Why Nvidia doesn't feel like it needs to care about pleasing Geforce customers anymore

vjhawk

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The big reason and really the only reason is money.

According to the article below, Nvidia registered a staggering 18.12 billion dollars of revenue in the past financial quarter and 14.51 billion of it came from their Data Center/AI division. Doing the math that is 80% of their total revenue.

In comparison Geforce revenue accounted for only 2.86 billion dollars which was a trifling 15.7% of their total revenues. With the great bulk of Nvidia's profits now coming from AI and data center products, why would it care if it pleased the customers in the far less profitable video graphics card sphere?

Unless or until the AI cash cow bubble bursts, Nvidia looks to have little reason to prioritize making the best graphics cards for the money for the consumer market.

But now that Nvidia has found an incredibly profitable market to exploit, namely AI, can anyone blame them for going after the biggest cash prize?

I can't really blame them for chasing the money, but this gives me a really bad feeling about the future of the video card industry.

Article link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...8.12 billion,other cloud and server offerings.

Just to hammer home that point, Nvidia's own CEO, Jensen, sent out an email to his own company declaring, "We're no longer a graphics company."

You can read more for yourself and come to your own conclusion. Are you worried about the direction of Nvidia going forward, or do you just accept it and will buy whatever they put out because they're the only viable choice in your mind?

Article link: https://www.guru3d.com/story/nvidia...en] sent out an,no longer a graphics company".
 
The planet runs on money dude. Congress runs on money those people are evil as fuck to the lower class. Every one wants to blame nvidia amd apple and so on and so on. Its not personal its money. I don't care because i make about 115k a year single no wife no girl no bills. (most part) I have 2 4090. Going to stay with who ever is the best and i am sure it will be nvidia for ever because they just have the cash flow to make it happen.
 
I think they know it is a much more volatile business and they need to still keep pleasing reasonably their geforce customer (mobile and even desktop), they just augmented performance and reduced price, that does not match at all with some blanket they do not feel it need to care about geforce customer.

It needs to do it moderately to keep a good balance of silicon toward the higher margin market while trying to not loose the gaming one, chance are not nill for Nvidia that soon (it is arguably already starting with the A100 and than blackwell release schedule) that Geforce gpu will not have access to the latest and greatest node, that the gaming line gpu will not be anymore for every gaming card sold they could have sold a datacenter-cancer solving-ai-car-name it higher value instead (both for humanity and them, so there is not even some ethical choice here, profit+good, nothing can be less important in the world that gaming video card).

Samsung 8nm gaming card was not that directly hurting A100 production, soon tsmc 5nm gaming card will not be hurting Blackwell H100 replacement on TSMC 3nm and we can expect to be the new norm. They expect that the AI margin cannot exist for long, either the demand bubble will bust or the competition will arrive, it is too good for the pressure to not be giant.
 
I don't think you can say NV doesn't care about gamers. They have nearly $3B reasons to care. I'm enjoying the hell out of my 4090. I'm pretty sure NV sold that to me and supports it well.

I don't see them giving up the gaming market. Makes no sense to be a one trick pony and only do AI. Diversity in products is a strength.
They may go high-end only, but that is part of the gaming market.
 
We just need to make it till ray tracing is standard and that the workload can't be used for anything other than rendering graphics scenes.

Modern GPUs are unfortunately too multi-purpose these days.
 
I don't think you can say NV doesn't care about gamers. They have nearly $3B reasons to care. I'm enjoying the hell out of my 4090. I'm pretty sure NV sold that to me and supports it well.

Ya I do not understand this nV whining that we see on [H] all the time where people act like they could and should give us some amazingly better card, they are just too big a meany heads to do so.

No, the only thing you can legit criticize them on is price. It is legitimate to say "I feel their cards are too expensive, they could and should sell them to us cheaper." Fair, though the boom in datacenter and AI explains why they don't have to.

But to act like they are just being mean to gamers and not making powerful cards? Give me a break. The 4090 is the ultimate example of that: The card is the fastest thing on the maker, and not in a small way. It has the best raster, best RT, best everything. It is a BIG step up over the previous generation, like 50%+ over a 3090. They achieved that by basically throwing everything at the wall. First off it has way more transistors and thus draws way more power. It has 76.3 billion transistors, up from 28.3 billion in the 3090. That's also why its power draw is so massive, despite the new node. The die size is almost the same, which costs a lot more on a new node, the reason new nodes are normally "cheaper" is you get more chips per wafer so it costs less per chip, despite it costing more per wafer.

