Nvidia: Not Enough Money in a PS4 GPU for us to bother

[Lonyo]

How is that praising?

"We couldn't fit a low margin high yield device into our current 28nm portfolio" sounds pretty legit to me.

Sure sounds a lot better than an eight core bobcat with projected (by AMD) 15% ICP increase to Jaguar at 1.6GHz with a 7850, which by the time it releases will be 100% slower than mid-range 20nm products wow'ing companies making it impossible for anyone else to get in.

So NV will be wafer constrained supplying a 28nm GPU for consoles.
But by the time consoles are released, we will have 20nm GPUs, which means for some months they would be wafer constrained (depending on 20nm ramp). And from beyond that, they would be fine because GPUs would be on 20nm and PS4 tech would be on 28nm.

So would they be wafer constrained, or would they be making 20nm products?

Or would they make enough profit in those few months that it would exceed the total profit made from all console GPUs during the entire life cycle of said consoles?

 

[ShintaiDK]

So NV will be wafer constrained supplying a 28nm GPU for consoles.
But by the time consoles are released, we will have 20nm GPUs, which means for some months they would be wafer constrained (depending on 20nm ramp). And from beyond that, they would be fine because GPUs would be on 20nm and PS4 tech would be on 28nm.

So would they be wafer constrained, or would they be making 20nm products?

Or would they make enough profit in those few months that it would exceed the total profit made from all console GPUs during the entire life cycle of said consoles?

I doubt we get 20nm GPUs anytime soon. We need to be happy if we even see any in 2014.

 

[lamedude]

Nvidia wasting time on NV2 for a never released Sega console didn't do them any favors; SGI didn't fare to well after the N64; PowerVR stopped selling consumer graphics cards a couple years after the Dreamcast's release and Sega's other possible choice, 3dfx, went bankrupt; Xbox was followed the by awful GeforceFX, and 360 was followed by the awful Radeon 2900.
I think there is enough data to indicate that diverting resources to make a console chip isn't the best idea.

 

[Ibra]

Why Nvidia would care about PS4 since they have access to gold? :sneaky:

 

[3DVagabond]

Why Nvidia would care about PS4 since they have access to gold? :sneaky:

Why does 2001 a space odyssey come to mind?

I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Consoles is a race to the bottom. Just to recall peoples memory. Sony lost around 5 billion$ on PS3 and MS around 3 billion$ on the Xbox360. Nextgen games are also 70$ to help offset this. Its simply a dance for the last chair. Wii U sales also collapsed already.

PC gaming is expanding, consoles are contracting. Who would have thought.

If AMD goes belly up during the lifespan of the xbox next and PS4. Then MS and Sony needs a new console right away. x86 is to rule it all tho. So its not like there is much, if any, options anymore.
I doubt there will be successors to Xbox Next and PS4 tho.

And the nVidia statement also shows that consoles is the leftover market that nobody really believes in anymore.

Which is the whole reason why they are using semi custom off the shelf parts from AMD this time. Very little money spent on developing the consoles by ms, sony, and amd, and sold for less money to get people to buy them early and often. The $70 for games is not to help pay for the consoles themselves this generation, but to fund the added costs of game development.

I think AMD had a lot to offer Sony and MS and this console generation will not be losing either company money on the hardware from day one. The console makers and AMD stand to make a great deal of money this time around because of the parts that AMD had on the shelf to give them.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Which is the whole reason why they are using semi custom off the shelf parts from AMD this time. Very little money spent on developing the consoles by ms, sony, and amd, and sold for less money to get people to buy them early and often. The $70 for games is not to help pay for the consoles themselves this generation, but to fund the added costs of game development.

I think AMD had a lot to offer Sony and MS and this console generation will not be losing either company money on the hardware from day one. The console makers and AMD stand to make a great deal of money this time around because of the parts that AMD had on the shelf to give them.

Sofar everything points to yet more diasterous numbers. There is simply no room for the current makers to make money. One of them need to hit the street. And I am not counting Nintendo, they are in a segment of their own. And also look dead already with the Wii U after sales collapsed. PC gaming is the only growth segment.

 

[Olikan]

Consoles never really made much money to amd/nvidia, but is better than nothing
the benefits for amd or nvidia, was the close contact to developers, to see the trends and developer needs inside out, and of course teh PR

i really suspect that no GPU maker would care much about compute, if the deferred shading didn't rise

 

[sontin]

There is no close contact to developers. Sony/MS providing the tools and APIs. nVidia and AMD have nothing to do with it.

And it makes absolutly no sense for them to work with developers for console games when they don't make it to the pc...

 

[Imouto]

PC gaming is expanding, consoles are contracting. Who would have thought.

PC gaming is expanding while PC hardware market is shrinking. Being able to play almost anything with a 5 years old comp doesn't help and I really don't see that changing in the near future.

 

[notty22]

Any way to generate gross revenue, even if it does not net much is usually pursued. But in this case, any Nvidia gpu design would have had to at the very least be integrated on the same package with a x86 cpu design. ARM isn't ready yet for this level of gaming. We all agree on that? So any profit would have been even less for Nvidia and more cost to the design of the console (either). So it was academic, with AMD having a capable APU. I'm reading of potential use of all system and video ram using gddr5. Though would the simplicity of using just 1 ram type and interface offset the cost of say 4gb ddr3 and 4gb gddr5. The rumor is 8gb of gddr5?

 

[Olikan]

There is no close contact to developers. Sony/MS providing the tools and APIs. nVidia and AMD have nothing to do with it.

