[VC]AMD Fiji XT spotted at Zauba

[Paul98]

What does the latency look like for HBM? From what I read it's supposed to be better than GDDR5, but I haven't seen any numbers.

 

[Paul98]

AMD doesnt need to be number one, but they DO NEED to get more mobile market share. And that means they need to innovate more and be first with technology.

But from my experience, the thing they need to fix the most is their ability to sell their products and increase sales. You can have the best product in the world, but if you cant sell it you gain nothing.

That seems to be what AMD has been having a problem with recently with their GPUs. Even with better price for performance NVidia seems to sell more.

Doesn't make any sense to me, but it's perception that is hurting AMD. Doing stupid things like having a weak reference cooler really hurt them also.

 

[geoxile]

What does the latency look like for HBM? From what I read it's supposed to be better than GDDR5, but I haven't seen any numbers.

Speaking of latency, what kind of impact will this have on the performance? Maxwell benefited from the cache. Not sure how comparable it is in this case but it must have some kind of impact

 

[III-V]

Speaking of latency, what kind of impact will this have on the performance? Maxwell benefited from the cache. Not sure how comparable it is in this case but it must have some kind of impact

There's a few things to note there. Caches have much higher bandwidth than external memory. They also use much less power, generally speaking.

 

[Adampa1006]

I still don't think you guys are paying attention or acknowledging history.

1. Crazy low prices and ludicrous price/performance with superior performance/watt and Compute/DP features "for free" (without Titan branding) have failed AMD with desktop HD4000/5000/6000.

2. High prices and good performance still failed AMD with HD7000 series vs. 600. In fact we know that 7970Ghz led 680 from June 2012 at cheaper price with better game bundles. Didn't matter.

3. More VRAM and ultra high Rez/multi-monitor gaming failed AMD with 290/290X.

4. Incredible price/performance of dual unlocked 6950s, overclocked dual 7950s, 290s also failed AMD.

AMD cannot and will not win against NV using any of the old strategies on the desktop. Even if 390X beats GM200 by 20%, it will not win. NV will sell more. People bought 770 for $100 more over 280X, 680 4GB for $100 more over 7970Ghz, 780 for $100-200 more over 290.

Look at AMD's desktop market share and look at reality, AMD has the entire sub-$300 GPU market on the desktop ALL locked and this market is 90% of ALL desktop GPU sales in the industry:

AMD has a better gaming desktop GPU at EVERY price point under $330:
http://www.techspot.com/guides/912-best-graphics-cards-2014/

Do we see AMD command 70-90% of desktop market? Nope. Hasn't happened in 10 years!

All of this points to deep perception and brand value damage, similar to Cadillac and Hyundai 10 years ago.

AMD needs to focus on GE game performance/features and push Mantle across as many GCN products as possible, focus on getting mobile design wins, focus on strategic wins with high end manufacurers like Apple, Alienware, Maingear, Origin, etc. to improve their brand image, focus on making OpenCL a better alternative to CUDA for professionals, etc.

Wasting resources to try and beat GM200 is a total waste of $ for a company strapped on cash and anchored by debt. 7970Ghz, 6990, 295X2 beat 680/590/Titan Z. This did little for AMD's desktop market share overall.

AMD needs to outsmart NV by providing seamless CF support in the most popular games, and providing smoothest frame times for min. frames on single GPUs with Mantle. Additionally, AMD needs to execute better on unique features such as TrueAudio and FreeSync monitors, as well as DP1.3 in 300 series.

But I am afraid this is not enough. When the average PC gamer sees NV blowing AMD away in popular games like Unity, they are too nervous to buy AMD in fear of another popular game running 2-3X faster on NV due to GW. What I don't want at all because I support open, not closed/proprietary features, but what I think AMD must do, is use these same dirty proprietary and performance destroying tactics NV has been using for years -- provide locked optimized code to game developers, and optimize as many AAA games to Mantle/DirectCompute. We are no longer in a fair battle of 7900GTX vs. X1950XTX where raw performance rules modern games, now it's about who throws more resources at game developers. AMD needs to do that on the desktop above all other strategies.

If 390X uses 20nm and water cooling to beat the 980, you can bet your marbles NV supporters will focus on performance/watt and the fact that AMD is so behind that they needed 20nm and water to keep up.

