game would bring a rig to it's knees, doesn't mean the games are advancing.

Bang-for-your-buck benefits the consumer, sometimes indirectly the company, but many times it can actually hurt them if they aren't generating enough revenue. This may very well be the case at AMD. But again, what a ridiculous argument.

Exactly, bang-for-buck is a metric on the race to the bottom. Consumer's are cheap - that is our given right. We are cheap SOBs and we will buy what is best in out interest. So when a company is hurting, and the fan base turns around and asks why - well we nickled and dimed them to a point where they are only known as the "bang-for-buck" company.

 

[raghu78]

True that. But how many people were affected by that price jump? 0.1%, 0.05%? Either way, not really a problem. Now if the "normal" highend part like the GTX780 were to be priced at $649 like the GTX280, that would affect more people. Question is - would it affect peoples buying habits? I bet it would.

Do you think Nvidia would have cut the prices of the GTX 280 if not for AMD's HD 4800 products which frankly embarrassed Nvidia into price cuts. Consumers don't have any control over pricing. The concept of competitive pricing is only when there is competition, otherwise its just pricing. take it or leave it. What choice do you or I or anybody have over Windows pricing. Its because Windows on the desktop is a monopoly.

if AMD went down Nvidia will sell you their next high end GPU for 650 or 850 or even more. Their entire product stack will have inflated prices. nobody can do anything about it. You forget that Nvidia will have full control of the entire GPU market. obviously they will look to boost margins. People might slow their upgrade cycles but still Nvidia will earn more revenue more than now because everybody will have to buy an Nvidia GPU if there were no AMD.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Do you think Nvidia would have cut the prices of the GTX 280 if not for AMD's HD 4800 products which frankly embarrassed Nvidia into price cuts. Consumers don't have any control over pricing. The concept of competitive pricing is only when there is competition, otherwise its just pricing. take it or leave it. What choice do you or I or anybody have over Windows pricing. Its because Windows on the desktop is a monopoly.

if AMD went down Nvidia will sell you their next high end GPU for 650 or 850 or even more. Their entire product stack will have inflated prices. nobody can do anything about it. You forget that Nvidia will have full control of the entire GPU market. obviously they will look to boost margins. People might slow their upgrade cycles but still Nvidia will earn more revenue more than now because everybody will have to buy an Nvidia GPU if there were no AMD.

Of course they wouldn't have. But the point is, what would have happened then? Would they have sold enough GPUs to cover development costs and to maintain their profits? Less profits -> less R&D money and unhappy shareholders. Not good 😉

 

[sontin]

And thx to AMD nVidia could place their Kepler-GPUs one step above their Fermi products.

So can you explain what competition brought to the table this time?

 

[railven]

Exactly. Maybe we should go back to the basics and stop giving so many handouts. It seems people forgot what a true luxury is.

I love this post. Entitlement among people is at an all time high. "I DEMAND GPUS!!!"

Gaming isn't a luxury? Holy cow, I remember growing up I had to go to a friend's house to play games because, Mama working full time as a single parent couldn't afford to buy me games, she had to pay for shelter, clothing, and food - you know, important stuff.

 

[Keysplayr]

Wow! That's a new one. Hey, at least your being honest. So, the death of a company and thousands of people losing their jobs is why you've got your pom poms out. I knew it was transparent why you were here gloating, but to want a company to die because you want revenge on your competitors, is twisted. Real classy.

I hope you know this is extremely lame. Not knowing the reason and passing judgement. YOu need to reload because you shot first before asking questions.

I have news for you, thousands of people HAVE already lost their jobs to this miserably run company. They deserve better than this. To always know that at any time they could be escorted off the premises by security. Thousands more will lose their jobs as there is ALREADY talks of MORE firings coming.

And the reason? Not the fanboys, although that is a nice thought as I will have a little satisfaction there. But I feel that ATI/AMD has been holding back progress (PhysX), GPGPU (up until GCN but that is still years and years behind Nvidia and Intel with KC). Always throwing 3rd party crap at their consumers such as their 3D "solution". Nonsense. It all needs to go away.

As for the fanboys as mentioned before? I'm sure they'll latch onto another company that is not Nvidia such as imagination technologies or PowerVR. Something like that so all is no lost for them.

