How/why did Amd/ATI fall behind Nvidia?

[bystander36]

Performance wise, HD4870 was not faster than GTX280.

He clearly is viewing his list from a consumer view, perhaps an AMD biased consumer view. From a business standpoint, several of those go to Nvidia, such as that one, and the 580 vs 6970. Nvidia had higher performance and cost point. Even if AMD's gave the consumer a better value, that would be an Nvidia win from a business standpoint.

 

[thilanliyan]

I think G80 was the start of the nearly there cards from ATI, and their buyout by AMD probably had something to do with it. Very rarely have they convincingly taken the performance lead since then.

 

[Leyawiin]

290x - 970
980 is the single fastest single card
295x2 is the single fastest dual card
290x and 970 are comparable but I'd bet 290x will beat it by a long shot in due course
But overall this generation is a tie

Much of what you've listed is subjected as far as who the "winner" is, but this last bit is the biggest example of them all of that subjectiveness. Interesting how you left the two fastest Maxwell's out.

 

[Serandur]

I think G80 was the start of the nearly there cards from ATI, and their buyout by AMD probably had something to do with it. Very rarely have they convincingly taken the performance lead since then.

I agree, G80 (the 8800 GTX) was a big turning point. Nvidia started producing monster dies, introduced CUDA, and solidified the foundation of their modern development strategy with that chip/card. Stuff like CUDA are part of a clever and long-term proprietary technology push from Nvidia which secure demand for their products over the competition.

Their big-die, compute/graphics, and proprietary tech mixed approach made them very popular in both the professional and consumer space in a way ATi/AMD didn't follow.

 

[tviceman]

Besides short blips here and there, Nvidia has had the biggest and fastest dies starting with the 8800 GTX.

 

[SolMiester]

Funny how people actually believe this.

Funny how people dont?

 

[AtenRa]

Funny how people dont?

Funny how people forget

HD5870 lead for 6 months,
HD7970 lead for 3 months,
HD7970GE lead for 6 months

But i will agree that after HD2900 NV had the lead more often than AMD.

 

[SolMiester]

AMD have and is the industry leader in the world with GPU. ALL Nvidia is doing is locking down tech and copy AMD. Nvidia cant even make cards without a sli bridge. Their development of memory was a epic fail and have to buy from amd Hynix.
The 290 still are leaders in the market and a new version 390 covers all the midrange and soon the most advanced tech in a GPU ever is about to be presented called the Fury.

Mantle was developed to allow developers more control over hardware offering more fps and better games and is now an industry standard with DX12, Vulkan, Metal.

What did nvidia do?
Locked down physX, Gsync all stuff adding cost and then arising more cost to high end GPU all using old tech like GDDr5.

The world leader is AMD and Fury is the mark

 

[dave1029]

It's because despite AMD keeping up with raw GPU power, Nvidia always seems to have the better experience. The frames are smoother, the more popular games are gameworks titles. G-Sync is an enormous step in the right direction in terms of smooth gameplay. Nvidia's control panel takes a massive dump on AMD's pathetic excuse of a control panel. Nvidia driver support is far more speedy. I've had AMD for years... 7970, 290x, 295x2, and now I'm currently running Titan X SLI. Nvidia has blown me away with all the bonuses I get beyond just the 40% fps boost I got from switching. AMD is just lazy when it comes to gaming.

Edit: Also Physx... I always just said meh it's not that great... till I actually got to use it. Pretty nice stuff.

 

[Keysplayr]

Funny how people forget

HD5870 lead for 6 months,
HD7970 lead for 3 months,
HD7970GE lead for 6 months

But i will agree that after HD2900 NV had the lead more often than AMD.

You are counting the GTX480 being late to market by six months.
You are also counting the 3 months that Nvidia had no answer to 7970 until GTX680. Are you really going to count these? I mean, no biggie, but I think folks are talking head to head here. Not head to absence. Like for a while now AMD has had no answer to Maxwell (any die).
And, 7970GE only evened up the performance between it and GTX680 at launch. It had some great gradual driver improvements though.

