Image problem? Did you take a survey of 10,000 people to confirm that? I don't think the general buying public gives a hoot about $650-1000 GTX780/Titan when a $400 PS4 is belting out graphics that are putting $1000 PCs into question. The general public for sure sees no benefit in spending $2000 on Titan SLI over a PS4 for a marginal increase in IQ.
So it's fine for NV to lose the performance and price/performance crown at the same time for 8 months but AMD suddenly has an image problem with a card that costs 75%+ more for a mere 25% performance increase?
It's outstanding values like GTX660 for
$169 that are making cards like 7850/7870 irrelevant.
You seem to be in denial here. He's not talking about an image problem for performance comparisons. He's talking about the fact that AMD is most commonly in the news for either talk of their impending financial meltdown, them doing something exceptionally desperate (ie., FX9xxx series, but only for integrators), or them giving away even more games that most people by now already have if they really wanted them. Or they can go get them on ebay for $10, tops.
You act like we're in a slow sales period for GPU's, but at the same time as a new CPU release from Intel is an ideal time to put out a refresh on your GPU's. New sounds better than old and the worst part of everyone looking up reviews on Radeon 7970 or 7970 GHZ or 7950 is they're likely showing up with links that are over a year old.
There's your image/perception problem. You got Joe Consumer showing up with next gen console-like effects BUT NOW on their mind. They go look up Geforce and 770 is likely their first pick because Geforce is so well known. They go, "Hey, y'know, there's another brand, Radeon. Lemme look that up."
They tippedy-tappedy that into their computer and bam, they get a review from not last December, but the December before that talking about bad drivers. Then they fast forward to 7950 a month later in January of not this year, but last year and more, "Bad drivers."
Now do they continue looking? Do they go, "You know what, it can't be that bad."
Or do they go running back to the Geforce 770 where every review says, "Great deal. Higher than high end performance from last month for $100 less." Sure they see those Radeons in the review, too, but they also know the damn card came out a year and a half ago now.
If they look at the Radeon 7970 GHZ, they find a ton of reviews done two months before the card actually shipped that show it as a power-gobbling, heat-making, piercingly-loud, ear-blaring GPU from hell.
Heaven forbid they look up Crossfire in Google and find all THOSE reviews, most of which are pretty recent I'd imagine since that was such big news for what? Six months. (Have they even released the drivers with frame metering yet?)
AMD needs to get new products out, even if they're just slightly higher clocked versions of their existing products to seem current and relevant and to brush under the rug all the horrors they've endured along the way to today.
If you compare the Geforce line to the Radeon line in the same period of time, the Geforce 6xx series (and now 7xx series) have endured far less shenanigans and hijinks than the Radeon series. The sooner AMD refreshes their product stack with new ID's the sooner people will see them for what they provide today and not what they did last year or almost two years ago. Remember last year's reviews of the Radeon 7970 and 7950 were littered with suggestions to go Geforce. The Radeon 7970 GHZ reviews were filled with comments on how you sacrificed to have it.
Really, they want to get a new refresh so they can have all new reviews and new buzz. Right now, the word of mouth is, "These cards are ancient and they've had a litany of driver issues, including many Crossfire ones that continue to plague the series." At which point, many a person who is going to SPLURGE and buy themselves a $400 card is going to say, "You know what. I don't think I'm going to take the chance on this. This is no small investment. Freebie games I can pick up on ebay."
Then they order the brand spanking new Geforce 770 4GB and never look back. Few people dropping $400 are going to go "value argument" over the minor difference in price and performance between the Radeon 7970/7970GHZ and the Geforce 770. They'll just go with the one without the bad history and the one that promises the advantage of dropping in a second card to gain even more performance.
That's why AMD needs to fix their Crossfire and yesterday, then re-release the current cards with a higher clock (that's easily reachable) with a different bundle and a different branding. Sitting on their hands is costing them a lot more than releasing new cards.
Also, if you really believe they are bleeding so much cash they can't do a minor refresh to their product stack to match nVidia's, then I humbly suggest to you they aren't in any financial shape to compete with nVidia and are in too precarious a state to even bet on having driver support from for the next five years.
That hint of doubt you have in suggesting they don't have the cash to do it is another of the very perception problems originally referenced. On the one hand, you say there is no perception of problems with AMD; and on the other hand, you suggest that AMD quite possibly can't afford to do a refresh and maintain other company efforts, which IS a perception that's a problem for the company.
You contradict yourself. Of course, there's a perception problem with AMD. There's a reason everyone quietly whispers about AMD possibly going bankrupt. There's a reason AMD keeps having to tell everyone, "See! We've just hired (so and so)!" They're battling the perception they are about to go under.
And you seem to think they're closer to that given the implication you made than you're willing to openly say.
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