Doom to use Asynchronous Compute.

[happy medium]

AMD has recently clawed back some market-share from Nvidia in discrete graphics

I missed this information, link me please.

It takes a while for general population or average gamer to realize what we discuss here on Anadtech forums but not as long as it used to (thanks to social media, reddit etc.). I fully expect AMD to have clawed back even more market-share by next quarter as long as the trend of new releases being better on Radeon continues (even if it takes a week or two for them to fix it).

I would think that the average gamer like myself would wait for the new cards in a few months instead of making a wastefull 330$ purchase on a gtx970/390 now.
In my opinion not much market share to be gained here. At 20% there is not much more to lose.

 

[Headfoot]

The average gamer doesnt know new cards are coming

 

[Genx87]

Or if we follow nVidia's history, they purposely leave features out of cards to make them become obsolete sooner, making their newer cards look better. Kepler is a perfect example of this. Meanwhile GCN1.0 cards are still performing very well in the latest games as AMD designed them for the future.

If that were true their approach works rather well. Like it or not every manufacturer plans for obsolescence. GCN 1.0 cards performing well does nothing for AMD. It doesnt generate a new sale if the user of that card holds onto it longer. That said I dont think it matters if GCN 1.0 cards perform well in the twilight of their lifecycle. They will still be out performed by newer cards. Anybody looking to upgrade will upgrade regardless if GCN 1.0 cards hold up better.

 

[exar333]

The average gamer doesnt know new cards are coming

That is true...

For us 'in the know' it can be almost more challenging. For example, I need a VR card. Should I go with a 980Ti or just get a stopgap card (390x 8GB) to tide me over until Pascal? The cheaper card likely will lose less value and would be easy to sell...net cost probably would be <$100.

 

[Genx87]

That is true...

For us 'in the know' it can be almost more challenging. For example, I need a VR card. Should I go with a 980Ti or just get a stopgap card (390x 8GB) to tide me over until Pascal? The cheaper card likely will lose less value and would be easy to sell...net cost probably would be <$100.

This close I would wait to see what Pascal and Polaris have to offer.

 

[xthetenth]

That is true...

For us 'in the know' it can be almost more challenging. For example, I need a VR card. Should I go with a 980Ti or just get a stopgap card (390x 8GB) to tide me over until Pascal? The cheaper card likely will lose less value and would be easy to sell...net cost probably would be <$100.

Worst case is you get it wrong. That's where people who don't know start out. But generally they're happy because it's still a good solution, just not the best. If you get it wrong occasionally that's fine, you're still getting better results on aggregate.

 

[Headfoot]

This close I would wait to see what Pascal and Polaris have to offer.

Agreed. The 390 and 980 Ti wont disappear immediately when the new cards come out. In fact you might get a good discount

 

[Cookie Monster]

It all comes down to the tradeoffs that Nvidia has made with Kepler and later Maxwell being stuck at 28nm for as long as we have. They decided to make these tradeoffs to value power and efficiency over the more advanced compute capabilities. I don't necessarily think it's a knock on Nvidia but it does leave something to be desired in the coming DX12 era.

Thats probably what Pascal is for 🙂

Or if we follow nVidia's history, they purposely leave features out of cards to make them become obsolete sooner, making their newer cards look better. Kepler is a perfect example of this. Meanwhile GCN1.0 cards are still performing very well in the latest games as AMD designed them for the future.

This is nothing compared to what phone manufacturers do imo.

 

[exar333]

Agreed. The 390 and 980 Ti wont disappear immediately when the new cards come out. In fact you might get a good discount

Good advice...🙂

 

[Creig]

If that were true their approach works rather well. Like it or not every manufacturer plans for obsolescence. GCN 1.0 cards performing well does nothing for AMD. It doesnt generate a new sale if the user of that card holds onto it longer. That said I dont think it matters if GCN 1.0 cards perform well in the twilight of their lifecycle. They will still be out performed by newer cards. Anybody looking to upgrade will upgrade regardless if GCN 1.0 cards hold up better.

GCN's performance today could very easily equate to sales tomorrow. Some people are now looking at Nvidia with suspicion when considering which company to make their next purchase.

