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From Nvidia's history of working with AIBs, Sony, Apple, the Linux community, and probably many more, they seem to be a very hard company to work with. They hav

From Nvidia's history of working with AIBs, Sony, Apple, the Linux community, and probably many more, they seem to be a very hard company to work with. They have an idea of what the product looks like and it's their way or the highway. I wonder if this new department will change that. If it doesn't, it won't amount to much.

kevingadd 3y ago
To be fair, it seems like all the game consoles that shipped with NV chips in them have been fairly successful, or their failures were explicitly not related to the parts of the silicon that NV designed. Other than perhaps the jailbreak issues the launch Switch had... And Geforce mobile parts are still quite popular in laptops. It makes me wonder how much of the difficulty is "hard company to work with" and how much is just "weird constraints make integration a pain" - I still don't know if they don't want to open their drivers, or if they can't for IP reasons.
- ksec 3y ago
  > all the game consoles For Nintendo Switch. they picked it up was mostly due to Nvidia being very desperate for a win, willing to sell it for cheap, using older technology and node all while having very little driver support. ( Also I remember Jensen loves Nintendo ) > I still don't know if they don't want to open their drivers Drivers for GPU is pretty much like CUDA for GPGPU. It is where 99% of the value comes from.
aurareturn 3y ago
I don't think AIBs had a hard time working with Nvidia. If you're referring to Evga, they just wanted to exit the GPU business after the crypto boom. For Sony, I don't recall any problems. I think Sony and Microsoft just wanted a supplier that can provide an APU and only AMD could do it at the time. AMD was also on the verge of bankruptcy so they gave Sony and Microsoft favorable terms. For Apple, it was a case who was to blame for the GPU failures. Ultimately, I think it would have been better for Macs to use Nvidia GPUs over AMD GPUs. Not sure about Linux. But I assume most big Nvidia server deployments run on Linux. I personally think Nvidia did not do much custom chip is because the margins weren't there and they wanted to devote their resources to AI. Obviously they were correct in their choice. Their market cap is closing in on Apple. Let that sink it for a bit. The only exception is the Nintendo Switch and I have a feeling Nvidia just wanted to be in at least one gaming device to say they're still in it.
- weebull 3y ago
  I think your recollection of the Evga exit is wrong. They already had their 4000 series boards designed. They were all set. Prototype boards have made their way into the public sphere now. Then, whilst the launch was prepping Evga [cited](https://youtube.com/watch?v=cV9QES-FUAM https://youtube.com/watch?v=cV9QES-FUAM) that they were fed-up of working with them, and we're basically being undercut by their own supplier.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    [dead]
    - paulmd 3y ago
      source on the chips already being sold pre-binned to partners since 20-series: (forum link but it collates a bunch of sources from different media) https://linustechtips.com/topic/972937-nvidia-is-selling-different-rtx-chip-packages-binning-evolved/ https://linustechtips.com/topic/972937-nvidia-is-selling-dif... And again, all the best lies have some elements of truth. Partner margins are low (this is generally good - they’re middlemen/distributors). Nvidia is a hard company to work with. Those are true statements. They’re just also not why nvidia went under - and the partner relationship is not entirely one-sided either. Partners don’t mention the parts where nvidia write big MDF checks or helps them manage release of their stockpiles and trickle out supply so partners don’t have to write down big piles of cards cards they intended to sell to miners etc. And partners do sell direct to miners, unlike nvidia. They made great margins during 2017-2018 and 2020-2021 until the music stopped, and they won’t mention that part either. The phrase “10x profit year” has been discussed, in relation to evga choosing to leave on a high note. And based on the numbers I can find from (eg) TUL corp, which is a public, near-100% gpu based company (they own powercolor)… this is roughly accurate. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TW/ROCO/6150/financials https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TW/ROCO/6150/financia... But again, gamers mostly haven’t advanced in media literacy much past “if it’s on GN it’s true/objectively correct”, even when Steve himself says that they can’t verify some parts of it and to take it with a grain of salt. They’re certainly not going to make an intuitive leap for the green man. And partners know that and play to that. “mean old nvidia forcing us to take delivery of our contracted orders if we want to buy new stuff”, for example. Etc. the partners play it up for media constantly. https://www.techspot.com/news/76103-nvidia-putting-squeeze-aib-partners.html https://www.techspot.com/news/76103-nvidia-putting-squeeze-a...

