Forbes - It has been two weeks since E3, the world’s largest gaming show, and the final pieces of the game console puzzle are starting to come into place. The public knows what the XBOX One and the PlayStation 4 look like, what they will run, what they won’t, digital rights management and their price. Ironically, I have yet to read or hear exactly why Microsoft and Sony chose AMD silicon to power their new consoles and my goal here is to simply lay it out.
Poor Xbox sales have affected AMD’S bottom line
Oh wow. How surprising! Nvidia overpriced their RTX cards by +100% and AMD instead of offering real competition, decided to join Nvidia in their greedy approach, while not having the same mindshare as Nvidia (sadly) does. The 7900 launch was a marketing disaster. All the reviews were made while the card was not worth the money at all, they lowered the price a bit later on, but not only not enough but also too late and out of "free marketing" window coming along with the new card generation release. Then the geniuses at AMD axed the high-end SKUs with increased cache etc, cause "nobody will buy expensive cards to play games" while Nvidia laughed at them selling their 2000€ 4090s.
Intel had all the mindshare among PC enthusiasts with their CPUs. All it took was a competetive product and good price (Ryzen 7000 series and especially 7800x3d) and guess what? AMD regained the market share in DYI PCs in no time! The same could've have happened with Radeon 5000, Radeon 6000 and Radeon 7000.
But meh. Why bother. Let's cancell high-end RDNA 4 and use the TSMC wafers for AI and then let the clueless "analysts" make their articles about "gaming demand dwingling".
I'm sure low-end, very overpriced and barely faster if not slower RDNA4 will turn things around. It will have AI and RT! Two things nobody asked for, especially not gamers who'd like to use the PC for what's most exciting about PC gaming (VR, high framerate gaming, hi-res gaming).
8000 series will be slow, overpriced and marketed based on its much improved RT/AI... and it will flop badly.
And there will be no sane conclusions made at AMD about that. There will be just one, insane: Gaming is not worth catering to. Let's go into AI/RT instead, what could go wrong..."
That's a complicated question. Depends on what you mean. The pricing at the release date or the pricing planned ahead. They couldn't just suddenly end up in a situation where their existing stock of 6000 cards is suddenly unsellable, but if it was properly rolled out, the prices should be where they were while PC gaming industry was healthy. I recognize the arguments about inflation, higher power draw and PCB/BOM costs, more expensive wafers from TSMC etc. but still, PC gaming needs some sanity to exist and be healthy. Past few years were very unhealthy and dangerous to whole PC gaming. AMD should recognize this market is very good for them as they have advantage in software for gaming and other markets while attractive short term, may be just too difficult to compete at. AI is the modern day gold rush and Nvidia and Intel can easily out-spend AMD on R&D. Meanwhile gaming is tricky for newcomers and Nvidia doesn't seem to care that much about gaming anymore. So I would argue that it should be in AMDs interest to even sell some Radeon SKUs at zero profit, just to prevent the PC gaming from collapsing. Cards like 6400 and 6500 should never exist at their prices. This tier was traditionally "office only" and priced at 50$ in early 2000s. Then we have Radeons 7600 which is not really 6-tier card. Those were traditionally quite performant cards based on wider than 128-bit memory bus. Also 8GB is screaming "low end". So I'd say the 7600 should've been available at below 200$ (+taxes etc.) as soon as possible, at least for some cheaper SKUs.For faster cards, the situation is bad for AMD, because people spending like $400+ are usually fairly knowledgable and demanding. While personally I don't see any value in upscallers and RT for 400-700$ cards, the fact is that especially DLSS is a valuable feature for potential buyers. Therefore, even 7800 and 7900 cards should be significantly cheaper than they currently are. People knew what they were paying for when buying Radeon 9700, 9800, X800, 4870 etc. They were getting gaming experience truly unlike console or low-end PC gaming. By all means, let's have expensive AMD cards for even above $1000, but first, AMD needs to show value. Make the product attractive. PS5 consoles can be bought at 400$. If AMD offers just a slightly better upscalled image on the 400$ GPU, or their 900$ GPU cannot even push 3x as many fps compared to cheap consoles, the pricing acts like cancer on PC gaming. And poor old PC gaming can endure only so much.
I appreciate your rant sir, but it has very little to do with gpus. It is the fact that the PS5 and Xbox are in end cycle before a refresh.
Yes, but also no. AMD let their PC GPU marketshare to shrink by a lot (and accidentally helped the whole market shrink in general due to bad value of PC GPUs over the years) and while their console business may be important here, I'd still argue their profits from GPU division could've been much better if not for mismanagement.
This is something many have argued over the last few years when it comes to AMD. The days of them selling their cards at a slight discount while having a similar offering are over. Its not just a matter of poor drivers anymore, they are behind on everything.
Great post. I went for a Nvidia RTX 3060Ti which was insane value for money when I look at the fidelity and frame rates I can push in most games including new releases. Can't justify spending 3 times what my card cost at the time to get marginal better returns or the big sell of "ray tracing", which is a nice to have feature but hardly essential given what it costs to maintain.
