[Anandtech] Discrete Q2 GPU Marketshare - AMD rises to 30%

[kawi6rr]

What proof do you have that the recent improvement in amd performance as a company (if you can even call it that up for debate) has made things better for the consumer/customers?

It got me my R9 290 Trixx OC for $250 2 years ago so it benefited me quite well. More options to choose from benefits all consumers.

 

[Elfear]

What evidence is there that amds increased marketshare has led to benefits for the consumer/customer?

290/290X released for much lower prices then their competition and forced Nvidia to drop prices. Win for AMD and Nvidia consumers.

980Ti was released at $550 to compete with the Fury X. If AMD had no card to compete with the 980Ti at the time, I think it's safe to say the 980Ti would have been much more expensive as we saw with the release of the Titan X (P) (I realize the Fury X dropped after the 980Ti but Nvidia had to have had some idea of the upcoming competition when it set the 980Ti price). Win for AMD and Nvidia consumers.

RX 480 releases at $200/$240 and the GTX follows soon after at $240. Would the 1060 have released at that price point with no 480 to compete with? Seems highly unlikely. Win for Nvidia and AMD consumers.

Strong competition is better for consumers because it keeps prices in check and causes each company to strive harder to win over consumers. What does that extra "striving" look like? More tech features, game bundles, software innovations, overclocking options, etc.

 

[master_shake_]

i wonder if people are put off by nvidias pricing as of late?

that and their founders edition strategy.

 

[swilli89]

The market definitely needs competition for everyone's benefit. Its crazy that middle of the pack 1080's cost $700 when you consider that that's $700 for a 314mm die! AMD would charge the same if they could; unfortunately for high end buyers nVidia has no reason to not due to the lack of Vega.

 

[zinfamous]

That's fine and dandy to say in general what it should do.

Im saying we've seen amd claw marketshare for the last year as well as other metrics.

What impact has that had on improving our experience as customers?

Everytime over the past year and then some you have people cheering when amd does well and how it will lead to lower prices, better products, etc. So what's the evidence over the past year or so that has led us to Polaris today....

nVidia almost certainly would not have released 1060 as soon as they did, and at $250. RX480 "4gb" pricing forced their hand (phantom card or not, nVidia had to respond).

One can imagine the greater garbage pricing that would have happened with the unfortunate 3gb "1060." nVidia would have easily put those at $250/300 MSRP

 

[96Firebird]

snip

290(X) did launch at great prices, too bad the lackluster reference cooler, missing aftermarket cards at launch and the balloon pricing due to mining ruined it.

980 Ti launched 3 months after the Titan X for $650, just like the 780 launched 3 months after the Titan for $650. Why change a strategy that worked wonderfully before?

You have no idea what the 1060 would have launched had the 480 not been released.

Post would have been better had you just posted the first and last paragraph.

 

[swilli89]

290(X) did launch at great prices, too bad the lackluster reference cooler, missing aftermarket cards at launch and the balloon pricing due to mining ruined it.

980 Ti launched 3 months after the Titan X for $650, just like the 780 launched 3 months after the Titan for $650. Why change a strategy that worked wonderfully before?

You have no idea what the 1060 would have launched had the 480 not been released.

Post would have been better had you just posted the first and last paragraph.

That's actually a great point you make. We can totally do an experiment!

During the last two generations nVidia has released the big chip at a much lower price both times; the OG Titan to 780 and the Titax X to 980 Ti. Both times we had an alternative Radeon card in terms of equivalent performance. So there's two established data points of nVidia releasing cheaper big chip SKUs in a competitive environment 3 months after the "premium" Titan card is released.

If you are saying that nVidia does this just because it "works wonderfully" then now that the "premium" GP102 Titan X is out, should we fully expect a 1080ti in November for $650? Because this is what happened the previous two generations that featured competition..

 

[greatnoob]

You have no idea what the 1060 would have launched had the 480 not been released.

It makes perfect sense if you've ever heard of the game theory and know how an oligopoly and a cartel, like the GPU market, can influence prices. Both companies could collude and significantly increase their prices leaving customers worse off had AMD had higher market share. The reason why AMD pricing is so low is because they don't have dominant control or the branding that Nvidia has. If AMD pricing is low, Nvidia also has to follow suit or else they would not be competitive in the mid-tier range. If AMD prices high, Nvidia will also follow suit because they want higher revenues (they already have the branding and market share, so no need to price lower) - both companies would be better off while consumers worse off.

