R600 to be 80nm

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
The relevant question isn't "where the HELL is r600?" The relevant question is, why does R600's delay seem to matter so much to so few? The only viable answer is that the few have lost all sense of perspective on their own value as consumers.

How large is R600/G80 market compared to the mainstream market? Do problems in one member of a vastly diversified and different product family automatically signal problems for the rest of the members of that family?

The answer to the first question, whether or not the people on this board want to admit it, is "damn small." The answer to the second question is, "not at all."

The money will be made in the mainstream segments. The compelling factor in nVidia's current dominance was the exceptional success of the 6600 & 7600 series relative to their ATI counterparts. The differences between nVidia and ATI high-end parts are almost insignificant when it comes to their impact on their respective companies' financials. What mattered was that the x700/x1600/x1650s were poor price/performance competitors when compared to their 6600/7600 counterparts. nVidia used 6800 variants to fill small gaps in price/performance where it made the most economic sense. ATI had to drop in x800/x850/x1800/x1900/x1950 variants into the mainstream segment in order to be competitive at all, undoubtedly with some effect on the products' profit margins.

The real battle here is between the 8600 series and AMD's midrange offering. All else is just a "big fluffy bun." In reality, it's just a bunch of purportedly 'grown men' squabbling over who gets the privilege of being 'right' about the cause for the delay.

sure the relevant question IS "where the HELL is r600?"

trying to cloud the issue is your job




:thumbsdown:

AMD is LATE [period]

and it makes them look *stupid* when they to explain it

their fans fare much worse
:roll:

Agreed.

And to those who say "How come no one rips on Nvidia for delaying the release of the 8600s?" Well, nVidia did not schedule a firm launch date, make travel and hotel reservations for journalists, cancel the entire launch, then try to tell everyone "hey our product is fast and ready to go right now! Actually it's way better than our competitor's card but hey, we feel like holding it back indefinitely so that we can launch it together with some other cards!" I'm sorry, but anyone buying that line of BS gets a major :thumbsdown:

You can spin it all you want by saying high-end doesn't matter, but this whole thing is just bad business from AMD.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: SexyK

Originally posted by: superunknown98
Lets put this into perspective. Let say America decides to build an autobahn with a 200mph speed limit and says it will be completed by 2010. A year later General Motors releases it's new car and says it will do 200mph. Many people buy it even though it's full potential will not be available for years. sure it has great acceleration on todays highway but besides that nothing else to offer. Six months before the highway opens Ford releases their car, and it too will do 200mph. Is ford really late to the party? I would say they arrived on time, and GM early. IS there anything wrong with this? no, maybe Ford would loose some sales but not a huge margin as most people continue to buy regular cars anyway.

Now replace GM and Ford with Nvidia and AMD, and 200mph with DX10. Yea AMD missed some sales but whats the point with no DX10 games? If you want faster performance buy now, otherwise wait till it's useful.

Obviously, this isn't about DX10 at all. No one is buying for DX10 because as you point out there are no games. But to say that G80 was released "too early" simply because it supports DX10 completely ignores the fact that it offers DX9 performance comparable to last-gen SLi - sometimes even more in higher resolutions. Right now DX9 performance is why people buy... DX10 is a bonus at this point. AMD isn't just missing out on "some sales"... not only are they not playing in the DX10 realm at all, but even worse they are locked out of the high-end DX9 market and have been for months now.

I really don't understand how or why anyone would try to spin this delay as a good thing for AMD and the release of G80 as a bad thing for nVidia.

You could try studying WaltC on B3D, because this is precisely what he has been trying to claim/peddle in the forums recently, however I fear comrade Walt is beyond anybodys understanding...

 

[imported_thefonz]

"The real battle here is between the 8600 series and AMD's midrange offering. All else is just a "big fluffy bun." In reality, it's just a bunch of purportedly 'grown men' squabbling over who gets the privilege of being 'right' about the cause for the delay."


I think that last line of that quote sums up the last 3 months of video. At least the "elites" have something to argue over, could you imagine them using there free time for anything but bitching over consumer electronics, you know, as in maybe getting a life, it would be madness!!!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: thefonz
"The real battle here is between the 8600 series and AMD's midrange offering. All else is just a "big fluffy bun." In reality, it's just a bunch of purportedly 'grown men' squabbling over who gets the privilege of being 'right' about the cause for the delay."


I think that last line of that quote sums up the last 3 months of video. At least the "elites" have something to argue over, could you imagine them using there free time for anything but bitching over consumer electronics, you know, as in maybe getting a life, it would be madness!!!

you ask a simple question and you get a off-topic commentary

back to the *real issue*

"where's the beef" ?

