4 ms·

I don't remember it being all that cutthroat tbh. 3dfx was arguably the only game in down and ATi was it's whipping boy. Matrox was over in the corner saying

I don't remember it being all that cutthroat tbh. 3dfx was arguably the only game in down and ATi was it's whipping boy. Matrox was over in the corner saying "look nah two monitors at once!" 3dfx stumbled right as nVidia dropped the GeForce and blew everything away. ATi became nVidia's whipping boy and Matrox just added the ability to drive more monitors. I mean aside from not knowing if Matrox is still around, not much has changed from what I can see.

landryraccoon 6y ago
You just described a space with 4 competitors fighting for the same market. How could it be anything other than cutthroat? GPUs are not the kind of space where it’s easy for new companies to enter. It very much was a winner takes all market.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  > It very much was a winner takes all market. Of course. The multi billion dollar market is just too small for more than one company. Nvidia is just biding it’s time on ~20% market share until it can put the finishing moves on the other 9 major vendors.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- cptskippy 6y ago
  Cutthroat usually means something like unprincipled or ruthless competition. When 3DFX and now Nvidia were on top, there was no assailing them. You exist in a position they allow you to exist. Perhaps the competition between 3DFX and ATi or Nvidia and AMD could be described as cutthroat but the other "competitiors" in the space couldn't even compete and eventually they all just pivoted into other things without anyone noticing or caring. It's not unlike the x86 processor market. Companies like Via and Transmeta existed but they never were any serious competition to Intel or AMD.
wyldfire 6y ago
ATI/AMD remains nearly the only competitor nvidia has in the discrete GPU space. But we started out with 3dfx, S3, nvidia, ati.
- phonon 6y ago
  PowerVR, Matrox, Trident, Bitboys Oy, 3Dlabs, Rendition, Intel740...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - danieldk 6y ago
    SiS also had 3D graphics chips. Tseng Labs was probably one of the earliest victims of the 3D GPUs wars, having developed but never completed the ET6300. PowerVR still exists and is seems successful in the mobile market (having provided Apple's GPUs until A10).
    - nl 6y ago
      Oh wow I had a Tseng Labs T4000(?) on my second Linux computer! I forgot about them!
    - opencl 6y ago
      Imgtech/PowerVR was successful in the mobile market until Apple stopped buying their GPUs. Now they have practically no mobile customers though they're still reasonably successful in the automotive market.
      - dogma1138 6y ago
        PowerVR died when Mali became a viable GPU, it was also much less Apple than Qualcomm switching to Mali and then to reference ARM cores in general.
        ethbr0 6y ago
nl 6y ago
Yeah there's a lot more fights NVidia has had. They spent a lot of time and money first building motherboard chipsets[1] with on-board GPUs for AMD CPUs only to have CMD buy ATI. Then they started a program to build their own x86 CPU[2] which Intel sued them over[3]. There was a counter suite, and the EU settlement around the same time and Intel ended up paying NVidia $1.5B3[3] which was often read a win for NVidia. Of course in retrospect it gave Intel another 10 years of CPU domination. So then NVidia announced they were building a desktop ARM processor[5]. That went pretty much nowhere. So then there was their mobile play (the Tegra)[6]. That was supposed to let them dominate mobile phones, and went just about as well as their launch partner phone (the Microsoft Kin). It has found use in robotics (the NVidia Jetson series) and cars (the Telsa model 3) though. So they've lost a bunch of fights, and outside GPUs it really has been cut throat. [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/828 https://www.anandtech.com/show/828 [2] https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11570/nvidia_announces_x86_cpu_plans_to_investors/index.html https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11570/nvidia_announces_x86_cp... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-nvidia/intel-pays-nvidia-1-5-billion-in-chip-dispute-idUSTRE7095U120110111 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-nvidia/intel-pays-n... [4] https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia-more-money-fewer-problems-no-x86/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidi... [5] https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-05-nvidia-announces-project-denver- https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-05-nvidia-announces-project... arm-cpu-for-the-desktop.html [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra
- antpls 6y ago
  Note that Tesla does not use NVIDIA anymore. https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-takes-aim-at-teslas-custom-gpu-claims/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-takes-aim-at-teslas-cus...
- Impossible 6y ago
  FYI, Nintendo Switch is Tegra based as well. 61 million units isn't bad, and there are significantly more Tegras in use in Switch consoles than in Jetson boards or even Telsas (~1 million).
  - 6y ago

