AMD discrete GPU market share eroded to less than 20 per cent

[Corky34]

Are the ZEN core and Arctic Island Chips looking like they are going to have significant gains over the current architecture? Just wondering because I haven't really been keeping up to speed with it all for a while now.

Who knows, I'm just basing my opinion on what I've read, the Wiki gives a fairly short synopsis.
ZEN Core is going to be adopting a similar microarchitecture as Intel's Core series in that their apparently abandoning modular CMT (Clustered Multithread) for a SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) microarchitecture, that it's going to be on a 14nm fab, and that its been designed by Jim Keller, the engineer responsible for the Athlon 64.

I'm not that clued up on Arctic Island but IIRC it's going to using a 14nm fab and HBM2, it *maybe the first GPU microarchitecture designed from the ground up to support HBM so could show us what HBM can really do.

*If I'm correct in thinking the current implementation of HBM was jerry rigged in to the existing GPU microarchitecture?

[zoomee]

I've owned an unbiased share of nvidia and amd cards over the years. Drivers are about the same for both - I'd go a step further though to state I've experienced slightly more problems with Nvidia drivers than AMD ones.

The picture quality has always been better on AMD cards - I can immediately tell the difference and I ain't exactly a connoisseur when it comes to these things! . Nvidia cards tend to be aimed more at performance than quality and unfortunately that's where most review sites concentrate - solely on performance.

Doesn't matter anyways - the desktop PC is a dying breed whether we like it or not. Whilst Nvidia might be 'killing it' in the desktop market, AMD are also 'killing it' in the other markets which are now getting stronger as we speak - take consoles for example - AMD have both CPU's and GPU's in both the major consoles now (Xbone + PS4) and this will have an impact whether we like it or not on the future development of games (along with the fact they both use the x86 architecture).

SO - whilst Nvidia is king of the desktop, AMD are more or less the King of everything else (mobile/console etc) in comparison.

Does amaze me though how much nvidia fan boys are so vocal in defending the green team, especially when they've been caught out skewing figures in the past. They forget that without competition nvidia are just like Intel - milking all us consumers for everything they can (measly 5-10% gain at best per new gen). Gone are the days a new generation of gfx card used to give us at least a 50% gain over the previous gen, I just don't find it useful to upgrade these days.

[shaithis]

The picture quality has always been better on AMD cards - I can immediately tell the difference and I ain't exactly a connoisseur when it comes to these things!

Well, you must be a connoisseur without realising as there have been plenty of IQ tests done between the two and there has never really been anything between them unless you are using a VGA connection and then you are at the mercy of the board manufacturer and the RAMDACs they used.

Nvidia cards tend to be aimed more at performance than quality and unfortunately that's where most review sites concentrate - solely on performance.

When all else is equal, that's all that's left...

Doesn't matter anyways - the desktop PC is a dying breed whether we like it or not.

The desktop market is shrinking but it is not dying and is highly unlikely to any time soon. Many companies are pushing back against thin/zero clients and they are the cornerstone of the market. PC gamers are on the rise and they are essentially the other half of the market. Desktop PCs for "browsing the web and using Facebook" are a dying breed and that makes sense but they are far from "the market".

SO - whilst Nvidia is king of the desktop, AMD are more or less the King of everything else (mobile/console etc) in comparison.

AMD king of mobile? - OMG - that is the funniest thing I have read in this topic now....It kind of epitomizes the misinformation that has bean cast all the way through this thread. King of console? Well they have a presence, you cannot deny that but looking at the numbers recently, they must be making a piffling amount per console made - So I don't know if that makes them the masters or the suckers TBH. The fact that their share prices have fallen when in the last 18 months they have been paid a fee for the silicon in over 40 MILLION consoles tells its own story IMO.

Does amaze me though how much nvidia fan boys are so vocal in defending the green team, especially when they've been caught out skewing figures in the past. They forget that without competition nvidia are just like Intel - milking all us consumers for everything they can (measly 5-10% gain at best per new gen). Gone are the days a new generation of gfx card used to give us at least a 50% gain over the previous gen, I just don't find it useful to upgrade these days.