On top of that, the thing is more efficient, the architecture has been improved so it does more per watt than the 3090, despite drawing more peak power. On an equal FPS metric it draws less power. That's how it achieves the speeds it does, just an increase in power wouldn't do it, it also got more efficient with what it has.

They've also put lots of R&D into new features to do more with less. DLSS 3 and in particular 3.5 are great examples of this. If we want high frame rates, and high resolution, and neat path traced lighting and such we just aren't going to be able to brute force it. I mean cards are already pulling 450 watts, even if you could double performance with double the power draw (you can't) you really want a 900 watt GPU? Well they aren't just throwing up their hands and saying "Oh well, can't do any better, is what it is!" Instead they've developed, and continue to develop, technologies to allow a better final image with less rendering work. The combination of the denoiser (which you need anyway) in with the upsampler for DLSS 3.5 is extremely impressive.


All this is to say that nVidia really is doing a lot of cool shit for gaming. They are pushing what the high end can be, and working on tech that makes everything able to do more with less... However they are charging for it. They are not giving us this nice new gaming tech for a low price.

So criticize on price, but don't whine like they are just not producing good hardware.
 
They may go high-end only, but that is part of the gaming market.
Maybe if APU and tech evolution (combined with a long stability in game demand of them) turn anything else into a commodity.

But short term it would not be surprising to see them still going strong in the lowest of lowest end like the next switch (specially 3-4 into that console life cycle) and under 160mm discrete-mobile gpus like the AD107 class. As long as the low end output to not affect too much their ability of making the H100 class product during peak demand, which I imagine they will simply manage for it to never happen again if needed.

The 4 years old by now 3060 sold at really high price ($290) is still the number one sellers on newegg.com, it must be so nice for them and their partner to make so much money on those.
 
Jacket man does not give a rat's ass where his jacket money comes from, be it megacorps or consumers, as long as it keeps rolling in & he can get a new jacket (or 113) every week or so....

However, it does seem as though consumers are, for the meantime at least, are only still being addressed so that if the AI biz ever crashes (doubtful), they will still have something to fall back on...but OTOH, consumers will only stay loyal to Ngreediya as long as they continue seeing new features/more powah/better performance etc in their consumer GPU's....if/when that stops, then most people will drop them like a hot potatoe, and then AMD, Intel etc will surely swoop in & seize their fair share of the market rather aggressively :)

After all, I don't know ANY company ANYWHERE that doesn't still adhere to the old saying: "Money talks & bullshit walks"
 
Not to be not super cynical, but it is easy to overestimate how purely all about optimizing money people can be, specially when you have a large arc of time to play with.

For many Taiwanese, the GPU and high end chips can be a bit more than just money, not that it matter a lot but it is easy to imagine anyone would prefer their product to help cure cancer, flight plane and cars, be in Time top 100 influenceable people, writting your name in history book than be about silly video game.
 
Not to be not super cynical, but it is easy to overestimate how purely all about optimizing money people can be, specially when you have a large arc of time to play with.

For many Taiwanese, the GPU and high end chips can be a bit more than just money, not that it matter a lot but it is easy to imagine anyone would prefer their product to help cure cancer, flight plane and cars, be in Time top 100 influenceable people, writting your name in history book than be about silly video game.

There's nothing silly about video games or pc graphics cards these days.

If you want to help cure cancer, you can do it from your own home using a high end graphics card with folding@home project.

People have exploited advanced graphics cards to literally mine for money.

There are professionals who use graphics cards to make a living editing videos, etc.

They are just so powerful and versatile these days that they have more than one use.

And what's wrong with video games? They are part of a multibillion dollar entertainment industry and are just as legitimate as other multibillion dollar entertianment such as sports, music, etc.
 
