Page 1 of 2
Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 4:37 pm
by spigzone
I think for the last two years there's been a kind of unstated 'gentlemens agreement' in place between AMD and Nvidia, which is why the prices of the 7xxx line started so high and went down so slow. AMD had nothing to gain with a price war because they weren't positioned to substantially hurt Nvidia with one and were in desperate need of the increased cash flow.
They are positioned to very substantially hurt Nvidia with a price war now though, and will be far more able to absorb a short term profit loss. Hence the low low price points of $99, $199 and $299 for the boards released so far. Now it's time to sacrifice some short term profits for the larger stragetic objective - ripping Nvidia's consumer GPU throat out. Nvidia is already being driven to substantially lower their prices for their competing cards. As Mantle games start appearing, and there's looking to be a veritable river of them in the pipeline, Nvidia will be forced to lower their prices further and further to stay cost/performance competitive.
This same dynamic will be on nitrous for the R9 290 and R9 290x, a space where far more informed buyers play. I'm guessing an initial 'hurt' price from AMD, $449-499 for the R9 290 and $549-599 for the R9 290x. Low enough to force Nvidia to slash $100 to $400 per board off their profit margins and low enough to keep buyers happy they are getting a bargain yet high enough to generate healthy profits.
As Mantle kicks in on these boards, the informed crowd that buys them will force Nvidia to slash their prices still further. As more and more Mantle games come on line there will come a point Nvidia cannot sell their high end boards at a profit.
As it looks like Maxwell won't be coming until Q4 2014, Nvidia is in for long hot summer of hurt. But will Maxwell save them? .. probably not. By then AMD can have a full line of GCN 2/3.0 cards @20nm out keeping the squeeze on Nvidia and Kaveri will have been lead piping Intel with it's HSA/hUMA/Mantle advantages. As Kaveri starts becoming the gaming CPU componenet of choice, the natural companion will be AMD GPUs. Kaveri 2.0 + DDR4 in 2015 will continue the assault on Nvidia and Intel and by then AMD discrete GPUs will essentially own the market.
APU13 is likely to see a number of professional graphics players make public their HSA plans. Maybe all of them. HSA will only get more compelling over time. 2015 could well see a major shift to camp AMD. Additionally the professional players will be watching the situation in Nvidia's retail markets and if it starts becoming a massacre the handwriting will be on the wall. AMD/HSA is where the future lies and efforts to transition to AMD/HSA will intensity.
1H 2014 sees an array of enhanced HSA Jaguar/GCN embed processors that will share the HSA/hUMA/Mantle optimization advantage on PC games. That will provide for highly playable games on tablets -> laptops not before possible at extremely competitive prices. Nvidia will lose a big chunk of it's embed/OEM market and what it retains will be far less profitable.
Whether or not the rumored 2013 consumer ARMv8/GCN comes to pass, AMD is certain to have a line of ARM/HSA/GCN chips ready to go in 2015 with the same HSA/Mantle optimization advantages it has in the x86 market. This will be about the time Nvidia's Tegra division finally starts becoming profitable.
AMD's console advantage goes on for 8 years at an absolute minimum and they are far and away the likely winner if there is a further generation of consoles, or a 'turbo' edition of the PS4 and Xbox One, all the while HSA/hUMA/Mantle optimized games continue to grow in quantity and quality. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for Nvidia.
AMD is in the beginning stages of dominating Nvidia in just about every market they compete in and doing so for the next several years and I'm not seeing squat Nvidia can do about it.
A road to perdition indeed.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 4:56 pm
by JohnC
...How many times can you copypaste same kind of crap from each post you make in "Comments" section?
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 5:06 pm
by spigzone
JohnC wrote:...How many times can you copypaste same kind of crap from each post you make in "Comments" section?
Addressing specific points with rational specific rebuttals not your thing?
ps: got even ONE example of where I copy/pasted from the comments section into this forum OP?
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 5:09 pm
by Captain Ned
I can see where this is headed and it will stop. Now.
Thanks for listening.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:07 pm
by spigzone
spigzone wrote: Whether or not the rumored 2013 consumer ARMv8/GCN comes to pass, AMD is certain to have a line of ARM/HSA/GCN chips ready to go in 2015 with the same HSA/Mantle optimization advantages it has in the x86 market. This will be about the time Nvidia's Tegra division finally starts becoming profitable.
Execution will be an important factor.
AMD has been working for years on an SOC mix-n-match multiple IP from multiple vendors model. It's the heart of their custom business unit. It's what they used for the PS4 and Xbox one SOCs. GCN was engineered to be highly modular and scalable. They have considerable experience successfully combining CPUs and GPUs on a single chip.