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Well that's gonna happen when you don't really try. I want to support AMD so badly and give Nvidia some actual competition but they don't very much seem interested in challenging, by their own accord. I been waiting for them to attack the GPU segment the same way they took over CPU, but they just seem so content with handing Nvidia the market year after year, and it's happening again this year with their cancelled high end card.
I think you're going to see almost zero interest from AMD or Nvidia on the gaming GPU market. They are all in on AI.
What are smoking? Got to layoff your way to those bonuses. Fire 500 employees right before Christmas. That should get you there.
Well, if you are 48% down in Q4 in your Gaming sector as they are, which in absolute money terms is north of 500M USD, then you are not likely to get at least your quarterly STI, but can be applicable for annual STI. The LTI may be something you are still eligible for, such as RSUs or other equity and benefits, especially if they are based on the company total result rather than your unit. All depends on your contract and AMD's reward system.
Lisa Su took AMD from bankruptcy to one of the best semiconductor companies on the planet. AMD from 2 dollars a share to 147. She can take whatever she wants.
You are not wrong about what she did for AMD and that is remarkable. However, MNCs' Rewards schemes do not work like "take whatever you want, because you performed well in the past".
AMD prcied their cards thinking that they will sell out just like in the mining craze. I suspect reality has hit home when they realized most gamers cannot afford to spend over $500 for a gpu.
AMD has long been the best value option if you're looking for a new GPU. Now even their latest Radeon RX 7000 series is getting cheaper.
In the past yes but last gen amd has gotten cheaper and there new cards are on the horizon making 6k even cheaper.
The arc cards are no longer made by intel but asus/asrock has some the next line battlemage is coming out prices tbd.
Do to the longer software development its always best to go amd over intel if its not to much more money even though intel is a strong gpu i own 2/4 card versions.
Last September, we unleashed AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3)1 on the gaming world, delivering massive FPS improvements in supported games.
So to put 2 and 2 together... FSR 3.1 is releasing later this year and the launch game to support it is Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. In Sony's DevNet documentation it shows Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart as the example for PSSR. PS5 Pro also launches later this year... but there is something else coming too: AMD RDNA 4 Cards (The very same technology thats in the Pro). So, PSSR is either FSR 3.1 or its a direct collaboration with AMD for that builds on FSR 3.1. Somehow they are related. I think PSSR is FSR 3.1 with the bonus of AI... now lets see if RDNA 4 cards also include an AI block.
More details:
FSR 3.1 fixes Frame Generation
If you have a 30 series RTX card you can now use DLSS3 with FSR Frame Generation (No 40 Series required!)
Its Available on all Cards (we assume it will come to console)
Fixes Temporal stability
I've been using a mod that allows dlss frame gen on my 3080 it works on all rtx series. It'll be good not to rely on mods for the future.
I think that the leaks about the 5 Pro would debunk the notion that the two (FSR 3.1 and PSSR) are the same technology. PSSR is a Sony technology.
I wonder how much they fixed the ghosting in dark areas as Nvidia are leaving them in the dust with image quality. Still good that they are improving in big leaps, I'll have to see when the RTX5000 series is released who I go with... at the moment the RTX5000's are sounding like monsters.
Did you see the dell leaks were they are trying to cool cards using over 1k watts of power.
We are going to need 220 lines for next gen pcs lol
As much as I hate supporting Nvidia, AMD just doesn't even try to compete. Their whole business model is to beat Nvidia purely on price. But I'd rather pay for better performance and better features. AMD also doesn't even try to innovate. They just follow Nvidia's lead and make their own version of whatever Nvidia is doing. But they're always 1 or 2 generations behind when it comes to those software/driver innovations, so Nvidia is always miles ahead in quality and performance.
I do a lot of work on photoshop so an Intel Nvidia set up has been the got to because of performance edge, more expensive but far more stable too. Intel also have the edge over AMD processors with better load distribution on the cores, less spikes and jitters. When you're working large format you don't want lag or spikes when you're editing or drawing.
I do think AMD has improved massively though and whist I don't think they threaten Nvidia on the tech side they do make very well priced cards and processors for the power. I'm probably going with a 5080 or 5090 but AMD will get a little side look from me, which is a first in a long time... but like you said they are a generation or two behind at the moment.
While I can't argue for amd gpu, they aren't bad but they aren't great either. The cpu for amd have great. I would argue the 7800x3d as one of the best cpu for gaming right now. Idk about editing so I take ur word for that but gaming amd cpu is a great option these days.
@Goosejuice
I have a 7800X3D. It certainly is great for gaming. Though for video editing, rendering, etc, I think Intel have the advantage from what I remember. I just mean from a GPU standpoint I can't support them.
Interesting read. the SOC design was a huge factor. Nvidia was never an option since they refuse to scale their pricing with production costs over time. Nvidia and their pricing pretty much sent the original Xbox to an early grave.
because it was the cheapest option? AMD always offer better performance for the money than Nvidia but Intel CPUs utterly destroy AMD's CPUs.
I didn't think there were reasons other than AMD submitted a lower bid
Lower cost. I'm ready for PS4 like never before! ^~^
Price/Performance and manufacturing.
Larrabee was considered-too hot/large for performance
Powervr 6 didn't hit performance target
Nvidia was too conservative with licensing fees.
Cell 2 wasn't getting shrunk and was off the roadmap.
Pretty simple choice actually