Why does Nvidia sandbag their cards when revealing a new generation?

moonbogg

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Jan 8, 2011
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Why do they do it? They want enthusiasts to buy twice in a span of a few months? Why can't they at least reveal the Ti/Super version of the 3080 now so we know what to expect? Honest question. This does nothing but frustrate. It used to be pretty customary to release the high end and a cut down version first with mid-rangers to follow. The 3090 doesn't count because $1500 is straight stupid and the 3080 is sort of giving people what they want, but of course, they short-change us on the ram. Why not just release an actual product with good performance, an upgrade in ram, and at a reasonable price? What the hell is wrong with them?
 
Feb 4, 2009
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Because Bidness and sorry to sound like a troll because I am not trying to troll.
AMD hasn’t been super competitive at the Uber high end and there are no other options beyond AMD.
 
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Fallen Kell

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They want to always have something in reserve to release/announce the same week that AMD comes out with their product lineup just in case there is something in there that is competitive with Nvidia's offerings. It is much easier and more customer friendly to release a Ti/Super version in order to change any kind of pricing structure the market has than to cut prices on something in the lineup on its own when then the press will ask the obvious question of why with the only answer viable being that they are doing it to compete against AMD and the next question from the press being "if you can afford to price your product at this new price, why have you been gouging all your customers?"

Having Ti/Super in reserve allows Nvidia to avoid all that by saying they are simply realigning the price structure of their lineup to fit the new cards better. This also let's them see what AMD really has up their sleeves and gives them a chance to react and keep a dominating market position safe.
 

Red Hawk

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They want to always have something in reserve to release/announce the same week that AMD comes out with their product lineup just in case there is something in there that is competitive with Nvidia's offerings. It is much easier and more customer friendly to release a Ti/Super version in order to change any kind of pricing structure the market has than to cut prices on something in the lineup on its own when then the press will ask the obvious question of why with the only answer viable being that they are doing it to compete against AMD and the next question from the press being "if you can afford to price your product at this new price, why have you been gouging all your customers?"

Having Ti/Super in reserve allows Nvidia to avoid all that by saying they are simply realigning the price structure of their lineup to fit the new cards better. This also let's them see what AMD really has up their sleeves and gives them a chance to react and keep a dominating market position safe.
Basically this. The Super cards were the perfect example. All the reviewers tested them, posted articles and videos. That wouldn't have happened if they had just adjusted the price of their existing cards. Nvidia's just being savvy and trying to keep the attention on them. It can be a little confusing to the consumer, but as long as it results in Nvidia having to sell faster cards at a lower price than they were before, it's good for the consumer in the end.
 
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Fallen Kell

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This is also one of the reasons Nvidia has been dominating as well. If you look back over the last 8-10 years, there has been a pattern to Nvidia and marketing success that AMD has simply not been able to match. Nvidia has been 1-2 generations ahead of AMD in terms of performance of their GPUs, and I would also wager to say that they are closer to 3 generations because they have never been pushed to show and release what the keep in reserve. Ever since AMD purchased ATI, their GPU division has not had the same drive to attempt to have the best card on the market. They settled for what their CPU division had always done, which was to find a niche, a price point that has lots of sales, and fight at that value position in an effort to focus on the segment that will generate the most money.

This position works from the standpoint of simply trying to stay afloat as a business when you are cash strapped, which in reality AMD was and has been ever since taking on all the debt to purchase ATI in the first place. But that position let their competitors completely take over the PC market, as the flagship product is what drives name recognition, new articles, reviews, benchmarks, and third-party promotion. This also lets Nvidia keep dominating because by not investing in a flagship product that can compete, they slowly lose the engineers and knowledge base to produce such a flagship product (think of it this way, with focusing on the mainstream market segment in the $100-300 price range as your highest end cards, you are now researching and attempting to solve the manufacturing and engineering problems of something that performs as well as something the competition figured out how to do several years ago... you are always going to be behind and have a LOT of ground to catch up, and the competition is not going to simply sit their idle).

