[TPU]Big Swing in Market Share From AMD to NVIDIA: JPR

[SlickR12345]

The gains for NV are honestly shocking. AMD has a better gaming card at every price level below $330.

http://www.techspot.com/guides/912-best-graphics-cards-2014/

This can only be explained by negative perception of AMD and its products, or that worldwide prices for AMD and NV are similar in which case NV wins by default, or if there is a crazy high 3-5 year pent up demand of people who now decided to do a big $350-550 970/980 upgrade. Ironically, 2014 is one of the weakest years in PC gaming that I can remember. I would have never picked 2014 as some peak year for GPU upgrades as it lacks next gen PC games and amazing PC exclusives. There have only been a handful of awesome games. I guess I can see a lot of HD5850/5870/6950/6970/470/480/570/580 users finally retiring their 4-5 year old GPUs.

It's honesty surprising that NV gained so much on the desktop but so little in mobile:

1) 970M/980M are FAR more impressive over 870/880M and more importantly 8970M/290M than 970/980 are vs. 780/780Ti/290/290X.

2) The growth in high end mobile laptop gaming is greater than on the desktop.

I think this is one of those cases where NV caught a wave of a lot gamers with 3-5 year old GPUs willing to buy the more efficient and newer 970/980 to keep for another 3-5 years. While these cards are good, I would personally never buy any NV or AMD GPU until both release next gen products as historically that's when you get the most competition and game bundle/price wars. I mean it's not hard to see how without any competiton NV can milk 980, really a $429-449 product, and sell it for $550-600.

I'll keep a mental note how fast GPUs get at $550 in 3 years. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of 970M vs. 980M and 970 vs. 980.

Its because in most other countries we have old tech. I mean we still have shops here advertising the Nvidia 660 as new tech. The Nvidia 650 is basically in 3/4 of pre-build PC's.

If you go to shops and ask for a new and good mid level card they will try and sell you the Nvidia 660 as the next best thing since sliced bread and unfortunately most people are not hardware savvy and get tricked.

Someone like me who is informed would know that in that price range the AMD 270 or 270x is way better performance for money, or for cheaper cards go for AMD 265, but most people don't know that.

I mean the GTX 750TI with its piss poor performance is still selling at 160 euros here. Completely ridiculous.

 

[tential]

I would love to see AMD focusing on their reference coolers this time around and they should keep focusing on taking the no 1 spot which would only make the prices sane for us.

AMD's reference coolers aren't an issue in terms of the actual product. VERY few people are getting a reference cooler.
It's TERRIBLE in the eyes of public perception, something AMD needs to work on. When a review comes out on their GPU and it's getting torn apart due to cooling, then 2-3 months later when non-refernece coolers come out it's fine, it's already too late. The perception is there.

NV really went for the jugular with the aggressive 970 pricing on launch. It worked.

That really hurt AMD and the GTX 970 would have been a purchase for me if I hadn't bought a HD7950 last year.

I hope do it with Titan II as well.

So $1500? lol, but in all reality, Titan doesn't have to be cheap. Part of Titan's allure is the high price surprisingly.

Oops. You are right. I just read the details more closely. The data is for Q2 2014. It has literally nothing to do with GM204. Wow, AMD really flopped then because in Q2 2014, 760/770/780/780Ti had very high prices. That's WAY worse than having Maxwell take market share. That means Q4 2014 will have Maxwell results in. In that case, the situation is catastrophic because in Q2 2014 NV's high prices made their cards completely unfavorable and yet consumers didn't think so. With 970 in Q4, AMD could lose a crazy amount of market share then. Sounds to me like AMD's strategy with OEMs is failing them then.

The OP really needs to change the title to reflect Q2 2014 which is a long time ago. Q3 already ended and we are half-way into Q4. Talk about a misleading title! Nowhere in the OP is Q2 even mentioned.

I RARELY see AMD GPUs recommended on forums. The less technical a forum is the more Nvidia GPUs are recommended. In fact, I see GTX 780Ti's recommended regularly this year no matter the price bracket of the PC. GTX 780Ti was the starting point, then people recommended parts around that GPU. No matter what though, Nvidia GPUs were recommended. AMD seriously needs to work on public perception for their GPUs. They don't have nearly the same following NVidia does.