And what's wrong with video games?
What wrong with silly mindless fun, it is a big part of life ?
I am not sure exactly what you are saying here, I was probably unclear. That exactly what its being talked about that pc graphics cards or pc graphic cards like tech can help cure cancer, mine money, actual mining, banking, etc.. right now.

multibillion dollar entertianment such as sports, music, etc.
Yes and it would be possible for someone to prefer being linked to curing cancer than silly pro sport-music entertainment.

Take its that way, the Weinstein tv-book-movie production company was not really taking 100% of their business linked decision purely to maximize the profit they made, humans continue to be driven by a list of incentive, sex, prestige, pleasant things to talk about at diner party, award ceremony not wanting your teenage daughter calling you and your company bigot at the diner table and so on. If it was just profit maximization by everyone a long list of issues would not exist.
 
What wrong with silly mindless fun, it is a big part of life ?
I am not sure exactly what you are saying here, I was probably unclear. That exactly what its being talked about that pc graphics cards or pc graphic cards like tech can help cure cancer, mine money, actual mining, banking, etc.. right now.


Yes and it would be possible for someone to prefer being linked to curing cancer than silly pro sport-music entertainment.

Eh, the next person to cure cancer will die as surely as the last person.
 
Eh, the next person to cure cancer will die as surely as the last person.
You made 100 millions curing cancer or you made 100 millions with a very popular onlyfans, it is possible for someone to prefer one to the other, or everything is for everyone simply about making the most money and would be a coin flip ?
 
The sky is falling! :
The big reason and really the only reason is money.

According to the article below, Nvidia registered a staggering 18.12 billion dollars of revenue in the past financial quarter and 14.51 billion of it came from their Data Center/AI division. Doing the math that is 80% of their total revenue.

In comparison Geforce revenue accounted for only 2.86 billion dollars which was a trifling 15.7% of their total revenues. With the great bulk of Nvidia's profits now coming from AI and data center products, why would it care if it pleased the customers in the far less profitable video graphics card sphere?

Unless or until the AI cash cow bubble bursts, Nvidia looks to have little reason to prioritize making the best graphics cards for the money for the consumer market.

But now that Nvidia has found an incredibly profitable market to exploit, namely AI, can anyone blame them for going after the biggest cash prize?

I can't really blame them for chasing the money, but this gives me a really bad feeling about the future of the video card industry.

Article link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/nvidias-earnings-are-up-206-from-last-year-as-it-continues-riding-the-ai-wave/#:~:text=Of the company's $18.12 billion,other cloud and server offerings.

Just to hammer home that point, Nvidia's own CEO, Jensen, sent out an email to his own company declaring, "We're no longer a graphics company."

You can read more for yourself and come to your own conclusion. Are you worried about the direction of Nvidia going forward, or do you just accept it and will buy whatever they put out because they're the only viable choice in your mind?

Article link: https://www.guru3d.com/story/nvidia-no-longer-a-graphics-company/#:~:text=CEO [Jensen] sent out an,no longer a graphics company".
In other news, Nvidia just released a mid-tier GPU refresh, and lowered the 4080's price by $200.
 
Just because they throw more money and manpower at the new product/service type doesn't necessarily mean they will pull people away from their older product line. With the profits they are getting I assume they can hire more people and continue to retain the best in the industry.

Of course if it comes down to one or the other, I can see gaming get de-prioritized over time. I assume that would largely be due to fabrication issues though? If TSMC/Samsung cannot product the quantity of both types of products, then maybe that would be an issue?
 
AI makes Nvidia a lot of money. It’s an emerging market, and for the moment, Nvidia is leading the way. I don’t think they’ve abandoned or don’t like gamers, but it is all but guaranteed that Nvidia is throwing most of their capital at AI development and research.
 
I mean... really the only thing wrong with the 4080 was the price so ya :D.

I mean $999 is still almost 50% higher than the 3080's MSRP, combined with the fact that you had to wait over a YEAR to get that $200 price drop which means you could've just bought a 4080 at launch and have enjoyed top tier performance for over a year, for an extra $200.
 
I been saying that Nvidia doesn't care about gamers. They would gladly using their fab line to make AI cards over gaming cards. Jensen is pretty smart to keep his foot in the door with gamers for if the AI market bottoms out.
To be honest, you guys (buying 4080 Supers) aren't helping - Nvidia has no incentive to care when ppl rush 'to the store to buy their cards' - I'm not a hypocrite either - I'm trying to buy a used 4080.