This is why Nvidia can afford to keep stuff in reserve. They are that far ahead. They can release early in the sense of going to press first about their next generation cards because they don't need to show everything that have, and the press and consumers all know this. AMD on the other hand is showing everything they have, which they don't want to do first because the only thing keeping them alive is price/performance, and if Nvidia sees the price/performance that AMD is meeting and then decides to release their cards beating them at price/performance as well as beating them in total performance, no one will want to purchase a AMD card. So, AMD is effectively giving Nvidia the first press coverage of the new generation cards, and Nvidia can also steel most of the thunder from when AMD does release/announce its own cards by they leaking/releasing the Ti/Super versions that Nvidia kept in reserve if Nvidia thinks they need to in case AMD had something that was getting too much press/hype from enthusiasts.

The only way to stop that cycle is for AMD to truly have a flagship product that outclasses Nvidia which even outclasses anything Nvidia has held in reserve, and at a price point that Nvidia can't easily undercut. This is something incredibly hard to do without having some kind of technological advantage in manufacturing (which neither have).
 
Feb 4, 2009
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This is also one of the reasons Nvidia has been dominating as well. If you look back over the last 8-10 years, there has been a pattern to Nvidia and marketing success that AMD has simply not been able to match. Nvidia has been 1-2 generations ahead of AMD in terms of performance of their GPUs, and I would also wager to say that they are closer to 3 generations because they have never been pushed to show and release what the keep in reserve. Ever since AMD purchased ATI, their GPU division has not had the same drive to attempt to have the best card on the market. They settled for what their CPU division had always done, which was to find a niche, a price point that has lots of sales, and fight at that value position in an effort to focus on the segment that will generate the most money.

This position works from the standpoint of simply trying to stay afloat as a business when you are cash strapped, which in reality AMD was and has been ever since taking on all the debt to purchase ATI in the first place. But that position let their competitors completely take over the PC market, as the flagship product is what drives name recognition, new articles, reviews, benchmarks, and third-party promotion. This also lets Nvidia keep dominating because by not investing in a flagship product that can compete, they slowly lose the engineers and knowledge base to produce such a flagship product (think of it this way, with focusing on the mainstream market segment in the $100-300 price range as your highest end cards, you are now researching and attempting to solve the manufacturing and engineering problems of something that performs as well as something the competition figured out how to do several years ago... you are always going to be behind and have a LOT of ground to catch up, and the competition is not going to simply sit their idle).

This is why Nvidia can afford to keep stuff in reserve. They are that far ahead. They can release early in the sense of going to press first about their next generation cards because they don't need to show everything that have, and the press and consumers all know this. AMD on the other hand is showing everything they have, which they don't want to do first because the only thing keeping them alive is price/performance, and if Nvidia sees the price/performance that AMD is meeting and then decides to release their cards beating them at price/performance as well as beating them in total performance, no one will want to purchase a AMD card. So, AMD is effectively giving Nvidia the first press coverage of the new generation cards, and Nvidia can also steel most of the thunder from when AMD does release/announce its own cards by they leaking/releasing the Ti/Super versions that Nvidia kept in reserve if Nvidia thinks they need to in case AMD had something that was getting too much press/hype from enthusiasts.

The only way to stop that cycle is for AMD to truly have a flagship product that outclasses Nvidia which even outclasses anything Nvidia has held in reserve, and at a price point that Nvidia can't easily undercut. This is something incredibly hard to do without having some kind of technological advantage in manufacturing (which neither have).

Milton Berle said on Howard Stern.
“Only take out enough to win”
 

CakeMonster

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Why is everyone assuming that their dream configuration card is just around the corner? Unless AMD can aggressively compete at launch in October, my guess is that 3xxx will be a 2 year cycle like 2xxx, and that we'll get our Ti's or Super's in 12 months. By then the calculation of what is a good deal will be completely different since the 4xxx series are much closer.
 
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Fallen Kell

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Very true. You also need to look at what this generation of card does that previous ones could not. From the looks of it 4k gaming is going to be truly possible with a 3080 or 3090. We are also finally seeing HDMI 2.1 with from the info we have seen on Nvidia's side will be a full bandwidth implementation (check back when it is actually tested, but some of the underlying info they have released already backs that up).

