If fermi flops what happens to Nvidia

[Kenmitch]

Just wondering what would happen as 2 players are always needed to keep prices down.

I'm thinking that it may put Intel in a good position for a Nvidia buyout. Seems like the most logical situation to me. Intel could make good use of the patents Nvidia holds.

I know alot of diehard Nvidia guys are waiting to see what happens before they jump ship to ATI but if fermi does flop won't ATI prices start to climb.

Kinda seems like Nvidia is close to hitting the GPU wall to me.

 

[Xarick]

Nothing. Nvidia makes lots of money in the oem and other markets. High end video cards are not a large part of their income.

 

[Lonyo]

If Fermi flops in the GPU market, they don't care. It's not the bulk of their sales, and it will be refreshed shortly anyway.

If Fermi flops in the HPC market, NV are in a bit more trouble, not end of company trouble, but "what are we going to do in the future since this market isn't responding to us yet" trouble.

 

[Attic]

if Fermi flops then nVidia will have to use an even more aggressive renaming scheme to push old hardware at uneducated buyers.

They will also likely up their marketing budget to create more bogus statements passed on as fact about GPU performance.

Or worse.

 

[waffleironhead]

Increased campaigns of how DX11 is pointless.
Plus OMGPHYSX3DVISIONSLIREBADgE.

Plus no downward movement on current card prices. A lose lose for us all.

 

[Udgnim]

rebrand, release Fermi refresh

 

[Genx87]

Nvidia's market share in discrete graphics drops to 60%.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Nvidia sells cards because of marketing, not because they are better, so yeah, wont matter if Fermi flops, people will still buy them because "Zomg, its nvidia and it has physx and cuda and 3dvision surround!!1111"

 

[Kenmitch]

Nvidia's market share in discrete graphics drops to 60%.

Until the i3's and i5's take a stronger foothold in the area.

Hmm....Maybe bidding war between Intel and Apple

 

[Lonyo]

Until the i3's and i5's take a stronger foothold in the area.

Hmm....Maybe bidding war between Intel and Apple

i3 and i5 have nothing to do with discrete marketshare.
Intel is already at something like 50+% due to its IGPs, the 60% figure relates to the discrete market where it's basically just ATI vs NV.

 

[Maximilian]

Probably nothing, their 5800 series was garbage and they lived through that, ATI's 2xxx and debateable 3xxx series werent so great either and they still pushed on through... after being bought by AMD but still...

 

[jvroig]

Until the i3's and i5's take a stronger foothold in the area.

I assume you are talking about those with integrated graphics, Intel's new products. Genx87 was taking about "discrete" cards. What integrated GPU will affect is the total GPU market (integrated/on-board + discrete), which Intel already owns, so basically Intel just outdid themselves. Since Intel has no discrete product, nVidia's and ATi's market share won't be affected when talking about the discrete cards market. Intel's product, though much improved, is still IGP level. I don't see any reason it would cannibalize the discrete market any more than the good IGP's (like HD3200/3300) did.

EDIT: Lonyo beat me to it. That's what I get for not refreshing the page for half an hour.

Nothing. Nvidia makes lots of money in the oem and other markets. High end video cards are not a large part of their income.

Agreed. Brand power of nVidia, good connections with OEMs... even a Fermi flop won't squander all of that in an instant.

Nvidia sells cards because of marketing, not because they are better, so yeah, wont matter if Fermi flops, people will still buy them because "Zomg, its nvidia and it has physx and cuda and 3dvision surround!!1111"

Again, yes, it's the power of the nVidia brand. Even if all enthusiasts get turned off by Fermi, it won't spell the end of nVidia considering that enthusiasts don't make up the majority of the market. It may mean taking a hit on their brand, which eventually accumulates, but that takes an extended period of time to happen. They won't just immediately go broke after a Fermi disaster.

Of course, in the short run, if Fermi flops, we won't be seeing great prices unless Fermi is priced to hurt AMD. That's bad news for us right now, but in the long run, nVidia will most definitely survive even a disastrous Fermi flop.

 

[ahenkel]

Nvidia will go back into the earth and wait till the planets align and then it shall arise to bring us a new utopia in 10,000 years.

 

[mmntech]

Geforce FX was a flop but that didn't put much of a dent in nVidia. They have good contracts with a lot of OEMs to produce IGPs.

 

[Lonyo]

Geforce FX was a flop but that didn't put much of a dent in nVidia. They have good contracts with a lot of OEMs to produce IGPs.

Not so much these days.
Their IGP market is going to shrink to nothing in the near future, things like ION 2 are their dying breath.
Considering it's a market accounting for something like 25% of their revenue, they are looking at diversifying, which Fermi is IMO supposed to help with (aiming at the HPC market to replace the lost chipset revenue).
They are also doing things like 'Optimus' which works with... Intel IGP... in order to make their products more appealing to those already making systems with Intel IGP processors (and chipsets).

 

[thilanliyan]

I don't think Fermi will be a technical flop, but may be a sales flop.

nV is strong enough to bounce back anyway.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

In the short run it won't hurt them that much because they have strong enough brand name and marketing. But every single failure like this, the rebranding and the card killing drivers is hurting their brand name and they will lose market share slowly.