AMD also needs to figure out some way for their GPUs to perform faster when paired with Zen than with an Intel CPU. They need to figure out a way to provide Asynchornous CF with Zen and any GCN part as long as the generations align. For exemple, being able to Hybrid CF a 768 SP GCN 3.0 Zen with any GCN 3.0 GPU. Then, it will not matter if Intel CPUs are faster in games since with Zen you will get a free "GCN GPU" which could overcome any advantage of an Intel CPU in games. These strategies would challenge the Intel+NV dominance in the eyes of the average gamer.

Fantastic post, you really hit a lot of great points. They win at ever price up to $300, and destroy the halo market with the 295x2. Does it matter? Your right. It doesn't. Too many blind loyalists who want to pay more. But it's OK. It could easily change. No brand or company ever kills it forever.

 

[iiiankiii]

I still don't think you guys are paying attention or acknowledging history.

1. Crazy low prices and ludicrous price/performance with superior performance/watt and Compute/DP features "for free" (without Titan branding) have failed AMD with desktop HD4000/5000/6000.

2. High prices and good performance still failed AMD with HD7000 series vs. 600. In fact we know that 7970Ghz led 680 from June 2012 at cheaper price with better game bundles. Didn't matter.

3. More VRAM and ultra high Rez/multi-monitor gaming failed AMD with 290/290X.

4. Incredible price/performance of dual unlocked 6950s, overclocked dual 7950s, 290s also failed AMD.

AMD cannot and will not win against NV using any of the old strategies on the desktop. Even if 390X beats GM200 by 20%, it will not win. NV will sell more. People bought 770 for $100 more over 280X, 680 4GB for $100 more over 7970Ghz, 780 for $100-200 more over 290.

Look at AMD's desktop market share and look at reality, AMD has the entire sub-$300 GPU market on the desktop ALL locked and this market is 90% of ALL desktop GPU sales in the industry:

AMD has a better gaming desktop GPU at EVERY price point under $330:
http://www.techspot.com/guides/912-best-graphics-cards-2014/

Do we see AMD command 70-90% of desktop market? Nope. Hasn't happened in 10 years!

All of this points to deep perception and brand value damage, similar to Cadillac and Hyundai 10 years ago.

AMD needs to focus on GE game performance/features and push Mantle across as many GCN products as possible, focus on getting mobile design wins, focus on strategic wins with high end manufacurers like Apple, Alienware, Maingear, Origin, etc. to improve their brand image, focus on making OpenCL a better alternative to CUDA for professionals, etc.

Wasting resources to try and beat GM200 is a total waste of $ for a company strapped on cash and anchored by debt. 7970Ghz, 6990, 295X2 beat 680/590/Titan Z. This did little for AMD's desktop market share overall.

AMD needs to outsmart NV by providing seamless CF support in the most popular games, and providing smoothest frame times for min. frames on single GPUs with Mantle. Additionally, AMD needs to execute better on unique features such as TrueAudio and FreeSync monitors, as well as DP1.3 in 300 series.

But I am afraid this is not enough. When the average PC gamer sees NV blowing AMD away in popular games like Unity, they are too nervous to buy AMD in fear of another popular game running 2-3X faster on NV due to GW. What I don't want at all because I support open, not closed/proprietary features, but what I think AMD must do, is use these same dirty proprietary and performance destroying tactics NV has been using for years -- provide locked optimized code to game developers, and optimize as many AAA games to Mantle/DirectCompute. We are no longer in a fair battle of 7900GTX vs. X1950XTX where raw performance rules modern games, now it's about who throws more resources at game developers. AMD needs to do that on the desktop above all other strategies.

If 390X uses 20nm and water cooling to beat the 980, you can bet your marbles NV supporters will focus on performance/watt and the fact that AMD is so behind that they needed 20nm and water to keep up.

AMD also needs to figure out some way for their GPUs to perform faster when paired with Zen than with an Intel CPU. They need to figure out a way to provide Asynchornous CF with Zen and any GCN part as long as the generations align. For exemple, being able to Hybrid CF a 768 SP GCN 3.0 Zen with any GCN 3.0 GPU. Then, it will not matter if Intel CPUs are faster in games since with Zen you will get a free "GCN GPU" which could overcome any advantage of an Intel CPU in games. These strategies would challenge the Intel+NV dominance in the eyes of the average gamer.

