News Nvidia posts record revenue in latest earnings report

[Hitman928]

I don't have time to go through it all right now, but NV posted a record $5B of revenue for the previous quarter. More here:

NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2021 | Seeking Alpha

 

[VirtualLarry]

Who knew that drop-shipping pallets of RTX 3080 cards to large-scaling mining operations could be SO PROFITABLE. 😛

 

[ozzy702]

Who knew that drop-shipping pallets of RTX 3080 cards to large-scaling mining operations could be SO PROFITABLE. 😛

Heh, I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what percentage of 3000 series cards went straight to miners in Asia, my guess is a huge percentage.

 

[tamz_msc]

It's also true that NVIDIA shipped a significant number of cards that ended up in the hands of gamers because the Steam survey(which people on this forum hate for no justifiable reason) shows that the time lag between launch and the first appearance of Ampere in the survey was shorter than the corresponding time lag in case of Turing.

 

[Mopetar]

the Steam survey(which people on this forum hate for no justifiable reason)

I don't think anyone hates the Steam survey per se, but anyone who's taken a statistics course should know that it isn't useful for the kinds of points that people too often try to use it in order to justify. Trying to explain this to someone who doesn't understand the mathematics behind is a bit like trying to explain to people who really believe in Big Foot that their scientific proof really isn't very scientific and doesn't actually prove anything about the existence of Big Foot.

 

[tamz_msc]

I don't think anyone hates the Steam survey per se, but anyone who's taken a statistics course should know that it isn't useful for the kinds of points that people too often try to use it in order to justify. Trying to explain this to someone who doesn't understand the mathematics behind is a bit like trying to explain to people who really believe in Big Foot that their scientific proof really isn't very scientific and doesn't actually prove anything about the existence of Big Foot.

Well in my case I'm not using it to analyze the more complicated issue of market share trends but the simpler question of whether Ampere got into the hands of gamers in sizeable quantities, given the current shortage of cards, scalping and bots, and the recent uptick in mining. The answer is that adoption of Ampere among gamers has been at a faster rate than that of Turing following the launch of that generation.

 

[coercitiv]

We're not trying to analyze the more complicated issue of whether Big Foot exists or not, only whether more baby Big Foot tracks have appeared during this winter season.

 

[coercitiv]

In case anyone needs a quick refresh, Turing didn't sell due to a combination of market saturation and poor reception from the consumers.

Nvidia has a Pascal problem, and its stock is plunging after earnings

“Gaming revenue was short of our expectations, and our fourth-quarter outlook is impacted by excess channel inventory of midrange Pascal products,” Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said in a statement. “We believe this is a near-term issue that will be corrected in one to two quarters, and remain confident in our competitive position and market opportunities.”

Nvidia explained that it is holding on to too many of its older-generation Pascal chips — Pascal is the chip architecture that is being replaced by Nvidia’s recently released Turing chip architecture for professionals and gamers.

That wreaked havoc with Nvidia’s forecast for the fourth quarter as it seeks to work down that inventory. The company called for revenue of $2.65 billion to $2.75 billion, while analysts on average had expected revenue of $3.4 billion. While clearing out old inventory was not a complete surprise, the magnitude of it was.

Nvidia suffers slew of downgrades as analysts weigh sales warning

On Monday, Nvidia slashed its revenue forecast for the December-ended quarter by about half a billion dollars because of weakness in China, along with slow sales of its new Turing-based gaming cards and data-center chip sets.

“Channel was not going to clear quickly and the Turing launch has been bumpy, but the magnitude of the miss is shocking given mid-range Pascal was already zeroed,” Ramsay said

 

[Mopetar]

Well in my case I'm not using it to analyze the more complicated issue of market share trends but the simpler question of whether Ampere got into the hands of gamers in sizeable quantities, given the current shortage of cards, scalping and bots, and the recent uptick in mining. The answer is that adoption of Ampere among gamers has been at a faster rate than that of Turing following the launch of that generation.

You can't even use the Steam survey for that. It's not a random sample of the population.

