07-19-2017, 01:43 PM
This has the markings of AMD leaving the segment, they aren't playing the same game anymore.
Vega is 484mm squared, the 1080ti is 471mm squared- Vega is bigger, not much, but it is bigger.
Power consumption- 1080ti is guzzling down a whopping 250 Watts, in order to get Vega to perform *at its advertised clock rates* it is looking like it needs 350 Watts...
It's built using HBM 2, adding considerable overhead for what amounts to, at the moment, no real benefit.
If this part was launching alongside Pascal, it would be a run of the mill case of AMD coming up short, but that isn't where we are at- We are staring down Volta.
Given AMD's rightly earned reputation for epicly failing to fill retail channels heavily for product launches, and given the utter catastrophe that has been Vega making its way to an actual shipping consumer product, they are looking to have one ramp up quarter of possible sales at *passable* margins before Volta destroys their balance sheets.
This part is markedly more expensive to make than the 1080ti, it requires a more expensive cooler, uses far more expensive RAM- and on a cost basis I am doing AMD a *huge* favor comparing this to the 1080ti. While nVidia has been printing huge margins and selling out of 1080tis for quite a while now, the much lower margin Vega- if it was performing at the same level of performance, would be doing so for smaller margins on an insanely narrow time window before they are dealing with Volta.
In this wet dream scenario for Vega, they would have at most a quarter of ramped production to not only recoup their R&D costs but also try to finance closing the gap which is now looking at being close to two generations- two generations behind the company that many are seeing as the company that is going to knock Intel off of its computing throne that it has had for decades.
AMD is not competition for nVidia at this point, I don't know why there is any real confusion on this point. By volume AMD has about somewhere between one half and one third the market share nV does, entirely at the bottom of the segment in all aspects- most importantly margin wise. Right now nV's competition is themselves and *maybe* Intel or Google on the outside. Data Center/AI/Auto is where nV's growth is coming from, it will soon be the majority of their income- with better margins and significantly longer return periods per device developed. As a general example- Audi is about to launch the first in the world Level 3 autonomous driving vehicle(Tesla could probably argue their newest are, but Audi is actually claiming it making them liable). This system is based on the Tegra K1- you know- the chip that debuted in January of 2014.
*This* is the major element that some people seem to not be grasping- nVidia is now entering into mass production with parts that should be generating in the hundreds of millions of dollars off of *KEPLER* based parts. Just entering.
I bring this up in the Vega thread to try and impress an accurate level of assessment on how this architecture actually stacks up. Validation for these segments, particularly automotive, takes years- actual returns on investments are also years out. AMD, with this architecture has shown the given an extra year, a larger die, more expensive platform and a borderline shocking amount of additional power, they can soundly get their ass kicked- without nVidia even needing to get Volta out the door.
We are past the hypothetical phase on these future nV revenue streams. They are going into mass production- and the pipeline is already full for the next four, and barring Intel/Mobileye popping up something insane real quick five years, and Vega...... Vega was the last chance AMD had to really try and become remotely competitive with nVidia in at least one segment.
Now, Datacenter is dominated by Intel with nV taking a big slice- and AMD being almost non existent(and nigh completely absent in the GPU space). Auto is being dominated by nVidia with Intel playing on the fringes and AMD not even being contemplated, and, oh, there are these desktop GPU things they have going too.
The regular refrain from the AMD camp was they didn't have enough R&D to compete with nVidia(heh, Larrabbee, but I digress) because of Ryzen. Well, now you are competing with revenue streams that have margins that obliterate desktop GPUs- and pay dividends out many years after you are into straight black(Kepler products entering mass production now, 2H 2017).
This isn't AMD having a run of the mill bad generation. All of the above would be if Vega were going toe to toe with the 1080ti- they aren't even close to that stupidly low bar(given an extra year, bigger die, additional platform costs and almost 50% higher power budget)- they aren't even fucking close.
This has the markings of AMD leaving the segment, they aren't playing the same game anymore.