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

 

[IlllI]

i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: clandren
i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

Again, if the GPU industry is so trivial in your mind, why post in this thread or even read it at all? Leave us "silly"people alone so we can discuss the situation without all the people riding around on high horses getting in the way. :thumbsup:

Anyway, this isn't about holding a grudge, or thinking video is more important that curing cancer. Some people are passionate about cars, some people are into the celebrity blog scene and some people are interested in the semiconductor industry. Where's the problem with that? Trust me, there are analysts on Wall Street who make a very good living scrutinizing the actions of the different players in a major sector.

Either way, I have alternated between ATI/AMD cards and nVidia cards since retiring my Voodoo5 5500 depending on which company was offering the better product at the time. Unlike some people here I would not buy an inferior nVidia product because I "hate" AMD and want them to go under, nor would I buy an inferior AMD product to "get back" at nVidia. Trust me, I will be equally hard on both companies when they deserve it.

Right now I'm running an 8800 and I wasn't among those threatening a class action lawsuit over drivers because the drivers that are available have worked well enough for my purposes, so I have nothing to complain about. If nVidia does have a major stumble I will call them out on it, and if AMD comes up huge with R600 I will give them credit for their accomplishments. As it stands today, though, AMD is turning themselves into a non-factor.

ps- I still don't understand how anyone can argue that R600 isn't late when AMD explicitly set a launch date then moved it to a "later" date. We call it "later" for a reason.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: clandren
i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

*attacking* ?


i call it pointing out *stupidity* ... and AMD's marketing is *beyond stupid* with their RIDICULOUS "excuses" ... their fans are even more brain-damaged


... and 'yes', i actually tend to give nvidia more 'flack' --when it is deserved
:Q

you DO realize this IS *Video* Forum ... discussing Cancer cures would NOT be appropriate here
:roll:

:thumbsdown:

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: clandren
i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

As you can see, certain people here are WAY too excitable and childish. Nvidia tends to make questionable decisions regarding business ethics, ATI tends to be late with product releases. Neither one is perfect, but some people don't want to be hear that.

Unfortunately, we don't have much choice but to put up with the 'kiddies' of this board as the Moderators do very little actual moderating of the Video forum.

 

[TecHNooB]

That's cuz they can't take the :| assault :Q

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: clandren
i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

As you can see, certain people here are WAY too excitable and childish. Nvidia tends to make questionable decisions regarding business ethics, ATI tends to be late with product releases. Neither one is perfect, but some people don't want to be hear that.

Unfortunately, we don't have much choice but to put up with the 'kiddies' of this board as the Moderators do very little actual moderating of the Video forum.

that is *exactly* how the majority of forum members feel about you ... one of *the* FEW fanboys that ATi has left

someone who will *defend* ATi's STUPID marketing lies --even though they are so *obviously* BS and attempt to *minimize* them as theough "both companies aren't perfect"

we are not talking "perfect" -- were are talking "AMD *looks* stupid" ....
--their fans look much worse

Creig is so enamored of ATi that he will throw himself in front of a moving train and be crushed by the sheer weight of logic ...

So .... where IS r600?

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: clandren
i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

As you can see, certain people here are WAY too excitable and childish. Nvidia tends to make questionable decisions regarding business ethics, ATI tends to be late with product releases. Neither one is perfect, but some people don't want to be hear that.

Unfortunately, we don't have much choice but to put up with the 'kiddies' of this board as the Moderators do very little actual moderating of the Video forum.

that is *exactly* how the majority of forum members feel about you ... one of *the* FEW fanboys that ATi has left

one is so enamored of ATi that he will throw himself in front of a moving train and be crushed by the sheer weight of logic ...

So .... where IS r600?

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

It must be nice to have so much free time available that you can sit there feverishly hitting the "refresh" button all day long so that you can post your broken sentence, smilie filled replies only minutes after someone posts something.

I am a fan of ATI AND I am a fan of Nvidia. However, I am NOT a fan of attention seeking children like yourself. You are incapable of holding any sort of meaningful discussion without getting hysterical and waving your arms around. Take a Valium, take a Prozac. Take SOMETHING to calm yourself down before posting from now on.

Yes, we know the R600 is late. We've known that for quite awhile now. All your childish tantrums and finger pointing isn't going to get it into the retail channel any faster.

Now, do you have any new R600 information or are you simply going to keep wasting AT bandwidth with your meaningless babble?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: clandren
i'm curious about something. all you attacking ati.. do you equally attack nvidia? because its not like any company(not just the ones making video cards) out there has had a perfect track record. but in this case.. i seem to recall recently something about nvidia having no vista drivers, or the ones that they did have out were pretty poor (i think this might still be the case?)...

you guys realize that in 2 years or so that none of this will matter? and that there are better things in this world to be more concerned about? its just a video card. and if you hold a grudge towards a video card company b/c they were late to release a product (which i dont think there are even and dx10 games out yet).. then thats just silly.

its not like they promised the cure for cancer and then ooops its been delayed and thousands have died between then and now. :roll:

As you can see, certain people here are WAY too excitable and childish. Nvidia tends to make questionable decisions regarding business ethics, ATI tends to be late with product releases. Neither one is perfect, but some people don't want to be hear that.