 

[tential]

It makes perfect sense if you've ever heard of the game theory and know how an oligopoly and a cartel, like the GPU market, can influence prices. Both companies could collude and significantly increase their prices leaving customers worse off had AMD had higher market share. The reason why AMD pricing is so low is because they don't have dominant control or the branding that Nvidia has. If AMD pricing is low, Nvidia also has to follow suit or else they would not be competitive in the mid-tier range. If AMD prices high, Nvidia will also follow suit because they want higher revenues (they already have the branding and market share, so no need to price lower) - both companies would be better off while consumers worse off.

Except amd has matched Nvidia pricing. Before amd used to undercut Nvidia by a decent amount.

There is a ton of gpu history rewriting going on in this thread and it's great that people got cheap r9 290s during the period in which amd was at low marketshare. But that's not the recent amd trend in gaining marketshare.

Unless you're seriously trying to make a case that r9 290 sales 2 years ago is the reason amds is gaining marketshare recently, explain to me how amds recent marketshare increases are benefiting consumers.

So far people have used the r9 290 which is actually just showing amd would sell at firesale prices when they have low marketshare and need to clear inventory. This isn't relevant to amds recent gain in marketshare.

As for the 1060 comment. Nvidia released the gtx 960 at $200. Nvidia was able to release the gtx 1060 at an even higher price. How did amds rx480 stop Nvidia from releasing the gtx 1060 at a higher price than the gtx 960?

 

[greatnoob]

Except amd has matched Nvidia pricing. Before amd used to undercut Nvidia by a decent amount.

There is a ton of gpu history rewriting going on in this thread and it's great that people got cheap r9 290s during the period in which amd was at low marketshare. But that's not the recent amd trend in gaining marketshare.

Unless you're seriously trying to make a case that r9 290 sales 2 years ago is the reason amds is gaining marketshare recently, explain to me how amds recent marketshare increases are benefiting consumers.

So far people have used the r9 290 which is actually just showing amd would sell at firesale prices when they have low marketshare and need to clear inventory. This isn't relevant to amds recent gain in marketshare.

As for the 1060 comment. Nvidia released the gtx 960 at $200. Nvidia was able to release the gtx 1060 at an even higher price. How did amds rx480 stop Nvidia from releasing the gtx 1060 at a higher price than the gtx 960?

I have absolutely no idea what you're on about or how it relates to my post, but it seems like you've (somehow) taken offense to basic economics.

@96Firebird said "You have no idea what the 1060 would have launched had the 480 not been released" in response to @Elfear posting "RX 480 releases at $200/$240 and the GTX follows soon after at $240. Would the 1060 have released at that price point with no 480 to compete with? Seems highly unlikely. Win for Nvidia and AMD consumers."

I provided an economic explanation as to why Elfear is correct in his reasoning. This is a figure of what I'm talking about:

 

[tajoh111]

290/290X released for much lower prices then their competition and forced Nvidia to drop prices. Win for AMD and Nvidia consumers.

980Ti was released at $550 to compete with the Fury X. If AMD had no card to compete with the 980Ti at the time, I think it's safe to say the 980Ti would have been much more expensive as we saw with the release of the Titan X (P) (I realize the Fury X dropped after the 980Ti but Nvidia had to have had some idea of the upcoming competition when it set the 980Ti price). Win for AMD and Nvidia consumers.

RX 480 releases at $200/$240 and the GTX follows soon after at $240. Would the 1060 have released at that price point with no 480 to compete with? Seems highly unlikely. Win for Nvidia and AMD consumers.

Strong competition is better for consumers because it keeps prices in check and causes each company to strive harder to win over consumers. What does that extra "striving" look like? More tech features, game bundles, software innovations, overclocking options, etc.

Nvidia also puts pressure on AMD and it is very likely the gtx 1060 would have launched at 250/300 with or without the rx480. This is because if you look at the pricing of the 1070, that was the only price it could have launched at while maintaining the value proposition of a 1060. A 300 and 350(founders) dollar 1060 doesn't make sense when the gtx 1070 is 38% faster. And considering midrange has always had the highest price to performance, a 300 and 350FE would do poorly in reviews and thus poorly in sales.

