Was AMD's Small Die strategy a huge mistake?

[Homeles]

nVidia makes money, real money.

Only at the high end, with a large chunk of that being due to their professional lines. This is where AMD's strategy fails; now that they are gunning for compute, you'll likely see their strategy being rewritten. They've got Intel competing for those dollars as well.

In the other segments, they did very well... up until HD 7000 that is. They're still doing well, because Nvidia doesn't have any competition at all for them.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Unlike AMD, nVidia seems ahead of the curve. They are already deep into new markets with Tegra and such. nVidia is a company that can handle the changes. AMD seems very poor at that. AMD simply aint flexible enough.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

AMD is a a publicly traded company that has to maximize profits within legal bounds...they don't exist to be "fair" to you.

It absolutely was a case of spoiled customers...do you remember prices during the X1800/X1900 days? They were in line with what we have now...sometimes worse.

We were spoiled during the 4XXX/5XXX days because AMD got it wrong with the 29XX series and lost a lot of market share. They were trying to get it back along with some goodwill probably...they could have priced the 48XX cards close to what nV were charging at the time ($650 for GTX280!!) but they didn't...why do you think that was?

Failing to offer a noticeably superior product up to 2 years later is not good business sense no matter which way you try to cut it. The market is based on providing worthwhile performance increases from one generation to the next, either by increasing performance outright for a similar cost (read: not a 50% increase) or reducing prices on products within the same performance bracket (which AMD has only just started doing with the 7800s).

It's not about being "spoiled" consumers or AMD being "fair", it's about AMD making stupid decisions in thinking they could get away with overpricing their product range, forgetting that the market is made up of pretty savvy consumers. AMD claimed that the 7870 was a good candidate to replace your 5870 with... why on earth would any consumer want to do such a side grade? I doubt you would find any 5870 owner willing to do that based on the information provided by reviews, and that's the entire point.

Businesses exist to make profit... by providing a product or service that competes against their own that are already on the market and those offered by rivals. If a company attempts to pedal a new product that does not offer enough of an improvement to make it worthwhile to the consumer then they have failed to be competitive.

 

[taltamir]

AMDs profit margin on GPUs have never had any real success. Most time it just around the 0, pretty terrible. And then we had all the stories from the dedicated crowd on how the small dies would reap in the profit and how nVidia was in trouble. nVidia makes money, real money.

For those complaining about prices. It will only go up in the future as processnode cost dont really benefit in the transistor/$ ratio. So I wouldnt be surprised if something equal to a Tahiti/Pitcairn/GK104 card would reach 800-1000$ 4-5 years down the road.

I believe we would instead see longer times between process tech improvements. Oh, there will certainly be 1000$ processors just after a factory starts production, but we will see longer concurrent production on older process tech for more years as moors law finally ends due to the limitations of physics.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I believe we would instead see longer times between process tech improvements. Oh, there will certainly be 1000$ processors just after a factory starts production, but we will see longer concurrent production on older process tech for more years as moors law finally ends due to the limitations of physics.

For those without the margins to cover it yes.

For Intel? No. TSMC? Maybe. Samsung? Maybe. GloFo? Sure.

TSMC atleast seems to be willing to help customers pay for the continual node process. If customers wanna pay is another matter tho.

 

[taltamir]

For those without the margins to cover it yes.

For Intel? No. TSMC? Maybe. Samsung? Maybe. GloFo? Sure.

TSMC atleast seems to be willing to help customers pay for the continual node process. If customers wanna pay is another matter tho.

Intel already has concurrent manufacturing of newer and older process tech.
They are making Ivy bridge processors, yes. They are also still concurrently making sandy bridge, westmere, nehalem, and even core2 processors (primarily for OEMs). I think this trend will continue and expand such that the majority of chips available (and the reasonably priced ones) would be older tech while current tech will take more years between releases and be far more expensive.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Intel already has concurrent manufacturing of newer and older process tech.
They are making Ivy bridge processors, yes. They are also still concurrently making sandy bridge, westmere, nehalem, and even core2 processors (primarily for OEMs). I think this trend will continue and expand such that the majority of chips available (and the reasonably priced ones) would be older tech while current tech will take more years between releases and be far more expensive.

http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/Global-Intel-Manufacturing_FactSheet.pdf

Note the list is from late 2010.

 

[taltamir]

http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/Global-Intel-Manufacturing_FactSheet.pdf

Note the list is from late 2010.

And it shows intel active fabs producing 22nm, 32, 45, 65, 90, and 130nm chips.
Although AFAIK the latter no longer manufacture CPUs.

 

[Siberian]

Unlike AMD, nVidia seems ahead of the curve. They are already deep into new markets with Tegra and such. nVidia is a company that can handle the changes. AMD seems very poor at that. AMD simply aint flexible enough.

AMD is a budget brand, I don't think anyone expects them to compete beyond that.

Their video cards don't offer much as far as features. But they are often pretty cheap.

 

[ShintaiDK]

And it shows intel active fabs producing 22nm, 32, 45, 65, 90, and 130nm chips.
Although AFAIK the latter no longer manufacture CPUs.

There are no 130nm CPUs. And the only reason they make 90nm CPUs is because they are the only CPUs you can use in space and other places that requires radiation hardening.

All 65nm lines are chipset.

Plus that chart is 1½ years old.

 

[Homeles]

Unlike AMD, nVidia seems ahead of the curve. They are already deep into new markets with Tegra and such. nVidia is a company that can handle the changes. AMD seems very poor at that. AMD simply aint flexible enough.

Which is why they sacked Dirk Meyer. Their roadmap promises much more diversity now.