Now here's the part where you look at me like some kind of idiot and go on to the next person and tell them about the time you saw Big Foot and how you've got proof he's real.

 

[tamz_msc]

In case anyone needs a quick refresh, Turing didn't sell due to a combination of market saturation and poor reception from the consumers.

I agree with all that. It's also true that Ampere's rate of adoption is similar to that of Pascal, which everybody will agree was a very big improvement over Maxwell, and was hence well-received by gamers compared to Turing.

Anyway, the revenue contribution from sales of GPUs for crypto-mining is closer to somewhere around 50%, if past figures are analyzed. Compare the spurt in latest figures YoY to the crash in Q4 2019. The latest figure shows a growth of 67% YoY, while those in the closing quarter of 2018 shows a fall of 45% YoY.

 

[tamz_msc]

You can't even use the Steam survey for that. It's not a random sample of the population.

Now here's the part where you look at me like some kind of idiot and go on to the next person and tell them about the time you saw Big Foot and how you've got proof he's real.

This is where you are wrong, because it is. Your assumption is erroneously shared by many in this forum whose constant bickering about the Steam survey led to it being forbidden in many discussions.

I'm not here to correct your assumptions, so if you don't agree with what the survey says then I'll stop making arguments based on it so as not to draw the ire of moderators.

 

[Mopetar]

This is where you are wrong, because it is. Your assumption is erroneously shared by many in this forum whose constant bickering about the Steam survey led to it being forbidden in many discussions.

I'm not here to correct your assumptions, so if you don't agree with what the survey says then I'll stop making arguments based on it so as not to draw the ire of moderators.

You can elect to participate in the steam survey or not. It's no longer a random sample at that point, even for the population of Steam users.

So here's the problem with discussions about the survey on display once again. People think they can use it to make a particular point when they really can't and when told that they can't use it that way get defensive about and insist they're right and trying to explain this doesn't go anywhere.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Going to agree with Mopetar. The Steam survey is a Voluntary Response Sample and therefore is not defined as a random survey as it introduces sample bias. You can choose to reference its results but you can't define it as random.

 

[Mopetar]

The more I think about it, the less I think it has to do with them selling pallets of cards directly to miners or somehow being able to sell massive amounts of Ampere cards despite the massive shortages in everything. Instead it's probably sales of Turing cards as the entire channel got cleaned out by miners purchasing any card they could through retailers. All of the 2000-series cards are sold out now as well. Typically you wouldn't see that when new cards launch, but miners have eaten up everything else in the used market so they wound up buying a whole bunch of Turing cards that wouldn't normally sell this well.

 

[Dribble]

Going to agree with Mopetar. The Steam survey is a Voluntary Response Sample and therefore is not defined as a random survey as it introduces sample bias. You can choose to reference its results but you can't define it as random.

Practically no surveys have forced participation, a government census is about the only one I can think of. Yet we still use them all the time because they have proven to have useful and accurate information. You would have to show the people opting out of the steam survey are some particular sub group that effects the results (e.g. radeon users). That is not a correlation I have ever seen.

 

[Leeea]

For the record, I feel the steam hardware survey is very relevant, valid, and useful.

I really do not care about the whole Voluntary Response Sample. If a person really wants to bring up an issue, it would be that many gamers playing f2p multiplayers, moba, fortnite, mmorpgs, and etc are not going to be doing it through steam at all. I would suspect it is 50/50 if a league of legends fan even has steam installed. I personally know a hearthstone player that did not install steam until I started giving him free games.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Practically no surveys have forced participation, a government census is about the only one I can think of. Yet we still use them all the time because they have proven to have useful and accurate information. You would have to show the people opting out of the steam survey are some particular sub group that effects the results (e.g. radeon users). That is not a correlation I have ever seen.

I'm not sure why you're quoting me with the response you gave. If you disagree and feel the responses can be classified as random then OK. However, the rest of your statement is just your justification as to why the Steam survey can be useful. Which isn't something I brought up in my post.

 

[Mopetar]

Practically no surveys have forced participation, a government census is about the only one I can think of. Yet we still use them all the time because they have proven to have useful and accurate information. You would have to show the people opting out of the steam survey are some particular sub group that effects the results (e.g. radeon users). That is not a correlation I have ever seen.