I want my gpu for all-around use - but, mostly for productivity - I think both Nvidia and AMD is sufficient for gaming - so, my comparison of gpus is for productivity use.

But, the demand for gpus - for gaming cards is so intense/considerable - that both Nvidia and AMD recognize this. Nvidia doesn't care about gamers and AMD doesn't care about productivity users - so, they have indifference throughout those two markets. They both care about AI - customers that have lots of cash, that want a ton of vram and don't care about greedy corporations and will spend $$ to get the gpu that makes themselves money is who they care about.

Unfortunately, AI is the next 'big thing' (after crypto - and even then, we don't know if there won't be another phase of some type).

My two cents - no offense intended to anyone here. It's difficult to decide you're not gonna buy their stuff.
 
Guys, gaming is an $8 billion per year business for Nvidia. They want to retain it. This is what's going on:

1) They're working on price discovery. The Titan taught them what a gamer was willing to pay just to have "the best". People lining up for a $1600 4090 on opening day taught them what a gamer was willing to pay just to have "the best". They're doing what companies do, and that's make money.

2) They don't have to give you a discount because you refuse to consider any alternatives, and they can just sell the same silicon to an AI company for a lot more when you tap out. Therefore, if you want to game on their cards, you're going to pay what they tell you you're going to pay.

Prices are really largely on the consumer in an efficient market, unfortunately. The only way to make Nvidia charge you less for a card is to buy AMD or buy Intel to force them to lower prices in order to retain market share. The RTX 4080 Super launched at $1000 because they realized no one wanted to pay $1200 for the RTX 4080.

In any case, when a company is able to charge what they want and still receive insatiable demand from their customers, that's when I stop complaining about it and just buy the stock. So to all of you who lined up to pay $1600 for an RTX 4090 and will upgrade next year to an RTX 5090 because ray tracing or whatever, from the bottom of my heart, you have my thanks.
 
The big reason and really the only reason is money.

Well yeah, that's how everything works in business. They're not going to cut their prices to "do you a solid", and then get on a conference call for their quarterly earning and tell shareholders "guys, we wanted to do gamers a solid, so we lowered the prices of our cards across the board despite the fact that we're the market leaders in GPU graphics and gamers demonstrated they were willing to pay higher prices".
 
"Guys, we wanted to do gamers a solid, so we lowered the prices of our cards across the board despite the fact that we're the market leaders in GPU graphics and gamers demonstrated they were willing to pay higher prices".
Said by no graphics chip company CEO, ever...

I don't like the state of things either, so I just vote with my wallet. It's all one can do.
 
To be honest, you guys (buying 4080 Supers) aren't helping - Nvidia has no incentive to care when ppl rush 'to the store to buy their cards' - I'm not a hypocrite either - I'm trying to buy a used 4080.
I am not sure of that logic.

Nvidia show a sign of caring a lot about selling GPU (on old node by now) to gamers by reducing the price asked for their gaming video card, why buyer responding to a price cut not helping ?

Nvidia doesn't care about gamers and AMD doesn't care about productivity users - so, they have indifference throughout those two markets.
It could be implied that this is Internet hyperbole and doesn't care is a shortcut for saying it is not their main business focus of that cycle:

AMD%20RDNA%203%20Tech%20Day_Press%20Deck%2055.png

https://wccftech.com/amd-expands-rdna-3-radeon-pro-gpu-lineup-wx7600-wx7500-8-gb-graphics-cards/

Amd make threadrippers pro product line, epyc, long battery laptop work use products line, Radeon Pro product line they have data center/AI GPU product line, they worked hard on their media engine.

On the other end of the spectrum Nvidia is almost certainly making the next switch SOC, maybe the most pure gamers hardware that exist in the world.

This is a lot of Internet pundit narrative I feel like more than matching reality, just think about this very thread started at the same time Nvidia shaked is geforce gaming card line up, how could it make sense if they do not care about pleasing geforce customer ?
 
I am not sure of that logic.

Nvidia show a sign of caring a lot about selling GPU (on old node by now) to gamers by reducing the price asked for their gaming video card, why buyer responding to a price cut not helping ?


It could be implied that this is Internet hyperbole and doesn't care is a shortcut for saying it is not their main business focus of that cycle:

View attachment 631984
https://wccftech.com/amd-expands-rdna-3-radeon-pro-gpu-lineup-wx7600-wx7500-8-gb-graphics-cards/

Amd make threadrippers pro product line, epyc, long battery laptop work use products line, Radeon Pro product line they have data center/AI GPU product line, they worked hard on their media engine.

On the other end of the spectrum Nvidia is almost certainly making the next switch SOC, maybe the most pure gamers hardware that exist in the world.

This is a lot of Internet pundit narrative I feel like more than matching reality, just think about this very thread started at the same time Nvidia shaked is geforce gaming card line up, how could it make sense if they do not care about pleasing geforce customer ?
The fact that the internet is full of forums and sites of ppl complaining about gpu prices (not anywhere near msrp for the past year) and now stating the 4080 Super SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT THIS PRICE ALREADY (min. - plus, how it's just a 'tweaked 4080') - and lots of posts about how Nvidia gimps cards, skimps Vram - has so many gpus with the same die/slightly different die but only tweaks the specs/tech....etc. etc. The gpus haven't sold well - with the exception of the 4090 / top flagship - but, the highest tier usually does okay - wealthy ppl usually buy whatever the top end is since money is no object and they just want the best. But, I digress - there's a lot of arguments talking about Nvidia 'not caring about gaming' - being greedy - but, you don't need me to tell you this, right?

AMD gpus - top tier cards - didn't sell well either - as they held on with high prices even though a large cut could have meant more sales.

Your proof/evidence of them supporting productivity is citing a PR/ad? Um, okay.
 
If Nvidia doesn't care about gamers, I wish more PC parts manufacturers would stop caring about gamers too. Their stuff is expensive, but it's also the most trouble-free and regularly updated hardware in my machine. Been like that for quite a while, too.
 
The fact that the internet is full of forums and sites of ppl complaining about gpu prices (not anywhere near msrp for the past year) and now stating the 4080 Super SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT THIS PRICE ALREADY (min. - plus, how it's just a 'tweaked 4080') - and lots of posts about how Nvidia gimps cards, skimps Vram - has so many gpus with the same die/slightly different die but only tweaks the specs/tech....etc. etc. The gpus haven't sold well - with the exception of the 4090 / top flagship - but, the highest tier usually does okay - wealthy ppl usually buy whatever the top end is since money is no object and they just want the best. But, I digress - there's a lot of arguments talking about Nvidia 'not caring about gaming' - being greedy - but, you don't need me to tell you this, right?

AMD gpus - top tier cards - didn't sell well either - as they held on with high prices even though a large cut could have meant more sales.

Your proof/evidence of them supporting productivity is citing a PR/ad? Um, okay.
Squeaky wheels are always the loudest. The bottom line is what matters. NV sells a ton of GPUs regardless of the squeaking going on out there. I don't see their domination of the market going away anytime soon.
 
there's a lot of arguments talking about Nvidia 'not caring about gaming' - being greedy - but, you don't need me to tell you this, right?
Not sure the link about being greedy and not caring about gaming being obvious, pretty much the only reason to care about gaming hardware for a company is greed (what other reason could ever exist ?) and yes I said there a lot of Internet talk about it, which does not necessarily match action seen, a thread like this made around a Geforce card price cut for example, why Nvidia would push Geforce sales (once the node is old) if they do not care about them ? Why ever make LHR version of cards, could it be because gaming card are better sales because they have less chance to all of the sudden all at the same time making pressure from the use market for new cards because of a bubble bust (i.e. which make Nvidia specially care and value them) ? Greed is what make you care about selling something to people usually.

How Nvidia not caring about gaming can possibly match with them providing possibly over 100 millions of Switch 2 SOC the next decade ?

Your proof/evidence of them supporting productivity is citing a PR/ad? Um, okay.
Yes proof they care about something will be in part the marketing (they made that material because they try to sales to them because they care about those sales) around it but also what is shown in it being true, they did add av1 and doubled the streaming engine in rdna 3 and it was accompanied by the fact they have pro line, they have data center line, there is giant money in GPU compute, AMD is one of the best positioned company in the world to make money in that industry (arguably second to only Nvidia) and of course they care about it.
 
