Fuad@Fudzilla - "Nvidia’s partners on their knees"

[dzoner]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18326/1/

"Talking to Nvidia's partners in the last few months was not quite a chance to hear plenty of happy stories. Every single company that made a bulk of its money selling Nvidia’s GPUs is literaly on its knees.

Fermi delay created a huge income loss for these companies, especially for partners exclusive to Nvidia and the lack of GTX 285, 260 and 295 cards in Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 were the last stabs to their already wounded business.

Business has lost huge income and some of them had to cut salaries or employees as they are struggling to survive.

All eyes are now on Fermi GTX 480 and 470 sales, as high end usually makes a significant part of profit making process. The cards are still open and Fermi is yet to be available in stores."

Interesting, coming from Fuad. Combine this with Charlie's informed
estimate of 30,000 total usable chips from the initial A3 risk wafer run and the picture gets pretty dark for the BFG's of the world.

???Nvidia just about has to order up more A3 wafers even if the yields are still such that they are selling them at a loss to the AIBs???

If so, it'll be juggling bowling balls while walking a tightrope for everyone concerned.

 

[happy medium]

repost to a already locked thread..........

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2064098

 

[edplayer]

any estimates on the die size of nVidia's new mid range gpus?

 

[Acanthus]

any estimates on the die size of nVidia's new mid range gpus?

4 square miles.

 

[sandorski]

4 square miles.

Perfect! Now I can build my Hobby Farm!!

 

[sandorski]

I think the lesson to be learned here is to not get stuck into Exclusivity Agreements. No matter who you choose, eventually you'll get burned.

 

[CrystalBay]

This goes against consumers also ,if only fanbois could see...

See you you fraggin whores...unless you only bechmark

 

[ZimZum]

4 square miles.

The first GPU able to be seen from orbit?

 

[sandorski]

The first GPU able to be seen from orbit?

Anand could open a Theme Park: Walk the Fermi Maze!

 

[dzoner]

any estimates on the die size of nVidia's new mid range gpus?

Not that I'm aware of.

Charlie D says GF108 just taped out and is first up ... probably a priority to staunch the bleeding in their primary OEM markets ... so the mid-range cards are probably sometime well into Q3.

Nvidia knows exactly what they have to beat, but can they design and manufacture a chip price/performance competitive with Juniper. Seems a tall order, considering, and almost certainly no fat profit margins in sight for Nvidia or it's AIBs on GF100 or it's variants for the rest of this year.

 

[Skurge]

any estimates on the die size of nVidia's new mid range gpus?

just over 300mm^2

 

[Lonyo]

Well in the UK they probably aren't too bothered since thei margins are crazy, with the GTX470 selling at the same price as the HD5870.

Having said that, one UK etailer hasn't even sold out on its pre-order supplies. In fact, they've been sat with about 30 cards left for pre-order for most of this last week because no one seems to be ordering them.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18326/1/

"Talking to Nvidia's partners in the last few months was not quite a chance to hear plenty of happy stories. Every single company that made a bulk of its money selling Nvidia’s GPUs is literaly on its knees.

Fermi delay created a huge income loss for these companies, especially for partners exclusive to Nvidia and the lack of GTX 285, 260 and 295 cards in Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 were the last stabs to their already wounded business.

Business has lost huge income and some of them had to cut salaries or employees as they are struggling to survive.

All eyes are now on Fermi GTX 480 and 470 sales, as high end usually makes a significant part of profit making process. The cards are still open and Fermi is yet to be available in stores."

Interesting, coming from Fuad. Combine this with Charlie's informed
estimate of 30,000 total usable chips from the initial A3 risk wafer run and the picture gets pretty dark for the BFG's of the world.

???Nvidia just about has to order up more A3 wafers even if the yields are still such that they are selling them at a loss to the AIBs???

If so, it'll be juggling bowling balls while walking a tightrope for everyone concerned.

See the bolded part? Who do you think he's kidding? Himself? Mainstream parts sell a lot more then the highest-end parts. Margins on the highend is also higher though, but that doesn't make up for the difference in sheer amount of videocards sold in the mainstream segment.

 

[Voo]

See the bolded part? Who do you think he's kidding? Himself? Mainstream parts sell a lot more then the highest-end parts. Margins on the highend is also higher though, but that doesn't make up for the difference in sheer amount of videocards sold in the mainstream segment.

Well I'd say that a huge portion of the Mainstream Parts are sold to/by OEMs, which means that Nvidia is doing that business right? And the margins for highend parts are much better than for the mainstream parts, so it surely hurts the vendors more than Nvidia..

 

[Unkle_Tar]

See the bolded part? Who do you think he's kidding? Himself? Mainstream parts sell a lot more then the highest-end parts. Margins on the highend is also higher though, but that doesn't make up for the difference in sheer amount of videocards sold in the mainstream segment.

You're probably right, but they got no middle of the road cards either if the 200 series supply dried up. Are they still producing 250's?

 

[Lonyo]

See the bolded part? Who do you think he's kidding? Himself? Mainstream parts sell a lot more then the highest-end parts. Margins on the highend is also higher though, but that doesn't make up for the difference in sheer amount of videocards sold in the mainstream segment.