 

[Keysplayr]

Yeah, that was actually cringe-worthy reading.

 

[happy medium]

How/why did Amd/ATI fall behind Nvidia?

Because AMD marketeers in the forums are so obvious , it makes AMD look like a desperate, second rate , looser company. AND on top of that, their cpu's are hot and power hungry and suck too. In short their name is forever tarnished. Every now and then they have a fairly good product. In fact I have one of their better products, the 6870.

You asked for it, and that's my opinion

 

[AnandThenMan]

Very rarely have they convincingly taken the performance lead since then.

Revisionist memory.

It's because despite AMD keeping up with raw GPU power, Nvidia always seems to have the better experience. The frames are smoother,

Nope.

 

[dave1029]

Revisionist memory.

Nope.

The only smooth frame experience I've had with AMD was the 295x2. And only if it worked properly depending on the game. Which was 50/50.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

With the 680 nvidia had a card that was cheaper to make than the 7970 and performed a little better (back then). But the titan, 780 and 780Ti were probably more expensive to make than their 290 and 290X counterparts. Sli had an advantage, as amd didn't bother with framepacing back then.

Those amd cards are probably better at compute, but it seems the scientific compute stuck with nvidia (maybe because of the software and support?) and that's the most lucrative market I guess.

Now with maxwell nvidia takes quite a big lead, a 980 has a smaller chip, narrower memory bus, lower powerconsumption and better gaming performance than 290x. The 980's are cheaper to make and sell them for more than the 290x.

I guess nvidia has an advantage with things like physx, many people see the physx logo in a game's splash screen and think they're missing out or an nvidia card will run it better. Even though 9/10 games with physx run it only on the cpu, even with nvidia cards.

Nvidia's driver seems to have lower cpu overhead or scale better with multicore cpu's, so that's somewhat of an advantage for now, but with dx12 that advantage will be eliminated.

 

[Kenmitch]

Looking at AMD vs Intel....Hugely behind.

Looking at AMD vs NVIDIA....Not out of reach.

Talking performance.

AMD lacks R&D money currently. GCN looks to be the better technology. NVIDIA has to keep improving theirs to keep competitive in the short term. GCN is like the energizer bunny of the GPU world. NVIDIA technology looks to slowly fade away.

AMD needs per/watt improvements for the most part.

The real question is why can't NVIDIA finish them off? Sure they knock them out....But they never stay down for the count.

Thinking this is why game works was invented....To keep a competitive edge..

 

[hawtdawg]

Marketing is the only reason anyone thinks Nvidia is so much better than AMD.

 

[dave1029]

Looking at AMD vs Intel....Hugely behind.

Looking at AMD vs NVIDIA....Not out of reach.

Talking performance.

AMD lacks R&D money currently. GCN looks to be the better technology. NVIDIA has to keep improving theirs to keep competitive in the short term. GCN is like the energizer bunny of the GPU world. NVIDIA technology looks to slowly fade away.

AMD needs per/watt improvements for the most part.

The real question is why can't NVIDIA finish them off? Sure they knock them out....But they never stay down for the count.

Thinking this is why game works was invented....To keep a competitive edge..

Because if Nvidia finishes them off, they'll lose money. Competition is good for the consumer and the businesses... as long as the competition isn't negatively crushing them. Nvidia, as long as AMD is around, remains the premium brand in the eyes of the consumer, and can sell their GPU's for more than they're worth. The irony is, that because of Nvidia's advances in gameworks additions, and incredible driver support (compared to AMD at least) Nvidia IMO is worth the $100-200 premium per card.