Also note: SCEA President ""But we can pre-sell every unit we can manufacture and the good news, production yields have been phenomenal ...". AMD obviously has world class engineering -> fabrication chops to have yields at that point so early in the game.
They are more than capable of hitting an ARM based SOC grand slam their first time at bat.
They will initially be targeting the high end Android gaming market where publishers can leverage HSA/hUMA/Mantle optimized Android ports to provide high end/hardcore gaming experiences on that platform. One might expect this to be accompanied by a release of joystick/trigger equipped phablets, tablets and purpose built handheld gaming machines. The specific market Nvidia is attempting to leverage to ARM SOC success.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:13 pm
by spigzone
spigzone wrote: AMD is about to rape and pillage Nvidia in just about every market they compete in for the next several years and I'm not seeing squat Nvidia can do about it.
Yep, I expect come 2014 a steady stream of Nvidia's top talent will be heading for greener pastures.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:09 pm
by spigzone
Oops, repeat post.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:18 pm
by spigzone
spigzone wrote: They will initially be targeting the high end Android gaming market where publishers can leverage HSA/hUMA/Mantle optimized Android ports to provide high end/hardcore gaming experiences on that platform. One might expect this to be accompanied by a release of joystick/trigger equipped phablets, tablets and purpose built handheld gaming machines. The specific market Nvidia is attempting to leverage to ARM SOC success.
They certainly have world class CPU architectural and engineering experience. They could have any number of highly customized ARM based SOCs in the pipeline for 2015 and beyond though their initial foray can be stock ARM as maximizing battery life will be far less important in the larger form factors they will initially target and their GCN GPU module will be their primary edge.
But as nodes shrink high end gaming will move to the smartphone market, and AMD's HSA/Mantle advantage will still apply, so they probably do have highly customized ARM/GCN SOCs in the pipeline. It's a very big market and that would get them a substantial chunk of it.
Having an AMD based smartphone you could plug into a MOGA controller or purposed gaming keyboard/mouse and play on your computer monitor or big screen TV in graphics intense 'hardcore' mode would be pretty awesome and nobody will be better positioned than AMD to make that happen. EA's seemingly boundless enthusiasm for AMD/Mantle and the possibilities it's opening is starting to make more and more sense.
AMD is also working with several partners on their own GRID style implementation where they will be able to leverage their coming ARM/Jaguar/GCN based Sea Micro servers and general server experience and knowledge. Another Nvidia market segment in which AMD's console based HSA/Mantle optimization advantage might give AMD the decisive edge.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:23 pm
by SonicSilicon
I believe this is the first time I have ever read someone respond to themselves as if they were truly writing to someone else.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:35 pm
by spigzone
SonicSilicon wrote:I believe this is the first time I have ever read someone respond to themselves as if they were truly writing to someone else.
I had a stroke several years ago after which I barely knew my own name and this is one way I work my brain. I read through what I wrote and have additional realizations so I add them in the form of replies to myself. Which is what I am actually doing.
It's not like there's anyone else here providing thought provoking input or arguments to respond to.
Gaming is another, and related, method of effectively working my brain that I find enjoyable but I like
playing games, not talking about games.
And lets face it, at this time there's not much tech related more absorbing than the unfolding AMD vs Nvidia vs Intel saga.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 9:51 pm
by auxy
This is all very interesting, but AMD has traditionally been pretty bad at execution, and as you yourself said, execution is the key here.
I really like the idea of an AMD-powered smartphone, though.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 10:46 pm
by spigzone
auxy wrote:This is all very interesting, but AMD has traditionally been pretty bad at execution, and as you yourself said, execution is the key here.
I really like the idea of an AMD-powered smartphone, though.
Rory Read is an absolute beast. 'Traditionally' is not predictive when that is the case.
Considering AMD's acute cash flow problem, the number of people that have been let go, and the resulting constraints on how many balls they could have in the air at any one time, I think it's little short of incredible they are presently poised to mount a sustained and effective assault on their major competitor across the boards.
That required conceiving of and implementing an extremely effective yet attainable future success strategy that leveraged AMD's IP, skillsets and synergies to the maximum, in this case the Unified Gaming Strategy, and executing it with sufficient skill to MAKE IT WORK by the time it needed to work.
Rory Read has been CEO for only two years. It's astounding what he's managed to pull off in that time.
I have no hard data on it but AMD morale has got to be really high right now.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 11:24 pm
by Diplomacy42
spigzone wrote:SonicSilicon wrote:I believe this is the first time I have ever read someone respond to themselves as if they were truly writing to someone else.
It's not like there's anyone else here providing thought provoking input or arguments to respond to. ...