I think you're right. That proprietary approach works. I hate it, though. I hate locked down optimization. Like you said, it might be wise for AMD to play "dirty", too. GameWorks will handicap AMD's GPU. The focus and Mantle/AMD optimized features is the way to go. It's hard to overlook something like GameWorks heavily favoring Nvidia. The sad part is this, we all knew what GameWorks was meant to do. It's suppose to push the advantage towards Nvidia by shutting out AMD.

 

[III-V]

I still don't think you guys are paying attention or acknowledging history.

1. Crazy low prices and ludicrous price/performance with superior performance/watt and Compute/DP features "for free" (without Titan branding) have failed AMD with desktop HD4000/5000/6000.

2. High prices and good performance still failed AMD with HD7000 series vs. 600. In fact we know that 7970Ghz led 680 from June 2012 at cheaper price with better game bundles. Didn't matter.

3. More VRAM and ultra high Rez/multi-monitor gaming failed AMD with 290/290X.

4. Incredible price/performance of dual unlocked 6950s, overclocked dual 7950s, 290s also failed AMD.

I couldn't disagree more. Frankly, without a performance/dollar advantage, AMD's discrete GPUs would be worthless. For everything AMD does today, Nvidia does it better, even if only slightly. There are a few niche features that AMD offers that are nice, but Nvidia is just the better brand. This is coming from someone that isn't particularly fond of Nvidia, particularly their CEO.

You know what would have failed more? AMD not doing what you listed above. Had they made no effort to differentiate themselves, and offer a competitive edge, users would have had no reason to purchase their products over Nvidia's. Public perception of Nvidia is just better, regardless of whether or not that perception has any factual basis.

AMD's best option is to continue doing what they've been doing, and perhaps hire some competent marketing and PR people. They also need to continue making OEM wins, particularly with Apple. They simply will never become the dominate force in the graphics industry, short of Nvidia suffering from some massive PR blunder. In light of this, they should continue to do the best they can, as a world without AMD keeping Nvidia in check would really suck.

 

[3DVagabond]

Perf/$ has worked-out REALLY well for for AMD on the CPU front. Oh wait...

CPU's and GPU's aren't comparable perf/$. AMD can't compete with Intel perf/anything because their performance is so much lower. There's no parallel to draw. AMD GPU's compete in overall performance just fine to nVidia. ~1/2 the time nVidia is faster, 1/2 the time AMD is. When was the last time AMD had better CPU performance than Intel?

Love or leave it, AMD has marketed AMD GPUs as a 'budget' option pretty much since they purchased ATI in 2006. In my opinion, that has cheapened their brand and is a main reason they are forced to sell the same (or sometimes better) products vs. NV for less $. I can't fault AMD for pretty much trying everything from a marketing standpoint recently, but it doesn't seem to sway a lot of diehard-NV fans.

It's marketing that sways nVidia fans and nVidia is way better than AMD at marketing their products.
In the last year or two AMD has improved their overall position in the market but not their sales too much. They increased market share in the 2nd Q (IIRC) and I believe that's why nVidia came in at the prices they did for the 970/980. It was to compete perf/$ with AMD. AMD have partnered with Adobe and Apple in the professional range, which are two very high quality brands. Neither would partner with an inferior performing IHV and risk damaging their own brand image. AMD just take advantage and capture mindset.

My personal fear is that when a company goes the 'budget' route that they decrease investing in R&D (which we see from AMD now). That means you sometimes get into a death-spiral situation. You don't need to look further than AMD's CPUs...

This is something people like to talk about but there is no evidence to support AMD is falling behind due to their R&D budget. nVidia has an advantage in gaming perf/W and has since Kepler, but that's all. We'll have to keep an eye on this and see if it continues. It's not unusual for either company to have an advantage in perf/W at different times.

AMD is automatically an inferior good, not only because of quality but also because of the pricing and image relative to Nvidia. Considering many of the PC gamers buying high-end parts are also enthusiasts with a lot of disposable income, you can see why this value-oriented image might not matter

I've also noticed (on here, OCN, gfaqs, even /g/) that people seldom consider the value of AMD's game bundle when making recommendations.

If you think AMD is lower quality you've bought into some FUD. That or you are simply trying to spread it. Sorry.

 

[Silverforce11]

They simply will never become the dominate force in the graphics industry, short of Nvidia suffering from some massive PR blunder.