 

[raghu78]

Of course they wouldn't have. But the point is, what would have happened then? Would they have sold enough GPUs to cover development costs and to maintain their profits? Less profits -> less R&D money and unhappy shareholders. Not good 😉

this is very naive. Without a competition to compare how do you know that the product is overpriced or not. And if you have the full market all for yourself obviously you will sell more GPUs than you are currently selling and have more money for R&D than you do now. 😎

 

[Final8ty]

this is very naive. Without a competition to compare how do you know that the product is overpriced or not. And if you have the full market all for yourself obviously you will sell more GPUs than you are currently selling and have more money for R&D than you do now. 😎

Look at some of the prices of some games franchises on Origin that have become exclusive to it.

 

[MrK6]

Sorry Mrk6, not that I was ignoring you, I got swamped at work. Back at it 😉

No need to apologize, we're all busy :thumbsup:

This industry has turned cut throat as more and more suits get control and smell money. PC games were always about cutting edge graphics, now they're more about who can sell more copies. Console games literally subsidize PC sales. We get games for cheap because no one frankly cares about us. The PC market is almost a cash grab for devs/publishers.

I agree, the industry is much more monetized than ever, and I think it's a valid point that we're the throw away crowd, for better or for worse: we get cheap games, but the quality (can) suffers.

There are only a few games I still pay $50+ for on launch day, and that is only because the publisher know it's a cash cow and refuse to reduce price.

Same, and even then I find myself shying away from that. I think the only game a bought for full price on release this year and felt I got more than my money's worth was GW2. I also bought Mass Effect 3 and Diablo 3 on release and feel cheated on both. Events like that lead me to shy away further from spending full price on a game when I know A) it will be cheaper, sometimes very soon and B) the quality probably won't be up to what I was expecting.

The issue was innovation, which currently is in a field of console ports. What little innovation we got is tied to a marketing slogan to promote a brand (another thing AMD is lacking.) I'm all for homogeneous innovation but I'm not a fool and will slam the company that is pushing their brand more through eye candy and flying debris. That is what sells, that is what consumers are obviously buying up when we look at finacial sheets.

We like to act like the PhysX and other crap is creating some giant schism, but when we look at sales trends, those without the "option" are the minority. nVidia is doing something right, whether we like it or not (or agree with it.)

That's a faulty assignment of causation in my book, and you didn't apply any references to back it up.

That was more of a play on the fact that a game as poorly optimized as Crysis (memory leak and all) can crush modern computers even though our hardware has advanced so much.

Look at BLOPs and the benches Russian posted of the game on Ultra @ 1600p getting ~50-60FPS on high end rigs. Add enough fluff and ANY game would bring a rig to it's knees, doesn't mean the games are advancing.

That's fine, but then it becomes an argument of semantics and ideals, which is better set for a new thread.

Exactly, bang-for-buck is a metric on the race to the bottom. Consumer's are cheap - that is our given right. We are cheap SOBs and we will buy what is best in out interest. So when a company is hurting, and the fan base turns around and asks why - well we nickled and dimed them to a point where they are only known as the "bang-for-buck" company.

Companies drive their image in the public, not the other way around, although I'm sure there will be plenty of blaming before the show is over. A good company protects its worth and its image with how it does business. For example, look at TV's. You can get a no-name for half the price of a Samsung because Samsung enforces minimum pricing (much like NVIDIA). Sony does the same, and it's stock price (and company as a whole) is worth nil. What's the difference? Consumer perception secondary to poor company management. AMD never capitalized on its wins or drove forward with innovation or exposure when it was doing well, and that passive attempt at doing business is killing them now.

 

[Elfear]

Yes you absolutely can. Especially when 99% of us upgraded from GPU's that were already capable of decent gaming.

Say Nvidia is the only game in town. They release the 780 for $650. Do you really believe they'll generate enough sales to profit when Joe blow already is running a capable 660,670, or 680?
They have to offer incentive for me to upgrade. Check AMD's price gouge strategy. Didn't work out to well as they released the 7900 series several months before Nvidia and still lost the market.

Think about it a different way. What if Nvidia priced the 780 at $500 but it only offered 15-20% more performance than the 680? Intel has been getting away with 5-6% improvements each generation and people still buy their CPUs and they seem to be doing just fine.

And thx to AMD nVidia could place their Kepler-GPUs one step above their Fermi products.

So can you explain what competition brought to the table this time?

Um 40% performance improvements out of the gate and continuous driver improvements. Do you think either company would have been driven to improve their performance so much if they had no competition?

The 7970Ghz is on par with last gen's dual cards, would that not be bringing something to the table?

Don't get me wrong, with a full node drop both companies were somewhat disappointing at launch but things would have been much worse without the competitive drive of a hotly-contested market (IMO).