AMD has a CHANCE, which is pretty good considering 2 years ago, they were basically a pet on a leash meant solely to keep the anti-trust hounds off Nvidia's trail, that said they are still 2 BILLION in debt, they are still paying an average of 6% on their debt, and in short, they have been systematically been building up a huge list of liabilities that will weigh down the company once they do begin turning a profit. whether they do is still up in the air, because we don't actually know the terms of the console wars. Some speculation has suggested that they have 'won' little else aside from marketshare and user recognition(which isn't small potatoes, certainly, but it doesn't pay the bills either) These liabilities include selling and re-renting their factories to make ends-meet in the short term and laying off valuable engineers who found homes at Nvidia and Intel. Imagine running a marathon with 25lbs strapped to each leg. Nvidia has advantages in both engineering and fabrication, plus they can pay their liabilities even if their consumer market-share falls a little. they are already entrenched in enterprise and cloud. not only can they afford to cut the 'premium' from their cards, but they enjoy a slight edge in power and a huge edge in driver compatibility. Over the next 3 years, AMD will need to make a case for gamers to switch, and for the most part, the things that you have mentioned, "mantle," the "console advantage" and whatever other in-roads that they have made are all dependent on delivering a product that does well in benchmarks, and competes on price. they will not enjoy the premium prices that Nvidia charges for the ultra high-end($600-$1100+) because unlike AMD, Nvidia won't lay down and settle for the low and mid-range market, as has been the case with AMD recently.
So no, AMD hasn't won yet, not even close, but they do have a chance, and I sincerely wish them the best.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:08 am
by bwoodring
What you're describing is the absolute best possible outcome is literally everything breaks right for them and Nvidia does literally nothing to respond.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:14 am
by Chrispy_
This thread needs deleting.
It's going to be a Spigzone vs The World with very little content other than accusations of shilling and a giant flamewar.
What will be will be, but AMD vs Nvidia is far from over yet and both parties will remain competetive, even if it means Nvidia becomes the underdog.
(always cheer for the underdog, monopolies are bad for us, mmkay?)
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:55 am
by spigzone
bwoodring wrote:What you're describing is the absolute best possible outcome is literally everything breaks right for them and Nvidia does literally nothing to respond.
I see it as the likeliest outcome based on the facts to hand and I'm not seeing much luck involved, only cold hard calculations by AMD to achieve it's objective.
Nvidia is doing what it can to respond, GRID, Shield and Steam, it's just that won't be sufficient to counter the Console leveraged Juggernaut AMD has built and is now turning loose.
What else do you think Nvidia can do to respond effectively to AMD?
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:16 am
by spigzone
Diplomacy42 wrote:spigzone wrote:SonicSilicon wrote:I believe this is the first time I have ever read someone respond to themselves as if they were truly writing to someone else.
It's not like there's anyone else here providing thought provoking input or arguments to respond to. ...
AMD has a CHANCE, which is pretty good considering 2 years ago, they were basically a pet on a leash meant solely to keep the anti-trust hounds off Nvidia's trail
AMD was a pet on a leash meant to kep the anti-trust hounds off Intel's trail makes sense, I don't see how that applies to Nvidia.
Nvidia has advantages in both engineering and fabrication
Tesla? Fermi? Both were very late into the market due to engineering/fabrication problems. AMD has consistently bettered Nvidia in engineering/fabrication for the last several years.
Over the next 3 years, AMD will need to make a case for gamers to switch, and for the most part, the things that you have mentioned, "mantle," the "console advantage" and whatever other in-roads that they have made are all dependent on delivering a product that does well in benchmarks, and competes on price.
EA is so confident in Mantle and so enthusiastic about it they are fully committing to it. AMD has been collaborating with several other partners that will be implementing Mantle. The huge performance edge AMD will have over Nvidia is what will 'make a case for gamers to switch'.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 1:24 pm
by Chrispy_
Why are 10 of your 16 total posts ever in this thread?
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 3:01 pm
by TurtlePerson2
Just so you know, perdition means hell. It doesn't mean death or going out of business, it means hell.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 3:41 pm
by auxy
TurtlePerson2 wrote:Just so you know, perdition means hell. It doesn't mean death or going out of business, it means hell.
Colloquially, it also refers to any great 'fall', since 'perdition' was normally used in the context of angels.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:00 pm
by uni-mitation
Living in fantasy land is not sexy. It reeks of intellectual dishonesty; nothing is gained by making a conclusion and then selectively choosing, and contorting those facts into a chimera in order to fit your conclusion.
Hedge your bets, and maybe, you might look credible. Admiration is the farthest thing from knowing something, it is the willful ignorance to pick what you like and discard the rest with mental gymnastic finesse.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:01 pm
by spigzone
uni-mitation wrote:Living in fantasy land is not sexy. It reeks of intellectual dishonesty; nothing is gained by making a conclusion and then selectively choosing, and contorting those facts into a chimera in order to fit your conclusion.