Intel are using the "extra" silicon each process to beef up the iGPU, yourself and myself may not like that but their biggest markets do! (laptops and business PCs).
Are you another person who advocates making a large ticket purchasing decision based on the off-chance it means slightly cheaper prices in the future? (I want Physx and 3DVision but I should buy AMD to keep nVidia on their toes!?) Do you understand what is happening in the microprocessor fabrication world lately? Does me telling it as it is make me a fanboy? or is that just yet another piece of misinformed nonsense to throw on to the pile that's building up here?

[Jimbo75]

Haha here we go again with Jimbo75 spouting all kinds of sh*te about how much more he supposedly knows about Graphics Card manufacturers and also his undying, blind Fanboyism towards AMD.

Watch out everyone, he is really smart you know.....

How about you go cut yourself again.

[Jimbo75]

Well, you must be a connoisseur without realising as there have been plenty of IQ tests done between the two and there has never really been anything between them unless you are using a VGA connection and then you are at the mercy of the board manufacturer and the RAMDACs they used.

Funny how anytime this crops up it's always Nvidia who are defending their IQ? I remember the one time that Nvidia tried to prove AMD had worse IQ and just ended up showing how bad their own was.

King of console? Well they have a presence, you cannot deny that but looking at the numbers recently, they must be making a piffling amount per console made - So I don't know if that makes them the masters or the suckers TBH. The fact that their share prices have fallen when in the last 18 months they have been paid a fee for the silicon in over 40 MILLION consoles tells its own story IMO.

Yes it tells the story of their really bad CPU architecture and Nvidia's successful marketing/black ops campaign.

Intel are using the "extra" silicon each process to beef up the iGPU, yourself and myself may not like that but their biggest markets do! (laptops and business PCs).
Are you another person who advocates making a large ticket purchasing decision based on the off-chance it means slightly cheaper prices in the future? (I want Physx and 3DVision but I should buy AMD to keep nVidia on their toes!?) Do you understand what is happening in the microprocessor fabrication world lately? Does me telling it as it is make me a fanboy? or is that just yet another piece of misinformed nonsense to throw on to the pile that's building up here?

This just shows everything wrong with the market. The type of person who would enjoy Intels improving IGP would certainly enjoy AMD's more. For less money. And they definitely don't need the single-threaded performance of an Intel CPU either.

Fact is, AMD is being marketed out of the game even though they have better technology. You faux tech "enthusiasts" should be embarrassed but you're so blinded by fanboyism you can't accept the facts.

GCN blows Maxwell out of the water in everything except the new darling of the tech press, perf/Watt. Like Kepler before it'll be proven as a crap architecture with no longevity and no grunt, it'll be shown up in DX12, VR and anything that actually requires innovative GPU. It's no wonder some of the AMD guys have so much contempt for the sheeple being marketed into believing they made the informed choice, risking the loss of the only truly innovative tech company around.

[Jimbo75]

OK so it's probably not more powerful, but they do have it.

This is worth a read.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1569897/v...#post_24321843

[moonshield]

Not great news for the consumer...

[Corky34]

This is worth a read.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1569897/v...#post_24321843

So what that seems to be saying is that AMD drivers suck and they had to rely on DX12 and a game developer to make a game that took full advantage of their hardware design, versus Nvidia who it seems wrote drivers to take full advantage of the way things normally work, I.e serial scheduling is the way everything worked prior to DX12, versus parallel scheduling being the way DX12 can work should the games developer put in the time.

I mean at the end of that informative post he even says...

Don't count on better Direct X 12 drivers from nVIDIA. DirectX 12 is closer to Metal and it's all on the developer to make efficient use of both nVIDIA and AMDs architectures.

That seem to be saying AMD couldn't write drivers that took full advantage of their hardware design so now the jobs down to game developers.

Why do I get the feeling this post is going to send Jimbo75 into another frenzied, foaming at the mouth tirade.

[Jimbo75]

So what that seems to be saying is that AMD drivers suck and they had to rely on DX12 and a game developer to make a game that took full advantage of their hardware design, versus Nvidia who it seems wrote drivers to take full advantage of the way things normally work, I.e serial scheduling is the way everything worked prior to DX12, versus parallel scheduling being the way DX12 can work should the games developer put in the time.

First of all "having to rely on DX12"? DX12 is Mantle rebadged. If not for AMD you wouldn't have DX12, so this "relying" stuff starts off on the wrong foot.

