AMD Gets An "F" On Pricing

EODetroit said:
What's up with the overestimated importance of VR in a mid-range video card? Only third and fourth points had any merit whatsoever.
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Marketing hype, and not just from AMD. VR is the latest and greatest buzzword regarding consumer computing. Just wait till they combine it with "cloud"(although that has been transitioning to "IoT"in some areas).
 
SBSuperfly said:
Any gpu that can run VR well, is a gpu that can run games at high settings with high resolutions and/or can handle gaming on multiple displays. "Can it run VR?" is the new "Can it run Crysis?"
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That's not a bad way to put it haha.
 
andrewaggb said:
I feel like AMD has carried this architecture too long (GCN) without seriously addressing the power consumption.
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What's with people and the damn power consumption all the time? It's not a big deal, at all. These new cards use way less power as it is for the performance they give.

Also, unless you have shitty cooling or have $20 a month for your power bill when has power consumption ever been an issue?

It's ONLY been an issue the moment Nvidia started using it as some marketing thing. Before then no one gave a shit and for a reason, because it didn't matter. Oh my card uses 300 watts and costs me an extra dollar a month! OH NO!
 
trentchau said:
Well they haven't been wrong have they?

Some member on this forum probably lacked pubes the last time amd was top dog.

I want them to be myself but remember recently what happened to one the last billion dollar company that offered a mega cheap product that was traditionally expensive?

The Amazon phone.

Yeah. About that thing.
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Top Dog? If they can compete with a GTX 980 or 980ti at 200-250, they are the top dog in the mid-price cards. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: most people that buy a GPU will spend less than $300. My guess is that most spend under 250.

I fail to understand why a bunch of guys who thought a 980TI, at $600, was the shit a few months ago but a card that may match that performance at 250. 9 months ago, all you'd get for these prices was a GTX 960. This is a huge upgrade for this market (assuming that AMD can deliver).
 
nilepez said:
Top Dog? If they can compete with a GTX 980 or 980ti at 200-250, they are the top dog in the mid-price cards. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: most people that buy a GPU will spend less than $300. My guess is that most spend under 250.

I fail to understand why a bunch of guys who thought a 980TI, at $600, was the shit a few months ago but a card that may match that performance at 250. 9 months ago, all you'd get for these prices was a GTX 960. This is a huge upgrade for this market (assuming that AMD can deliver).
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Being that Asus released a 950 that doesn't use pcie power and that the 1070 uses less power than the 970 but also performs the same as a 980ti. When the 1050 comes out I wouldnt be surprised if it runs the same as a 970/980 while drawing 75 watts.

I understand people's excitement about the 480. But realistically Nvidia is probably already sitting on something that would make the 480 look overpriced.
 
Mut1ny said:
What's with people and the damn power consumption all the time? It's not a big deal, at all. These new cards use way less power as it is for the performance they give.

Also, unless you have shitty cooling or have $20 a month for your power bill when has power consumption ever been an issue?

It's ONLY been an issue the moment Nvidia started using it as some marketing thing. Before then no one gave a shit and for a reason, because it didn't matter. Oh my card uses 300 watts and costs me an extra dollar a month! OH NO!
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I honestly thought the same thing for a while. Since i just overclock and pretty much run things full speed anyways.

Well the last few years I've run five machines for myself. Fiance. Kid and nephews and it's a pleasent surprise to see how much less the power bills have been. Over a summer it saved a $100 or so. Also building the machines didn't need crazy psu. . They are all just sporting cheap five hundred watt evga.
 
Mut1ny said:
What's with people and the damn power consumption all the time? It's not a big deal, at all. These new cards use way less power as it is for the performance they give.

Also, unless you have shitty cooling or have $20 a month for your power bill when has power consumption ever been an issue?

It's ONLY been an issue the moment Nvidia started using it as some marketing thing. Before then no one gave a shit and for a reason, because it didn't matter. Oh my card uses 300 watts and costs me an extra dollar a month! OH NO!
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I am with you. I bought a 1000w pay 5 years ago then everyone switched to lowering power usage on their video cards and my system has ample power left to do whatever it wanted. Who really cares about power savings when it's been proven that it really doesn't save you that much year over ye.
 
