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This is cool without a doubt. However it's fairly well understood that Nvidia have gfx's tech about 5 years ahead of current market level. This allows them to e

This is cool without a doubt. However it's fairly well understood that Nvidia have gfx's tech about 5 years ahead of current market level. This allows them to eek out small increments to customers and stay ahead of the curve. It's a smart move, and model used by many of the big hardware manufactures (Intel for example). However VR has forced their hand to release a significant upgrade. So if VR turns out to be nothing more than a trend that we forget about for another 20 years, at least it results in some amazing graphics cards. Just not sure there's any PC focused games developers left to push these cards...

Roritharr 10y ago
I've always heard these "conspiracy" rumors since highschool. They never made sense to me because of competition... I can't believe that they have the engineers formerly known as ATI that far in the rear view mirror especially since the manufacturing processes everyone in Silicon works with are the same. So where does this "fairly well understood" assumption come from?
- xedarius 10y ago
  If you think of it as a cash flow it helps. I remember the first Nvidia card I was given (as you needed to test your game on a variety of graphics cards). This is back in the day of 3DFX, PowerGL, you know when there was actual competition in the market. The nVidia card blew them all away, they destroyed the competition. So how do you continue to grow revenue after you've destroyed the competition? Invitation, but not too much (what Apple does now, and very well).
  - waspleg 10y ago
    Seems like you made some enemies with the truth. Nothing has come out for several years and the prices on the high end cards haven't moved an inch because AMD had nothing to compete with. Nvidia absolutely sits on tech and milks everything and always has - markets where there is 0 competition always do this; see local cable co monopolies for great examples.
- arca_vorago 10y ago
  Heres the deal, now both Intel and AMD are operating on 14nm 16nm, things are going to rebalance out in both cpu and gpu markets. After much deliberation, I have decided to wait for Zen for all my future builds, because I have this strong feeling AMD is about to be back and stronger than ever before. Basically, Intel was ahead of AMD(ATI), but not anymore... I welcome more competition in the market either way.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    Because AMD cut linux support for their mid-range GPU's 2 or 3 years in after their release they can royally go fuck themselves. They would really need to do something groundbreaking for me to even consider them. Meanwhile im on Nvidia 460GT playing Witcher 3 on high settings (yes, sometimes cutscenes(of all the things, huh) stutter at the beginning, but otherwise for a 2010 GPU is runs ~60fps) , still getting updates, linux "Just Werks(TM)" In a year I'll prolly upgrade...
    - omegaham 10y ago
      I'm dealing with this right now - I (foolishly) bought a Radeon 390 instead of an Nvidia card of the same price, and the Linux drivers for it are complete clown shoes. Hell, Ubuntu 16 doesn't even have fglrx. The open-source drivers kinda-sorta work, but they're definitely not good for gaming, and I get a whole bunch of tearing.
      - nhaehnle 10y ago
        I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues with gaming on the open-source driver. May I ask where the issues are specifically? We're still working the rough edges of OpenGL 4.3 support, so some of the very latest games are going to have issues because of that. Apart from that, I do think we're pretty good at fixing bugs that are actually reported to us, and the (few) places where we're behind in performance are slowly getting better as well.
        onli 10y ago
Retric 10y ago
The cost of sitting on that R&D would be huge and ridiculously wasteful. Instead it takes a long time from building a proof of concept in a lab to selling millions of the things for a few hundred dollars. Often it's the other way, they can make a few 'super ultra' cards but nowhere near enough to meet demand. So they price them as 'Halo' items and more or less instantly sell out for months. But, in theory if you can get that card it is the 'fastest' for a little while.
klagermkii 10y ago
There is no benefit to NVIDIA holding back on perf/W improvements: * It would make all the cards more expensive with better cooling and better VRMs need. * It would lock them out of much needed laptop wins where they face real pressure to prove they're even needed, as well as Intel with Iris Pro. * It would harm them in their GPGPU ambitions that is very perf/W sensitive. There is no benefit to them holding back on die area/perf because that just directly hurts them in their own margins and makes chip fabrication more risky. The only performance I could see them leaving on the table is to make a bigger chip, and in the previous generation they covered that with the move from the GTX 980 to the GTX 980 Ti. And that was 9 months later (not 5 years) to put out pretty much the biggest 28nm die they could.
Synaesthesia 10y ago
I don't buy it, if they're so far ahead of the game, why aren't they crushing AMD like Intel did with CPU's? We have AMD still largely competitive in the GPU space, making money and in important devices like both major gaming consoles, Apple Macbook Pros and iMacs.
- BuckRogers 10y ago
  They are crushing them. CPUs is a different market and once your general architecture is not competitive you are going to fall off harder since servers don't have as wide of a performance range to cover. When AMD dropped off in the CPU market, no one was interested in their architecture at all because it was just inferior from top to bottom of the performance range. Versus the GPU market where they had some value still in their low to midrange products. That said, AMD are behind in the GPU game too. It's not like things are improving. http://www.fudzilla.com/images/amd_versus.JPG http://www.fudzilla.com/images/amd_versus.JPG