Looking at all factors, its Nvidia striking first and pricing the gtx 1070 at 380/450 that made the rx 480 pricing as it is. Finfet is more expensive than 28nm ever was and yet for the first time, AMD priced their cards for the die size, cheaper than the 3870 which was almost 9 years ago. The 7870 from AMD was smaller than polaris and had a less beefy power delivery system, yet it was priced at 350 dollars.

Look at AMD terrible pricing segmentation and you can see that 250 dollars is too low of a price to fit 6 products in it with 120 floor pricing for the rx 460. E.g rx 480, 470 and 460 and their different memory variants. What having such closely spaced products does is it causes cannibalization of sales and confusion around consumers. You want discrete pricing segments which maximizes potential profit. E.g the sales of one card doesn't mean the loss of another one.

I think AMD wanted to price these cards at 300 dollars, but with the gtx 1070 being 50% faster, that plan went out the window.

As a result of Nvidia brand prestige and the looming threat of the gtx 1060, AMD had to price their cards at 240. Particularly for marketing and review purposes. Any higher and polaris would have gotten a bad review because it would be conceding performance per dollar, per watt to the 1070 and a bad review on a new chip is the last thing AMD needs.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Looking at the data there is no reason to believe AMD's "gain" is the result of anything but a seasonal slump on NV's part precisely because of the Maxwell getting to EOLed -> Start of Pascal product cycle.

Unless you one of those who keeps citing Steam HW survey as a perpetual conspiracy theory against AMD.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

As for the 1060 comment. Nvidia released the gtx 960 at $200. Nvidia was able to release the gtx 1060 at an even higher price. How did amds rx480 stop Nvidia from releasing the gtx 1060 at a higher price than the gtx 960?

You have a flaw in your thought processes, due to completely omitting ram population. Which explains the pricing fallacy you are laboring under. The 960 launched in reverse order to 1060 i.e. lower ram population first, higher after. The 960 2GB was $200 MSRP base, so is the 3GB 1060. The 960 4GB was $240 MSRP base, the 1060 6GB was $249.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

i wonder if people are put off by nvidias pricing as of late?

that and their founders edition strategy.

I'm more put off by no freesync and them wanting to put game ready drivers behind their stupid gfe bloatware with mandatory login.

But I doubt most people are that well informed, I'd say the main thing is the 480 and 470 are good cards for the price and the new cards are pretty scarce so everything that gets made gets sold.

 

[zinfamous]

Looking at the data there is no reason to believe AMD's "gain" is the result of anything but a seasonal slump on NV's part precisely because of the Maxwell getting to EOLed -> Start of Pascal product cycle.

Unless you one of those who keeps citing Steam HW survey as a perpetual conspiracy theory against AMD.

Huh? no one does that. Steam survey is cited as a flawed metric, because it is a flawed metric. It inaccurately tracks hardware and there is simply no way around this fact. Manufacturer agnostic, it is still a broken tool that really isn't worth considering at this point. Regardless of which brand it may or may not track accurately, it doesn't matter in terms of some mythical conspiracy: if it can't track data from brand A as accurately as brand B, then what it reports of brand B is, by rule, essentially invalid.

Steam survey is great at accurately tracking the hardware of users that choose to participate, do not have certain Intel IGPs, and do not run multi-GPU configurations. What an informative demographic! 😀

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD didnt gain anything in revenue. Nvidia gained a lot. So AMD increased shipments while not getting more revenue. In other words, they exchanged more expensive parts for cheaper parts in greater volume. The parts we talk about here is really low end parts. 350 series and below, GT740 series and below. To give a hint the lowest Maxwell card was 750 and the lowest Pascal card is 1050 on the desktop if we exclude 2 rare OEM versions. Nvidia dropped the low end after Kepler.

From the CFO.

GPU ASP remained flat sequentially and decreased year‐over year. The year‐over‐year decrease was primarily driven by lower desktop GPU ASP.
Computing and Graphics operating loss was $81 million, compared to an operating loss of $70 million in Q1 2016, primarily due to lower revenue

Sounds like a "great win".

Good to see the news "rereleased". Just in time to finish the stock dilution.

