Fascinating Story on the RV770

[Paratus]

Link

 

[AVP]

Was thinking of linking it, glad you did. Great read!

 

[Paratus]

I enjoyed it as well

 

[lavaheadache]

nice read... now where are those 8.12's that claim a needed boost in performance

 

[thilanliyan]

Nice read. I have to say G80 was amazing. First and only time I bought on launch day and I wasn't disappointed. Everything since then has been sort of...meh...but kudos to ATI for the 770 and bringing great performance at pretty good prices.

Ever remember how crappy the midrange parts (8600, 36XX, etc.) were before RV770 came out? I'm very glad you don't have to spend $500 (like I did with the 640 GTS) to get really good performance anymore.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Very interesting. One of the best AT articles for sure!

It would be interesting to see how nVIDIA will respond (in terms of design, marketing and strategy in the business) and change due to the RV770 effect.

 

[dguy6789]

Very good read.

 

[Jedi2155]

Its articles like this that brought me to Anandtech.

After reading the article though, I am glad I'm not going into chip design!

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
nice read... now where are those 8.12's that claim a needed boost in performance

Coming this month, same as always.

 

[nemesismk2]

It was a very interesting article which I enjoyed reading

 

[Hauk]

Love the expression on AMD's PR guy's face. Someone digitize him into a shooter so I can enjoy blasting him back a few feet, repeadetly.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Nice read. I have to say G80 was amazing. First and only time I bought on launch day and I wasn't disappointed. Everything since then has been sort of...meh...but kudos to ATI for the 770 and bringing great performance at pretty good prices.

Ever remember how crappy the midrange parts (8600, 36XX, etc.) were before RV770 came out? I'm very glad you don't have to spend $500 (like I did with the 640 GTS) to get really good performance anymore.

Very true... In the 15 or so years I have been working with hardware, I have never seen such great prices. You can get so much for your dollar now. Factor in inflation into the equation and it is even more amazing at the prices we pay. $150 for a card that will play any game basically on full settings. Laptops for $400 that have webcams, dual cores, 3GB ram, etc... Good time to be a PC gamer...

 

[Creig]

I'm glad that AMD opened up and allowed the interview without having a PR representative sitting there holding a leash on the Engineers to keep them from "saying too much". I hope to read more articles such as this one in the future. Although the gaming performance and features reviews of new hardware are always exciting (to us geeks, anyhow), it was very interesting to read about the people behind the product and the decisions they made that ultimately yielded the RV770.

Nice job, Anand.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: Creig
I'm glad that AMD opened up and allowed the interview without having a PR representative sitting there holding a leash on the Engineers to keep them from "saying too much". I hope to read more articles such as this one in the future. Although the gaming performance and features reviews of new hardware are always exciting (to us geeks, anyhow), it was very interesting to read about the people behind the product and the decisions they made that ultimately yielded the RV770.

Nice job, Anand.

Agreed. It was nice to read something not filled with marketing spin. They were honest where they messed up (R600 for example) without putting a spin on it and they were honest about why things happened. Good article. I wish they could have said some more about the RV8xx cards though.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Creig
I'm glad that AMD opened up and allowed the interview without having a PR representative sitting there holding a leash on the Engineers to keep them from "saying too much". I hope to read more articles such as this one in the future. Although the gaming performance and features reviews of new hardware are always exciting (to us geeks, anyhow), it was very interesting to read about the people behind the product and the decisions they made that ultimately yielded the RV770.

Nice job, Anand.

it is the kind of writing that Anand does best

you didn't see the leash?
- i saw it

 

[chizow]

Pretty good article, a bit disappointing as there wasn't much on how RV770 was so much better than its late and underwhelming predecessors. I would've been more interested in reading what specific areas of the GPU they fixed. I also agree that more info on RV870 would've been nice.

Didn't see much in there about pricing, as to why ATI didn't charge more for a high performing part, sounds like they just targetted price points without considering the competition's pricing. Sure its great for consumers, but it sure isn't helping AMD's bottomline and may ultimately hurt them in the long run.

Also no mention of ATI's very public driver problems. Considering both Anand and Derek have spent considerable space covering monthly driver issues, I'm a bit surprised he didn't directly confront them to affect change.

 

[bryanW1995]

re the driver problems, he probably didn't mention it because he was so happy to actually get 2 hrs with the real decision-makers within ATI. These guys don't sit down and write driver updates, they figure out how to get us $130 4850's that outperform $600 cards from the previous generations. Don't piss on this article just because it's ati-related, instead just look at the conclusions and be happy: everyone who's bought a card since june has gotten a LOT better price because ati had a good strategy and executed it well. Anand got to actually meet some of the "rock stars" in the video card industry and was able to shine some light on some issues that have been causing many nvida frowns and ati smiles for the past 6 months. Good article.

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: chizow
Pretty good article, a bit disappointing as there wasn't much on how RV770 was so much better than its late and underwhelming predecessors. I would've been more interested in reading what specific areas of the GPU they fixed. I also agree that more info on RV870 would've been nice.

Didn't see much in there about pricing, as to why ATI didn't charge more for a high performing part, sounds like they just targetted price points without considering the competition's pricing. Sure its great for consumers, but it sure isn't helping AMD's bottomline and may ultimately hurt them in the long run.