Unfortunately, we don't have much choice but to put up with the 'kiddies' of this board as the Moderators do very little actual moderating of the Video forum.

that is *exactly* how the majority of forum members feel about you ... one of *the* FEW fanboys that ATi has left

one is so enamored of ATi that he will throw himself in front of a moving train and be crushed by the sheer weight of logic ...

So .... where IS r600?

:roll:

:thumbsdown:

It must be nice to have so much free time available that you can sit there feverishly hitting the "refresh" button all day long so that you can post your broken sentence, smilie filled replies only minutes after someone posts something.

I am a fan of ATI AND I am a fan of Nvidia. However, I am NOT a fan of attention seeking children like yourself. You are incapable of holding any sort of meaningful discussion without getting hysterical and waving your arms around. Take a Valium, take a Prozac. Take SOMETHING to calm yourself down before posting from now on.

Yes, we know the R600 is late. We've known that for quite awhile now. All your childish tantrums and finger pointing isn't going to get it into the retail channel any faster.

Now, do you have any new R600 information or are you simply going to keep wasting AT bandwidth with your meaningless babble?

you are talking about yourself again ... "meaningless babble" is your trademark and enough "free time" to spread AMD FUD ... even though even you must realize it is a dirty LIE

You are an ATi Fanboy ... 100% devoted to them in your mindless admiration
You are "no fan of nvidia" ... what a lie!
:roll:

you *never* say ANYTHING "bad" about ATi ... you are incapable of formulating a coherent argument since you are so *obviously* lopsided

take your own pills
:thumbsdown:

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Creig
are you simply going to keep wasting AT bandwidth with your meaningless babble?

you are talking about yourself again ... "meaningless babble" is your trademark and (blah, blah, blah)

I'll take that as a "Yes".

 

[dreddfunk]

trying to cloud the issue is your job

Apoppin - please don't personally accuse me of anything like this again.

First, it is terribly impolite to make baseless attacks on a person you don't know. Second, attempting to discuss something in a rational and polite manner is hardly 'clouding the issue'. Third, take issue with a person's opinion, and not the person. If you tell me my *opinion* is clouding the real issue, I don't have a problem. If you accuse me of deliberately clouding the issue (especially for money), I've got a real problem with that.

Moreover, please don't categorize me--or anyone else--as an 'ATI fan' or as a 'nVidia fan'. That is a deplorable rhetorical tactic, designed solely to allow the listener to ignore the speaker's words out of hand.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SexyK - I'd appreciate it if you would please actually explain why you think it's "bad business" for AMD to delay R600. That is, instead of saying, "I'm sorry but anyone buying that line of BS gets a major," and, "You can spin it all you want by saying high-end doesn't matter, but this whole thing is just bad business from AMD," please explain why the high-end matters so much.

I've explained at length why I don't think this is such a bad decision even if R600 is ready to go, will you please have the courtesy to do the same?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


I personally have never, ever 'ripped' nVidia for delaying the 8600. What I said was that I was more disappointed by that delay than the R600, for pretty clear reasons: most consumers like me can really only buy in the midrange segment anymore and the 8600 was my best hope to run Oblivion well sometime in the not too distant future. I was so wanting to get an 8600gts from eVGA is the Oblivion benchmarks were right.

Certainly I'm disappointed that it isn't released yet, but I'm not 'ripping' nVidia. Quite the contrary, in fact. In some ways I think it's a smart decision by nVidia in the wake of the R600 delay. nVidia wants to know what they have to compete against, and they don't want to get too far down the DX10 road before they have some idea. That is usually a good business decision (it may not be right now, for various reasons).

Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge I have never, ever said that AMD isn't 'late'. They sure as hell *are* late. I've merely suggested, much to the anger and vitriol of some that: 1) it may (may, may, may, may, how many times can I say 'may') not be because there are problems with the R600, and, 2) it may (may, may, may, may, how many times can I say 'may') not be such a bad business decision for AMD. I've certainly never stated that my assessment of market conditions *must* be the reason for the delay.

To paraphrase my opinion: there are no DX10 games. AMD still competes well in the most profitable areas of the DX9 gaming market. Hence there is no need to rush a product to launch that may only give a competitor a strategic advantage when DX10 games actually arrive. It is also important to have competitive cards in all price segments when DX10 arrives. Whether or not the R600 has been delayed of production problems or not, I don't think it hurts ATI that much right now.

Yet I actually agree with a lot of people here on an important point: ATI (now AMD) has been operating their business poorly for quite some time. The question really is: is this latest R600 delay evidence of more incompetence or actual improvement. I don't really know but I think there is a case to be made for the latter, given the very specific market implications of DX10 adoption.

nVidia has been playing ATI for some time. They introduce a good high-end product (say the 7800 series). ATI feels obliged to counter (x1800 then x1900). nVidia then refreshes it's top line to become competitive (7900) and introduces a killer midrange part (7600) while ATI still struggles to get their high-end parts out the door.