 

[cbn]

I think Fermi will be a very strong card in the DX11 era.

Once Nvidia irons out there process tech it looks like ATI will need a new architecture to compete with it. Hopefully good things are happening with N. Islands? Isn' that supposed to be a new design rather than just an evolution of HD5xxx?

 

[Madcatatlas]

I think Fermi will be a very strong card in the DX11 era.

Once Nvidia irons out there process tech it looks like ATI will need a new architecture to compete with it. Hopefully good things are happening with N. Islands? Isn' that supposed to be a new design rather than just an evolution of HD5xxx?

Id say those are some pretty farfetched thoughts, seeing as Fermi still isnt here, 6 months after the the fight started.

The evolution was here, saw no competition and won.

Im really looking forward to price drops, cause right now it seems like i have to pay Nvidia prices even if i do buy Ati products. HOPEfully Fermi will compete.

 

[cbn]

Id say those are some pretty farfetched thoughts, seeing as Fermi still isnt here, 6 months after the the fight started.

The evolution was here, saw no competition and won.

Im really looking forward to price drops, cause right now it seems like i have to pay Nvidia prices even if i do buy Ati products. HOPEfully Fermi will compete.

What impressed me the most about Fermi is how well it controlled frame rate dips with tessellation turned on in the Heaven Demo.

To me that was pretty big.

 

[Madcatatlas]

What impressed me the most about Fermi is how well it controlled frame rate dips with tessellation turned on in the Heaven Demo.

To me that was pretty big.

I agree, that part looked good. But lets no forget that is pretty much the only benchmark we`ve seen so far, one done by Nvidia as far as i could tell, since no one is allowed even close to their cards.

Hey 26.03 is coming fast

 

[nismotigerwvu]

In this order:
Prices stagnate
nVidia wipes the egg off their face
Fermi refresh rolls out (hopefully competitive with 5xxx refresh)

The reasoning:
Fermi, as we all know, is a massive chip. Without beating the horse any farther, I just don't see nVidia starting a price war. They know ATI can cut lower before selling at a loss and slow sales aren't as tragic for a low yielding card anyways. The big two are still in their seats of market dominance becuase of their ability to react to market conditions. The FX series bombed and nVidia rolled out the killer 6 series shortly after. The 2800 begat the 3800, 4800, 5800; so on and so forth. For another historic reference, just view the x1800. Feature creep and general delays (much akin to to Fermi) led to the chip having an effective lifespan measured in weeks before the x1900 refresh rolled through. An underwhelming Fermi shouldn't be the concern, a disappointing/delayed refresh is the real danger.

General musing:
I'm not sure how many other nanoscience savvy members we have on board but I always thought the Fermi name was almost ironic. Coming from the term Fermi energy, which grossly overly simplified, deals with the energies of promoting electrons from their valance band, past the band gap and up to the conduction bands. Even more simply, the energy needed to turn a semiconductor from an insulator to a conductor. The Fermi energy, in many cases, actually resides at or just below the top of the valance band. Viewing Fermi as the nonconducting (not currently doing any work...ok that's a bit of stretch, as gates DO need to be off too, but stay with me here on this) state of the architecture and refresh is given the extra oomph required to push things up to the conduction band and get interesting. Now that I've cemented myself as the nerdiest of the nerds I'll just shut up

 

[NoStateofMind]

Fermi won't flop in the performance department. Where nVIDIA will fail is getting enough product to market before ATI's refresh. In the end nVIDIA is going nowhere and i can see an article on the front page of Anandtech one year from now saying "Last year between the availability of Fermi (or lack thereof) and the GPU exploding driver many thought that nVIDIA's outcome looked bleak. Today we see that those thoughts were premature and short sighted..."

You get the picture.

 

[Madcatatlas]

What is a "valance band? If i knew that, maybe id get the "joke"..or whatever

 

[jiffylube1024]

The thread should be titled something like "What if Fermi flops as a gaming card" because all indications are that it will do well in the 3d/rendering market. Considering that at this point Fermi is just a high end card, even if Fermi flops it probably won't even affect Nvidia's bottom line too badly, provided they cover in the $100-250 price range. A few people will buy GTX 470's and 480's for the novelty and pay a premium, even if performance isn't that hot.

What Nvidia will have to do is make sure that both the Fermi refresh and the cut down versions of Fermi are well designed and well situated from a price/performance standpoint. Nvidia's top end cards have almost always cost more than ATI's top (the 5870 debuted at $399; Nvidia's GTX 7800 512MB paper launched at $599 and quickly shot up to $699+ at retail, for example). Nvidia has basically squandered its chance to skim the market in a large way unless Fermi outperforms the 5870 so hugely that it's near 5970 performance). But both ATI and Nvidia make missteps (ATI with the 2900XT, Nvidia with the FX 5800). What's important is that they don't screw up two times in a row.

Nvidia may be forced to become leaner and meaner and come up with a more ATI-like design philosophy for Fermi's sequel.