And it makes absolutly no sense for them to work with developers for console games when they don't make it to the pc...

really?
i thought that game developers wanted an easy to code console and not having to deal with 2 memory types...and PCI-e latency

later this year, we have a gpu that can read x86 pointer, using an unified memory pool, in an APU fashion

 

[Genx87]

So Nvidia states what people have already acknowledged for years. The console business doesnt have much margin\profits. And that equals sour grapes? kk

 

[sontin]

really?
i thought that game developers wanted an easy to code console and not having to deal with 2 memory types...and PCI-e latency

So you mean all the years it was a pain for them to develop games? :\

later this year, we have a gpu that can read x86 pointer, using an unified memory pool, in an APU fashion

Yeah and it so useful for games. I mean why would games need to read information from the cpu memory?!

Can the APU in the PS4 communicate with the CPU over onchip cache? Is there still a fixed memory configuration between GPU and CPU?

 

[Jaydip]

NV is not in PS4 due to performance reasons, otherwise it would be Intel+NV.It is a completely cost centric approach nothing more.

 

[Atreidin]

There is no way that AMD and Nvidia had the same opportunity cost for developing products for consoles. AMD probably makes more per chip than Nvidia would have.

Plus what do you expect a VP to say, "Congratulations to our competitor for securing those contracts, but we think our products will prove to be great and we look forward to competition in the future."? No, that's way too civil. There's always got to be a significant amount of weaseling that comes out of an executive's mouth.

 

[Olikan]

So you mean all the years it was a pain for them to develop games? :\

Yeah and it so useful for games. I mean why would games need to read information from the cpu memory?!

Can the APU in the PS4 communicate with the CPU over onchip cache? Is there still a fixed memory configuration between GPU and CPU?

1- it wasn't really painfull, but driving cost down is always good

2- physics, gpgpu, complex AI for many creatures (swarm like AI), lower cpu utilization and memory bandwidth (don't need to translate, need multiple copys)

3- yep, since Llano, but nothing close intel's L3 one...see page 30 and 31
http://amddevcentral.com/afds//assets/presentations/1004_final.pdf
don't know much about kavery or kabini :/

 

[NTMBK]

Sounds like Sour grapes to me.:thumbsdown:

This.

 

[NTMBK]

Wafers aren't in endless supply, at least last I checked.

Massive numbers of wafers are going into PS4 production, regardless of whether it is an IBM chip, an AMD chip, or an NVidia chip. Sony are paying for these wafers, and if NVidia were doing the chip they would just license the IP to Sony for manufacturing (as they are not constrained by an x86 license). This is a nonsense argument.

 

[NTMBK]

If anyone wants some explanations on why APUs allow GPGPU to actually be useful in games, take a look at this: http://www.slideshare.net/zlatan4177/gpgpu-algorithms-in-games#btnNext

Cliff notes- latencies involved in sending work to a discrete GPU and getting results back prevent calculations on a GPU affecting the world simulation being run on the CPU. APUs kill that latency, and next-gen APUs like the one in the PS4 have a common address space so the GPU can do calculations directly in CPU memory. Think PhysX, but able to actually impact the world instead of just throwing particles all over it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Massive numbers of wafers are going into PS4 production, regardless of whether it is an IBM chip, an AMD chip, or an NVidia chip. Sony are paying for these wafers, and if NVidia were doing the chip they would just license the IP to Sony for manufacturing (as they are not constrained by an x86 license). This is a nonsense argument.

PS/Xbox consoles cant even get AMD up to their Q1 2012 shipping numbers. Plus its razorthin margins. So lets not overestimate it.

And being behind a console have always resulted in disaster for the GPU supplier. It simply seems like they dont have resoruces.

 

[NIGELG]

Some of you people should be CEO's of a Silicon Company because you always know better how to run a company than the current bosses.Perhaps you could bail out AMD out of their woes?

Anyway ''not enough money blah blah ....'' is a case of ''Fox and Grapes'' plain and simple.Nvidia,like any business wants profits even if they are 'slim' according to the Armchair analysts.

 

[railven]

I figured getting your hardware in the consoles would help get your GPU-accelerated version of PhysX used more often (not just the CPU based stuff.) That be a big win for consumers (and us, PC gamers.) EDIT: Pre-emptive Lonbjerg block - yes there is only one library, yes PhysX is great, yes you look good in red high heels, no I'm not saying death to PhysX, yes I know PhysX is in PS4, no I don't think it will be GPU-accel, umm no I won't document my opinion, bout covers it...I hope. Haha.

Outside of making a valid point about not wanting the slim margins and extra work from the console contract, I'm not even sure why this thread devolved into future prospects outside of AMD got a contract, nVidia didn't.

I doubt this contract is going to kill/save either, the only real thing I'd have seen I said as my first paragrpah.

 

[NTMBK]

PS/Xbox consoles cant even get AMD up to their Q1 2012 shipping numbers. Plus its razorthin margins. So lets not overestimate it.

And being behind a console have always resulted in disaster for the GPU supplier. It simply seems like they dont have resoruces.

I dunno, a 7850 + 8 core Jaguar die will be fairly big, and consoles are big sellers. The 360 is estimated to have sold ~5 million consoles in its first 6 months, which is a pretty sizeable number.

However, that's not the point I was arguing against. People were making the argument that NVidia would not take the contract due to being wafer constricted, which is just plain silly given that these wafers are going into making the consoles regardless of who gets the contract.

 

[notty22]

The only sour grapes I understand are posters upset over realization that Nvidia want's no part in AMD's big win/ sarcastic.
Next years PC games are still going to be run via DX11. The consoles are sold and the majority of profit, made or lost is on Sony and Microsoft. Neither console will have a sticker or box point, powered by AMD. 96% of console gamers won't know or care what's in them. Ouch. By the way, most tablet/phone owners do not care what cpu/gpu combination is in those either.:thumbsup: