Graphics Card Industry is Ripe For Disruption!

[railroadmaster]

One industry that needs to be shaken up is the Graphics card industry. For far too long Nvdia and AMD (formerly ATI) have held a duopoly over the industry. I realize there are factors for why this may be the case such as barriers to entry. That said in mobile devices there a multiple companies which produce graphics for mobile devices, whether it be 3rd party or in house. Some examples include Mali by ARM, PowerVR by imagination, Vivante Graphics, S3, Broadcom Graphics and Adreno by Qualcomm.

Graphics card on the low end and midrange are priced very well, but on the high end they remain very expensive. It's doubtful whether GTX 1080 or Titan X levels of performance will ever something the average person can afford. Quality does cost money, but there is no reason it can't be something the average can afford. Pro or workstation graphics are even more expensive, driving up the cost of workstations and servers.

Finally if there was more competition there would be more incentive to push boundaries further. Ultra realistic true to life gaming could become something that is sooner rather than later.

Not just for gaming graphics cards also have a market in AI, Video editing and rendering, 3D animation and modeling, , and GPU computing.

I am a fanboy of neither AMD or Nvidia for graphics, I begrudgingly accept the status quo as I do like playing games but I do wish for a 3rd player to enter the field of desktop graphics!

 

[VirtualLarry]

You do realize, that what you ask is Not Simple.

For an example, look at Intel. With all of their resources, they attempted TWICE to create a competitive dGPU, and FAILED. (Intel i740, Intel Larrabee)

They are an also-ran among the "Big three" on PC, but they have the advantage of being a pack-in - nearly all of their consumer-grade CPUs also include an Intel iGPU. Kind of like how "Combat" was the best-selling Atari 2600 game of all time. Well, yeah, duh, since it came with the system. Not that it was the "best" game for that system. (*)

(*) I may be dating myself slightly with an A2600 reference. That's how video games were back then, and we liked it!

 

[Arachnotronic]

The market really isn't big enough for three.

 

[Udgnim]

Intel tried and failed

AMD / Nvidia hold too many patents for a 3rd company to realistically enter in & disrupt

 

[Borealis7]

i always thought there were 3...ins't Intel still the largest GPU maker? (meaning most units installed in PCs)

now, imagine a world where ARM architecture transitions from the mobile space to the desktop. then we might see the companies that today make GPUs for mobiles make an attempt at discrete desktop GPUs.

 

[amenx]

Intel tried and failed

AMD / Nvidia hold too many patents for a 3rd company to realistically enter in & disrupt

Is that why Intel failed? I thought it was due to a shortage of the highly skilled technical personnel that this niche field sorely lacks. All the best graphics engineers are with Nvidia and AMD with not very many outside of them up for hire.

 

[antihelten]

i always thought there were 3...ins't Intel still the largest GPU maker? (meaning most units installed in PCs)

If you only count PCs then yes (Intel has a roughly 70% market share), otherwise Qualcomm probably takes the crown as the largest GPU maker (when measured in unit sales).

 

[biostud]

Raytracing!!!!!

 

[flash-gordon]

This is a extremely scientific driven market, bounded by thousands of IPs. It'll be hard.

 

[Insomniator]

Market isn't big enough for 3 (its barely big enough for 2) and why do you say 1080 levels of performance are something the average should be able to afford? Why not 1080TI SLI for everyone then? There are performance levels with everything in life. Man, everyone should be able to afford a Porsche too.

I think pricing is pretty good, its still only $200 for a card that can max just about everything out there these days. The ones that want the absolute best also have options (with severely diminishing returns). No different than 15 years ago.

Tell the software companies to increase the graphics quality. Blame the PS3 and Xbox 360 lasting 10 years and no one playing PC games anymore for the lack of real life quality graphics. Have a game come out that really pushes the boundaries and people will upgrade/demand for more.

 

[Valantar]

now, imagine a world where ARM architecture transitions from the mobile space to the desktop. then we might see the companies that today make GPUs for mobiles make an attempt at discrete desktop GPUs.

There is very, very little difference between mobile and desktop GPUs in terms of basic building blocks, and there is little to no reason why GPUs today used alongside ARM cores can't work with x86 cores. Case in point: Qualcomm's Adreno graphics were bought from AMD (Adreno is an anagram of Radeon), when they at one time sold off a low-power GPU project. All mobile GPU makers license patents from AMD and Nvidia (who again license patents from each other). PowerVR (and probably others) have show off PC-based concept boards to demonstrate various features (as the PC is ultimately a more modular and "stick it together and make it work" friendly platform). Intel uses PowerVR graphics in low-end Atom (x86) chips. Several mobile GPUs sport DX12 certifications.

If there was money in it, room for another player in the market, and it didn't require multi-billion-dollar investments just to get off the ground, we'd have several more players in the dGPU space today.