AMD has not yet shown their hand, but I suspect we will at least see some form of hdmi 2.1 (not entirely clear if it will be full bandwidth since it doesn't seem like it will be on the PS5, as Sony has not shown any kind of interest of releasing a TV with full bandwidth either). But those are a supposed custom package, so it is possible AMD has a full bandwidth part as well. If they can get something that can play 4k at 60+fps for current games at high or ultra quality settings, then we might have an actual competition this generation. I don't see them competing against the 3090 in anything other than compute, but otherwise we might have a competition if it can perform as well as a 3080 (at least until Nvidia then pops the 3080 Ti).
 

Shmee

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Moved to general GPU forum as talk of AMD in thread may be relevant.
 

tviceman

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Because they want to keep the reviews & product cadence regular and evenly spaced out. If there is not a perceived strong need to put your absolute best foot forward, history has shown us companies sometimes won't do it.
 

Mopetar

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Because there isn't enough silicon to satisfy demand for the really amazing best part at launch. Over time they can stockpile enough for a proper launch and the bins will likely shift to make it easier to keep the high end best product supplied.

If they announce it and people know how it performs they won't buy cards that are available instead. We probably already have people who will wait just on the possibility alone.

Worse, a competitor might temp those waiting to one of their products that is available and good enough. If the best product is still a hypothetical then people can easily convince themselves it will be better. If you can run the numbers the a competing product you can actually buy that's 90% as good at 80% of the cost might be good enough to get a person to jump on it instead of waiting.
 

GodisanAtheist

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Lot of good reasons in this thread.

Another bit of kindling to throw on the fire: R&D costs and been and are getting huge and it makes sense for a company to amortize those costs over as many products as possible, including mid-cycle refreshes and outright rebadging cards with a new generation number.

Launch heavily cut down dies, then a year or two later, launch less cutdown/full dies to bring more fence-sitters on board.

Interestingly the Turing and now Ampere launch are a little strange (or a return to normal) in that NV launched their top end 102 dies at the same time or before the rest of the line-up, which hasn't happened since the Fermi days.
 

Kenmitch

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Oct 10, 1999
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Why do they do it? What the hell is wrong with them?

Create a monster....Live with the terror!

If you don't like their business practices then don't buy their products.

Looking to AMD to be the savior won't work without purchasing their alternative products.

JHH's got you by the balls?
 
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Stuka87

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Create a monster....Live with the terror!

If you don't like their business practices then don't buy their products.

Looking to AMD to be the savior won't work without purchasing their alternative products.

JHH's got you by the balls?

Your post makes no sense. The OP never mentions AMD. It seems you are attacking them for no reason? The post brings up a valid discussion on nVidia's anti-consumer practices.
 

Kenmitch

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Oct 10, 1999
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Your post makes no sense. The OP never mentions AMD. It seems you are attacking them for no reason? The post brings up a valid discussion on nVidia's anti-consumer practices.

Attacking who? AMD? If your read thru the thread It seems like the majority blame Nvidia's greed on AMD's lack of competition in the uber high end.

Blaming AMD for creating the monster you helped create makes no sense. It's like blaming Samsung for all the evil things Apple does.
 
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moonbogg

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I still think people would still buy the 3080 if a Ti was released upfront. The 3080 would just have to cost $600, you know, like the GTX 1080 did and the 3080 Ti should be the $700 card everyone has been waiting for for nearly 4 years now. Of course, they don't do that though. That would make way too much sense and be far too consumer-friendly. Instead, they choose to limit options, charge more for less than you got before, or force you into paying $1500 for a real upgrade.
 

Stuka87

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Attacking who? AMD? If your read thru the thread It seems like the majority blame Nvidia's greed on AMD's lack of competition in the uber high end.

Blaming AMD for creating the monster you helped create makes no sense. It's like blaming Samsung for all the evil things Apple does.

You specifically quoted somebody with your response. Unless this was a mistake, and you intended to just do a general response.
 

