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Anyone who thinks Nvidia was being anti-competitive here is delusional. There is no competition in the GPU market simply because there are no competitors. Nvidi

Anyone who thinks Nvidia was being anti-competitive here is delusional. There is no competition in the GPU market simply because there are no competitors. Nvidia GPUs are so far beyond AMD in terms of performance that they are qualitatively different products, which serve entirely different markets. The market could be called a duopoloy at best, but any notion of free market competition is absurd when you factor the sunk cost of trying to catch up with Nvidia. We're not talking about commodity widget makers vying for market share here. This is a company at the absolute forefront of computer science and engineering, pushing the boundaries of what is possible for humanity.

vvanders 9y ago
> pushing the boundaries of what is possible for humanity. Oh please. There's a ton of competition in the GPU space, heck Nvidia isn't even in one of the more popular modern consoles. There's other GPU markets as well where Nvidia is far from the dominant player.
- aphextron 9y ago
  Who? Who else is selling top end consumer GPUs?
  - wmf 9y ago
    Sure, there's no competition for the 1080 Ti, Titans, Quadros, and Teslas but those are a small fraction of the market. For other GPUs, AMD and NVidia are pretty evenly matched.
    - aphextron 9y ago
      >Sure, there's no competition for the 1080 Ti, Titans, Quadros, and Teslas but those are a small fraction of the market. For other GPUs, AMD and NVidia are pretty evenly matched. This is precisely my point. If you are in the market for a top end consumer GPU, there is only one choice. It's not a matter of competition, no other company has an even remotely viable product.
      - wmf 9y ago
        That's not an interesting point, and as someone else pointed out you moved the goalposts from no competition in GPUs to no competition in top end consumer GPU. It does sadden me to see NVidia acting like a sore winner like Intel and Microsoft before it. I suppose they won't stop until they have 97% market share (they need to keep AMD alive to preserve the appearance of competition).
  - vvanders 9y ago
    > no competition in the GPU market There will be no goalpost moving here. AMD, ARM, Qualcomm and PowerVR all build compelling GPU solutions.
    - lightedman 9y ago
      I'd like to see a PowerVR, or Qualcomm GPU that I can slap inside my 8th gen i3 right now, please.
    - aphextron 9y ago
      Ok, so go build a gaming rig with an ARM GPU My point from the very beginning is that there is only one viable option for a top end consumer GPU, as would be desired by the gaming community.
- seabrookmx 9y ago
  > heck Nvidia isn't even in one of the more popular modern consoles I don't agree with OP, but NVidia's Tegra _does_ power the Nintendo Switch. And if you don't think it's "one of the more popular modern consoles" you haven't seen it's sales numbers.
  - vvanders 9y ago
    I was actually referring to the XBoxOne which uses an AMD GPU. In the mobile space Nvidia has been third to PowerVR and Adreno for a long time and has only recently started closing that gap. In that space mW/FLOP is almost as important as raw power.
    - seabrookmx 9y ago
      Oh I get it. I read it as "not in any one of the current consoles". XBox One and the PS4 use AMD CPU and GPU (basically modified AMD desktop chips with beefy on-die graphics). Nintendo's last gen console was PPC (from IBM) with an AMD GPU. So since 2012ish AMD has been killing it in the console space. NVidia needed that win with the Switch. Its a good fit for Tegra IMO.
mieseratte 9y ago
> The market could be called a duopoloy at best, but any notion of free market competition is absurd when you factor the sunk cost of trying to catch up with Nvidia. A duopoly is bad, but better than a monopoly and anti-competitive practices are still anti-competitive practices. You don't get to flout the law and do something bad just because the market currently sucks.
seabrookmx 9y ago
> This is a company at the absolute forefront of computer science and engineering And they do their work at a crazy intense level! /s They're resting on their laurels in the gaming market (no new architecture since 2016) and do dominate the high throughput (and high power consumption) GPU space utilized by deep learning/AI. But as noted by other commenters this is only part of the GPU market. Qualcomm ships a hell of a lot more Adrenos than NVidia ships Tegras. The Tegra brand is 10 years old and they haven't moved in volume until the release of the Nintendo Switch.
tmd83 9y ago
Yes Nvidia is on the lead very strongly right now. So tell me again why do they need to depend on ASUS and other brands to highlight their product and remove those branding from competition? That is doubly morally repugnant to me. Nvidia has some fascinating technology, it's fun to read about the architectural differences/choices between them and AMD and inspiration each take from the other. But NVidia has always played the bully with it's position. It could very well be AMD would have done the same if they had the lead. But that doesn't mean one has to excuse NVidia bullying just because they have good technology.
NullPrefix 9y ago
They still don't have a decent open source driver for linux/bsd. No, nouveau doesn't count as decent when compared to AMD / Intel. Whatever hardware advantage Nvidia is offering is pretty much useless without drivers.

