Scott Herkelman on NVIDIA GPP

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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I was just about to fire up the old keyboard and write about Scott Herkelman's very passionate and scathing blog that went public here earlier today, entitled "Radeon RX Graphics: A Gamer's Choice." Then I read what Evangelho had written, and just decided to link you guys over, because he did a great job of covering it. I do have a few things I would like to add that you might want to think on for a bit.

If you don't know the name, "Scott Herkelman," I would not be surprised. He has never truly been in the public eye of the enthusiast community when it comes to GPUs. What I can tell you is that Scott is, and has always been an avid PC gamer....I am talking LAN gaming type of guy from back in the day. I know Scott from the good old days, just around the time we saw the last commercial gaming card built in the United States. In fact, Scott worked at VisionTek. Scott was also one of the founding members of BFG Tech. You remember those guys, right? Its entire business model had one goal, and that was to deliver kickass video cards to gamers. Nothing more, nothing less. After BFG he took a couple years and worked out of the hardware world, but soon found himself back in. Not surprisingly, he landed at NVIDIA where he worked as "General Manager of GeForce" for five years. While there, Scott kept NVIDIA in tune with gaming. And now he is doing the same thing at AMD as Vice President & GM of Radeon Gaming. My point in all of this is to relate to you, while you could easily read Scott's blog post, and shrug it off as marketing drivel, Scott truly understands his audience and his customers. He has seen the GPU business from just about every angle and remains plugged in to the gamer aspects of it. I doubt he still has a lot of time for Excessive Quake now days, but at least for today, he is taking the time to wear his PC gamer heart on his sleeve in front of all of us. And this is exactly what AMD needs. A gamer making gaming products.

All that said, hopefully AMD gets the help its needs on the marketing side moving forward in preparation for its Navi GPUs.

​

But back to Jason's thoughts, and he makes some very good points that are hard to argue against.

Finally, Herkelman hits the big target Nvidia has painted on its back. "We work closely with all our AIB partners, so that our customers are empowered with the best, high-performance, high quality gaming products and technologies available from AMD," he writes. "No anti-gamer / anti-competitive strings attached."

While not mentioned by name, this is a very transparent attack on Nvidia's not-so-transparent program, which allegedly pressures board partners into joining by promising marketing funds, extended promotional support and premium allocation of GPUs -- and revokes them for non-partners. I'll remind my readers that none of that is confirmed, but until Nvidia informs their community which partners are on board, and proves that these allegations are false, they're doing more damage than good to their reputation.
As for Herkelman's post, it's a really interesting development. It's rare to see AMD go on the offensive like this, but it's overdue. And at this point it's required. AMD's back is against the wall with pressure from both GPP and lack of a high-end GPU to compete with Nvidia's upcoming Turing lineup later this year. An appeal to the community is a smart move, but they need to do more.
 
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BFG was a huge brand for me when I got into PC gaming. I played on their CSS servers exclusively, and even randomly won a BFG 7800GTX for playing there. With that card I built my first computer and the rest was history.

I can safely say that my next GPU won't be nvidia if this crap continues. I'm not in need of the most powerful card, and would rather not support such an anti-competitive enterprise.
 
Yep, thanks for letting me know who Scott was Kyle.
My first expensive video card was a BFG Tech 6800GT because I just had to play doom3 in all its glory. It was nice that the GT could mod into an Ultra as well as into the quadro counterpart. good times...
 
I have a BFG 1k Watt PSU.

That thing is still chugging along!

I like that this guy is gaming centered and has experience on both sides. It seems like Nvidia is being ran by non-gamers but greedy fucks. My next card will be determined by A) If Nvidia cleans up their act and B) Which team has the best bang for the buck.
 
Never had the pleasure of owning a BFG product, but was aware of their quality.

Now that AMD has this momentum, they really need to do something about production.

I can only imagine the risk of placing a bigger order and then end with surplus hardware, but it is clear that right now, the risk is worth, since so many non crypto customers are dying to get a Vega card at MSRP.
 