 

[RussianSensation]

Its because in most other countries we have old tech. I mean we still have shops here advertising the Nvidia 660 as new tech. The Nvidia 650 is basically in 3/4 of pre-build PC's.

If you go to shops and ask for a new and good mid level card they will try and sell you the Nvidia 660 as the next best thing since sliced bread and unfortunately most people are not hardware savvy and get tricked.

Someone like me who is informed would know that in that price range the AMD 270 or 270x is way better performance for money, or for cheaper cards go for AMD 265, but most people don't know that.

I mean the GTX 750TI with its piss poor performance is still selling at 160 euros here. Completely ridiculous.

You are so right, but I didn't want to bring it up to muddy the waters of uniformed consumers. The other aspect is in some countries I find AMD doesn't sell much, if at all, losing 99% of market share by default. I have been working on a project in Central Asia for nearly 2 years and the highest AMD card you can buy here is HD7770 for $155 USD . The biggest online shop here and of 3 pages of GPUs, there are only 2 AMD cards: HD7750 and 7770!

When I got here 2 years ago I was trying to buy HD7950/7970s for mining and there were none in the country.

 

[mrmt]

Very true. APUs should be perfect fits for sub-$500 laptops. NV will continue to dominate on the high-end for laptops with the 970M and 980M, but APUs should be great options for 'mainstream' laptops vs. Intel w/ integrated GPU on-die.

By not having as many power features as Haswell AMD shuts itself out of the premium notebook market, and with the atrocious cost structure of the APU, they are not well positioned for the mainstream market.

 

[monstercameron]

By not having as many power features as Haswell AMD shuts itself out of the premium notebook market, and with the atrocious cost structure of the APU, they are not well positioned for the mainstream market.

you say alot of things without any thing backing them up...

1. what features?
2. what is there cost structure?
3. How are they positioned?

 

[mrmt]

you say alot of things without any thing backing them up...

1. what features?
2. what is there cost structure?
3. How are they positioned?

- Haswell is simply king regarding to battery life thanks to its new sleep states and advanced power gating, especially on ULV SKUs. (No, don't bring 35W i3 having similar battery life to Kaveri, we're talking premium) and they also are better on performance/watt.

- Unless we're talking about GT3 SKUs, AMD usually ends up selling 240mm2 dies against Intel sub-180mm2 dies. It does not matter for the consumer how much a die is but it does matter a lot for the company manufacturing it. Intel has much more price latitude, even for more expensive SKUs than AMD has with Kaveri. The big die warrants a high price for OEMs.

- The mobile market puts a premium on performance/watt and battery life, with the iGPU being a not so relevant factor for price composition of the CPU in the supply chain. Given that AMD strength is on the iGPU and it sorely lacks both performance/watt and battery life, it must go to the bottom market but they can't fight there because of the big die.

Those things is what end up pushing Kaveri for the bottom desktop market. It is a market that doesn't prize performance/watt as much as the mobile market, battery life is non-existent and the margins are really low, meaning that Intel might not have the appetite to go after certain deals.

 

[USER8000]

I didn't realise this was a CPU thread in the VC section of the forums.

 

[mrmt]

I didn't realise this was a CPU thread in the VC section of the forums.

Sorry, can't really talk about iGPU without talking about CPUs. It is exactly because AMD APUs have a poor CPU part that they are losing a lot of share on the mobile market, despite having good iGPU.

 

[Erenhardt]

Sorry, can't really talk about iGPU without talking about CPUs. It is exactly because AMD APUs have a poor CPU part that they are losing a lot of share on the mobile market, despite having good iGPU.

1.Run some games on the mobile amd APU
2. Enjoy
3. Come back and cut that sheet.

And stop rendering on mobile devices (single CPU thread rendering especially)

 

[mrmt]

1.Run some games on the mobile amd APU
2. Enjoy
3. Come back and cut that sheet.

What if I ran some game and what if I actually enjoyed the experience, what would change in my last post? That's right, nothing. AMD APU would still be a bad product with a poor cost structure.

Gaming on notebooks are not the main concern of the majority of people buying notebooks (battery life and weight are), and the guys that actually care for mobile gaming will go for dGPUs without thinking.