He was talking about those who "make the bulk of their money selling NV GPUs".
Those who sell a lot of mainstream products probably also sell ATI stuff and other things.

Yes, mainstream is a lot of sales, but who do those sales go to? Companies like MSI, who make a lot of own branded products for ATI and NV, and also sell a lot of parts to others as OEM stuff aren't going to be hit too hard, but people like BFG will be.
A company like MSI sold 7 million graphics cards, of which 2.1m were own brand and the rest to OEMs/etc.
They aren't going to care, and they also sold 2 million notebooks and 18 million motherboards. They don't make the bulk of their money selling NV GPUs. This story isn't about the big players. THe players who sell in volume and make profit that way through things like the mainstream.

 

[MarcVenice]

He was talking about those who "make the bulk of their money selling NV GPUs".
Those who sell a lot of mainstream products probably also sell ATI stuff and other things.

Yes, mainstream is a lot of sales, but who do those sales go to? Companies like MSI, who make a lot of own branded products for ATI and NV, and also sell a lot of parts to others as OEM stuff aren't going to be hit too hard, but people like BFG will be.
A company like MSI sold 7 million graphics cards, of which 2.1m were own brand and the rest to OEMs/etc.
They aren't going to care, and they also sold 2 million notebooks and 18 million motherboards. They don't make the bulk of their money selling NV GPUs. This story isn't about the big players. THe players who sell in volume and make profit that way through things like the mainstream.

I think BFG, EVGA etc, also make most of their money selling mainstream-parts. What those company's really can't wait for, are gf104-gf108-parts.

 

[Mem]

Well in the UK they probably aren't too bothered since thei margins are crazy, with the GTX470 selling at the same price as the HD5870.

Having said that, one UK etailer hasn't even sold out on its pre-order supplies. In fact, they've been sat with about 30 cards left for pre-order for most of this last week because no one seems to be ordering them.

I know quite a few gamers that waited for Nvidia to release their new cards in the UK but were disappointed with the UK pricing compared to ATi products and jumped ship to ATi 5xxx etc...

 

[viivo]

"Talking to Nvidia's partners in the last few months was not quite a chance to hear plenty of happy stories. Every single company that made a bulk of its money selling Nvidia’s GPUs is literaly on its knees.

Crikey, how does a site retain readers with writing like that? No, the companies aren't literally on their knees because companies do not have knees to literally or physically be on. Also, that first sentence is wonky as fuck.

Sorry for the derail. Carry on.

 

[Zebo]

Thermi should sell well and alleviate many concerns but I bet they learned to diversify with both Red and Green.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Thermi should sell well and alleviate many concerns but I bet they learned to diversify with both Red and Green.

I'm kind of suprised more companies don't do that, sell from both vendors. Right now, I am willing to bet XFX is sitting in a much better position than if they were still Nvidia-only.

It's one thing if just Fermi was delayed, but Nvidia has nothing beyond the GTS250 to really entice some sales for it's AIB's. While Nvidia may be able to remain profitable for a while in this situation, I don't know how well their AIB's can do. I'm sure they'll never admit it, but I bet EVGA and BFG wouldn't mind having a Radeon 5xxx line up of cards out.

But, even if a company like EVGA approached AMD, AMD may be reluctant to add them. AMD has a lot of AIB's at this point, they probably don't want to piss off Sapphire for example. Though from my standpoint that would have been a nice decision to make, the Sapphire Vapor-X or an EVGA SuperClocked 5870?

And LOL @ 'Thermi'

 

[bunnyfubbles]

any estimates on the die size of nVidia's new mid range gpus?

Current rumors size the GF104 in at 324mm^2, just a bit smaller than the 334mm^2 Cypress in the R5800s.

The problem is that when we consider the lack luster performance of the GF100 relative to Cypress, it seems highly unlikely GF104 will be able to touch Cypress and will probably be a tad slower than the GT200s they'll be replacing.

The good news is that nVidia finally made the jump to GDDR5, so that will help make the boards cheaper.

But even then, the cost of producing a Cypress or a GF104 should be roughly the same, which means nVidia and their partners probably still won't be able to compete in terms of price/performance without taking a hit. nVidia really needs another G92. GF104 is a step in the right direction, although I think its still too big for 40nm.

 

[happy medium]

You're probably right, but they got no middle of the road cards either if the 200 series supply dried up. Are they still producing 250's?

Here is some detail on mainstream parts. GTX 450,gtx 440, gtx 430.
They should be avalable in June.

 

[happy medium]

You're probably right, but they got no middle of the road cards either if the 200 series supply dried up. Are they still producing 250's?

Here is some detail on mainstream parts. GTX 450,gtx 440, gtx 430.
They should be avalable in June.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18243/1/

http://www.guru3d.com/news/geforce-...-surface/?TB_iframe=true&height=650&width=850

 

[taltamir]

I think the lesson to be learned here is to not get stuck into Exclusivity Agreements. No matter who you choose, eventually you'll get burned.

definitely. ATI had hard times too, if you are exclusive with a company that ISN'T exclusive with you then its failures become your own, but its success doesn't guarantee you success, it merely allows you to succeed or fail on your own merit.