Kenmitch

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You specifically quoted somebody with your response. Unless this was a mistake, and you intended to just do a general response.

He asked the original questions. It was what I thought about his questions and a general response all lumped together. I doubt he took it personally.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
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Create a monster....Live with the terror!

If you don't like their business practices then don't buy their products.

Looking to AMD to be the savior won't work without purchasing their alternative products.

JHH's got you by the balls?

I just want them to go back to honest, straight releases like we used to get. A typical release would have a high-end, a cut down high-end, and a mid-range to come later. This time they release the high-end at a price that almost no one will pay, a cut down high-end that doesn't have enough ram, but they pretend it's the real high-end, and they have a mid-range coming later, except it also doesn't have enough ram so people expect it to be replaced soon.
This is all garbage. It does nothing but confuse people and make them feel insecure about their purchase. Everyone expects Nvidia to screw them by releasing 20GG or Ti versions soon after release. They should include those in the lineup now so people can make a more wise decision about what they buy. Someone spending $700 on a 10GB card right now might regret it if they only realized Nvidia had a 20GG or a Ti coming soon after. That's an unfair way to treat customers. It's not nice. It just isn't.
 
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Heartbreaker

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I just want them to go back to honest, straight releases like we used to get. A typical release would have a high-end, a cut down high-end, and a mid-range to come later. This time they release the high-end at a price that almost no one will pay, a cut down high-end that doesn't have enough ram, but they pretend it's the real high-end, and they have a mid-range coming later, except it also doesn't have enough ram so people expect it to be replaced soon.
This is all garbage. It does nothing but confuse people and make them feel insecure about their purchase. Everyone expects Nvidia to screw them by releasing 20GG or Ti versions soon after release. They should include those in the lineup now so people can make a more wise decision about what they buy. Someone spending $700 on a 10GB card right now might regret it if they only realized Nvidia had a 20GG or a Ti coming soon after. That's an unfair way to treat customers. It's not nice. It just isn't.

You don't have to view it that negative. If you miss releases like we used to get. I would say this release reminds me very much of the Pascal release.

There are 3080 and 3070 which are the actual mainstream releases with reasonable pricing.

3090 is like the Pascal Titan (He equated 3090 and Titan during the reveal). You buy that if you want the utmost performance right now and price isn't that much of a factor for you. Seriously don't buy this if price matters to you.

There may be a 3080 Ti ~6 months after 3090 with better price. Just like ~6 months after Titan Pascal, we got the the 1080 Ti with almost Titan performance for much reduced price.

This wasn't then, and wouldn't now be some kind of nefarious act. This is a at the beginning of a high demand release, early in the GPU run where yields and binning aren't ideal. For and extremely large chip, with most of the functional units enabled, they just aren't going to have a big supply. Tiny expensive supply leads to luxury priced card if want to be in that limited supply of top end chips.

6 months from now when demand cools, and yields are better, and clockspeed bins also improve. They can build a lot more 3080 Ti, maybe with a few less cores enabled and bit higher clocks (better bins then) to come close to 3090 performance at a significantly lower price.

Perfectly reasonable and mirroring Pascal. I think something like that will happen.

As far as memory rumors. They are rumors, and IIRC even in the rumors, NVidia isn't doing 20GB 3080, they are leaving that for AIBs. But expect a hefty price premium if it even happens, because if they do it now, they need to cram 20 VRAM chips on the board.

Either way I don't see the issue. If you need more than 10GB, you wait for the card that has what you need. If you would just like it, remember it's going to come at a hefty cost premium and do nothing for games.
 
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VirtualLarry

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That's an unfair way to treat customers. It's not nice. It just isn't.
It's well-known that both NVidia and Intel are anti-consumer. In some ways, that's really how they make their money, and became such giants of industry. By "not being a charity", like AMD seems to do. (AMD gives you unlocked CPUs and overclocking, across almost their entire AM4 platform. Intel restricts that to just their "Z" boards and their "K" CPUs, which each have their own individual "overclocking tax" on each respective SKU. For one example.)
 
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