At this point I wouldn't mind if AMD took a few years off from the graphics card market so they can R&D a product that actually competes and isn't a day late / dollar short by releasing overpriced mid-grade power hungry hot running garbage. Vega was a step in the right direction, but it's still over priced for competition against the 1070ti and 1080 while being pushed to near limits out of the box. Vega was DOA. So they blew a lot of money on something with a very small window for sales and no growth path.

Get your shit together AMD.
 
Never understood this. If you only read the propaganda you think AMD and Nvidia were going head to head,... even fight.

But for the longest time, the Steam Hardware survey has shown what its actually like. The top 15-20 (didnt actually count) models/cards are all Nvidias. Nvidia has 82% of the market right now. (AMD 11%)

Keep making them out as equals when ATI Radeon has not delivered in a long time.

Gamers just dont choose AMD. Its only in media that they are artificially made out to be equals.

The news has already leaked that the new Navi chipsets will be same power as the 1080 that launched almost 2 years ago. And i bet, those two years wont make it a better 1080 in any metric.


http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
 
whatevs said:
Never understood this. If you only read the propaganda you think AMD and Nvidia were going head to head,... even fight.

But for the longest time, the Steam Hardware survey has shown what its actually like. The top 15-20 (didnt actually count) models/cards are all Nvidias. Nvidia has 82% of the market right now. (AMD 11%)

Keep making them out as equals when ATI Radeon has not delivered in a long time.

Gamers just dont choose AMD. Its only in media that they are artificially made out to be equals.

The news has already leaked that the new Navi chipsets will be same power as the 1080 that launched almost 2 years ago. And i bet, those two years wont make it a better 1080 in any metric.


http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
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And yet there were many years were AMD had the superior products.. but people kept buying Nvidia. Almost as if brand perception is really important.
 
This gives me hope AMD may become something I can consider again.
I want to (esp after GPP), but too many showstopper bad experiences.
I'm watching this space.
 
rgMekanic said:
And yet there were many years were AMD had the superior products.. but people kept buying Nvidia. Almost as if brand perception is really important.
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Has more to do with inertia and consistency over time, and conversely in ATI/AMD's case, the lingering effects of bad impressions or experiences. Example if a customer tolerated ATI/AMD driver headaches for years, then one day gets fed up and buys an Nvidia and sees those headaches immediately disappear, then AMD has probably lost that customer forever - even if they eventually got their act together.

The ability to deliver performance consistently and trouble-free is what elevates a brand.
 
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odditory said:
Has more to do with inertia, and the lasting effects of a bad impression or experience. Example if a customer tolerated ATI/AMD driver headaches for years, finally one day gets fed up and buys an Nvidia and sees those headaches immediately disappear, then AMD has probably lost that customer forever.
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This.
 
whatevs said:
Sorry, you are disputing that for the past two generations at least, Nvidia has not had a better technical solution?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
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I'll give you the last 2 generations, but only because Fury and Vega were late to the party.

How about almost 4 whole years ago!!! When the 295x2 was considered the king?

And again, that's only if you ignore how last generation that Fury was trading blows with the Titan X depending on game.

c30.gif
 
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Idk why you guys making out like AMD graphics are in trouble. Sure they can't compete with Nvidia in gaming but still selling out everything they make. Sure they not getting the huge profits from miners but they still get their cut of sales. They need to fix the Vega brand and start over basically to compete with Nvidia while they still cashing in on miners. Fun fact, I was at MC today and they had Vega 64 in stock for $1100 the while 1080ti we're $980.
 
ThatsAgood1jay said:
BFG was a huge brand for me when I got into PC gaming. I played on their CSS servers exclusively, and even randomly won a BFG 7800GTX for playing there. With that card I built my first computer and the rest was history.

I can safely say that my next GPU won't be nvidia if this crap continues. I'm not in need of the most powerful card, and would rather not support such an anti-competitive enterprise.
Click to expand...
BFG really had their finger on the pulse of gaming. They even reached out and sponsored tiny LAN events all over USA and Canada (like mostly friends, rented college classroom-type events). It was amazing.
 
vegeta535 said:
Idk why you guys making out like AMD graphics are in trouble. Sure they can't compete with Nvidia in gaming but still selling out everything they make. Sure they not getting the huge profits from miners but they still get their cut of sales. They need to fix the Vega brand and start over basically to compete with Nvidia while they still cashing in on miners. Fun fact, I was at MC today and they had Vega 64 in stock for $1100 the while 1080ti we're $980.
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Damn sounds like the middle men are getting rich off the mining craze for sure. The vega chips really are fantastic mining parts.
 