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How Nvidia not caring about gaming can possibly match with them providing possibly over 100 millions of Switch 2 SOC the next decade ?
Probably cause it is easy money. They not going to be using the latest and greatest nod to produce those chips.
 
Probably cause it is easy money. They not going to be using the latest and greatest nod to produce those chips.
Yes, company will not use the latest and greatest node in gaming product line anymore (fall 2023 7800xt still had 6nm process in it, super refresh was still on Nvidia "4" version of TSMC 5nm), at least until there is a significant gap between them and the older node, that demand for the latest and greatest by Apple and compute is large and that the supply by competitor is not fully online. Which is different from not caring.

It will be the same for some degree with GeForce, yes TSMC 3nm will go for high end compute first, then to GeForce, gaming is still large money and yet to be a simple commodity with low margin, which could be one day, but that is still far away.
 
If Nvidia doesn't care about gamers, I wish more PC parts manufacturers would stop caring about gamers too. Their stuff is expensive, but it's also the most trouble-free and regularly updated hardware in my machine. Been like that for quite a while, too.
'Care' might be the wrong word, actually. They *care* but they *care* about revenue and profits, more - like the other guy said, they care about shareholders and their own pockets. If leaving the gpus at high prices increases that and that's always the priority - then, that's what they'll do. If cutting corners, skimping on vram or gimping cards also helps do that - well....

We discovered that even with the high prices - ppl were willing to buy them - when there was an incentive and belief that we'd make money ourselves - see Crypto-craze/phase? - now, ppl pay a lot because they want to game bad enough and they want 4k 120hz/144hz, ray tracing, frame gen. - features - really good performance and high expectations and will pay if they have the $$.
 
Guys, gaming is an $8 billion per year business for Nvidia. They want to retain it. This is what's going on:
It actually made them over $10 billions (at least) per year.
1) They're working on price discovery. The Titan taught them what a gamer was willing to pay just to have "the best". People lining up for a $1600 4090 on opening day taught them what a gamer was willing to pay just to have "the best". They're doing what companies do, and that's make money.

2) They don't have to give you a discount because you refuse to consider any alternatives, and they can just sell the same silicon to an AI company for a lot more when you tap out. Therefore, if you want to game on their cards, you're going to pay what they tell you you're going to pay.

Prices are really largely on the consumer in an efficient market, unfortunately. The only way to make Nvidia charge you less for a card is to buy AMD or buy Intel to force them to lower prices in order to retain market share. The RTX 4080 Super launched at $1000 because they realized no one wanted to pay $1200 for the RTX 4080.

In any case, when a company is able to charge what they want and still receive insatiable demand from their customers, that's when I stop complaining about it and just buy the stock. So to all of you who lined up to pay $1600 for an RTX 4090 and will upgrade next year to an RTX 5090 because ray tracing or whatever, from the bottom of my heart, you have my thanks.
Performance talks, money follows. NVDA chart was bloody high during Covid and still against any competitor even the worst period.
 
The problem isn't profit, or margins, or whether Nvidia cares about you or not. The problem is foundry capacity. When you're not capacity-limited, you print as many chips as you can, then sell as many of those as high-margin enterprise parts as possible. Once you've saturated the enterprise market, you're free to sell consumer parts for whatever price you want. As long as you don't lose money, you come out ahead, because printing fewer chips doesn't actually reduce operating costs. That's why in the past, we've had crazy things like the same die going into a $1172 Xeon and a $284 i7-920, or a $10,339 Tesla K20, a $999 Titan, a $699 780 Ti, and a $599 780. You sell as many $10,000 Teslas to the enterprise guys as you can, then as many $1,000 prosumer Titans, then as many $700 cards, etc. until it no longer makes sense to cut down the die, then you switch to the next chip down and start over.

That mindset still holds (and Intel, which isn't capacity limited, still plays that game to some extent), BUT, the problem is in 2024 if you sell as many $30,000 (!) cards to the enterprise guys as you can, you've not only used up all of your big dies, you've used up every wafer start TSMC can give you. That's kind of a problem for the rest of your product lineup, because you have to choose botching maintaining relations with the rest of your market base or giving up $28,000 of margins for every enterprise card you can't make.
 
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