I'm very much interested into VR Gaming, I think it might be someday the future of gaming as we know it. There are some problems to overcome though.
 
And to think, somebody actually got paid to write that article. lol.

A+ to AMD, still sticking to their guns and doing what they've been doing for years now. Price/Performance.


Maybe the person that wrote the article should do a little research beforehand.

The majority of gamer's STILL game at 1080p. AMD is marketing to that crowd, which is the better move for AMD since Nvidia 10 series cards are marketed towards the 1440p & 4K niche.
Also, VR is on the rise, so AMD is not only marketing towards the majority, they also market towards the VR niche too.


I'd reather fish in a pond that had many fish to feed me than a pond that only had big fish but is a quarter of the size.
 
Krenum said:
And to think, somebody actually got paid to write that article. lol.


Maybe the person that wrote the article should do a little research beforehand.

The majority of gamer's STILL game at 1080p. AMD is marketing to that crowd, which is the better move for AMD since Nvidia 10 series cards are marketed towards the 1440p & 4K niche.
Also, VR is on the rise, so AMD is not only marketing towards the majority, they also market towards the VR niche too.

I'd reather fish in a pond that had many fish to feed me than a pond that only had big fish but is a quarter of the size.
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But if both ponds have an equal number of fish, wouldn't it be better to choose the smaller pond with the larger fish? :p
 
Wouldn't an analyst focus more on a $229 card for Battlefield 1, The Witcher 3 DLC, etc.?

And Overwatch 4K.
 
azuza001 said:
I am with you. I bought a 1000w pay 5 years ago then everyone switched to lowering power usage on their video cards and my system has ample power left to do whatever it wanted. Who really cares about power savings when it's been proven that it really doesn't save you that much year over ye.
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If you run your machine in a warm area, efficiency = less heat. I know that my home office can easily go up 2 or 3 degrees over the hallway right outside the room.
 
Peter2k said:
Someone is hopeful
Or sarcastic
Not sure


I'd like to believe in AMD, but I'm just not optimistic about a company that seemingly doesn't want to compete at high end

Also a 40% increase in IPC is nice, but from where AMD is starting they better

Also why does everyone believe AMD could make high end parts for cheap

Saw on this forum hope for a 8 core ZEN with performance of Broadwell-E for 200 bucks
Like silicone and R&D is cheaper for AMD
If anything it only gets Intel/Nvidia more in line while costing ~ the same

Time will tell
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You assume that Intel's CPU's aren't properly priced. As long as AMD has Haswell like IPC, I'd be totally happy with that. Skylake and Broadwell are so incremental in performance that it's not worth mentioning it. How much you think it costs Nvidia to manufacture the 1080? That's right, $47.43. That doesn't include Nvidia's R&D budget, but the 1080 GPU is twice the size of the 6600K. Considering the difference in performance between the Skylakes and Haswell's, I don't think there was much R&D spent on it.

Why would AMD offer a cheaper CPU compared to Intel? Cause Intel is hogging the cocaine and hookers for themselves.
 
Has anyone actually double-checked the math from that Motley Fool column?
The author, Ashraf Eassa, did emphasize that the figure came about from guesswork and assumption.

Moreover, his conclusion doesn't even regard the margins as a major player here:

Ashraf Eassa's Motely Fool Column said:
However, at this point, I feel comfortable in assuming that as NVIDIA transitions its product lineup from 28-nanometer parts to 16-nanometer parts, there should be a minimal margin impact. By far the biggest driver of NVIDIA's gross profit margins, be they positive or negative, will likely be the competitiveness of its products in the marketplace.
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I'd have to agree that VR is likely to be a fad reguardless of how good it is or isn't due to install base being limited. Look at game developers and the WII U for example. A solid performing 200 dollar price point card is the sweet spot in the market. AMD may surprise us all this round.
 