 

[Head1985]

9700 Pro vs 4800 Ti - > ATI

9800 Pro vs -> ATI

X800 series. ATI had better directx performance. Nivedita had better features. So ATI won

x1800XT ATI won

1900xtx ATI won

2900xt nVidia won

3850 nVidia won

4870 close but ATI won

5870 - 285 amd won

5870 - 480 nVidia won

6970 - 570. The closest ever. Amd won vfm. NVidia had 580 the single fastest card but wasn't vfm. Amd had the fastest dual card. Probably a tie overall with amd being better value

7970 - 680 draw First time when NV uses mid-range GPU to compete with AMD flagship

7970Ghz vs GTX TITAN/GTX780 NV WON

290x - 780 / 780 Ti NV won because AMD was 6 months late

290x - 970 NV won second Time Nv uses MID-Range GPU to compete with AMD flagship
980 is the single fastest single card AMD is 8 months late
295x2 is the single fastest dual card


So I guess overall amd just needs to learn marketing.

i fixed it for you
And why they are behind?Because money.I am 100% sure if AMD have same budget for Gpu like Nv they will never ever rebrand cards and never ever will be 6/8 months behind and introduce only 1 new GPU per 2 year.

 

[3DVagabond]

Nvidia spends more R&D on GPUs than AMD and doesn't have to split R&D money between CPUs & GPUs

despite that, AMD isn't that far behind in tech

Nvidia lead has more to do with marketing

How is AMD behind in Tech? They're ~1 year ahead with Fury.

 

[Genx87]

So what was the viable business strategy for AMD, not buy ATI and go head to head with Intel in processors only? Where would they graphics tech from? Just sell niche processors forget graphics? Intel has spent billions trying to make a decent GPU and are now just starting to get respectable. But people wanted AMD to do the same thing with 1/100th the budget.

I have not seen one single person EVER come up with a better scenario than what AMD went with.

For what Intel makes in their APU. AMD could had licensed IP or bought a much smaller company for far less. AMD is going head to head with Intel in CPUs. Why the need for ATI level graphics, and at that price? Then to make things worse they sell off Adreno to Qualcomm right as smartphones are taking off.

AMD is a case study on how not to run a company.

 

[3DVagabond]

How/why did Amd/ATI fall behind Nvidia?

Because AMD marketeers in the forums are so obvious , it makes AMD look like a desperate, second rate , looser company. AND on top of that, their cpu's are hot and power hungry and suck too. In short their name is forever tarnished. Every now and then they have a fairly good product. In fact I have one of their better products, the 6870.

You asked for it, and that's my opinion

I'll bet you have no idea who is (if any) and who isn't.

As far as "one of their better products" most consider the 6870 a fail. Slower than the 5870. Pure marketing to fool people into thinking they were trying to hold the *870 price point.

 

[AnandThenMan]

This has been covered before, it doesn't matter if you have access to all the IP/patents in the world you still need the personal to make it happen. So you can either hire from scratch, or you can acquire a company that already provides what you need. Also in 2006 there was no source of IP for AMD to use, that has completely changed now due to legal wrangling between Intel/Nvidia and AMD/Intel.

Because AMD marketeers in the forums are so obvious ,

Just no.

 

[Cookie Monster]

If my memory serves me right, the 6800 series was pretty competitive with the X800 series. The 6600GT in particular is probably what made nVIDIA claw back from the NV30 days on top of the 6800GT being a good high end performer for the price.

X1800XT? that generation was card was a failure. NV47 or G70 ala 7800GTX was months ahead with double the performance (and it was single slot!) and by the time R520 hit, the 7800GTX 512MB was there to counter. But more importantly, nVIDIA had a great mid to mid-high end line up of 7600GT/7800GT/7900GT. ATi did have the absolute performance lead with the X1900XT and XTX, but was going up against SKUs based on small, cheap and not so power hungry GPU.

But then this is very long time ago stuff.

 

[Cookie Monster]

I'd still think that an AMD/nVIDIA merger would've been better. And Id still think that if ATi was around, they would have been far more competitive.