I am not suggesting that the high-end isn't valuable. What I'm suggesting is that ATI has done a really poor job of estimating its value relative to the mainstream business. I think they've allowed nVidia to push them into concentrating too much on the high-end, and not enough on the midrange. ATI's true midrange offerings have not been good over the last few years. They've had some success scaling back high-end solutions but they haven't produced anything of the profitability of the 6600/7600 series.

Some suggest that getting R600 out on time is really important (and that's true) but it doesn't address this problem in my mind. The question is: what will ATI do when nVidia immediately counters with a refresh that barely takes back the performance crown? Will AMD get itself worked up and immediately rush the R600 refresh out (as seems likely for all those expecting R600 to be an x1800/x1900 repeat), or will it continue to focus on the launch of its midrange products?

They need to do the latter and not the former. Heretofore they haven't been, and I think that, more than anything else, is what has hurt their business. They've been killed by the 6600/7600, not by the 6800/7800/7900/8800. It isn't that the high-end doesn't matter, it's judging how much it matters that has been ATI's problem.

I think that ATI's mistake of the x1800/x1900 fiasco wasn't that the x1800 was late, or that the x1900 had to come out to do battle with the 7800gtx/7900gtx (it didn't). ATI's mistake was not getting the x1650xt out the door quick enough. ATI should have concentrated most on getting a real competitor for the 7600 to market. The 7600 was a fantastic part and I would have one right now if it weren't for the fact that Oblivion favored ATI cards (hence my x850xt) at the time of my purchase.

The lack of a true midrange product has severely hurt ATI's profitability. As long as ATI didn't have a real midrange competitor, they had to go with a must costlier stop-gap: scaling back high-end silicon to compete in the midrange. I won out as a consumer, getting x850xt performance on the cheap, but ATI lost out on profit in a big way. That's not good business.

To sum up, ATI got their butts handed to them two generations in a row in the midrange segment, first the 6600 then the 7600. I don't think they want that to happen again. They need to have something that competes well with the 8600 series (and its refreshes) when DX10 games start hitting the streets. Certainly they also need something to compete with the 8800 series, etc., at that time as well. But they need the former more than they need the latter. If delaying the R600 helps them compete better in the midrange segment because it keeps their performance numbers under wraps and delays the 8600 and the inevitable 8600 refreshes from hitting the streets, then it's a smart business decision, even if ATI has working silicon right now.

All of this is my opinion concerning the market conditions under which ATI and nVidia are operating. Treat it as such: with skepticism for the opinion but with respect for the person.

 

[apoppin]

accuse you?

"don't do it again" ...or what?
:Q

all your long-winded blog DID is *confirm* that IS your job to cloud the issue

:roll:

AMD is LATE and their stupid excuses are *impossible* for anyone to defend
:thumbsdown:

that "leaves" ... clouding the issue
--by default

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
SexyK - not to be snarky, but the last time I checked, this was called a "video" forum, not a "high-end only for those who want to buy on the bleeding edge" video forum. Sure, the high-end equipment garners a lot of interest in this crowd. Nor am I implying that it is somehow not a fit topic for conversation. I was actually only implying that it represents a very small share of the market, and since many folks around here are in that small market segment they tend to forget that there is any other market segment, especially when criticizing a business decision by AMD or nVidia. By all means, talk away. Just remember that businesses do what they feel is in their best interests, even if that means antagonizing a small part of their customer base from time to time. I'd guess that the delay of the 8600 series is more disappointing to many mainstream consumers than any delay in R600.


Matt2 - of course you're free to call BS on the idea that R600 was delayed for the purpose of a joint launch. It may very well be BS. I don't think the facts support a de facto conclusion as yet, however. There aren't any DX10 games. The vast majority of gamers don't game at extreme resolutions like 19x12. What will make a difference in either AMD or nVidia's bottom line is having the fastest family of DX10 cards (the best value in each pricing segment) when compelling DX10 games become available. That will be later this year. If I'm AMD, I see no reason to tip my hand to nVidia right now, and give them plenty of time to refresh their lineup just as DX10 games become available. I'd want them behind the curve as long as possible right around that time. The same goes for nVidia. I think they'd be pleased as punch to see R600 out, so they know right now the bar they need to jump over with the G80 refresh. If they know that now, they've got plenty of time to tweak the refresh in time for any fall DX10 releases.