vvanders 9y ago

> pushing the boundaries of what is possible for humanity. Oh please. There's a ton of competition in the GPU space, heck Nvidia isn't even in one of the more popular modern consoles. There's other GPU markets as well where Nvidia is far from the dominant player.

aphextron 9y ago
Who? Who else is selling top end consumer GPUs?
- wmf 9y ago
  Sure, there's no competition for the 1080 Ti, Titans, Quadros, and Teslas but those are a small fraction of the market. For other GPUs, AMD and NVidia are pretty evenly matched.
  - aphextron 9y ago
    >Sure, there's no competition for the 1080 Ti, Titans, Quadros, and Teslas but those are a small fraction of the market. For other GPUs, AMD and NVidia are pretty evenly matched. This is precisely my point. If you are in the market for a top end consumer GPU, there is only one choice. It's not a matter of competition, no other company has an even remotely viable product.
    - wmf 9y ago
      That's not an interesting point, and as someone else pointed out you moved the goalposts from no competition in GPUs to no competition in top end consumer GPU. It does sadden me to see NVidia acting like a sore winner like Intel and Microsoft before it. I suppose they won't stop until they have 97% market share (they need to keep AMD alive to preserve the appearance of competition).
- vvanders 9y ago
  > no competition in the GPU market There will be no goalpost moving here. AMD, ARM, Qualcomm and PowerVR all build compelling GPU solutions.
  - lightedman 9y ago
    I'd like to see a PowerVR, or Qualcomm GPU that I can slap inside my 8th gen i3 right now, please.
  - aphextron 9y ago
    Ok, so go build a gaming rig with an ARM GPU My point from the very beginning is that there is only one viable option for a top end consumer GPU, as would be desired by the gaming community.
seabrookmx 9y ago
> heck Nvidia isn't even in one of the more popular modern consoles I don't agree with OP, but NVidia's Tegra _does_ power the Nintendo Switch. And if you don't think it's "one of the more popular modern consoles" you haven't seen it's sales numbers.
- vvanders 9y ago
  I was actually referring to the XBoxOne which uses an AMD GPU. In the mobile space Nvidia has been third to PowerVR and Adreno for a long time and has only recently started closing that gap. In that space mW/FLOP is almost as important as raw power.
  - seabrookmx 9y ago
    Oh I get it. I read it as "not in any one of the current consoles". XBox One and the PS4 use AMD CPU and GPU (basically modified AMD desktop chips with beefy on-die graphics). Nintendo's last gen console was PPC (from IBM) with an AMD GPU. So since 2012ish AMD has been killing it in the console space. NVidia needed that win with the Switch. Its a good fit for Tegra IMO.

mieseratte 9y ago

> The market could be called a duopoloy at best, but any notion of free market competition is absurd when you factor the sunk cost of trying to catch up with Nvidia. A duopoly is bad, but better than a monopoly and anti-competitive practices are still anti-competitive practices. You don't get to flout the law and do something bad just because the market currently sucks.

seabrookmx 9y ago

> This is a company at the absolute forefront of computer science and engineering And they do their work at a crazy intense level! /s They're resting on their laurels in the gaming market (no new architecture since 2016) and do dominate the high throughput (and high power consumption) GPU space utilized by deep learning/AI. But as noted by other commenters this is only part of the GPU market. Qualcomm ships a hell of a lot more Adrenos than NVidia ships Tegras. The Tegra brand is 10 years old and they haven't moved in volume until the release of the Nintendo Switch.

tmd83 9y ago

Yes Nvidia is on the lead very strongly right now. So tell me again why do they need to depend on ASUS and other brands to highlight their product and remove those branding from competition? That is doubly morally repugnant to me. Nvidia has some fascinating technology, it's fun to read about the architectural differences/choices between them and AMD and inspiration each take from the other. But NVidia has always played the bully with it's position. It could very well be AMD would have done the same if they had the lead. But that doesn't mean one has to excuse NVidia bullying just because they have good technology.

NullPrefix 9y ago

They still don't have a decent open source driver for linux/bsd. No, nouveau doesn't count as decent when compared to AMD / Intel. Whatever hardware advantage Nvidia is offering is pretty much useless without drivers.