Secondly, Nvidia optimised the DX11 path because they'd rather you were all stuck on backward technology. Problem is that just shows how awful their cards will be on DX12, with regression in performance, so it kinda backfired.

That seem to be saying AMD couldn't write drivers that took full advantage of their hardware design so now the jobs down to game developers.

Why do I get the feeling this post is going to send Jimbo75 into another frenzied, foaming at the mouth tirade.

There's a difference between couldn't and shouldn't. Maybe the best way to look at this is that AMD wrote *THE* driver. You know, Mantle? The thing that got rid of the need for hardware developer drivers? All the while Nvidia did what to progress the industry?

See that's the way it should be. GPUs are built for parallel processing, not serial. DX11 is based on 20 year old technology and is horribly single-threaded. DX12 is the first real major change in decades. Game developers are supposed to be developing games - hardware makers are not supposed to be trying to fix problems with an ancient API.

Once again you could have chosen to thank AMD for progressing the industry but instead chose to champion Nvidia for holding it back. Grats.

[kalniel]

Secondly, Nvidia optimised the DX11 path because they'd rather you were all stuck on backward technology.

But they were quick on DX11 even before DX12 came out :/

[Jimbo75]

But they were quick on DX11 even before DX12 came out :/

That's all relative. A 980 Ti on DX11 is only as "quick" as a 290X in DX12.



So how far behind are they really? I think the questions people need to be asking are not about AMD's DX11 performance (they clearly don't care), but why Nvidia's performance tanks on DX12. DX12 is the future, DX11 is over. This is what should matter to people buying graphics cards today. There will be instances - actual gaming instances - in the near-ish future where the 980 Ti struggles to beat a lowly 290X. I think that's more important than the 980 Ti being twice as fast on an old API, especially as I mentioned previously about GCN's market share being near 50%.

[kalniel]

But if nVidia only care about backward tech why were they so good at dx11 when dx11 was new?

[jigger]

Because they came later to the DX11 market.

[Jimbo75]

But if nVidia only care about backward tech why were they so good at dx11 when dx11 was new?

AMD weren't good at DX11 when it was new? Remember Cypress vs Fermi?

Anyway you're looking at the difference in later architectures - GCN was clearly built as a forward-looking arch. Kepler and Maxwell stripped everything else down to the bone, so yes they made good DX11 architectures but are now being found out in DX12.

It's been said about AMD stuff before but they generally look more towards the future. That wins few plaudits of course because people only see benchmarks then Nvidia just follows AMD's lead. But sure, by all means keep looking backward and waiting on Nvidia getting their stuff sorted if that's what suits you. Seems to be a recurring theme with graphics cards buyers tbh.

[kalniel]

It's been said about AMD stuff before but they generally look more towards the future. That wins few plaudits of course because people only see benchmarks then Nvidia just follows AMD's lead. But sure, by all means keep looking backward and waiting on Nvidia getting their stuff sorted if that's what suits you. Seems to be a recurring theme with graphics cards buyers tbh.

But GCN is a copy of the Fermi style way of doing things with regard to more a general purpose compute unit style. I don't mean they copied it directly, but nVidia were the first ones to look forward to that direction and AMD followed in that instance and both sides are still using that philosophy now.

[Jimbo75]

But GCN is a copy of the Fermi style way of doing things with regard to more a general purpose compute unit style. I don't mean they copied it directly, but nVidia were the first ones to look forward to that direction and AMD followed in that instance and both sides are still using that philosophy now.

Well you can look at anything in the past and make similar points. In this case Kepler and Maxwell would just be like VLIW 5/4 which AMD tossed out for GCN.

The main difference is the ACE's that AMD baked into GCN. This is previously-unseen hardware that is giving them the edge in DX12.

http://www.nextgadgets.net/amd-touts...-architecture/





This is true multi-threaded graphics and there's no way around this for Nvidia, it can't be done until Pascal. I have no doubts whatsoever that they'll do what they did with tessellation though, overload on ACEs and bribe devs to use more than are really needed, then suddenly ACEs will be the new buzzword for the press to talk about even though we've had it for 3 1/2 years already. I mean AMD only had tessellation for what, 10 years or so before it became popular?