landryraccoon 6y ago

You just described a space with 4 competitors fighting for the same market. How could it be anything other than cutthroat? GPUs are not the kind of space where it’s easy for new companies to enter. It very much was a winner takes all market.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
> It very much was a winner takes all market. Of course. The multi billion dollar market is just too small for more than one company. Nvidia is just biding it’s time on ~20% market share until it can put the finishing moves on the other 9 major vendors.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cptskippy 6y ago
Cutthroat usually means something like unprincipled or ruthless competition. When 3DFX and now Nvidia were on top, there was no assailing them. You exist in a position they allow you to exist. Perhaps the competition between 3DFX and ATi or Nvidia and AMD could be described as cutthroat but the other "competitiors" in the space couldn't even compete and eventually they all just pivoted into other things without anyone noticing or caring. It's not unlike the x86 processor market. Companies like Via and Transmeta existed but they never were any serious competition to Intel or AMD.

wyldfire 6y ago

ATI/AMD remains nearly the only competitor nvidia has in the discrete GPU space. But we started out with 3dfx, S3, nvidia, ati.

phonon 6y ago
PowerVR, Matrox, Trident, Bitboys Oy, 3Dlabs, Rendition, Intel740...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- danieldk 6y ago
  SiS also had 3D graphics chips. Tseng Labs was probably one of the earliest victims of the 3D GPUs wars, having developed but never completed the ET6300. PowerVR still exists and is seems successful in the mobile market (having provided Apple's GPUs until A10).
  - nl 6y ago
    Oh wow I had a Tseng Labs T4000(?) on my second Linux computer! I forgot about them!
  - opencl 6y ago
    Imgtech/PowerVR was successful in the mobile market until Apple stopped buying their GPUs. Now they have practically no mobile customers though they're still reasonably successful in the automotive market.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      PowerVR died when Mali became a viable GPU, it was also much less Apple than Qualcomm switching to Mali and then to reference ARM cores in general.
      - ethbr0 6y ago

nl 6y ago

Yeah there's a lot more fights NVidia has had. They spent a lot of time and money first building motherboard chipsets[1] with on-board GPUs for AMD CPUs only to have CMD buy ATI. Then they started a program to build their own x86 CPU[2] which Intel sued them over[3]. There was a counter suite, and the EU settlement around the same time and Intel ended up paying NVidia $1.5B3[3] which was often read a win for NVidia. Of course in retrospect it gave Intel another 10 years of CPU domination. So then NVidia announced they were building a desktop ARM processor[5]. That went pretty much nowhere. So then there was their mobile play (the Tegra)[6]. That was supposed to let them dominate mobile phones, and went just about as well as their launch partner phone (the Microsoft Kin). It has found use in robotics (the NVidia Jetson series) and cars (the Telsa model 3) though. So they've lost a bunch of fights, and outside GPUs it really has been cut throat. [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/828 https://www.anandtech.com/show/828 [2] https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11570/nvidia_announces_x86_cpu_plans_to_investors/index.html https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11570/nvidia_announces_x86_cp... [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-nvidia/intel-pays-nvidia-1-5-billion-in-chip-dispute-idUSTRE7095U120110111 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-nvidia/intel-pays-n... [4] https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidia-more-money-fewer-problems-no-x86/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/4122/intel-settles-with-nvidi... [5] https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-05-nvidia-announces-project-denver- https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-05-nvidia-announces-project... arm-cpu-for-the-desktop.html [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra

antpls 6y ago
Note that Tesla does not use NVIDIA anymore. https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-takes-aim-at-teslas-custom-gpu-claims/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-takes-aim-at-teslas-cus...
Impossible 6y ago
FYI, Nintendo Switch is Tegra based as well. 61 million units isn't bad, and there are significantly more Tegras in use in Switch consoles than in Jetson boards or even Telsas (~1 million).
- 6y ago