 

[crisium]

I'd sooner expect VIA to release a Kaby Lake-X competitor than any new company to release a Titan XP competitor.

 

[tajoh111]

The industry is heading towards a natural monopoly unless the industry grows.

The volume in this industry is shrinking.

R and D costs are rising and most of the talent for this industry has shrunk or moved on.

The largest source of free available talent that could do something was likely the laid off AMD Graphic graphic engineers when North American graphic team and moved everything to China.

However by now, most of these people have new jobs and likely could not use what they learned at AMD/ATI to make new discrete graphic IP.

With the R and D, expensiveness relative to the amount of revenue available, no one besides the existing player want to develop graphic cards.

The barriers to entry make it essentially impossible and unattractive for a new player to enter. It should be obvious why a third player doesn't exist and why more and more industries go towards duopolies. R and D costs go up, IP prevents new players from entering and if industry growth is not increasing, not even the richest player will want to enter.

Think of the CPU industry. There used to be 3 or 4 more players and they have all left. As R and D cost to become competitiveness increase and as industry revenue growth shrinks(or worse, declines), the less room their is for competition.

 

[t0mt0m]

"It's doubtful whether GTX 1080 or Titan X levels of performance will ever something the average person can afford. "

Not afford now maybe. Give it time. How much does a 2006 GeForce 8800 GTX cost these days? Or a radeon HD 5970? Or a GeForce Titan? For a given level of graphical performance, the cost to get it goes down over time.

 

[Jaskalas]

Given the cutting edge die shrinks and performance gains with each new generation of GPU...
Good luck to anyone who thinks they can do better.

 

[Valantar]

Given the cutting edge die shrinks and performance gains with each new generation of GPU...
Good luck to anyone who thinks they can do better.

I don't believe the hardware would be much of a problem - pretty much anyone can have chips made on cutting-edge 14 or 16nm processes, given large enough orders and enough cash. And as I said in my previous post, there's little reason why modern mobile GPUs wouldn't scale to PC performance levels with relative "ease" - they're based on the same basic principles (and to a large part the same technology).

The software side of things is far more challenging. To make a successful PC GPU, you don't just need it to perform well with the vast array of reasonably modern hardware and software (OS, games, other variables) combinations out there, but you need it to work with the gargantuan catalogue of games made in the last 15+ years for Windows. My Fury X can run games from the early 2000s (patched, but still...) - could you do the same on a PowerVR GPU where Windows driver development started up now? Highly unlikely. Could you do that on said PowerVR GPU in 4-5 years after they'd worked their assess off fixing the drivers?Still highly unlikely. Unless they have infinite resources and infinite programmers, they'd have to focus on optimizing for currently relevant APIs and games - which means DX11 and 12, Vulkan, and possibly DX9 for newer legacy games and indie titles. Then comes resource expenditures for further optimizing for the biggest game engines, and for working across the 3-4 relevant Windows versions at this time. Then there's Linux support (which might be easier due to existing Android drivers? Possibly? But it would still require work).

Making even remotely good graphics drivers is a huge undertaking. I'd say it's nigh miraculous that they work as well as they do today. To start from scratch in this space is essentially impossible.

 

[railroadmaster]

Imagination said their graphics could be put into desktop graphics cards, someone would just have to license the technology as they don't make any hardware themselves. In fact imagination did demonstrate their mobile GPUs running on desktop cards as a prototype.

 

[Valantar]

I'd sooner expect VIA to release a Kaby Lake-X competitor than any new company to release a Titan XP competitor.

Once, I forgot to check the calendar, and got very excited.

 

[LTC8K6]

Don't most DT and laptop PCs use Intel graphics?

If that's still true, how is that a failure?

Of course their discrete cards failed, but as far as GPUs go, they still seem to have a big lead in the market.

 

[Valantar]

Don't most DT and laptop PCs use Intel graphics?

If that's still true, how is that a failure?

Of course their discrete cards failed, but as far as GPUs go, they still seem to have a big lead in the market.

By that standard, Wii Sports is among the best games ever made.

Being a "good enough" pack-in with a market leading product proves very, very little.

 

[poofyhairguy]

"It's doubtful whether GTX 1080 or Titan X levels of performance will ever something the average person can afford. "

Not afford now maybe. Give it time. How much does a 2006 GeForce 8800 GTX cost these days? Or a radeon HD 5970? Or a GeForce Titan? For a given level of graphical performance, the cost to get it goes down over time.

Exactly! If anything GPU value moves faster than anything in the desktop PC market.

2013 $700 780 Ti -> Matched by $170 AMD 470 in 2016

 

[FelixDeCat]

The only realistic thing that could happen is Intel buying AMD for its patents.

 

[Borealis7]

that will never pass the American FTC. it would be a gross violation of anti-competitive laws.

 

[littleg]

I might be recalling this wrong but I seem to remember the DoD would basically quash anything like that as they require two suppliers for this kind of thing.