You know how big Samsung is right? Their CEO is known for this simple motto: One generation/launch away from ruin.

In the tech business, things can change very rapidly.

NV commands the market because they have been executing very well for many generations. It's a well deserved lead, but make no mistake, the situation can quickly turn if they do not keep on pushing progress.

Saying that, it is bleak for AMD. If they do not focus on efficiency for GCN 2.0 they will in a world of hurt due to another generation of no note/ultra-book revenue and utter failure to penetrate the mobile market. See, as a PC guy, I don't mind 50W extra in the GPU if the performance justifies it. But I'm not blind to realize how important efficiency is in the other markets.

It also doesn't help that their CPU division is in the dump for so many years.

 

[Gikaseixas]

AMD is automatically an inferior good, not only because of quality

That's bull and if you really know about GPU's you know it too

 

[geoxile]

That's bull and if you really know about GPU's you know it too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good

an inferior good is a good that decreases in demand when consumer income rises (or rises in demand when consumer income decreases),http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good#cite_note-1

 

[Gikaseixas]

Per your key performance indicators AMD cards offer less quality than Nvidia's, correct?

And AMD is classified as a Normal Good:
"A normal good is any good whose demand increases when income increases. Normal goods may be nice shoes or name brand clothing. They could also be organic foods or top brand electronics"

If one values features such as Mantle or certain games in a AMD bundle offer and needs to have GTX 970 like performance, a Radeon 290X is a good choice

 

[Abwx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good

Find us a firm that willfully sold 30-40 millions defective chisps, cashed at least 1bn for thoses junk chips and created 25-30bn losses for consumers and still managed to get out of it as if there was nothing...

Then you could talk of bad quality, for the record the said firm is Nvidia, a track record of bad quality that is impossible to equate even with the worst efforts, 30-40 millions laptops thrown to trash bins...

 

[RussianSensation]

I couldn't disagree more. Frankly, without a performance/dollar advantage, AMD's discrete GPUs would be worthless. For everything AMD does today, Nvidia does it better, even if only slightly. There are a few niche features that AMD offers that are nice, but Nvidia is just the better brand. This is coming from someone that isn't particularly fond of Nvidia, particularly their CEO.

You know what would have failed more? AMD not doing what you listed above. Had they made no effort to differentiate themselves, and offer a competitive edge, users would have had no reason to purchase their products over Nvidia's. Public perception of Nvidia is just better, regardless of whether or not that perception has any factual basis.

AMD's best option is to continue doing what they've been doing, and perhaps hire some competent marketing and PR people. They also need to continue making OEM wins, particularly with Apple. They simply will never become the dominate force in the graphics industry, short of Nvidia suffering from some massive PR blunder. In light of this, they should continue to do the best they can, as a world without AMD keeping Nvidia in check would really suck.

I think I either didn't explain myself well enough or didn't drive the main point. When I say it "didn't matter", it's in reference to regaining overall market share to historical levels. I am saying that all of AMD's existing strategies have failed to reverse the overall market share to 50/50 from the time 8800 GTX launched. Once gamers abandoned 2900/3800 series, on the whole these gamers didn't come back to buy AMD GPUs in droves.

Right now the latest JPR data shows NV gaining massively over AMD in desktop discrete GPU market share. GPUs in the $300+ space comprise 10-15% of this market, with $300 and below commanding the rest. Now, every major site from AT to Toms to TechSpot to TechReport has picked an AMD desktop GPU in their Fall 2014 Buyer's Guide as the best gaming buy. You can go check yourself if you want.

Based on this, it is NV that should be massively bleeding market share since basically they only have 2 cards worth buying - 970/980. So please tell me how my post is way off? AMD's declines in the GPU space have started in 2007 with 8800 GTX and once the perception that AMD is 2nd best took hold, none of the strategies AMD has implemented until now have worked to meaningfully go back to pre-2007 levels. Right now, the proof is on the table that Price/Performance doesn't work for AMD.

Sapphire Tri-X R9 290 is $250 with 4 games on Newegg and yet gamers are buying 760/770/780/970/980. Please explain that. Even before 970/980 launched, people weren't buying $350-380 290 over $500-550 780. Please explain that.