Personally, I just think DX10 timing issues are driving this delay more than anything. You're in a difficult position, without a doubt, but your situation is fairly rare in the grand scheme of things: you're willing to plunk down $500+ on a GPU in order to run current games at extreme resolutions, with the hope of good DX10 performance when those titles become available. Fairly common on AT video, not very common in the general consumer graphics market. If the first incarnations of G80 and R600 fail to perform to your expectations in must-have DX10 titles, you might very well choose to upgrade again. I see a lot of talk about that on these boards. That's just not the situation that most consumers find themselves in.

I'd like a new card to play Oblivion with--I purchased an x850xt after extensive research because it was the best price/performer at the time. It was a big jump from a 9700 pro, but, unfortunately, I'm just not satisfied with the visuals it provides. Oblivion has a lot more to offer. I'm not going to jump on an x1900/x1950 variant, however, because DX10 is around the corner. Nor do I believe that $350+ for a full 8800gts or above is money well spent without seeing any DX10 benchmarks whatsoever. I simply can't afford to plunk down $350+ just to run Oblivion like I want. If I spend that money, I need a little more evidence of longevity. There's never a lot of longevity in this business, but the 9700pro lasted me quite a while.

The real reason for the difficulty in both of our situations is the great unknown: DX10 performance. Will G80 and R600 be like the 9700pro and offer the best performance on the previous DX iteration as well as great performance on the next? No one knows yet. I suspect they will, but guessing and a $350-$600 purchase don't go hand in hand for me (they might for others).

I really, really, really want to see the 8600 benchmarks. I'd much rather get a midrange card that runs Oblivion really well, and just save my money until another game comes along that I have to have. I don't game that much, and the games I really want to play are few and far between. If the x850xt ran Oblivion as well as I'd like, I wouldn't care about this mess in the least, but it doesn't.

Good luck with the upgrade, btw. While there's always something better around the corner, I expect most of the angst we see here will be long gone once R600 and DX10 titles arrive. G80 and R600 refreshes aren't likely to produce more than a 10-20% boost in performance, and once DX10 games are benchmarked, everyone will have a decent idea what to expect from both players. Then we can make an informed purchasing decision.

Cheers.

oblivion run incredible on my 8800gts 320.

AMD is late to the game. being late is never good. AMD is losing to intell, to nvidia and their stocks are getting killed.

but what can they do. its not like they wantto be late. there stuck over a broken bridge known as R600.

 

[Zstream]

Originally posted by: apoppin
accuse you?

"don't do it again" ...or what?
:Q

all your long-winded blog DID is *confirm* that IS your job to cloud the issue

:roll:

AMD is LATE and their stupid excuses are *impossible* for anyone to defend
:thumbsdown:

that "leaves" ... clouding the issue
--by default

You mean he actually had a coherent sentence without using 500 faces and leaving two inches between each phrase? Right.....

 

[dreddfunk]

tanish - the 8800 320 is a little out of my price range, otherwise, I'd buy it. If it came down to a bit under $200, I'd really be considering it. In the long run, if I'm spending much more than $150, I need to know that the card will last me a good long while.



apoppin - That's a very unfortunate attitude that you are displaying: must there be an 'or else' before you actually choose to demonstrate respect for others and their opinions? Are you actually saying that unless there is a chance of punitive action against you everything is fair game in the way you address others on this board? A fellow human being asks you politely to refrain from doing something and your response is: 'if you can't punish me for it, I won't do anything about it'. You will forgive me if this strikes me to be a very, very unhealthy attitude towards your fellow human beings. It is essentially the attitude that bullies display on the playground.

Moreover, if you will forgive my saying so, you aren't using very good logic in stating your opinion. Unless you know someone on AMD's R600 staff and have inside information, I'd say that there is still room for open speculation on the delay. You have chosen to accept your own opinion as a foregone conclusion. That is certainly your right, but it is hardly logical. This standard of proof isn't accepted in any public forum: AT Video, a court of law, the business office, etc.

The "I have decided that there is only one way to interpret these events and anyone who disagrees is wrong," is not a standard of proof. So calling AMD's position "impossible" to defend is simply incorrect. You may not agree with the defense, but it is not "impossible" to defend. Many of us live in a representative democracy that prizes free speech, trammeling others' opinions is bad enough without the added problem of misrepresenting one's own opinions as incontrovertible facts and the ever-present threat of ad hominem attacks.

Cheers.

P.S. I'm sure that my 'blog' entries hardly bother you overly much, as you don't appear to have read them, which is again, your right. Some issues, in my mind, cannot be adequately discussed in under 50 words and 20 emoticons. Business decisions of multi-billion dollar corporations come to mind as issues that fall into this category.

 

[NamelessMC]

The problem with the delay of the R600 is the bad look on the company's entire line of cards. The 8800GTX/GTS smoking everything in its path gets more attention to Nvidia's entire line of cards, even if the 7 series cards are nothing like the 8 series cards.

If ATI fans can't admit that, then this is an irrational argument and you're not really giving credit where it's due.

