Originally posted by: woolfe9999
Originally posted by: bryanW1995
I think that he called it correctly. AMD has the advantage at $199, but nvidia at least has a viable alternative that is relatively close in performance (10-20%, similar to 3870vs 8800gt reversed). At $299 - $399 AMD has all the cards and nvidia just plain sucks.
I'm in complete agreement with this.
Regardless of which card is more significant revenue wise, market share wise the 4870 is seems to be the bigger win here for AMD. With the 4850, AMD is now competitive in the mid-mid range. My guess is that the 4850 with its small die and GDDR3 will move down in price pretty swiftly to settle at around $170 street in a few weeks. Yet NV has various parts in this range that are at least in the ballpark price/performance wise. With the 4870, I think the GDDR5 means the price will probably not move much from $299 for awhile, but it really doesn't have to. This is the really meaningful part here because, unlike the 4850, this one really
destroys NV's initial gt200 cards.
Even if we assume that Nvidia lowers the 260 price to $299, then it has made a decision to sacrifice profit in order to maintain market share. That is a huge win for AMD. AMD's more efficient architecture (smaller die) means it can profit at these lower price points.
Honestly, I think Nvidia needs a die shrink on GT200, and they need it yesterday. Yet I think Anand's discussion of the AMD's efficiency is right on where it points out that AMD can have a smaller die, and cheaper part, even with the same process. This generation is really an engineering win for AMD. That said, I'm sure Nvidia will have a solid response down the road. I just think it's going to require some real engineering to do it, not just a few tweaks and a die shrink (though the shrink will help a lot).
- woolfe