NVidia's bumpy ride

[thilanliyan]

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3659
So they really are EOLing the GTX series (except for the 295)?

 

[Lonyo]

Well there's no real surprise, except for one implication.
If they are EOLing them, the implication is that shortly afterwards, they will have some form of replacement.

If they stop production of all those cards then when they release Fermi, which one hopes may perform like a GTX295 or close, then they will have a huge gap between the 250 and Fermi card.
If there is going to be tight to no supply of anything inbetween from the start of 2010 onwards, that would be pretty mad.
It would indicate that NV are hoping to get 40nm parts out to cover that range, presumably with the same arch as GT300/Fermi to fill in the huge gap they will have in their product line fairly soon into next year.

 

[OCGuy]

With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

 

[T2k]

Blhaflhvfa.

?

 

[heyheybooboo]

(most likely)

They can EOL and still have 4-6 months of chips in physical inventory.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: T2k

Blhaflhvfa.

?

Anand is just pure awesome

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: OCguy
With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

So does that mean we can assume now that Nvidia's silence was indeed because they had nothing and a end of this year (hard) launch is unlikely?

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: OCguy
With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

So does that mean we can assume now that Nvidia's silence was indeed because they had nothing and a end of this year (hard) launch is unlikely?

I think having cards available for Xmas would be a major coup for them at this point, everyone is counting them out.

Really I dont think we will know what the silence is about until we see thier cards. But it is still fun to speculate.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: T2k

Blhaflhvfa.

?

Anand is just pure awesome

Anand speaks Cthulhu.

 

[Barfo]

Dammit, I'm still hopeful that Nvidia will launch Fermi for Christmas/New Year.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: OCguy
With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

Has GT300/Fermi been confirmed as a series yet?
Sure they have a 3bn transistor beast which they have shown to people, but a 3bn chip a series does not make.
The distance between GT250 and Fermi/GT300 will be pretty huge with no GTX260/275/280/285 to fill it...

 

[Janooo]

Repost - page 7.

Anyway. The "demand remains strong".

 

[waffleironhead]

I'm wondering if the new chip will be scalable enough that upon introduction it will fill the gap between the 250 and the high end. Outputting many flavors on launch day would be nice. I get the feeling nV is gambling that tsmc can produce enough chips to meet demand before current stock runs out. Heres hoping they can make a smooth transition.

I highly doubt they would have Eoled if the 300 was not on final silicon.

 

[mwmorph]

From what I understand here's the gist of it.

GTX 260-295 parts are going to be in short supply, but Nvidia is going to cut their losses anyways. Might as well make no money than to lose money per chip sold, margins probably aren't strong enough to keep it going if ATI does decide to get into the holiday price wars. Nvidia is going to push the low end cards that sell in higher volumes and take the hit on the performance mainstream and performance high end, which probably won't affect their bottom line all that much.

Their specific mention of end of February might point to about when we can expect the Fermi cards. I think we can all seriously say it wasn't going to be a Holidays 09 release date and somewhere near the mid/end of February sounds about right. What this does not tell us is the success of the Fermi, it could be an amazing design that scales well ro it could be a bust that hardly scales at all, I'll wait for further news to make a judgment about Fermi.

The chipset business is again no surprise, it's a niche that has matured and started to die. Just like many technologies before them, the days of needing bus support and integrated graphics will be gone. NV doesn't have a x86 CPU line so no point in creating what are essentially bus interfaces even if they could get the licensing.

I think it's just part of the business cycle. Nvidia's chipset business will have to wrap it up and they will have to diversify to fill other niches in emerging markets. Just like how Creative's SB line became less and less important as a buy for most people years ago and thus had to diversify into mp3 players, mice and keyboards, etc.

Is this good news? No there is bad luck and mistakes there, but it's not catastrophic. Nvidia's business model will be changing, for the better or for the worse, I have no idea.

My predictions:

ATI will win this round business wise on a relative scale. I think the HD5xxx series will fare better than historically expected of ATi in the last few years before the 4xxx. Nvidia probably will do worse than expected compared to historical performance, closing the gap and ensuring a bit more parity (though Nvidia will still have more money/market cap/marketshare perspective).

In a couple years though I think Nvidia will still be on top, but ATI will be more competitive for gamers(Instead of 70/30 marketshare, more like 60/40). They will further differentiate their market in the coming months, with Nvidia pushing GPU compute much harder and ATI pushing gaming graphics features.