 

[sandorski]

AMD is a budget brand, I don't think anyone expects them to compete beyond that.

Their video cards don't offer much as far as features. But they are often pretty cheap.

Please explain.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Which is why they sacked Dirk Meyer. Their roadmap promises much more diversity now.

True, but Rome wasnt build in 1 day. It gonna take some years to change. The question is if they got that time left.

But it looks promising atleast. Focus on the essentials/value lines, dropping highend with the dead FX brand. But where they lack already is the Brazos. The 2.0 platform was a huge letdown. They need to have 28nm out there to really gain momentum.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

AMD is a budget brand, I don't think anyone expects them to compete beyond that.

Their video cards don't offer much as far as features. But they are often pretty cheap.

Budget brand with the top performing card? Im not sure what your concept of "budget" is
Unfortunately, it takes Nvidia to do a colossal screw up like the FX series, for people to actually buy AMD cards... If you could switch the labels on 7970 and 680, wanna bet the 7970 sales would instantly skyrocket just because it has the Nvidia logo on it?

Its sad how people have such a sheep mentality with all the information you could want available on the internet

 

[BallaTheFeared]

No, just no. A single GHz edition is over twice as fast as a 470 at resolutions that will actually begin to utilize either setup. Without micro-stuttering, added input lag, or compatibility issues.

I'd take a single 7970 or 680 over three GTX 470s any day of the week. So would anyone who knows anything about tech.

Can you please for the love of God stop bringing up your 470's in every single thread?

It's already been shown I stomp on 7970s all day everyday

 

[Homeles]

True, but Rome wasnt build in 1 day. It gonna take some years to change. The question is if they got that time left.

But it looks promising atleast. Focus on the essentials/value lines, dropping highend with the dead FX brand. But where they lack already is the Brazos. The 2.0 platform was a huge letdown. They need to have 28nm out there to really gain momentum.

My sentiments exactly, minus the FX part. They're on a rocky road to recovery, and I think things will start to smooth out with Brazos/Hondo's successor. I don't think AMD's initial foray into the tablet market is going to be very successful.

 

[Zanovar]

It's already been shown I stomp on 7970s all day everyday

Bala your love affair with the 470s,is very entertaining.Stomp?*awaits bala to ruffle up something*

 

[ShintaiDK]

Unfortunately, it takes Nvidia to do a colossal screw up like the FX series, for people to actually buy AMD cards... If you could switch the labels on 7970 and 680, wanna bet the 7970 sales would instantly skyrocket just because it has the Nvidia logo on it?

Its sad how people have such a sheep mentality with all the information you could want available on the internet

GTX680 beated HD7970 in 4 things at release. Performance, Price, Powerconsumption and Drivers.

GTX670 today still does the same.

AMDs latest pricecuts aint being done for fun sake.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Well nVIDIA did have their versions of the "small die" strategy all the way back from the G70->G71 era. I guess G92 is another good example.

 

[HurleyBird]

It's already been shown I stomp on 7970s all day everyday

Okay buddy, keep telling yourself that.

 

[Siberian]

Budget brand with the top performing card? Im not sure what your concept of "budget" is
Unfortunately, it takes Nvidia to do a colossal screw up like the FX series, for people to actually buy AMD cards... If you could switch the labels on 7970 and 680, wanna bet the 7970 sales would instantly skyrocket just because it has the Nvidia logo on it?

Its sad how people have such a sheep mentality with all the information you could want available on the internet

The 690 is the top performing card.

 

[thilanliyan]

Failing to offer a noticeably superior product up to 2 years later is not good business sense no matter which way you try to cut it. The market is based on providing worthwhile performance increases from one generation to the next, either by increasing performance outright for a similar cost (read: not a 50% increase) or reducing prices on products within the same performance bracket (which AMD has only just started doing with the 7800s).

I agree that they should be providing performance increases for a similar price (my opinion)

BUT

they priced their cards according to market conditions. The GTX580 was the fastest single card and cost $400+, the 7970 was faster so they priced it higher. What else would you expect them to do? They don't owe us x% performance increase for y% price increase/decrease...WE just look for that, but it doesn't always happen. Add to that the fact that 28nm cards no doubt cost more to produce and I'm not surprised they launched at higher prices.

 

[f1sherman]

I agree that they should be providing performance increases for a similar price (my opinion)

BUT

they priced their cards according to market conditions. The GTX580 was the fastest single card and cost $400+, the 7970 was faster so they priced it higher. What else would you expect them to do? They don't owe us x% performance increase for y% price increase/decrease...

No but they owe it to it's shareholders.

Instead they chose to play with high margins and to raise brand perception value via increased price, while their cards collected dust in stores.

They chose to issue childish statements like, "no availability from our competitor, they are paper-releasing"

while doing a 2nd price cut , and paper-releasing themselves several times in this gen only.

 

[taltamir]

There are no 130nm CPUs. And the only reason they make 90nm CPUs is because they are the only CPUs you can use in space and other places that requires radiation hardening.

All 65nm lines are chipset.

Plus that chart is 1½ years old.

THAT! IS! WHAT! I! SAID!
Seriously, you bring a chart that proves me right, I point that out, that you "correct" me by repeating what I said.

 

[minitron]

AMD needs to release a unified drivers package with game profiles that doesn't have navigation menus that look the same as my 9700 PRO.

AMD's "mistake" was somewhere down the line they didn't put as much effort into their software than hardware. The damage is already done and the perception of bad AMD drivers exists.

Their GPUs range from very good to excellent regardless of their hardware strategy.