Q1 Graphics Shipments Decline 0.8% Over Last Quarter and Slip 3.38% Over Last Year

[Imouto]

http://www.techpowerup.com/166463/Q...ast-Quarter-and-Slip-3.38-Over-Last-Year.html

Interesting that no one posted this already.

Source: TechPowerUp

 

[RussianSensation]

It's no surprise no one posted this since it's missing 2 of the most important pieces of information:

1) Desktop discrete GPU market share among brands
2) Laptop discrete GPU market share among brands

There is some useful bit of info there that reflects expected poor Q1 performance due to tech seasonality:
Discrete GPUs increased 2.7 % from the last quarter but were down 11% from last year for the same quarter.

Overall market share no longer makes much sense since APUs are counted whether or not they are used by gamers. It matters for Intel and AMD and shareholders but not sure how it's relevant for us at this point.

As long as APUs keep getting counted, NV's overall market share wil continue to shrink indefinitely until people start buying 2, 3 or even 4 NV GPUs. It's pure mathematics in play. It would be more useful to get a breakdown of discrete GPUs only. Since NV doesn't sell any APUs (Tegra isn't counted), it's not surprising to see its market share continue to shrink; as it should since every new computer purchase needs a CPU, but not everyone needs a dedicated GPU.

 

[RussianSensation]

Imouto,

Now TPU added the info we've been waiting for.

http://www.techpowerup.com/166534/G...Seasonally-Down-Just-2-From-Last-Quarter.html

The quarter in general
● Total AIB shipments decreased this quarter from the previous quarter by 2%.
● AMD increased its market share to 37.8%, Nvidia's market share slipped but still retains a large majority at 61.9%.
● Year-to-year this quarter AIB shipments were down 16%.
● Over 88 million PCs shipped worldwide in the quarter, an increase of 1.8% compared to the previous quarter, (based on an average of reports from Dataquest, IDC, and HSI). Year to year for the quarter the [Discrete GPU] market decreased. Shipments decreased to 15.8 million units, down 2.95 million units from this quarter last year.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Of course they are going to drop when games are still being designed to run on shitty consoles that use hardware from almost a decade ago now...

 

[Olikan]

Of course they are going to drop when games are still being designed to run on shitty consoles that use hardware from almost a decade ago now...

and when the 2 most waited pc games are dx9...(diablo 3, dota 2)

 

[blastingcap]

Discrete video card makers are not yet in a Crysis, but they could sure use another one--one that is not watered down like Crysis 2 was. Aside from discrete gaming cards and low-end video cards for legacy non-APU systems that don't have decent IGPs, NVIDIA is apparently banking on cloud gaming/streaming, pro graphics, HPC, and mobile. AMD is apparently banking on APUs and consoles. I would not worry TOO much about them.

I don't think the launch of new consoles will boost games' video demands enough to get people to upgrade their old hardware. Why not just buy the console instead, then?

Imho, PC-exclusives like Starcraft 2 are the real drivers of discrete gaming card demand at the lower end. Witness all the people upgrading to run Diablo 3, for instance.

At the higher end, multi-monitor, 120Hz, and 3D may help drive demand for enthusiast-grade cards.

 

[Phynaz]

So, GPU AIB attach rates are currently at less than 18% and dropping. I'm curious what percentage of those are forced. For example, my wife's laptop is only available with dual graphics.

Just goes to show how small the PC gaming market is.

As IGPs get better the AIB sales continue to drop.

 

[yottabit]

zOMG it's the death of discrete gfx

Long live Larrabee

 

[RussianSensation]

I don't think the launch of new consoles will boost games' video demands enough to get people to upgrade their old hardware. Why not just buy the console instead, then?

Well, there is still a base of PC gamers chugging on 8800GT/9800GTs and eventually the other popular group on HD4850/4870 and GTX560/560Ti/HD5850 cards will be looking to upgrade. When those next generation game engines/games hit the scene, there will be a wave of PC upgrades too. I have a feeling that NV and AMD now have full interest in maintaining high GPU prices for as long as possible because of increased 28nm wafer costs and shrinking discrete GPU upgrade market.