Things are getting much worse because now TWIMTBP and GW titles perform from poor to horrible on AMD while GE titles give AMD a small lead. Essentially nearly every NV-sponsored title runs disproportionately faster on NV and more so on Maxwell (even at the expense of Kepler optimizations). You think that's some kind a coincidence? Instead of console ports running faster on GCN-optimized hardware which normally would be the case with console to PC ports of the past, the opposite is true. Mantle is the only thing keeping AMD affloat in performance wins in the latest games it seems. Of course the brand agnostic games run very well on both AMD and NV. Why is that?

When AMD partners with a developer, they do not provide them with game code to cripple NV's DX11 performance/or hand the developer thousands of lines of code targetting only AMD GPU architectures with features that run way worse on NV. They work on optimizing Mantle path. As a result nothing precludes NV from optimizing their DX11 driver over time for any GE game. This is not at all like GW games.

Even if 390/390X beat 980, this is what will happen:

1) Majority of high end buyers will wait for GM200;
2) Majority of mid-range buyers will wait until NV drops prices on 960Ti/970/980 as a result of AMD's pressure on those cards and in the end buy NV.

^ the above is especially true in Asia, Middle East, Russia, Brazil, and most 3rd world countries where brands, especially American brands, are highly regarded. Most of my Russian, Polish, Asian and Middle-Eastern decent friends will NOT buy AMD, period.

How do I know this? Because this story has played out for 5 consecutive generations since HD4870. Look, in the last 5 generations I still managed to buy both NV and AMD products. Can you please explain to me how since HD4850 days, not a single card from AMD was worth buying to most NV users? It's not possible for a brand agnostic/objective GPU buyer to NOT have found at least 1 time when AMD didn't have a better product from 4870 days. The only group of gamers who can claim this are top 5% who buy 280/285/480/580/780Ti and SLI variants. Therefore, what conclusion can you make here? I am telling you based on history of the last 5-6 years, NV gamers are multiples of times more loyal to the brand than brand agnostic AMD buyers.

Even if AMD delivers the fastest and cheaper card, the majority of NV gamers will not buy it. They will simply wait 6-12-18 months until NV has something better. AMD would need to win 3-4 consecutive generations for an NV user to start to notice that as an alternative. Of course how can AMD win when they have less resources than NV and less $ to throw at game developers? It's not possible until either AMD's financial situation changes OR NV screws up. Neither of these is likely in the next 3-4 years.

The saddest part of all is that NV-only gamers don't even see what happened in the CPU market once AMD stopped competing. By always supporting NV regardless, they are moving each step towards a similar stagnation/slower performance progress in the GPU space as we have now seen in the CPU space. I guess if AMD goes down, they are counting of regulators to split NV into 2 to create 2 GPU competitors....

 

[Silverforce11]

AMD's declines in the GPU space have started in 2007 with 8800 GTX and once the perception that AMD is 2nd best took hold, none of the strategies AMD has implemented until now have worked to meaningfully go back to pre-2007 levels. Right now, the proof is on the table that Price/Performance doesn't work for AMD.

How do I know this? Because this story has played out for 5 consecutive generations since HD4870.

Even if AMD delivers the fastest and cheaper card, the majority of NV gamers will not buy it. They will simply wait 6-12-18 months until NV has something better.

This is what I've summed up, because ever since 8800 series from NV, they have commanded "The Best" segment. Anytime AMD manages to release a next-gen product that is faster, it does not surprise anyone because its a next gen vs an old NV GPU. They know NV's new gen is coming soon.

Re: 5870 vs 200 series, massive win but people expected NV's next-gen to hit soon, sadly they waited awhile for Fermi, it came out faster but massively bad on efficiency. This was the only time in recent history AMD won major marketshare (but low profits due to low pricing on 5800 series on launch). The 6900 vs 580 "generation" was dominating by NV, pushing an even bigger performance lead and solidifying "The Best" status. They won back marketshare with the 560/ti and 570/580!

Then 7970 vs 580, again, the same, but this time NV's nextgen gk104 came soon and won on perf, price and efficiency, a clean sweep! NV plows onwards.

If AMD wants to change the mentality of the masses, it needs to be the THE BEST outright within that generation and repeat that for a few years at the minimum. Then gamers will think twice buying an NV GPU (because all their buddies have had much faster AMD cards for years).

How likely is that to occur?

Not very.

Even if R390X came out 50% faster than R290X, its going to be power hungry (~300W) requiring hybrid cooling. GM200 lands and matches it in performance (worse case scenario for NV), but ~225W. Which is better? Clearly its GM200. So AMD is forced to price drop and play second best again. GG.