Mav451 said:
Has anyone actually double-checked the math from that Motley Fool column?
The author, Ashraf Eassa, did emphasize that the figure came about from guesswork and assumption.

Moreover, his conclusion doesn't even regard the margins as a major player here:
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If you happen to know the true cost, let us know. He also believes his assumptions are realistic. That's based on what he thinks is the defect rate of making these chips, which is the only value we truly don't know.

I should note that these estimates involve a lot of guesswork and assumptions, and are done in an attempt to provide a relative cost comparison between the two chips under certain assumptions (that I believe are realistic).
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Steve said:
  • The real winners of the price war will be the PC makers and ‘maybe’ the consumer. We call this the ‘death spiral’ of pricing;
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Oh no? For shame?

Steve said:
  • AMD is in no financial position to start a price war! The article mentions they are losing money and ‘expect to return to profitability in the second half of the year.’
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They are about to receive 1.2 Billion dollars from Intel? In addition to their recent success in the console gaming market?
 
Mut1ny said:
What's with people and the damn power consumption all the time? It's not a big deal, at all. These new cards use way less power as it is for the performance they give.

Also, unless you have shitty cooling or have $20 a month for your power bill when has power consumption ever been an issue?

It's ONLY been an issue the moment Nvidia started using it as some marketing thing. Before then no one gave a shit and for a reason, because it didn't matter. Oh my card uses 300 watts and costs me an extra dollar a month! OH NO!
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Power consumption and heat may not be as much of an important consideration to the enthusiast segment, but it is to the real volume buyers: Joe Schmoe consumer and business/enterprise.

Typical consumers tend to lightly panic if their new $1500 desktop PC they got at Best Buy gets above mildly warm and the phone calls to tech support start flooding in.

For the business/enterprise segment, running hundreds to thousands of computers (especially content creation workstations) means a rather large monthly power bill. Less power consumption and heat output has been an area of focus for decades and decades now.
 
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DejaWiz said:
For the business/enterprise segment, running hundreds to thousands of computers (especially content creation workstations) means a rather large monthly power bill. Less power consumption and heat output has been an area of focus for decades and decades now.
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For business/enterprise, yes power and heat are a concern. Mainly because their machines run 24/7 and cost extra to cool. A person at home who runs games 2-3 hours a day at max, probably will see an extra 3-5 dollar difference per year, at best. Now laptops it matters for obvious reasons.
 
DukenukemX said:
For business/enterprise, yes power and heat are a concern. Mainly because their machines run 24/7 and cost extra to cool. A person at home who runs games 2-3 hours a day at max, probably will see an extra 3-5 dollar difference per year, at best. Now laptops it matters for obvious reasons.
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It's all a trickle-down effect. When a CPU manuf makes an enterprise-class processor (their profit bread and butter) that is power efficient, has great IPC, and enough clock speed to not get saturated/bogged when getting hammered on, then the processors derived from it for the consumer desktop and mobile segments sees those benefits, as well.
 
Nividia and AMD both get an F in my book. I have a feeling that prices will actually continue to climb thanks to the UK.
 
Krenum said:
And to think, somebody actually got paid to write that article. lol.

A+ to AMD, still sticking to their guns and doing what they've been doing for years now. Price/Performance.


Maybe the person that wrote the article should do a little research beforehand.

The majority of gamer's STILL game at 1080p. AMD is marketing to that crowd, which is the better move for AMD since Nvidia 10 series cards are marketed towards the 1440p & 4K niche.
Also, VR is on the rise, so AMD is not only marketing towards the majority, they also market towards the VR niche too.


I'd reather fish in a pond that had many fish to feed me than a pond that only had big fish but is a quarter of the size.
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I don't get this statement. Nvidia does cater to all gamers from what I've seen. Just like amd does.

On steam the 960, a card that's sub $200 and almost two years old that specifically caters to 1080p, has the second highest share on active video cards at 2.4%. . What's interesting is a $350 card (geforce 970) completely dwarfs everyone else despite the price.
None the less at this active point yes amd would win the $200 war on paper. I really do hope the launch goes well and they take a part of the share nvidia has. But right now according to the chart amd doesn't breach the top ten in that active chart. It would be lovely to see the 480 break the top ten.
 