ChadD said:
Damn sounds like the middle men are getting rich off the mining craze for sure. The vega chips really are fantastic mining parts.
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They are but AMD still making bank off moving all the inventory they can make. That said my trip to MC show mining is slowing down. Granted the prices were insane but they had a bunch of every card AMD or Nvidia.
 
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Don't think for a minute that AMD does this becuase they care about gamers, they do it because they don't have the leverage to do the same as nvidia.
 
Stoly said:
Don't think for a minute that AMD does this becuase they care about gamers, they do it because they don't have the leverage to do the same as nvidia.
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So what? Were the roles reversed, people would be cheering for Nvidia to keep AMD in check.

Does it matter if I only drink Coke? I still want Pepsi around.

This only goes to say that if they can go wild with the fuckery, they will. Any of them. So it's nice to have both around, no matter what.
 
BTW I had a BFG Geforce 5900, one of the best cards I've ever owned.
 
Blah. I gave up on trying to feel right when I just went fuck it, I want a gaming experience, so bought a 280 followed up with a 1060 a few months after. Too many years really on the underdog, just like their cpus going nowhere so I bought a 7700.

I remember choice, choice was a 3dfx, GeForce, radeon, S3, powerVR, etc etc etc. Choice was back in the 90's very early 2000's. We haven't had choice in a long time. Choice was also ibm, cyrix, amd, intel, ti, insert everything else.

odditory said:
Has more to do with inertia and consistency over time, and conversely in ATI/AMD's case, the lingering effects of bad impressions or experiences. Example if a customer tolerated ATI/AMD driver headaches for years, then one day gets fed up and buys an Nvidia and sees those headaches immediately disappear, then AMD has probably lost that customer forever - even if they eventually got their act together.

The ability to deliver performance consistently and trouble-free is what elevates a brand.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Going to be a long time if ever I buy ati / amd ever again.
 
Recent rumors suggest Navi is not a high end, and miners will jack up the price anyway, so I don't see myself going AMD anytime soon.
 
Stoly said:
Recent rumors suggest Navi is not a high end, and miners will jack up the price anyway, so I don't see myself going AMD anytime soon.
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Even IF the rumors are right (which is doubtful as the rumor comes from WCCF) we're talking 1080-level performance at $250. So for $500 you'd be talking about above Titan Xp performance in titles that support Crossfire. That would be pretty impressive. Wouldn't do much for AMD's budget-brand imagine, but it would be an insanely huge jump for the sub-$300 category. To put more of a point on this: That would be a card that could handle 4K at medium to high settings in modern AAA titles for under $300.
 
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Derangel said:
Even IF the rumors are right (which is doubtful as the rumor comes from WCCF) we're talking 1080-level performance at $250. So for $500 you'd be talking about above Titan Xp performance in titles that support Crossfire. That would be pretty impressive. Wouldn't do much for AMD's budget-brand imagine, but it would be an insanely huge jump for the sub-$300 category. To put more of a point on this: That would be a card that could handle 4K at medium to high settings in modern AAA titles for under $300.
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If the rumors are true I'd be in for 2. Why because SLi/Crossfire rigs look cool that's why.

Hell 80% of the reason I went x99 is because quad channel memory looks badass with the symmetrical sockets
 
rgMekanic said:
If the rumors are true I'd be in for 2. Why because SLi/Crossfire rigs look cool that's why.

Hell 80% of the reason I went x99 is because quad channel memory looks badass with the symmetrical sockets
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Yeah. Even if it would be a side-grade I'd be really tempted to buy a one or two of them. Especially once waterblocks or after-market cards hit.
 
If AMD came out with a $3000 6 gpu navi that got 200fps in 4k, I would buy it. :eek:
 
rgMekanic said:
And yet there were many years were AMD had the superior products.. but people kept buying Nvidia. Almost as if brand perception is really important.
Click to expand...

More than a few years ago their drivers were a shitshow- AMD did not make the transition to DX10 well. Their CFX drivers were far, far worse...
 