They need a complete refocus on efficiency because raw performance is now TDP limited. Having good perf/w (Maxwell) matters even on the high end, because a 250W Maxwell is going to blow away a 350W GCN1.2.

 

[3DVagabond]

This is what I've summed up, because ever since 8800 series from NV, they have commanded "The Best" segment. Anytime AMD manages to release a next-gen product that is faster, it does not surprise anyone because its a next gen vs an old NV GPU. They know NV's new gen is coming soon.

Re: 5870 vs 200 series, massive win but people expected NV's next-gen to hit soon, sadly they waited awhile for Fermi, it came out faster but massively bad on efficiency. This was the only time in recent history AMD won major marketshare (but low profits due to low pricing on 5800 series on launch). The 6900 vs 580 "generation" was dominating by NV, pushing an even bigger performance lead and solidifying "The Best" status. They won back marketshare with the 560/ti and 570/580!

Then 7970 vs 580, again, the same, but this time NV's nextgen gk104 came soon and won on perf, price and efficiency, a clean sweep! NV plows onwards.

If AMD wants to change the mentality of the masses, it needs to be the THE BEST outright within that generation and repeat that for a few years at the minimum. Then gamers will think twice buying an NV GPU (because all their buddies have had much faster AMD cards for years).

How likely is that to occur?

Not very.

Even if R390X came out 50% faster than R290X, its going to be power hungry (~300W) requiring hybrid cooling. GM200 lands and matches it in performance (worse case scenario for NV), but ~225W. Which is better? Clearly its GM200. So AMD is forced to price drop and play second best again. GG.

They need a complete refocus on efficiency because raw performance is now TDP limited. Having good perf/w (Maxwell) matters even on the high end, because a 250W Maxwell is going to blow away a 350W GCN1.2.

You are comparing low volume top end cards. As RS pointed out, even when AMD dominates at every price level that sells in volume, which they consistently do, they don't regain market share.

 

[Silverforce11]

You are comparing low volume top end cards. As RS pointed out, even when AMD dominates at every price level that sells in volume, which they consistently do, they don't regain market share.

You missed my entire point about WHY THAT SITUATION OCCURS several posts ago.

Having the halo crown for many years automatically makes your entire brand BETTER in the eyes of average buyers. Because its perceived to be "BETTER", they are more than willing to pay more even on the low-end.

This is why cheap R260, 270, 280 etc do not sell more than NV's equivalent which is often $25-75 more expensive. That's the premium NV tax which customers are happy to pay for.

The only periods in history where ATI/AMD were dominant in marketshare was when they owned the halo crown, 9700, 800XT, 5870..

Likewise for AMD CPU, Athlon was dominating but they did not manage to carry it for long enough until Intel reclaimed the throne and its been downhill ever since.

Never underestimate brand image in terms of value added. (Think why many folks buy $20,000 hand-bags that is made side-by-side in a chinese factory with a $100 hand-bag using the same material, only different design/brands/logo).

 

[3DVagabond]

You missed my entire point about WHY THAT SITUATION OCCURS several posts ago.

Having the halo crown for many years automatically makes your entire brand BETTER in the eyes of average buyers. Because its perceived to be "BETTER", they are more than willing to pay more even on the low-end.

This is why cheap R260, 270, 280 etc do not sell more than NV's equivalent which is often $25-75 more expensive. That's the premium NV tax which customers are happy to pay for.

The only periods in history where ATI/AMD were dominant in marketshare was when they owned the halo crown, 9700, 800XT, 5870..

Likewise for AMD CPU, Athlon was dominating but they did not manage to carry it for long enough until Intel reclaimed the throne and its been downhill ever since.

Never underestimate brand image in terms of value added. (Think why many folks buy $20,000 hand-bags that is made side-by-side in a chinese factory with a $100 hand-bag using the same material, only different design/brands/logo).

And even when AMD has the halo crown, it makes little difference. 5%-10%, maybe. The 7970GHz was faster than the 680 for months, had more VRAM, and sold for significantly less. Made inroads a bit and then nVidia went viral with their "Slower but Smoother" campaign and destroyed AMD. Seriously, it's marketing. Until AMD can compete there, they will continue to struggle.