 

[Stoneburner]

Anand is talking about Nvidia getting squeezed out of PC graphics entirely in a few years... wtf? AMD and intel will be the only pc graphics players while nvidia is stuck in the mobile market and ... umm.. physx? That would be godawful.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Well I guess the only thing we can conclude from all these rumours is that NVIDIA doesn't think it is worthwhile, for whatever reason, to use the GT200 to erode the 5800 series price.

If you asked me a couple weeks ago, I would have expected nVidia to drop their GT200 price and then try to capitalize on brand recognition and features like physX and CUDA to keep a higher degree of pressure on ATI.

If nVidia can indeed do a hard launch by xmas, they probably haven't lost much, depending on how is their product price and its performance.

But from what I read, people like Anand and Kyle, don't put much money on that.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Anand is talking about Nvidia getting squeezed out of PC graphics entirely in a few years... wtf?

People who honestly think that are convinced that on CPU die graphics are going to take over. Said another way, people who think that think PC gaming is going to die within a few years.

 

[Rezist]

There's some serious advantages to moving the GPU on die, but were a long way's off of that. Not to mention it completely ends the customization of PC's. I mean really if you move the GPU on die we might as well just use consoles.

 

[ZimZum]

Originally posted by: GaiaHunter
Well I guess the only thing we can conclude from all these rumours is that NVIDIA doesn't think it is worthwhile, for whatever reason, to use the GT200 to erode the 5800 series price.

If you asked me a couple weeks ago, I would have expected nVidia to drop their GT200 price and then try to capitalize on brand recognition and features like physX and CUDA to keep a higher degree of pressure on ATI.

I think they would if they could but remember they are already selling them below what they had originally intended because of the 4xxx series pricing. I dont know how much lower they could go and still make a profit off of those parts.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: OCguy
With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

So does that mean we can assume now that Nvidia's silence was indeed because they had nothing and a end of this year (hard) launch is unlikely?

Nope the silence is from all those guys calling Charlie out. Actually they both said availability. A review card launch before christmas is expected by most.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: OCguy
With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

So does that mean we can assume now that Nvidia's silence was indeed because they had nothing and a end of this year (hard) launch is unlikely?

I think having cards available for Xmas would be a major coup for them at this point, everyone is counting them out.

Really I dont think we will know what the silence is about until we see thier cards. But it is still fun to speculate.

Yup, we were all guessing and little more. Though, and please don't take this the wrong way as it's not meant to be a dick post or anything, but I thought it was odd that you seemed to think that Nvidia's total and complete silence in the midst of their competitor launching a next gen product was some how possibly a good sign, like they were playing possum.

I still wouldn't be shocked if Nvidia gets something out by the end of the year. Though as I said earlier when we were speculating, their end of year launch would most likely be a paper launch/product announcement type of launch. Who knows, maybe they'll suprise us all. I'm sure they're working their asses off to get this part out the door now.

But the big question now is what they'll get out. We know what it looks like on paper, I don't see it being a 5870 killer by any means, unless they can work magic with the clock speed. While I'm confident it'll be a faster part, I don't see anything that makes me think anyone who bought a 5870 will regret it when Fermi launches, unless those shiney new MIMD shaders really make that much difference.

For me personally, I'm looking forward to a 5870 in my rig and enjoying the performance boost now as opposed to waiting and seeing what Nvidia launches and when they launch it.

*edit - Another potential problem I see for Nvidia in the nearish future is that these companies don't make money from just their flagship card. Have they even announced any other parts? Obviously they're not just going to leave a gap between the GTS250 and Fermi, they'll probably have a flagship part like a GTX280 and a cut down version like a GTX260. They are EOL'ing the current GTX cards, they most likely cannot drop their prices any more to compete with AMD's 57x0 cards. AMD has half their line up out already, and their ultra high performance part coming soon. By the time Fermi launches, they may very well be fighting the 5870 and the x2 part at the same time. Seems to me like they're in for a rough ride for the near future...

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: OCguy
With availability up to Feb 2010, when the new series will be out.

News?

Anand seems more positive about a late 2009/early Q1 launch than Charlie and Kyle, who I believe said Feb, March, or beyond.

So does that mean we can assume now that Nvidia's silence was indeed because they had nothing and a end of this year (hard) launch is unlikely?