Hedge your bets, and maybe, you might look credible. Admiration is the farthest thing from knowing something, it is the willful ignorance to pick what you like and discard the rest with mental gymnastic finesse.
Thank you so much for the critique. I've consistently found the truest wisdom comes from those with the cojones to attack the poster instead of those that address the points raised in the post with thoughtful rational counterpoints.
You so awesome ... yes you are ... oh yes you are ...
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:06 pm
by spigzone
TurtlePerson2 wrote:Just so you know, perdition means hell. It doesn't mean death or going out of business, it means hell.
Oh my, how awful, the news for Nvidia just keeps getting worse.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:08 pm
by spigzone
Chrispy_ wrote:Why are 10 of your 16 total posts ever in this thread?
Because I can.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:06 pm
by JustAnEngineer
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:54 pm
by NovusBogus
I have to admit I lol'ed pretty hard at those.
On a serious note, Nvidia not having new silicon for over a year is a real problem. AMD appears to be doing to them what Intel did to AMD. Mantle is probably irrelevant for reasons I've discussed elsewhere.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2013 5:24 am
by Chrispy_
NovusBogus wrote:On a serious note, Nvidia not having new silicon for over a year is a real problem.
Nah, it's fine. GK104 is cheaper to produce than Tahiti so if performance against Mantle can't be matched they can afford price cuts (which is great for everyone)
294mm^2 (GK104) vs 365mm^2 (Tahiti)
The other thing is that Hawaii isn't really new silicon either, it is just a six-months-late answer to GK110; Same architecture, same process node, same "like before, but more of it" approach, similar pricetag.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2013 3:03 pm
by morphine
I'm having a problem seeing the point of this thread. Unless it develops one fairly quickly, it's going down to Lockville.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 1:00 pm
by spigzone
morphine wrote:I'm having a problem seeing the point of this thread. Unless it develops one fairly quickly, it's going down to Lockville.
I posted an extensive and well reasoned set of points delineating how and why Mantle is poised to create a sustained assault on Nvidia's retail and OEM graphics business, then using the same console/mantle leverage, on the game/application server market, professional graphics market and mobile market. I explained, in detail, how and why Nvidia is 'on the road to perdition'.
I was hoping for informed counterpoints and thoughtful discourse, maybe illuminating something I'm not seeing.
In any case this is a very solid OP that fully supports the thread title and as such SHOULD stand alone as reason enough to exist, unlocked, on this forum.
If you've had members complaining about my 'trolling' with this thread, recognize them for what they are, whiners that are too lazy to, or are unable to, mount cogent arguments or counterpoints to my OP. And treat them accordingly.
Re: Nvidia's road to perdition.
Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 1:41 pm
by superjawes
spigzone, your OP is a prediction that makes a series of assumptions. Namely that AMD will do no wrong and Nvidia will simply roll over. That key assumption is flawed by the state of each company's financials. AMD is making a move for market dominance, but they are doing so on the back of a series of layoffs, losses, and inferior product performance in the desktop GPU and CPU field.
Nvidia, on the other hand, has been quite content with its own hardware, which has at times outperformed faster AMD chips. The 700 series is better tuned than the 600 series, but uses the same silicon simply because Nvidia doesn't need to release anything better, at least not yet. I am sure that Nvidia engineers are hard at work on the next generation of Nvidia GPUs, and depending on where that generation is in development, it might be able to respond to the R9 290X and Mantle without losing much performance (if it isn't already accounting for it). And let's punctuate this by pointing out that Nvidia is in good financial state.
Those are the big ones but you do make other assumptions. Take, for instance, the role of consoles over the next 8 years or so. That assumes that these consoles will perform well, and that console gamers don't start jumping ship for alternatives, like Steam Machines. The price alone could be problematic if Valve can help bring down the cost of a living room PC, offering a more functional gateway to PC gaming. That is going to be a defining point of this console generation because both Sony and Microsoft have been and will continue to advance digital distribution, a field that is already dominated by Valve. If they can bring Steam to a console form, both companies will become very nervous.
That uncertainty casts doubt on the potential success of Mantle as well, and there's no guarantee that Mantle will catch on. And even if it does, that doesn't mean that AMD hardware will always perform better. As I already pointed out, Nvidia has been doing better with slower hardware, they've been posting profits, and they haven't had to release new GPUs or GPU architecture in some time because of their dominance. That gives them a lot of cushion to react to and potentially negate AMD's advantage.
It's fun to speculate occasionally, but understand that it is only speculation.