 

[RussianSensation]

^ Yes, but Silverforce contrary to your post and myths, NV gained desktop market share with 460/470/480 in Q1-Q4 2010, and lost it with 570/580 in Q1 2011-Q3 2011. Put it this way even when AMD cards were FREE due to Bitcoin/scrypt mining, NV's market share didn't suffer that much. That's like having $0 7970 compete with a $500 680...NV gamers in the US/Canada sill purchased only NV. In the last 6 years I spent $0 on graphics card upgrades. Nothing makes me particularly smart or gifted. AMD's brand perception it is biggest weakness of all. You speak of Halo cards winning brand value but HD5970 vs. 480, 6990 vs. 590, 295X2 vs. Titan Z disprove your theory. In all of those cases, AMD had the fastest card in that generation. Same with 7970Ghz vs. 680 for 10 months.

Even if 390X came out 6 months before 980, NV gamers would be waiting for NV's next card. They would not consider AMD, regardless. The number of these type of Apple-like NV users is multiples of times more than AMD. NV users will pay $100 more for same or 5-7% more performance automatically and $200-300 more for 15-20% more performance. Those who buy AMD would rarely waste $ like that. That's why cards like 6970, 7970Ghz, 290X are hardly popular among AMD buyers vs. 6950, 7950/standard 7970, 290.

Look at the buying patterns between the brands. Tons and tons of gamers paid $100 more for 680 over 670 but not many paid extra for 6970 over 6950 or 290X over 290. There is a huge difference in how AMD and Nv users perceive value. You can even see it in user posts. A lot of NV gamers are waiting for the BEST GM200 but on the AMD side the killer card should be 390 not 390X. AMD users are far more reluctant to throw $150-300 more for 15-20% more performance. NV users are not. If AMD's 390X was to be 15%-20% faster than 980 and cost $699, it would flop. If GM200 was $699, 15-20% faster than a $549 390X, it would outsell the 390X many times over.

 

[USER8000]

AMD's brand perception it is biggest weakness of all. Even if 390X came out 6 months before 980, NV gamers would be waiting for NV's next card. They would not consider AMD, regardless. The number of these type of Apple-like NV users is multiples of times more than AMD. NV users will pay $100 more for same or 5-7% more performance automatically and $200-300 more for 15-20% more performance.

I agree with this(even though I am using a Nvidia card ATM as I got a decent deal on it TBH). Having said that I do find that in the UK,people are not as bad when it comes to it(although you do get some very hardcore fans who post on forums who hate AMD with a passion),but it does seem much common among US/Canadian(and actually specific parts of Europe too). It does come down to advertising I think,but also the mindset of the consumers in the region and also on how many neutal enthusiasts are around.

However,my biggest bugbear is not advertising or preferences of people but the English language "independent" review media. They seem to treat Nvidia closer to like what they treat Apple,and seem to gloss over any problems Nvidia have and heap praise in the same way like Apple,which contributes to brand strength.

A number of German and French sites for example highlighted the problems with the NV boost mechanisms in the Geforce Titan and GTX760,but none of the English language ones bothered,outside a few words,that the NV boost mechanism could cause some issues(hence they needed to preheat cards before benchmarks) and it was quickly buried. They did bother when Nvidia gave them free R9 cards,to highlight the issues with the AMD boost mechanisms and made a song and dance about it. Then you got people like the reviewer on TPU who gleefully said AMD is "fucked" recently but not even said that about Nvidia during the Fermi time when AMD had the HD5870 and HD5850 out for 6 months before the GTX480 and GTX470,never said that about thet fact they had nothing for 9 months until the GTX460 game out,or had no real competitor to the HD7870 and HD7850 for nearly six months(and were selling generally worse cards to compete with them). It just shows you some of the reviewers are not only unprofessional,but have an inability to treat companies equally.

I lurk on Hexus for example,and the owner of the site said many companies really do try and tempt reviewers with nice things like free paid trips to events,etc,so it does make me wonder at times too.

 

[Silverforce11]

And even when AMD has the halo crown, it makes little difference. 5%-10%, maybe. The 7970GHz was faster than the 680 for months, had more VRAM, and sold for significantly less. Made inroads a bit and then nVidia went viral with their "Slower but Smoother" campaign and destroyed AMD. Seriously, it's marketing. Until AMD can compete there, they will continue to struggle.