 

[nurturedhate]

AMD didnt gain anything in revenue. Nvidia gained a lot. So AMD increased shipments while not getting more revenue. In other words, they exchanged more expensive parts for cheaper parts in greater volume. The parts we talk about here is really low end parts. 350 series and below, GT740 series and below. To give a hint the lowest Maxwell card was 750 and the lowest Pascal card is 1050 on the desktop if we exclude 2 rare OEM versions. Nvidia dropped the low end after Kepler.

From the CFO.


Sounds like a "great win".

Good to see the news "rereleased". Just in time to finish the stock dilution.

So what you are saying is that market share is a completely worthless metric and should never, ever again be brought up as a means to show the dominance of one company over the other, like say Nvidia over AMD? I'll remember that because I've sworn I've heard nothing but the exact opposite from several forum posters for years now about Nvidia and their dominance in market share.

Baffles me why we have so many people who devote so much time, years and 10s of thousands of posts, to making sure one side or the other looks as bad as it absolutely can in online forums.

 

[ShintaiDK]

So what you are saying is that market share is a completely worthless metric and should never, ever again be brought up as a means to show the dominance of one company over the other, like say Nvidia over AMD? I'll remember that because I've sworn I've heard nothing but the exact opposite from several forum posters for years now about Nvidia and their dominance in market share.

Baffles me why we have so many people who devote so much time, years and 10s of thousands of posts, to making sure one side or the other looks as bad as it absolutely can in online forums.

Market share is relevant. But its just as important to understand the product mix of it. Specially when the market is moving upwards in SKUs while the overall segment is decreasing.

 

[tviceman]

Good for AMD. Still amazing to me that, given AMD's lower ASP, Nvidia is still outselling them by more than 2 to 1 in the discrete market. It will be interesting to see what effect the new low end GPU's (Polaris 11 and the upcoming GP107) have on total discrete shipments.

 

[Bacon1]

AMD didnt gain anything in revenue. Nvidia gained a lot

I love paying more than before for parts, don't know about you!

In other words, they exchanged more expensive parts for cheaper parts in greater volume.

So exactly what they said they would do with Polaris.

The parts we talk about here is really low end parts.

Source?

“Our strong second quarter graphics performance was capped by the launch of our new Polaris-based RX 480 GPUs at the end of June, which helped contribute to our highest desktop channel GPU shipments since the fourth quarter of 2014,” said Lisa Su, chief executive officer of AMD, during the conference call with investors and financial analysts. “We also delivered our third straight quarter of sequential professional graphics revenue growth and believe we gained share driven by increased adoption of FirePro graphics by OEMs as well as several cloud data center GPU compute wins.”

Those all go against what you are saying.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Market share is relevant. But its just as important to understand the product mix of it. Specially when the market is moving upwards in SKUs while the overall segment is decreasing.

Yea, lots of rationalization about how AMD is out to gain market share with low end cards. Simple fact is, they aren't able compete in any other segment, and won't be for several more months.

 

[Abwx]

Nvidia gained a lot. .

They actually gained nothing...

Rather than selling a 200$ GPU to OEMs they shun down those latter and sold the whole card, this way they added say 200$ per GPU and got 400$/GPU revenue instead of said 200$...

To summarize they transfered revenues that were normaly made by the OEMs in their own pocket, that s how they artificially boosted their revenue, not sure that it will be possible next quarter and this will surely show in their numbers.

 

[Bacon1]

Yea, lots of rationalization about how AMD is out to gain market share with low end cards. Simple fact is, they aren't able compete in any other segment, and won't be for several more months.

Funny how its "rationalization", yet that is what AMD stated when they announced Polaris back in January. They said they wanted to gain marketshare by providing a quality mid-range option. They never said that Polaris was going to compete in the high end.

 

[kawi6rr]

Funny how its "rationalization", yet that is what AMD stated when they announced Polaris back in January. They said they wanted to gain marketshare by providing a quality mid-range option. They never said that Polaris was going to compete in the high end.

I didn't find it hard to understand when that's exactly what AMD said, thought it was pretty straight forward. Funny how certain individuals can't understand it when it was basically thrown in their face.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I didn't find it hard to understand when that's exactly what AMD said, thought it was pretty straight forward. Funny how certain individuals can't understand it when it was basically thrown in their face.

What else would they say? They are hardly going admit they can't compete in the most profitable and prestigious segments.