GTX 280 is a perfect example of why we need more than one player in the game. Prices were slashed overnight when the 4870 launched for $299. Although not to the same degree, the faster 680 launching for $50 less than the 7970 is another good reason for competition.

 

[SirPauly]

Nvidia is reaping the benefits of a robust Optimus solution and AMD is seeing the repercussions of their extremely poor Enduro solution from robustness/ stability point of view. AMD needs to do much better from a software perspective if it wants to get back the lost market share.

Optimus certainly helped but so did the performance efficiency from nVidia over-all, imho! It's a combination of hardware and software, imho!

 

[pmv]

I love this post. Entitlement among people is at an all time high. "I DEMAND GPUS!!!"

Gaming isn't a luxury? Holy cow, I remember growing up I had to go to a friend's house to play games because, Mama working full time as a single parent couldn't afford to buy me games, she had to pay for shelter, clothing, and food - you know, important stuff.

Pah! You had a friend with games? Luxury!

We had to make our own microprocessors out of sand and bits of old soda cans.

Hell, some of us had to make our own friends!

 

[Firestorm007]

I hope you know this is extremely lame. Not knowing the reason and passing judgement. YOu need to reload because you shot first before asking questions.

I have news for you, thousands of people HAVE already lost their jobs to this miserably run company. They deserve better than this. To always know that at any time they could be escorted off the premises by security. Thousands more will lose their jobs as there is ALREADY talks of MORE firings coming.

And the reason? Not the fanboys, although that is a nice thought as I will have a little satisfaction there. But I feel that ATI/AMD has been holding back progress (PhysX), GPGPU (up until GCN but that is still years and years behind Nvidia and Intel with KC). Always throwing 3rd party crap at their consumers such as their 3D "solution". Nonsense. It all needs to go away.

As for the fanboys as mentioned before? I'm sure they'll latch onto another company that is not Nvidia such as imagination technologies or PowerVR. Something like that so all is no lost for them.

Ok. Fair enough. If it wasn't aimed at fanboys, then I apologize. I was just interpolating that from your "one reason" comment. I don't agree with the rest of your reasoning; but it's your opinion; and that's fine. I have both Nvidia and AMD cards, and I can tell you, I don't want deal with one major player. I like the competition on the hardware side, and even the software side, as well. Just take for instance, the performance drivers. I'm always good with some extra boost.

 

[ocre]

That's a faulty assignment of causation in my book, and you didn't apply any references to back it up.

LOL. Seriously?
Its just something to think about. You know, a thought. but i guess if its not regurgitated its worthless?

Companies drive their image in the public, not the other way around, although I'm sure there will be plenty of blaming before the show is over. A good company protects its worth and its image with how it does business. For example, look at TV's. You can get a no-name for half the price of a Samsung because Samsung enforces minimum pricing (much like NVIDIA). Sony does the same, and it's stock price (and company as a whole) is worth nil. What's the difference? Consumer perception secondary to poor company management. AMD never capitalized on its wins or drove forward with innovation or exposure when it was doing well, and that passive attempt at doing business is killing them now.

well i guess all i can say is....That's a faulty assignment of causation in my book, and you didn't apply any references to back it up!

so do you got a link for any of this stuff you just said????

 

[sontin]

Um 40% performance improvements out of the gate and continuous driver improvements. Do you think either company would have been driven to improve their performance so much if they had no competition?

40% is normal and nothing special. Even the GTX680 is 35% faster than the GTX580 and yet GK104 is the successor of GF114 and not GF110.

The 7970Ghz is on par with last gen's dual cards, would that not be bringing something to the table?

8 months later than the 7970 and after the introduction of the $549 7970 - which was the highest priced card since the GTX280!

Don't get me wrong, with a full node drop both companies were somewhat disappointing at launch but things would have been much worse without the competitive drive of a hotly-contested market (IMO).

I don't think it would be much more worse than right now. Even the GTX280 was faster over the previous generation than the new cards. And the difference was only $100. That is nothing in this price point. I don't think that those people who would buy a $549 card would not buy a card for $100 more. We are talking here about the BMWs and Audis of graphics card.

GTX 280 is a perfect example of why we need more than one player in the game. Prices were slashed overnight when the 4870 launched for $299. Although not to the same degree, the faster 680 launching for $50 less than the 7970 is another good reason for competition.

And the 7970 is the reason why we need more than two players: Overnight AMD increased the prices of their cards around 50% over the previous generation. Which leeds to higher ASP for AMD and nVidia...