The reason I went with Nvidia in my first build ever, was because the Geforce 256 came out so far ahead of the Voodoo 3, I just wanted a card that could play Quake 3 at max settings.

When I was picking parts to order, Voodoo 3 said "Coming soon" and Geforce 256 was just there, already waiting to be bought. 256-bit graphics! I got it, and by the time I started seeing the Voodoo5 in stores, people were having rumors of Nvidia buying 3dfx.

My second build, I went ATI. It wasn't really a build, it was a Dell pre-configure. It came with a Geforce 4 TI4200 stock, but I didn't really game much when I got it. Just Final Fantasy XI mostly. The whole Geforce TI4600 versus 9700 Pro thing happened, and basically the TI4600 was getting destroyed. So when the next generation of cards came out, I immediately bought the 9600XT, not even checking benchmarks. Was it better than the FX5500 or whatever mid-range Nvidia card there was? I have no idea and I still don't. All I know is, the 9800XT/Pro beating everything to smitherines gave me the assumption the 9600XT would do the same.

As far as I was concerned, the 9600XT did what I wanted it to do, for the right price and it lasted me long enough to matter.

Fast forward to 2005, I'm moving back to my parents house and I'm buying a computer in the process. A lot of time went by that I had no idea how computer hardware was going or where it was. Dual core? I didn't even know about it. I bought an Athlon 64 because I thought it was the best gaming chip out there for the money. I think I even paid like $120 for it or something, off Newegg.

But since ATI was my last choice, I did a quick search on recent articles about video-cards. What caught my attention? "X800GTO2 can unlock to X850XT!" I search, X850XT is a $300 video-card. The Sapphire X800GTO2 was the best model for it and it was only $180. So yeah I bought it. I didn't even think of checking Nvidia's offerings. Why? Because the X850XT was awesome, and I could have it for $180 with a 20 minute flash, some AS5 and an over-clock.

I was an AMD/ATI user. Because for the low amount of money, FEAR on max settings was possible.

December 2006-January 2007- Not only did I switch from AMD to Intel, I switched from ATI to Nvidia. Why? Because the future looked shaky for ATI/AMD. Same feeling I got when 3dfx's Voodoo was more than "fashionably" late.

You guys have no idea how many suburb private school/public school with rich parents kids are out there, that can afford to have their parents dump 3 grand on a PC. The market share on high end cards is a lot bigger than you think. And it's looking like Christmas at Nvidia right now.

 

[dreddfunk]

Nameless - yep, it's a bad mark, but the 8800 series is only really smoking for those folks who can afford $250+ GPUs. AMD is losing business, no doubt, it is just a question of how much, and whether or not the delay helps them strategically.

If you look at income statistics, the income distribution in the US is getting pretty skewed towards the top. I don't think the market for high-end cards is a whole lot bigger than I think, at least relative to the market for the mainstream.

A quick check on newegg.com reveals that they're selling 559 video cards under the $250 price point, while they only offer 100 in the $250+ range (that doesn't factor in the rebates, their search engine doesn't allow that). That's over 5 & 1/2 to 1. The most important price points in the GPU industry are sub-$250. Much more than $250 and you start to lose the performance gaming crowd, and you enter the territory of the real enthusiasts. The performance crowd seems to stay between $150 and $250.

AMD is more than fashionably late here, as you suggest. We just won't know for a few months how much it is really hurting their business.

Does anyone know what 3dfx's market capitalization was, or even their gross revenues, around the time of their collapse? I think AMD is probably in a stronger position, though the acquisition of ATI has certainly been expensive.

I think the real fear is that AMD will get out of most of the higher-end GPU market segments (ultra-high-end, high-end, maybe even performance), and stick to integrated, low, and low-mid-range offerings. I don't think they will, but AMD clearly has bigger fish to fry with the ATI acquisition than merely the high-end GPU market.

 

[SexyK]

Originally posted by: NamelessMC
The problem with the delay of the R600 is the bad look on the company's entire line of cards. The 8800GTX/GTS smoking everything in its path gets more attention to Nvidia's entire line of cards, even if the 7 series cards are nothing like the 8 series cards.

If ATI fans can't admit that, then this is an irrational argument and you're not really giving credit where it's due.

The reason I went with Nvidia in my first build ever, was because the Geforce 256 came out so far ahead of the Voodoo 3, I just wanted a card that could play Quake 3 at max settings.

When I was picking parts to order, Voodoo 3 said "Coming soon" and Geforce 256 was just there, already waiting to be bought. 256-bit graphics! I got it, and by the time I started seeing the Voodoo5 in stores, people were having rumors of Nvidia buying 3dfx.