I don't say that lightly or without extensive reasoning.
Vega is 484mm squared, the 1080ti is 471mm squared- Vega is bigger, not much, but it is bigger.
Power consumption- 1080ti is guzzling down a whopping 250 Watts, in order to get Vega to perform *at its advertised clock rates* it is looking like it needs 350 Watts...
It's built using HBM 2, adding considerable overhead for what amounts to, at the moment, no real benefit.
If this part was launching alongside Pascal, it would be a run of the mill case of AMD coming up short, but that isn't where we are at- We are staring down Volta.
Given AMD's rightly earned reputation for epicly failing to fill retail channels heavily for product launches, and given the utter catastrophe that has been Vega making its way to an actual shipping consumer product, they are looking to have one ramp up quarter of possible sales at *passable* margins before Volta destroys their balance sheets.
This part is markedly more expensive to make than the 1080ti, it requires a more expensive cooler, uses far more expensive RAM- and on a cost basis I am doing AMD a *huge* favor comparing this to the 1080ti. While nVidia has been printing huge margins and selling out of 1080tis for quite a while now, the much lower margin Vega- if it was performing at the same level of performance, would be doing so for smaller margins on an insanely narrow time window before they are dealing with Volta.
In this wet dream scenario for Vega, they would have at most a quarter of ramped production to not only recoup their R&D costs but also try to finance closing the gap which is now looking at being close to two generations- two generations behind the company that many are seeing as the company that is going to knock Intel off of its computing throne that it has had for decades.
AMD is not competition for nVidia at this point, I don't know why there is any real confusion on this point. By volume AMD has about somewhere between one half and one third the market share nV does, entirely at the bottom of the segment in all aspects- most importantly margin wise. Right now nV's competition is themselves and *maybe* Intel or Google on the outside. Data Center/AI/Auto is where nV's growth is coming from, it will soon be the majority of their income- with better margins and significantly longer return periods per device developed. As a general example- Audi is about to launch the first in the world Level 3 autonomous driving vehicle(Tesla could probably argue their newest are, but Audi is actually claiming it making them liable). This system is based on the Tegra K1- you know- the chip that debuted in January of 2014.
*This* is the major element that some people seem to not be grasping- nVidia is now entering into mass production with parts that should be generating in the hundreds of millions of dollars off of *KEPLER* based parts. Just entering.
I bring this up in the Vega thread to try and impress an accurate level of assessment on how this architecture actually stacks up. Validation for these segments, particularly automotive, takes years- actual returns on investments are also years out. AMD, with this architecture has shown the given an extra year, a larger die, more expensive platform and a borderline shocking amount of additional power, they can soundly get their ass kicked- without nVidia even needing to get Volta out the door.
We are past the hypothetical phase on these future nV revenue streams. They are going into mass production- and the pipeline is already full for the next four, and barring Intel/Mobileye popping up something insane real quick five years, and Vega...... Vega was the last chance AMD had to really try and become remotely competitive with nVidia in at least one segment.
Now, Datacenter is dominated by Intel with nV taking a big slice- and AMD being almost non existent(and nigh completely absent in the GPU space). Auto is being dominated by nVidia with Intel playing on the fringes and AMD not even being contemplated, and, oh, there are these desktop GPU things they have going too.
The regular refrain from the AMD camp was they didn't have enough R&D to compete with nVidia(heh, Larrabbee, but I digress) because of Ryzen. Well, now you are competing with revenue streams that have margins that obliterate desktop GPUs- and pay dividends out many years after you are into straight black(Kepler products entering mass production now, 2H 2017).
This isn't AMD having a run of the mill bad generation. All of the above would be if Vega were going toe to toe with the 1080ti- they aren't even close to that stupidly low bar(given an extra year, bigger die, additional platform costs and almost 50% higher power budget)- they aren't even fucking close.
This has the markings of AMD leaving the segment, they aren't playing the same game anymore.
I don't say that lightly or without extensive reasoning.