 

[AnandThenMan]

What are you looking for then? I suppose you think there isn't any chance of AMD going bankrupt then. You're acting like none of this is happening. 5 stages of denial and all that? Fine.

I asked you to back up your arguments. You claimed you could post dozens of links talking about AMD going bankrupt. You posted several links, which actually stated the exact opposite. :hmm:

 

[thilanliyan]

The champagne isn't for the actual demise of AMD. It's for a whole different reason which has to do with the result of the demise of AMD. There is one reason and one reason only that I would want AMD to go the way of the dodo.

What "good" will come out of AMD's demise?

Maybe there will no longer be a need for a "nVidia focus group"? I guess that's a good thing. 😉

And the reason? Not the fanboys, although that is a nice thought as I will have a little satisfaction there. But I feel that ATI/AMD has been holding back progress (PhysX), GPGPU (up until GCN but that is still years and years behind Nvidia and Intel with KC). Always throwing 3rd party crap at their consumers such as their 3D "solution". Nonsense. It all needs to go away.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I find it rather lame that you want a company to go out of business because you want to see "your" companies' competing technologies win. It will be a sad day if AMD goes out of business for the enthusiast GPU space. PhysX, GPGPU, and 3D should not define gaming. Everyone with a stake (IHVs, game devs, etc) should be involved in introducing new technologies. Having one company in control of something that could be vital to games (eg. PhysX if it was more widespread), is almost never a good thing.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Openly cheering for a company to go down is about as classless as it gets. Why would you want to see people lose their jobs? There is no guarantee those jobs will be replaced, and there is no guarantee that a company will step in to take their place either. But I really hope someone with deep pockets steps in and buys AMD, the fierce competition between AMD and Nvidia has brought us incredible products. Not to mention the AMD/Intel rivalry, think about the kick in the ass Intel got from AMD and look at the results.

 

[MrK6]

LOL. Seriously?
Its just something to think about. You know, a thought. but i guess if its not regurgitated its worthless?

The majority of "PhysX" games that actually sell well, sell well on consoles. Railven is more than welcome to post sales figures that prove that wrong. Here are numbers that prove my point:
Borderlands 2
Batman: Arkham City
Mafia II

Also let's not discount games that didn't sell period, like "Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason," that, despite being NVIDIA's mainstay PhysX tech demo, sold poorly. It shows that nvidia can sometimes tack PhysX on to a AAA title that sells well, but clearly it isn't the reason it does.

Furthermore, railven's point:

We like to act like the PhysX and other crap is creating some giant schism, but when we look at sales trends, those without the "option" are the minority. nVidia is doing something right, whether we like it or not (or agree with it.)

Is false no matter how we look at it. If he's referring to "those without the 'option'" to mean games without the option, then this is false because games without PhysX have sold far better than games with it. If he means "those without the 'option'" to be gamers without PhysX capable hardware, then this is also false because gamers with PhysX capable hardware are in the minority.

In either case this is a topic for a different thread, I won't discuss it here any further.

well i guess all i can say is....That's a faulty assignment of causation in my book, and you didn't apply any references to back it up!
so do you got a link for any of this stuff you just said????

I'm not sure if you're here to unsuccessfully troll or just upset that you can't defend nvidia, but in either case have fun crying over my opinion.

I asked you to back up your arguments. You claimed you could post dozens of links talking about AMD going bankrupt. You posted several links, which actually stated the exact opposite. :hmm:

Amazing what happens when you trap people in their lies. Interested in hearing his reply (good luck getting it).

 

[tviceman]

Openly cheering for a company to go down is about as classless as it gets. Why would you want to see people lose their jobs? There is no guarantee those jobs will be replaced, and there is no guarantee that a company will step in to take their place either. But I really hope someone with deep pockets steps in and buys AMD, the fierce competition between AMD and Nvidia has brought us incredible products. Not to mention the AMD/Intel rivalry, think about the kick in the ass Intel got from AMD and look at the results.

I'd rather see AMD as it exists go out of business and their key divisions taken over and ran by more competent companies that have deeper pockets. I've said a few times that I think Apple is the most likely candidate to step up and buy them out (if it comes to that), but I'd honestly rather not see Apple buy any or all of AMD, as they will keep everything in-house and limited to their own product lines.

In my opinion Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, and Intel are the most likely candidates that would buy out the graphics division (in that order). I really don't think anyone would be very interested in their x86 division, though.

 

[Olikan]

mmm... maybe the sales are abit lower for amd, because ppl are waiting for 8000 series