Thanks Kyle for the background on Scott. I'd honestly forgotten how much bigger the playing field was even then. My last ATI card was a Vision Tek. Got it at BB on a black friday sale(the only one I actually went to when they opened). Mostly loved it, made some games run the best I ever saw, and broke a few(too inexperienced at the time to figure out what was causing all the crashes). First time I really got to see things in 1080p at close to 60fps!

https://www.rjltechnologies.com/sho...MIpPLU99HC2gIVCbnACh2yfAOZEAQYASABEgJUCPD_BwE

It was the last card in my Pentium 4 build. Provided some DX10 on XP. First HDMI card I had, and using a t.v. usb stick I was recording some of the first OTA HD Trek TOS remastered broadcasts before we had hddvd or blu-ray, along with PBS Nova and Austin City Limits. Still got that build in a closet. My 1st true build in the sense it was store bought initially(VPR Matrix) and I eventually replaced/upgraded everything but the case over the coarse of nearly 10 years. In some ways, it was feeling like the end of an era in more ways than one when I retired it. Sure games looked better afterwards and present, but not as many hold the appeal for me to go back to like the ones those days.

I've been going a little retro the last couple of nights. PS1/PS2/Atari 800 emulators and just finished playing M.U.L.E for the last couple of hours. Kind of ironic considering how much effort I've put into my current rigs for the hardware demanding games I normally play. I guess the point I think(need more beer) I'm trying to make is that perhaps AMD should leverage their resources with game dev's and help create good games people will love instead of even trying to compete with NV's top tiers(at least for now). If the deck is stacked against then perhaps you should try to change the deck, or at least the game. Sometime's the best graphics aren't what keeps a gamer coming back. I guess its taken me time to realize that.

edit: For people like me that don't really need to replace their GPU's this strategy could work out well as my limited budget would happily go to dev's partners with AMD to help further the cause.
 
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"AMD's back is against the wall with pressure from both GPP and lack of a high-end GPU to compete with Nvidia's upcoming Turing lineup later this year. An appeal to the community is a smart move, but they need to do more."

hit the nail on the head there, I think AMD has alot of people who would even own current Vega GPUS (myself included) If i could find one in Canada at MSRP, but I can't. I am fine if it competes with a 1080 since that what I run now but id like Freesync and 3440x1440 gameplay. but they are not helping their case with servere lack of innovation and performance. If they released this new cpu they speak of that will compete with a 1080 in the next 6 months for the price they said I think it would go over great, especially with the current GPU market. but we know what will happen, it woud sell at twice MSRP and go to miners. If they release it in 1- 1/2 years with 1080 speeds, by then the 3050 or 1350 models are doing to do that from Nvidia and probably cheaper... they are so far behind in the GPU market, at this point Intel is who I am counting on to keep Nvidia in line, not AMD anymore.

will be interesting to see what happens as lack of GPU availability for high end gaming drives people away from pc gaming towards consoles or tablets, when mining dies and theyve lost a good chunk of that customer base, combined with cheaper second hand GPU's many will not want/need the new stuff with so many used 1080ti/Vega cards floating around

here is to hoping ASIC's destory GPU mining. I miss the days when the flagships from both parties traded blows forcing the other to do something or make the next move. Right now Nvidia is just sandbagging because they have no reason to release the new cards, AMD cant compete and Nvidia cant keep the aging 10 series on the shelf thanks to miners... so why would they play their cards now? they could send everyone on Vacation for 2 years and pick up where they left off and still be the market leader with 2 year old tech in the 1080ti.
 
Well done, Kyle. I really hope this inspires more honest and open business practices. They've all crapped in their own beds at some point in the past, but currently, Nvidia is doing the best job of it right now and just needs to stop it. Unfortunately, this kind of thing is supported by a company culture. Most high tech companies I've known have had sharks in charge. So, people need to continue to watchdog these companies because it *will* happen again. Thank God for freedom of the press!

Actually, my fond wish is for CEO's like Huang to have their net worth decimated by class action lawsuits when they support stuff like this. If the company takes the brunt of it but CEO's and upper management leave with a golden parachute, it never stops happening.
 
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