kevingadd 3y ago

To be fair, it seems like all the game consoles that shipped with NV chips in them have been fairly successful, or their failures were explicitly not related to the parts of the silicon that NV designed. Other than perhaps the jailbreak issues the launch Switch had... And Geforce mobile parts are still quite popular in laptops. It makes me wonder how much of the difficulty is "hard company to work with" and how much is just "weird constraints make integration a pain" - I still don't know if they don't want to open their drivers, or if they can't for IP reasons.

ksec 3y ago
> all the game consoles For Nintendo Switch. they picked it up was mostly due to Nvidia being very desperate for a win, willing to sell it for cheap, using older technology and node all while having very little driver support. ( Also I remember Jensen loves Nintendo ) > I still don't know if they don't want to open their drivers Drivers for GPU is pretty much like CUDA for GPGPU. It is where 99% of the value comes from.

aurareturn 3y ago

I don't think AIBs had a hard time working with Nvidia. If you're referring to Evga, they just wanted to exit the GPU business after the crypto boom. For Sony, I don't recall any problems. I think Sony and Microsoft just wanted a supplier that can provide an APU and only AMD could do it at the time. AMD was also on the verge of bankruptcy so they gave Sony and Microsoft favorable terms. For Apple, it was a case who was to blame for the GPU failures. Ultimately, I think it would have been better for Macs to use Nvidia GPUs over AMD GPUs. Not sure about Linux. But I assume most big Nvidia server deployments run on Linux. I personally think Nvidia did not do much custom chip is because the margins weren't there and they wanted to devote their resources to AI. Obviously they were correct in their choice. Their market cap is closing in on Apple. Let that sink it for a bit. The only exception is the Nintendo Switch and I have a feeling Nvidia just wanted to be in at least one gaming device to say they're still in it.

weebull 3y ago
I think your recollection of the Evga exit is wrong. They already had their 4000 series boards designed. They were all set. Prototype boards have made their way into the public sphere now. Then, whilst the launch was prepping Evga [cited](https://youtube.com/watch?v=cV9QES-FUAM https://youtube.com/watch?v=cV9QES-FUAM) that they were fed-up of working with them, and we're basically being undercut by their own supplier.
- paulmd 3y ago
  [dead]
  - paulmd 3y ago
    source on the chips already being sold pre-binned to partners since 20-series: (forum link but it collates a bunch of sources from different media) https://linustechtips.com/topic/972937-nvidia-is-selling-different-rtx-chip-packages-binning-evolved/ https://linustechtips.com/topic/972937-nvidia-is-selling-dif... And again, all the best lies have some elements of truth. Partner margins are low (this is generally good - they’re middlemen/distributors). Nvidia is a hard company to work with. Those are true statements. They’re just also not why nvidia went under - and the partner relationship is not entirely one-sided either. Partners don’t mention the parts where nvidia write big MDF checks or helps them manage release of their stockpiles and trickle out supply so partners don’t have to write down big piles of cards cards they intended to sell to miners etc. And partners do sell direct to miners, unlike nvidia. They made great margins during 2017-2018 and 2020-2021 until the music stopped, and they won’t mention that part either. The phrase “10x profit year” has been discussed, in relation to evga choosing to leave on a high note. And based on the numbers I can find from (eg) TUL corp, which is a public, near-100% gpu based company (they own powercolor)… this is roughly accurate. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TW/ROCO/6150/financials https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TW/ROCO/6150/financia... But again, gamers mostly haven’t advanced in media literacy much past “if it’s on GN it’s true/objectively correct”, even when Steve himself says that they can’t verify some parts of it and to take it with a grain of salt. They’re certainly not going to make an intuitive leap for the green man. And partners know that and play to that. “mean old nvidia forcing us to take delivery of our contracted orders if we want to buy new stuff”, for example. Etc. the partners play it up for media constantly. https://www.techspot.com/news/76103-nvidia-putting-squeeze-aib-partners.html https://www.techspot.com/news/76103-nvidia-putting-squeeze-a...