Roritharr 10y ago

I've always heard these "conspiracy" rumors since highschool. They never made sense to me because of competition... I can't believe that they have the engineers formerly known as ATI that far in the rear view mirror especially since the manufacturing processes everyone in Silicon works with are the same. So where does this "fairly well understood" assumption come from?

xedarius 10y ago
If you think of it as a cash flow it helps. I remember the first Nvidia card I was given (as you needed to test your game on a variety of graphics cards). This is back in the day of 3DFX, PowerGL, you know when there was actual competition in the market. The nVidia card blew them all away, they destroyed the competition. So how do you continue to grow revenue after you've destroyed the competition? Invitation, but not too much (what Apple does now, and very well).
- waspleg 10y ago
  Seems like you made some enemies with the truth. Nothing has come out for several years and the prices on the high end cards haven't moved an inch because AMD had nothing to compete with. Nvidia absolutely sits on tech and milks everything and always has - markets where there is 0 competition always do this; see local cable co monopolies for great examples.
arca_vorago 10y ago
Heres the deal, now both Intel and AMD are operating on 14nm 16nm, things are going to rebalance out in both cpu and gpu markets. After much deliberation, I have decided to wait for Zen for all my future builds, because I have this strong feeling AMD is about to be back and stronger than ever before. Basically, Intel was ahead of AMD(ATI), but not anymore... I welcome more competition in the market either way.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  Because AMD cut linux support for their mid-range GPU's 2 or 3 years in after their release they can royally go fuck themselves. They would really need to do something groundbreaking for me to even consider them. Meanwhile im on Nvidia 460GT playing Witcher 3 on high settings (yes, sometimes cutscenes(of all the things, huh) stutter at the beginning, but otherwise for a 2010 GPU is runs ~60fps) , still getting updates, linux "Just Werks(TM)" In a year I'll prolly upgrade...
  - omegaham 10y ago
    I'm dealing with this right now - I (foolishly) bought a Radeon 390 instead of an Nvidia card of the same price, and the Linux drivers for it are complete clown shoes. Hell, Ubuntu 16 doesn't even have fglrx. The open-source drivers kinda-sorta work, but they're definitely not good for gaming, and I get a whole bunch of tearing.
    - nhaehnle 10y ago
      I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues with gaming on the open-source driver. May I ask where the issues are specifically? We're still working the rough edges of OpenGL 4.3 support, so some of the very latest games are going to have issues because of that. Apart from that, I do think we're pretty good at fixing bugs that are actually reported to us, and the (few) places where we're behind in performance are slowly getting better as well.
      - onli 10y ago

Retric 10y ago

The cost of sitting on that R&D would be huge and ridiculously wasteful. Instead it takes a long time from building a proof of concept in a lab to selling millions of the things for a few hundred dollars. Often it's the other way, they can make a few 'super ultra' cards but nowhere near enough to meet demand. So they price them as 'Halo' items and more or less instantly sell out for months. But, in theory if you can get that card it is the 'fastest' for a little while.

klagermkii 10y ago

There is no benefit to NVIDIA holding back on perf/W improvements: * It would make all the cards more expensive with better cooling and better VRMs need. * It would lock them out of much needed laptop wins where they face real pressure to prove they're even needed, as well as Intel with Iris Pro. * It would harm them in their GPGPU ambitions that is very perf/W sensitive. There is no benefit to them holding back on die area/perf because that just directly hurts them in their own margins and makes chip fabrication more risky. The only performance I could see them leaving on the table is to make a bigger chip, and in the previous generation they covered that with the move from the GTX 980 to the GTX 980 Ti. And that was 9 months later (not 5 years) to put out pretty much the biggest 28nm die they could.

Synaesthesia 10y ago

I don't buy it, if they're so far ahead of the game, why aren't they crushing AMD like Intel did with CPU's? We have AMD still largely competitive in the GPU space, making money and in important devices like both major gaming consoles, Apple Macbook Pros and iMacs.

BuckRogers 10y ago
They are crushing them. CPUs is a different market and once your general architecture is not competitive you are going to fall off harder since servers don't have as wide of a performance range to cover. When AMD dropped off in the CPU market, no one was interested in their architecture at all because it was just inferior from top to bottom of the performance range. Versus the GPU market where they had some value still in their low to midrange products. That said, AMD are behind in the GPU game too. It's not like things are improving. http://www.fudzilla.com/images/amd_versus.JPG http://www.fudzilla.com/images/amd_versus.JPG