Nope the silence is from all those guys calling Charlie out. Actually they both said availability. A review card launch before christmas is expected by most.

Charlie has been bashed a lot, and probably rightfully so. But lately, even if he's not 100% correct, his stories seem to be headed in the right direction, so to speak. Though I'll still take his posts with a grain of salt.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: GaiaHunter
Well I guess the only thing we can conclude from all these rumours is that NVIDIA doesn't think it is worthwhile, for whatever reason, to use the GT200 to erode the 5800 series price.

If you asked me a couple weeks ago, I would have expected nVidia to drop their GT200 price and then try to capitalize on brand recognition and features like physX and CUDA to keep a higher degree of pressure on ATI.

If nVidia can indeed do a hard launch by xmas, they probably haven't lost much, depending on how is their product price and its performance.

But from what I read, people like Anand and Kyle, don't put much money on that.

Well, the GT200 series might already be as low as nvidia can afford. They're already priced above the equivalent 48xx parts, going any lower may have just broken nvidia's back.
I don't see why nvidia didn't go for a GT200 die shrink though, but maybe any effort on that would have pushed GT300 back even further. Still, unless they rapidly get all the GT300 parts out, they'll have quite a gap in their product line up.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Originally posted by: ZimZum
I think they would if they could but remember they are already selling them below what they had originally intended because of the 4xxx series pricing. I dont know how much lower they could go and still make a profit off of those parts.

Originally posted by: Fox5
Well, the GT200 series might already be as low as nvidia can afford. They're already priced above the equivalent 48xx parts, going any lower may have just broken nvidia's back.
I don't see why nvidia didn't go for a GT200 die shrink though, but maybe any effort on that would have pushed GT300 back even further. Still, unless they rapidly get all the GT300 parts out, they'll have quite a gap in their product line up.

Yeah, that is where I would bet my money, but no hard data. But while the reason isn't known for sure, the consequence is undeniable.

About why no die shrink of the GT200, well, even their GT210/220 came late and are overpriced. Maybe their yields at 40nm simply aren't good enough and any money they would save by having a smaller die size would be lost.

 

[BenSkywalker]

but I thought it was odd that you seemed to think that Nvidia's total and complete silence in the midst of their competitor launching a next gen product was some how possibly a good sign, like they were playing possum.

If you look back through their history, the more worried they are, the louder they get.

Charlie has been bashed a lot, and probably rightfully so. But lately, even if he's not 100% correct, his stories seem to be headed in the right direction, so to speak.

Which story would that be? I didn't see Charlie talking about AMD abandoning the mid and high end market when they flushed the 38xx parts, nor have I seen him comment on the fact that they are currently flushing the 4xxx parts. I saw him lie through his teeth about the GT300 tapeout, even lied about it when he was showing proof that he was absolutely wrong. Charlie really hasn't been right about anything at all that I have seen, actually it seems that he has been as close to the opposite of right as you can get lately.

People are asking about why nV isn't die shrinking the GT200 line like that really needs to be said? How about we phrase it differently- why isn't ATi die shrinking the 4890? Exactly.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

but I thought it was odd that you seemed to think that Nvidia's total and complete silence in the midst of their competitor launching a next gen product was some how possibly a good sign, like they were playing possum.

If you look back through their history, the more worried they are, the louder they get.

Charlie has been bashed a lot, and probably rightfully so. But lately, even if he's not 100% correct, his stories seem to be headed in the right direction, so to speak.

Which story would that be? I didn't see Charlie talking about AMD abandoning the mid and high end market when they flushed the 38xx parts, nor have I seen him comment on the fact that they are currently flushing the 4xxx parts. I saw him lie through his teeth about the GT300 tapeout, even lied about it when he was showing proof that he was absolutely wrong. Charlie really hasn't been right about anything at all that I have seen, actually it seems that he has been as close to the opposite of right as you can get lately.

People are asking about why nV isn't die shrinking the GT200 line like that really needs to be said? How about we phrase it differently- why isn't ATi die shrinking the 4890? Exactly.

Because ATI already launched a lower end part based on their new high-end GPU, which is quite similar to an HD4890 die shrink (40nm, 800 shaders etc), but with DX11 support.
NV haven't done that with their current generation (they just refreshed their old part again).

One might assume they are going to filter down the GT300 architecture to lower end cards, but then one might have thought they would do that with GT200.