There are statistical techniques that can be applied to account for a survey not being a random sample, but we know practically nothing about the steam survey other than what we have. Without raw data we can't even attempt to determine which methods should be applied.

There are a lot of other reasons why Steam surveys are bad for the kind of arguments they get used for and outside of them not being a random sample, almost all of the others come down to not having Valve's methodology which can lead to biased results in any number of ways.

The onus is always on the person presenting the statistical data (or more broadly the claim being asserted) to show that their data is good, not that someone else needs to show it's incorrect. It's the same reason criminal trials don't require you to prove your innocence. It's up to the prosecution to prove your guilt. We don't let a pharmaceutical company put a drug on the market unless or until someone else could prove it isn't safe or that it does cause side effects.

Lack of random sampling is why most surveys are junk and you can easily find or produce one with different results. Just look at how practically every brand can claim to be the "most trusted" or something like that. Obviously that can't be correct, yet surveys which don't use a random sample of the population can produce different results.

Any claims outside of general popularity of cards used by Steam users who respond to hardware surveys needs a list of included assumptions being made about the data if it's going to be used to make some claim. If people did that they'd start to realize they're dealing with a lot of unknowns and making a lot assumptions that may even build off of each other.

 

[deathBOB]

You can elect to participate in the steam survey or not. It's no longer a random sample at that point, even for the population of Steam users.

So here's the problem with discussions about the survey on display once again. People think they can use it to make a particular point when they really can't and when told that they can't use it that way get defensive about and insist they're right and trying to explain this doesn't go anywhere.

You're just repeating an incorrect meme at this point. You do not need a random sample to produce a useful survey when there is no reason to believe that participation is correlated with any of the measured values, i.e., AMD users aren't more likely to respond versus Intel users, and you are basically measuring an entire population rather than some small group. A big survey like Steam is probably the best info on gaming hardware trends that you are ever going to get.

 

[Mopetar]

If you can show me the mathematical proofs to back up your assertion I'd be more than willing to accept your argument. Unfortunately you don't have any of the data or other information about Valve's methodology to actually do that and Valve doesn't make it available so anyone could even if they wanted to.

We don't have these requirements for medical trials or scientific research for no reason. Maybe you don't like that, but it doesn't change the underlying fact. This is also why I used Big Foot as an example. People who really believe in it aren't going to be dissuaded from that belief.

 

[Dribble]

If you can show me the mathematical proofs to back up your assertion I'd be more than willing to accept your argument. Unfortunately you don't have any of the data or other information about Valve's methodology to actually do that and Valve doesn't make it available so anyone could even if they wanted to.

We don't have these requirements for medical trials or scientific research for no reason. Maybe you don't like that, but it doesn't change the underlying fact. This is also why I used Big Foot as an example. People who really believe in it aren't going to be dissuaded from that belief.

Truth is the biggest problem with the steam survey is it says AMD isn't doing as well as a lot of people want to believe.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddddd it's another Steam Survey thread.

IMO it's weird that the steam survey even bothers sampling at all. Statisticians do sampling because they lack the logistical capacity to sample everyone... But Steam actually does have that ability for all of its users if they so chose.

And Steam isn't in the business of figuring out how much hardware is out there, but figuring out what their users actually have so games can be better tailored to the hardware.

In short, for the Steam population group, we could actually know what everyone with Steam has in their PCs in near real time, if Valve so chose.

Not terribly useful for the population at large, but with a higher degree of certainty.

 

[amenx]

Heh, I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what percentage of 3000 series cards went straight to miners in Asia, my guess is a huge percentage.

A lot of retailers (esp in Asia) would get contacted by miners before arrival of stock who offer to buy everything at higher than retail. Who is going to say no?

 

[Bigos]

I believe the survey is voluntary. They would need to change EULA in order to be able to get automatic metrics from all of the users, but IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer). Such a change might be illegal in at least some jurisdictions (e.g. the whole Europe), which would still bias the results.