 

[Silverforce11]

What if I ran some game and what if I actually enjoyed the experience, what would change in my last post? That's right, nothing. AMD APU would still be a bad product with a poor cost structure.

Gaming on notebooks are not the main concern of the majority of people buying notebooks (battery life and weight are), and the guys that actually care for mobile gaming will go for dGPUs without thinking.

Gaming isn't THE main concern for mainstream notebooks but it definitely IS a concern. The gaming quality for the price is why APUs still sell.

In fact, IIRC AMD now sells more APUs than they do of normal CPUs.

 

[mrmt]

Gaming isn't THE main concern for mainstream notebooks but it definitely IS a concern. The gaming quality for the price is why APUs still sell.

In fact, IIRC AMD now sells more APUs than they do of normal CPUs.

And that's why it is a bad product. With their execution of the APU concept AMD trapped itself into a small niche in notebooks: cash strapped gamers.

 

[Silverforce11]

And that's why it is a bad product. With their execution of the APU concept AMD trapped itself into a small niche in notebooks: cash strapped gamers.

Well no, if they had a good CPU architecture, they could have gone into high end notebooks or Macs (Iris Pro for a massive premium anyone?).

But because of the crap CPU attached to the iGPU, they are forced to go for the low-end market on notebooks and PC (and the niche HTPC).

It's certainly not a bad product, because as they've said "there's no bad products, only bad pricing". It's selling well for them, if they did not have APUs, they wouldn't even be relevant on x86 due to how poor the FX series sell.

 

[mrmt]

Well no, if they had a good CPU architecture, they could have gone into high end notebooks or Macs (Iris Pro for a massive premium anyone?).

Coulda, Shouda.... Doesn't really matter.

It's certainly not a bad product, because as they've said "there's no bad products, only bad pricing". It's selling well for them, if they did not have APUs, they wouldn't even be relevant on x86 due to how poor the FX series sell.

Problem is that AMD can't adjust price low enough in order to make the APU an compelling alternative for the mobile market because of the huge die (very high manufacturing costs). Despite having extremely low margins, they are still bleeding share to Intel on the mobile market.

If you disagree with this hypothesis I would be glad to hear your thoughts on why AMD "high-end" APUs couldn't ever establish themselves on the notebook market.

 

[Silverforce11]

Problem is that AMD can't adjust price low enough in order to make the APU an compelling alternative for the mobile market because of the huge die (very high manufacturing costs). Despite having extremely low margins, they are still bleeding share to Intel on the mobile market.

AMD APUs are doing just fine actually:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36905468&postcount=49

Considering its only competitive in low-end notebooks, that's rather surprising.

 

[mrmt]

AMD APUs are doing just fine actually:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36905468&postcount=49

Considering its only competitive in low-end notebooks, that's rather surprising.

16% drop in the notebook market is doing just fine?

 

[Enigmoid]

AMD APUs are doing just fine actually:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36905468&postcount=49

Considering its only competitive in low-end notebooks, that's rather surprising.

How much of that is Beema/Mullins and how much is Kaveri?

Beema is much better that kaveri on the low end.

 

[mrmt]

How much of that is Beema/Mullins and how much is Kaveri?

Beema is much better that kaveri on the low end.

We usually see AMD volumes plunging whenever Intel introduces a new manufacturing node. It was the same with 45nm, 32nm, 22nm and 14nm should have the same deleterious effects on AMD's balance sheet. While construction equipment mobile APUs were steadily declining in the last few quarters, nothing really changed on the mobile front that would warrant a plunge like that.

But what changed on the mobile market was Bay trail ramping up, so my guess is that a significant chunk of the drop was caused by Kabini losing share.

 

[Silverforce11]

16% drop in the notebook market is doing just fine?

Desktop APUs
Q1 Decrease of 21,9% Q to Q
Q2 Increase of 16,7% Q to Q
Q3 Increase of 10,5% Q to Q

- Overall increase.

Mobile APUs
Q1 Increase of 3,7% Q to Q
Q2 Increase of 10,3% Q to Q
Q3 Decrease of 16% Q to Q

- Close to parity for the year.

Just fine. Could be better, but the fact they sell so many APUs that are supposedly "bad products" is fine.