Between Kepler's performance tanking, the GTX 970 3.5GB + 0.5GB memory fiasco, 980Ti pricing cutting Titan X owners value two months after release, and now Nvidia's promising hardware Asynch Compute in Maxwell six months ago yet not delivering, AMD's GCN architecture is looking very attractive to potential buyers due to its performance, support and longevity.

All of this could very easily sway customers away from Nvidia.

 

[caswow]

GCN's performance could very easily equate to future sales as some people are now looking at Nvidia with suspicion when considering which company to make their next purchase.

Between Kepler's performance tanking, the GTX 970 3.5GB + 0.5GB memory fiasco, 980Ti pricing cutting Titan X owners value two months after release, and now Nvidia's promising hardware Asynch Compute in Maxwell six months ago yet not delivering, AMD's GCN architecture is looking very attractive to potential buyers due to its performance, support and longevity.

All of this could very easily sway customers away from Nvidia.

iam afraid to tell you that nvidia is still a bigger brandname despite anything that happened in all these years. look at twitch.tv nvidia is dominating all of the rigs. people dont know anything else besides intel cpus and nvidia gpus. the crowds twitch.tv is attracting is not to underestimate. a lot of people dont do research and think there is only nvidia or "GTX".

 

[poofyhairguy]

This is nothing compared to what phone manufacturers do imo.

What do you mean by that?

Seems like most phone makers throw everything they can into their device to find a way to stand out in a competitive market. The only phone maker that deliberately holds back punches is Apple, the rest give it their all.

 

[Arachnotronic]

What do you mean by that?

Seems like most phone makers throw everything they can into their device to find a way to stand out in a competitive market. The only phone maker that deliberately holds back punches is Apple, the rest give it their all.

Apple provides updates to ~5 year old phones. Try finding an Android phone that gets supported for that long. Good luck.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Apple provides updates to ~5 year old phones. Try finding an Android phone that gets supported for that long. Good luck.

What do updates have to do with hardware or graphics cards? I was assuming he meant phone makers pulled punches with their hardware, which none outside of Apple can afford to do. And Apple for sure does do it, for example the PPI of current phones or those terrible 2014 phones with 1GB of RAM.

And I can find plenty of Android phones supported for longer than 5 years. The 2010 Nexus One for example still gets plenty of support over on XDA (you never said official support).

 

[kondziowy]

GCN's performance today could very easily equate to sales tomorrow. Some people are now looking at Nvidia with suspicion when considering which company to make their next purchase.

Yep, that's what happened to me. A year ago, as my next purchase I was considering both companies. Today it's game over for Nvidia for a loooong time. Because of their hardware AND software.

 

[tg2708]

Apple does not hold back when it comes to performance of their devices, their cpu and graphics architecture always seem to perform better than those in android even though on paper the latter socs are deemed more powerful. They only hold back in screen resolution, ram and including redundant features in their products. Certain features are nice to have like fast charging but my device charges fast enough so such feature is a novelty rather than a deal breaker.

 

[Madpacket]

I missed this information, link me please.

I would think that the average gamer like myself would wait for the new cards in a few months instead of making a wastefull 330$ purchase on a gtx970/390 now.
In my opinion not much market share to be gained here. At 20% there is not much more to lose.

http://jonpeddie.com/publications/add-in-board-report

"Overall add-in board market decreased in Q4'15, AMD gained market share, while Nvidia lost share. Quarter-to-quarter AIBs shipments decreased -4.9% and -7.9% year-to-year." Sure it's not much but AMD gaining market share shows they've stopped the downward spiral.

No one really knows about Pascal and Polaris/Vega outside of tech circles. They do know about the Occulus Rift which was just released and should drive sales of new PC's given the requirements. They'll ask their geek friends what cards to buy and if they're being honest should be told to grab at least a Radeon 390 given the advantages Hawaii architecture has over Maxwell for VR. Also with Ethereum mining being profitable I suspect a barrage of new sales this quarter, don't underestimate how many cards will be sold by this. This will be good for AMD to clear inventories before delivering Polaris.