Also no mention of ATI's very public driver problems. Considering both Anand and Derek have spent considerable space covering monthly driver issues, I'm a bit surprised he didn't directly confront them to affect change.

There is no way you can support this statement. Please, stop spreading FUD.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: chizow
Didn't see much in there about pricing, as to why ATI didn't charge more for a high performing part, sounds like they just targetted price points without considering the competition's pricing. Sure its great for consumers, but it sure isn't helping AMD's bottomline and may ultimately hurt them in the long run.

Let's see, price it higher and try to compete directly with Nvidia for sales. Or... Price it lower, steal sales from Nvidia, garner enthusiastic public support for offering low cost/high performance cards while simultaneously forcing Nvidia to cut their own prices, drastically reducing (or eliminating) Nvidia's expected profit margin on an already expensive die.

Yeah, I think AMD did okay with their decision.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Janooo

Originally posted by: chizow
Pretty good article, a bit disappointing as there wasn't much on how RV770 was so much better than its late and underwhelming predecessors. I would've been more interested in reading what specific areas of the GPU they fixed. I also agree that more info on RV870 would've been nice.

Didn't see much in there about pricing, as to why ATI didn't charge more for a high performing part, sounds like they just targetted price points without considering the competition's pricing. Sure its great for consumers, but it sure isn't helping AMD's bottomline and may ultimately hurt them in the long run.

Also no mention of ATI's very public driver problems. Considering both Anand and Derek have spent considerable space covering monthly driver issues, I'm a bit surprised he didn't directly confront them to affect change.

There is no way you can support this statement. Please, stop spreading FUD.

How is charging less for a part that is competitive at a higher price point helping their bottom-line, especially since they once again posted a loss in the last quarter? Its easy to substantiate my statement about it ultimately hurting them, as they're not maximizing profits on a winning part now which will squeeze them down the line if/when they don't have a winning part. Even the article acknowledges this. But hey, its not like AMD has screwed things up in the past when they had a winner on their hands (see: Athlon 64 vs. P4).

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Creig
Let's see, price it higher and try to compete directly with Nvidia for sales. Or... Price it lower, steal sales from Nvidia, garner enthusiastic public support for offering low cost/high performance cards while simultaneously forcing Nvidia to cut their own prices, drastically reducing (or eliminating) Nvidia's expected profit margin on an already expensive die.

Yeah, I think AMD did okay with their decision.

Sure they did okay, but they could've done better. All they managed to do was lower NV's margin (they were still profitable in Q3, unlike ATI). NV on the other hand goes for the jugular when they have a killer part and does well even when they don't. And I guess you're finally acknowledging NV will win in a coin-flip situation against ATI, which is why ATI would choose to cut prices instead of taking NV on with a superior part. In the long run it hurts ATI as much as NV as they've set consumer expectations for their parts in terms of price to performance. As we can see with current pricing, there's not a whole lot of room when you start at the $200-$300 range.

 

[badnewcastle]

Good read it makes me curious if AMD/ATI being so tied to the development of GDDR5. I wonder if they tied any strings to the GDDR5 chip makers such as a percentage of GDDR5 chip sales or discounts??? Is it possible that AMD/ATI may have a cost advantage over Nvidia with GDDR5 and this is why NV needs to stay with bigger dies?

Does NV have to pay more for GDDR5 then ATI OR pay more for larger dies? If you were NV which would you take?

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: chizow

Sure they did okay, but they could've done better. All they managed to do was lower NV's margin (they were still profitable in Q3, unlike ATI).

Yeah other than the initial lower price (which don't get me wrong was great). I'm not sure what else is special about the RV770. Granted it was a much better offering than what they had out before, but it did not break any new ground or speed records.

Either way I'm glad to see AMD competitive. Hopefully the Phenom II will do the same. The prices of i7 are starting to get up there.

I don't want any monopolies.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: badnewcastle
Good read it makes me curious if AMD/ATI being so tied to the development of GDDR5. I wonder if they tied any strings to the GDDR5 chip makers such as a percentage of GDDR5 chip sales or discounts??? Is it possible that AMD/ATI may have a cost advantage over Nvidia with GDDR5 and this is why NV needs to stay with bigger dies?

Does NV have to pay more for GDDR5 then ATI OR pay more for larger dies? If you were NV which would you take?

Nvidia's current GT200 chip designs are definitely tied to memory bus, it was the same with G80 and G92 also. Trimming bus width would have a negative impact on performance as it would take memory controllers and ROPs with it. There's definitely a trade-off as NV went with a wider, more expensive bus with cheaper and readily available RAM. ATI went with a smaller bus with faster RAM to achieve similar bandwidth, but probably ran into some supply problems early on (see 1GB 4870 availability). I don't think ATI entered into any development agreement that would give them exclusive rights, but they may have some contractual quotas that would give them priority.

 

[Bateluer]

chizow, AMD's bottom line was raised by the R770 chips. They still posted a loss overall, but less of a loss primarily because of their pricing of the R700 family. AMD's Phenom is the product that was dragging everything down. Hopefully, the Phenom II will change that.