The 680 was faster than the 7970. This prompted AMD to response, very poorly with terrible reference designs which were as loud or louder than R290X, as well as a major jump in power use... all that and the 7970Ghz ed was slighty faster than 680, not enough to be declared the winner since they traded blows in many games. Also, back then extra vram wasn't as enticing.

It's not just marketing, in multi-card, many users felt NV was smoother. It was a legitimate concern which lead to XDMA.

AMD needs to outright claim the performance crown and hold it for several generations if they want to reverse their image.

 

[Silverforce11]

^ Yes, but Silverforce contrary to your post and myths, NV gained desktop market share with 460/470/480 in Q1-Q4 2010, and lost it with 570/580 in Q1 2011-Q3 2011. Put it this way even when AMD cards were FREE due to Bitcoin/scrypt mining, NV's market share didn't suffer that much. That's like having $0 7970 compete with a $500 680...NV gamers in the US/Canada sill purchased only NV. In the last 6 years I spent $0 on graphics card upgrades. Nothing makes me particularly smart or gifted. AMD's brand perception it is biggest weakness of all. You speak of Halo cards winning brand value but HD5970 vs. 480, 6990 vs. 590, 295X2 vs. Titan Z disprove your theory. In all of those cases, AMD had the fastest card in that generation. Same with 7970Ghz vs. 680 for 10 months.

The 460 was a great card, as was the 560 after that. But marketshare may have a delay factor, certainly AMD's success with the 4800 and 5800 series did do very well for them on desktop, at a time when the vast majority of notebooks also carried Radeons.

Somehow the dual-GPU cards did not change perception at all, maybe because 2 vs 1 made it clear to people.

 

[RussianSensation]

The 680 was faster than the 7970. This prompted AMD to response, very poorly with terrible reference designs which were as loud or louder than R290X, as well as a major jump in power use... all that and the 7970Ghz ed was slighty faster than 680, not enough to be declared the winner since they traded blows in many games. Also, back then extra vram wasn't as enticing.

It's not just marketing, in multi-card, many users felt NV was smoother. It was a legitimate concern which lead to XDMA.

AMD needs to outright claim the performance crown and hold it for several generations if they want to reverse their image.

North American media also played double standards. They constantly pitted Reference non-existent 7970Ghz against 680 vs. after-market 460 FTW vs. stock 6870. Then, they tend to include after-market and/or factory pre-overclocked NV cards against reference clocked AMD cards. In particular the coverage in many places on after-market 7950/7970/290/290X was horrible. Look at places like TechSpot (New Zealand) testing all after-market NV vs. AMD vs. Tom's / AT / TR / TPU using reference AMD all the time. You are telling me a site as large as AT / TR / TPU cannot buy 5 after-market 390X and test them against 5 after market GM200? They always use this crazy excuse that "we didn't receive them for free." So, then why make useless conclusions across the entire product range that it runs hot and loud, when they are only discussing reference blowers? This type of journalism is a disservice to the end user.

I don't like blowers at all, so I cannot wait until NV and AMD go full water on all their future flagship cards. 120mm rad will trounce 90% of all air cooled solution in a balance of noise and tempeatutes while solving the case heat dump associated with 2-3 GPU SLI/CF setups. I hope 390X comes standard with WC as this solution was awesome on the 295X2. Titan Z suffered major throttling at load without a custom fan curve.

 

[geoxile]

Per your key performance indicators AMD cards offer less quality than Nvidia's, correct?

And AMD is classified as a Normal Good:
"A normal good is any good whose demand increases when income increases. Normal goods may be nice shoes or name brand clothing. They could also be organic foods or top brand electronics"

If one values features such as Mantle or certain games in a AMD bundle offer and needs to have GTX 970 like performance, a Radeon 290X is a good choice

The term is relative so that the market alone doesn't determine what a good is classified as. Ex. A car could be considered an inferior good as long as demand drops with rising income. That basically means the budget brand, generally anyway. And that's the public's general perception of AMD. They're the budget brand.

Let me put it this way. The general public might view video cards in general as normal goods but within the scope of that market AMD is typically viewed as offering inferior goods

 

[SirPauly]

I cannot wait until NV and AMD go full water on all their future flagship cards.

I don't get you --- instead of desiring more efficiency -- you desire reference water cooling! If a gamer desires water cooling, AIB's and third parties can offer you this choice.