My second build, I went ATI. It wasn't really a build, it was a Dell pre-configure. It came with a Geforce 4 TI4200 stock, but I didn't really game much when I got it. Just Final Fantasy XI mostly. The whole Geforce TI4600 versus 9700 Pro thing happened, and basically the TI4600 was getting destroyed. So when the next generation of cards came out, I immediately bought the 9600XT, not even checking benchmarks. Was it better than the FX5500 or whatever mid-range Nvidia card there was? I have no idea and I still don't. All I know is, the 9800XT/Pro beating everything to smitherines gave me the assumption the 9600XT would do the same.

As far as I was concerned, the 9600XT did what I wanted it to do, for the right price and it lasted me long enough to matter.

Fast forward to 2005, I'm moving back to my parents house and I'm buying a computer in the process. A lot of time went by that I had no idea how computer hardware was going or where it was. Dual core? I didn't even know about it. I bought an Athlon 64 because I thought it was the best gaming chip out there for the money. I think I even paid like $120 for it or something, off Newegg.

But since ATI was my last choice, I did a quick search on recent articles about video-cards. What caught my attention? "X800GTO2 can unlock to X850XT!" I search, X850XT is a $300 video-card. The Sapphire X800GTO2 was the best model for it and it was only $180. So yeah I bought it. I didn't even think of checking Nvidia's offerings. Why? Because the X850XT was awesome, and I could have it for $180 with a 20 minute flash, some AS5 and an over-clock.

I was an AMD/ATI user. Because for the low amount of money, FEAR on max settings was possible.

December 2006-January 2007- Not only did I switch from AMD to Intel, I switched from ATI to Nvidia. Why? Because the future looked shaky for ATI/AMD. Same feeling I got when 3dfx's Voodoo was more than "fashionably" late.

You guys have no idea how many suburb private school/public school with rich parents kids are out there, that can afford to have their parents dump 3 grand on a PC. The market share on high end cards is a lot bigger than you think. And it's looking like Christmas at Nvidia right now.

The post above sums up exactly why this R600 delay is bad business for AMD. Every day that they are non-competitive in the high-end they lose mindshare among consumers at all price-points, plain and simple. Want proof of this? Go look at the list of best-selling video cards on newegg - 48 out of the top 58 cards are based on nVidia GPUs. I promise you that if R600 launched simultaneously with G80, it would be much closer to 50/50. Obviously newegg isn't a reflection on the market as a whole, but it's an indicator that support for AMD is receding in the enthusiast space. As Nameless' post above makes clear, with time support in the enthusiast community filters down to more mainstream purchase decisions.

Also, dredd, you don't need to take everything so personally. I for one am not attacking you personally on any level, but I am attacking your support of AMD's unconscionable marketing decisions in this case. If you believe that only a crazy few people see weakness in AMD's business decisions recently, please take a look at their stock which has lost over 60% of its value in less than a year.

Finally, while your theory on the delay is interesting, i'm afraid i just can't agree with your logic. You say that launching high-end alone without midrange cards may hurt AMD because they will be "tipping their hand" to nVidia and nVidia will answer with a G80 refresh. Well, the bottom line is that most likely nVidia has midrange cards and a high-end refresh ready to go at any time - so no matter when AMD launches there will be an nVidia response to steal some of their thunder. In fact, the delay in the high-end only ENSURES that nVidia will be able to respond quickly. Had they launched earlier (on time) AMD may have been able to enjoy an extended period of performance dominance before nVidia was able to answer and gained a lot of momentum.

There is just no way of looking at the situation that leads to the conclusion that holding back a better-performing high-end card makes sense if it's truly ready to go.

 

[natto fire]

OMFG, I forgot how hilarious you people can be.

Seriously Apoppin, your little Haikus are getting tiring, and why don't you just put "where the hell is R600, wheres the beef?" in your sig, so you don't have to type it in every post? While you are at, go ahead and put every stupid smiley this forum has in it too. Then perhaps you can use the extra time forming complete sentences, not just repeating yourself over and over, and making dumb poems.

 

[SexyK]

Also, to follow up my last post with more facts: not only has AMD taken a beating, but high-end dominance has brought overall financial success to nVidia.

In the three months ended Jan. 29, Nvidia said sales totaled $878.9 million, up 39% year over year and ahead of Wall Street expectations.

From Profit Jumps at Nvidia. We can revisit this issue after another quarter goes by and we get even fresher financials. So far it seems to me that high-end dominance is in fact correlated to overall financial success.

 

[dreddfunk]

SexyK - thanks for the reply, and I'm not really taking it personally. I'm just making sure everyone knows that there is a distinction between attacking a point (valid) and attacking a person (not). I don't think you're argument is rampantly illogical. Although I'd say a few things in reply.

First, I think AMD's stock is taking a beating because their much larger competitor in a different market (Intel) has the performance crown and is willing to engage in a price war that hurts their own profitability in order to punish a rival (AMD). I think R600's delay has got nothing to do with AMD's stock going in the tubes, except in so far as the ATI acquisition has placed AMD in a delicate financial condition because of the money involved.