When you have a shrinking base of gamers who upgrade their discrete GPUs, it kinda makes sense that NV and AMD will try to offset the loss of revenues by moving their price brackets. We have already seen that with not so cheap HD7770 and the entire mid-range market sweet spot has increased from $199 price level to $250-350 (HD7850/7870). One might even suggest that GK104 is mid-range but we won't even go there. HD7850-7870 is in itself an indication that mid-range market pricing has increased dramatically.

The longer the current gen of consoles are for sale, the longer they will be holding back next generation engines such as Unreal Engine 4 from becoming mainstream. Frostbyte 2 could be far more prevalent if PS4 and the next Xbox are around which would make that engine more widely used for next gen games. Current console cannot even use that engine to half of its potential, nor can they use tessellation, a critical graphical enhancement of DX11 API.

I foresee flat or very little demand in the discrete GPU segment until at least 2014 or until there are at least 3-4 more next generation games. People who wanted to play BF3 have already upgraded, while it will take 2 more generation to max out Metro 2033 and Witcher 2 with UberSampling. Upgrading now is just for fun or for people with multi-monitors such as yourself, which is unlikely to be more than 10% of the entire discrete GPU market.

Imho, PC-exclusives like Starcraft 2 are the real drivers of discrete gaming card demand at the lower end. Witness all the people upgrading to run Diablo 3, for instance.

You hit the nail on the head right here. SC2 Heart of the Swarm and Diablo 3 will likely be the 2 biggest releases in terms of sales on the PC this year and neither of them is GPU demanding. Maybe GTAV will also contend for top 3. Unfortunately for GPU makers, the 2 most popular genres on the PC (RTS and MMOs/Role playing games) are not very GPU demanding.

Anything above HD6670/GTS450 will run Diablo 3, while SC2 will run on HD4000 if you lower the settings enough.

Diablo 3 just became the fastest selling PC game of all time. 6.3 Million games are actively playing it on the servers already. 😎

In an ideal world, I would have loved for NV and AMD to work with Blizzard to make sure their next generation games have amazing graphics, fully destructible environments, tessellation, HBAO, etc. However, we all know Blizzard will have none of that. It's a catch 22 since they are trying to create games that will run on as many possible hardware configurations as possible. The side-effect is their games have poor-avg graphics. Because they are so popular, in a way they are not creating much demand for mid-range to high-end GPU upgrades.

It's good for gamers on a budget and the software developers, but terrible for the GPU makers. When Crytek jumped ship to become focused on console development, things really started to take downhill on the PC. Crytek did promise that Crysis 3 will be built for DX11 from the ground-up and become another benchmark for PC gaming. Let's hope they deliver next year (but I am not optimistic).

 

[Imouto]

In an ideal world, I would have loved for NV and AMD to work with Blizzard to make sure their next generation games have amazing graphics, fully destructible environments, tessellation, HBAO, etc. However, we all know Blizzard will have none of that. It's a catch 22 since they are trying to create games that will run on as many possible hardware configurations as possible. The side-effect is their games have poor-avg graphics. Because they are so popular, in a way they are not creating much demand for mid-range to high-end GPU upgrades.

I thank companies like Blizzard or Valve for making fun games that everyone can play with their crappy PC. They deserve to be rewarded selling millions of copies.

I'm pretty happy with these companies focusing and spending their resources trying to make a game fun instead of (even more) good looking.

 

[RussianSensation]

I thank companies like Blizzard or Valve for making fun games that everyone can play with their crappy PC. They deserve to be rewarded selling millions of copies.

I'm pretty happy with these companies focusing and spending their resources trying to make a game fun instead of (even more) good looking.

Ya, of course. But Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2's graphics could have been A LOT better especially given how many years both were in development. Blizzard has enough $ to make top of the line graphics. For people who don't want to buy mid-range to high-end GPUs, they could have the option of D3 and SC2 graphics in current form while everyone else would access higher visual quality settings.

If you've played D3, you'd notice there is almost no difference between Low and High visual settings in D3 outside of shadows and some slight debris. That's not exactly cutting edge.