Yet another bullshit article trying to paint AMD in a bad light. I mean lower prices are a bad thing, right? I just saw a local retailer selling 1080 for 800 euros. I laughed at their faces
 
dgz said:
Yet another bullshit article trying to paint AMD in a bad light. I mean lower prices are a bad thing, right? I just saw a local retailer selling 1080 for 800 euros. I laughed at their faces
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Yes lower prices are a bad thing. Immediately it's a benefit to consumers. But what if the company falls. Or support suffers because quality of service decreases. A company isn't just the product they release but also the support the service they provide.

In am attempt to make a splash. Did amd shoot itself in the knee when the 480 could well for 220 instead of 200? I don't know but if they sold 750,000 units which is reasonable they just short changed themselves $15,000,000 and would have to sell 75,000 more units at $200 to make the difference.
 
Sorry, my dick doesn't get hard when nvidia asks for more money and I give it to them. Not going to argue with you if don't feel the same way.
 
dgz said:
Sorry, my dick doesn't get hard when nvidia asks for more money and I give it to them. Not going to argue with you if don't feel the same way.
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With that analogy it sounds like you dick will get hard with a burger King value meal.
 
tetris42 said:
This is dumb. AMD is falling behind in performance, if they were to price their cards higher, they wouldn't be competitive and would lose even more money. They're in a non-ideal solution, but this analyst sounds like she doesn't know what she's talking about. It's better to sell ten cards at $200 than 2 cards at $300. AMD is taking the least-worst route given their current predicament. This analyst wants them to just pretend like their problems aren't even happening. I guess I shouldn't be surprised from an economics expert!
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The problem is this is what AMD has been doing in the CPU segment for years. Can't go after the high end so they sell ten CPUs at $200 instead of 2 CPUs at $300 (or scale to however you see fit).

Hasn't been working out too well for the past what? Near decade?

The least worst route is the kind of strategy that's spelled a slow death for a great many tech companies. Sometimes you gotta roll the dice for longshot chance.

At least their stock price is out of penny status finally, but those are short term gains.
 
Krenum said:
Not if you sell a quality product.
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Which is what I believe all of us is hoping for. . It would be wonderful if the 480 is an amazing quality product. Enough that the successor of it will command a larger price and people will still consume it.

As much people hate Nvidia for it. We can't deny that people are willing to spend more on a product they deem better. Look at the 1080 which commands a $850 average price. Well over msrp.

Yeah some people are offended it's a higher price. But no one is holding a gun to your head to buy it. And also since a new generation of card comes out doesn't mean the old gen is obsolete.


People probably are excited at the idea at a $200 card because they see the value. Long term though amd should probably raise prices to make that extra to keep themselves more solvent.
 
Neurofreeze said:
The problem is this is what AMD has been doing in the CPU segment for years. Can't go after the high end so they sell ten CPUs at $200 instead of 2 CPUs at $300 (or scale to however you see fit).

Hasn't been working out too well for the past what? Near decade?

The least worst route is the kind of strategy that's spelled a slow death for a great many tech companies. Sometimes you gotta roll the dice for longshot chance.

At least their stock price is out of penny status finally, but those are short term gains.
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Oh I'm not saying it's a GOOD strategy, I'm saying that's the only one they have. What this does is hopefully buy time until they can get Zen CPUs out or an even faster GPU. You say sometimes you gotta roll the dice for a longshot chance, they don't have that option. Rolling the dice would be something like Nintendo with the Wii or Microsoft buying Minecraft. Something risky, but is untried and may pay off. They currently have nothing like that. What they need is faster cards. Since they don't have that as an option, they can either price them as though Nvidia isn't going to eat their lunch with the 1000 series (and 900 series price drops) and get murdered, or they can go the slow death route with releasing them at a cheaper price so they at least stay in the midrange / budget market and keep moving units. Again, it at least buys them time. I'm not seeing a third option here, nor do I see them having success if they were to price their cards higher.
 
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