Second, newegg.com is almost certainly, as you concede, more of an indicator of enthusiast and, perhaps, the performance crowd. Out of those 58 cards, there are only two (two!) that are under the 7600GS level. You've got 4x7600GS and 5x7600GT. Out of 58 "top sellers" they have 11 cards that are actually midrange or lower. Quite frankly, there are two things going on: 1) newegg caters to a more performance and enthusiast crowd, and 2) newegg is shuttling customers to their more lucrative products.

Third - Losing mind share of newegg.com customers will certainly eventually filter down but, given just how much of the market is only interested in very low end GPU solutions, I can neither agree with the presumption that newegg's top sellers list is a good indicator of the market, nor that the correlation between high-end dominance and overall market success is a cause-and-effect relationship. Indeed, Intel is the leading provider of graphics solutions by far and it has nothing whatsoever that competes with nVidia or AMD(ATI) high-end offerings.

Now, nVidia is placed extremely well in a smaller market that revolves much more around performance, but here again, the profitability mentioned in the article doesn't come from high-end GPU sales.

" The company's gross margin was 43.9%, slightly ahead of its expectations, and close to the long-term target of 45%. While average selling prices of desktop PC graphics chips declined slightly quarter over quarter, strong sales of notebook chips helped Nvidia increase its gross margin in all major business segments during the fourth quarter.

Nvidia launched its GeForce 8800 graphics chip in November, putting it well ahead of rival ATI, which is expected to field its answer sometime in the current quarter.

But Nvidia's head start has not really helped it that much, says Stifel Nicolaus analyst Blake Fischer, as there's scant games and other applications currently available that take advantage of the chip's most advanced features. Stifel Nicolaus makes a market in Nvidia shares.

According to Nvidia, fourth quarter-sales growth was primarily the result of strength in the company's business supplying chipsets, which were up 89% year over year. Graphics chips for notebook PCs surged 120% year over year."

I'm not sure that we can really see high-end GPU dominance as the cause that has driven nVidia's profitability. Has it correlated with that profitability? Yes. Is there a clear cause-and-effect relationship? No. Of course, I'd be very curious to see how much of their mobile revenue is from higher-end chips based off the 7800/7900 series architecture. I would count those as "high-end" sales. My guess, however, is that most of those sales are in the mid- and low-range (7600 and below) as well.

Finally, I don't agree with your analysis of the timing issue, and here's why. Yes, nVidia has a refresh of the G80 in the works. I sincerely doubt, however, that they will get large numbers of the refresh manufactured until they see R600 benchmarks. If they really want the refresh to beat the R600, they'll need to see benchmarks. They'll need enough time after the benchmarks to tweak the refresh, and put it in the manufacturing pipeline for launch. That is going to take 2-3 months, at least. My whole point about the delay has been this: if I am ATI, I want that 2-3 month period to coincide with the release of "must-have" DX10 games. I do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, want that 2-3 month period to coincide with the 2-3 month period immediately prior to the release of these DX10 titles. Do you see my point? If I release R600 2-3 months before "must-have" DX10 titles arrive, I would give nVidia precisely the amount of lead time they need in order to take back the performance crown when it matters most: when DX10 titles arrive.

This is an ATI/AMD screw-up. It just happened a long time ago. It happened when they couldn't get R600 out the door last October/November/December. Back then, they could have forced nVidia's hand; they could have forced a G80 refresh and still had time for the R600 refresh right before DX10 titles came out. That would have been ideal for all of us--great competition. Once they didn't get their act together in time to do that, R600 problems or not, I wouldn't have released it in March of this year. At that point it just strikes me as bad, bad, bad timing. I've never implied that ATI/AMD didn't screw up. I'm just not convinced they screwed up with this latest delay. That actually made weird sense to me.

The bottom line is this. As you've said, nVidia has the refresh ready. The question is, when does ATI/AMD get hammered with it. If I'm them, I want that to be 2-3 months after DX10 games come out. Hopefully, I've at least regained some mind and market share by having the top performer out at the right time. As I said before, under no circumstances do I want to get hammered by the G80 refresh just as DX10 games are coming out. No way.

 

[imported_thefonz]

It must be nice to have so much free time available that you can sit there feverishly hitting the "refresh" button all day long so that you can post your broken sentence, smilie filled replies only minutes after someone posts something.

I am a fan of ATI AND I am a fan of Nvidia. However, I am NOT a fan of attention seeking children like yourself. You are incapable of holding any sort of meaningful discussion without getting hysterical and waving your arms around. Take a Valium, take a Prozac. Take SOMETHING to calm yourself down before posting from now on.

Yes, we know the R600 is late. We've known that for quite awhile now. All your childish tantrums and finger pointing isn't going to get it into the retail channel any faster.

Now, do you have any new R600 information or are you simply going to keep wasting AT bandwidth with your meaningless babble?

LOL!
that first paragraph was awesome