Yes, the add in video board market has grown since 2000. And NV is in many more markets than 3DFX ever was. But at the time, they had a bigger % of the add in 3d board market than NV does today.
Actually they didn't, ATi dwarfed 3Dfx even in the add in board segment. 3Dfx purchased STB to better compete with ATi(they were significantly larger then nV too at the time). The tech enthusiast mindset was entirely about 3Dfx bad in the late 90s, but the larger market bought ATi by the truckloads.
Since that isn't happening I'd have to conclude that at least some customers are capable of doing value analysis.
The FX5200 sold a ton
I'm not saying that having an inferior product is the best way to conduct your business, but the only issues with nV's GPUs that we are discussing here are heat and noise, not performance and considering this is nV we are talking about, not even price.
Since that isn't happening I'd have to conclude that at least some customers are capable of doing value analysis.
Most customers, for anything, shop at a price point, not a performance metric. AMD dominated Intel for quite a few years in terms of absolute performance, performance/dollar and pretty much any other metric you can use, and never hit 33% market share. Sure, they had close to 100% of the enthusiast market, but in end effect they were still stuck in budget crap PCs from most companies and that perception remains today. The perception that GeForce is the brand to get in gaming circles is quite strong, hit the gaming sites and check out the forums and you'll find the less technical the site, the less relevant ATi becomes. I'm not saying that is the way things should be at all, just that is what we are looking at right now. Better marketting and focusing in on the types of things people bash nV for on these forums(TWIMTBP is *huge* for nV) would go a long way into helping ATi gain more mass market penetration.
Don't know about all the stockholders, but analysts aren't quite as bullish.
Look closely at that chart and in the last six months the pros outweigh the cons, only one downgrade. Back when nV was going toe to toe in every segment is when they were getting the bad ratings. In a huge economic dowturn, luxury items fall off much sharper then the broader markets, nVidia makes luxury items(their are cheaper alternatives in every segment).
I'm half joking when I say this, but didn't we just go over how NV is ruling the roost with inferior hardware through sheer force of marketing alone? If Intel was able to foist P4 and GMA off on the general public what's to stop them from marketing LarryB into a raging success story?
Hehe, I know you are kidding but can you imagine the RMA's they'd be dealing with when everyone got their new parts installed and they couldn't run anything made in the last three years over 10fps
Most people don't care much about framerate, but it's like a car and most people not caring about 0-60 times, while they don't really care, they would at least like 0-60 to fall under the 'capable' category
Well, depends on what the cost of this $250 includes. I know in a restaurant if the raw material cost of a dish is $2, and you sell the dish at $6, you can still end up with a net loss if you can't make/sell enough of the dish because running cost is high. If the $250 cost already include the necessary R&D and marketing cost then my bet is that there is profit.
You are very correct in how the part could end up being a major loss for them. They need to sell a lot of parts to recoup R&D- this R&D is spread out across an entire product line, so it isn't like they need to sell $1Billion worth of just the GF100 parts, but they do need to sell an awful lot of GF1xx based parts to recoup their money. The issue I have with what Charlie is stating is that the part as it is made is unprofitable. The only way it becomes unprofitable is if it doesn't sell enough units. His claims that there will only be on batch of these cards makes no business sense. Much like the $2 dish, you don't start turning people away after the first few meals are served or you will lost a ton based on your overhead. This is the only way nV loses money selling a $250 part for $500, if they don't sell a lot of them. Gross margins need to remain higher then R&D expenses to keep them profitable, it's as simple as that. That raw margins on the boards, while certainly having an impact, isn't nearly the factor that scales of economy are due to the nature of the industry and how much of your total product cost is in R&D.
And yet, I can still buy ATI 4 series and G92 hardware in bulk while all but trace supplies of GT200s are long since a distant memory. I don't think the GT200 was as much of a success as you believe.
Really look at it and the GT200 was a "G92.5" part. Feature set was almost identical, the GT3xx parts actually have a larger feature rift then the GT2xx and G82 parts.
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