 

[Erenhardt]

Desktop APUs
Q1 Decrease of 21,9% Q to Q
Q2 Increase of 16,7% Q to Q
Q3 Increase of 10,5% Q to Q

- Overall increase.

Mobile APUs
Q1 Increase of 3,7% Q to Q
Q2 Increase of 10,3% Q to Q
Q3 Decrease of 16% Q to Q

- Close to parity for the year.

Just fine. Could be better, but the fact they sell so many APUs that are supposedly "bad products" is fine.

If you do the math desktop stays the same:

Q1= 100*0,781=78,1
Q2= 0,781*1,167=91,14
Q3= 91,14*1,105=100,71

Overall 100,71-100=0,71% increase

Doing the same for Mobile = 4% down

 

[mrmt]

Desktop APUs
Q1 Decrease of 21,9% Q to Q
Q2 Increase of 16,7% Q to Q
Q3 Increase of 10,5% Q to Q

- Overall increase.

Mobile APUs
Q1 Increase of 3,7% Q to Q
Q2 Increase of 10,3% Q to Q
Q3 Decrease of 16% Q to Q

- Close to parity for the year.

Just fine. Could be better, but the fact they sell so many APUs that are supposedly "bad products" is fine.

An overall reduction and a worse product mix (desktop has lower asp) for a newly launched product, especially when my main competitor is shipping record volumes, is far from my definition of "just fine". It means Kaveri is continuing the same trend of all its APU predecessors: every new generation product at AMD sell less units than the previous generation (except bobcat)

At least I wouldn't be able to say "just fine" to my boss if I were a sales manager for that product.

 

[AtenRa]

Problem is that AMD can't adjust price low enough in order to make the APU an compelling alternative for the mobile market because of the huge die (very high manufacturing costs). Despite having extremely low margins, they are still bleeding share to Intel on the mobile market.

As you and everyone else know, Mobile CPUs command a premium over Desktop counterparts. That is, the same SKU will have higher price in Mobile than Desktop.

So, if AMD can sell its APUs at low price in Desktop, they can certainly sell them at low price in Mobile.

If you disagree with this hypothesis I would be glad to hear your thoughts on why AMD "high-end" APUs couldn't ever establish themselves on the notebook market.

Same reason P4 was selling at higher volume than the better Athlon. Feel free to explain why and you will understand that having the best product doesnt mean you can also sell it at the same volume as the competition.

ps: there are countless Laptops with 35W TDP Core i3 + junk dGPUs, Kaveri 35W TDP would be miles better.

 

[AtenRa]

An overall reduction and a worse product mix (desktop has lower asp) for a newly launched product, especially when my main competitor is shipping record volumes, is far from my definition of "just fine". It means Kaveri is continuing the same trend of all its APU predecessors: every new generation product at AMD sell less units than the previous generation (except bobcat)

At least I wouldn't be able to say that to my boss if I were a sales manager for that product.

Cut the BS,

From AMDs Q3 2014
http://seekingalpha.com/article/256...-2014-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2

We've met our goal to double our commercial client design wins from last year, and are pleased with the initial progress we are making to build a richer mix in our PC business. New commercial client offerings from Dell, HP, Lenovo have started ramping, resulting in approximately a 50% increase in our commercial APU shipments from the second quarter.

We also improved our notebook APU mix in the quarter, as our Kaveri processors ramped in mobile design wins and our higher-end mobile processor unit shipments increased nearly 50% from the second quarter.

Next time provide a link to what you are saying or ill report you for trolling.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I'm not surprised to see people going to Nvidia. I feel like I'm getting cornered into buying a 970.

AC: Unity, FC4, MGS: Ground Zeroes/TPP, Witcher 3, Nvidia recruited them all and the titles have features that are either exclusive to Nvidia or perform better on Nvidia cards. Not sure what's going on with GTA V but if they keep recruiting games of this caliber, I can only guess how many 7xxx/2xx owners will migrate by next summer. The price drops aren't enough, AMD needs superb performance in the upcoming blockbusters to slow down the bleeding and they need to beat Maxwell soon to recover.

 

[Erenhardt]

I AMD needs superb performance in the upcoming blockbusters

Do they? Or will crippling nv performance be enough?