Qualcomm Adreno 530 matches Tegra X1?!?

[BoFox]

Just when Nvidia thought that they were so far ahead with their Tegra X1, Qualcomm manages a comeback.

Couple quick points.

First- The X1 was a 1H '15 20nm part, the 820 is 1H '16 14nm part.

Second - The X1 is still faster(not much, but it *is* faster).

So, with an additional year and a half node shrink Qualcomm was able to produce a part that didn't fail as badly- I'm not feeling that as being quite a 'win' from a performance perspective.

Too bad Nvidia couldn't have had their Tegra X1 in more tablets for several months since it debuted on their SHIELD Android TV, with the recently released Google Pixel C the only tablet on the market with such chip.  Could it have been production issues?

It was a cost issue. nVidia hasn't hidden the fact that they aren't willing to get into a low margin commodity market. They get their margins, or they go find someone else to buy them. Like the automotive industry.

During the second quarter, NVIDIA generated $71 million of revenue from its automotive business, a 76% year-over-year increase. NVIDIA's Tegra chips are mainly used today to power in-car displays, and according to the company's investor day presentation, 8 million cars currently on the road contain NVIDIA chips. Some of those cars contain more than one Tegra chip, with the Audi Q7 sporting as many as four in order to power all of its displays.

Twenty-five million additional cars containing NVIDIA Tegra chips are in the pipeline, but because the time-to-market for cars is typically measured in years, NVIDIA's automotive design wins take quite a bit of time to actually generate revenue. The silver lining is that it makes NVIDIA's automotive revenue more predictable, and it's safe to say that strong automotive growth is likely to continue.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/20...table.aspx

I still see them pushing the Android front but mainly as a chicken and the egg answer- which they are starting to see some fruit from. If Android becomes a major 'serious' gaming platform, nVidia is pretty much lapping all the other players in terms of hardware/support/development tools etc. By remaining the 'halo' part in this segment, market shifts would allow them to move quite quickly. Meanwhile, the auto industry can give them the huge margins they want to see. With how small the chips are, $25 per is considered absurdly expensive in the consumer electronics space(I would *GLADLY* pay more then that in addition to the base cost for a premium Parker based Tegra with OLED tablet but I digress), anyone who has ever had to replace an ECU knows that the auto industry considers that peanuts(and due to nVidia using the same base part for lots of different cars, their R&D overhead is by comparison tiny).

 Nvidia didn't go the 3dfx route and ditch all other AiB's, choosing to market only its own brand alone (or have just one AiB like EVGA make cards along with Nvidia).  What gives?

Companies don't want to pay. I was seriously upset when I saw that Google was going with shitty ass Wal-Mart/Apple level displays for the Pixel C. If it had a reasonable display in it, I would have one right now. That is, to me, the big problem. Nobody is making a truly high end Android tablet or phone that uses Tegra SoCs(well, the Pixel C outside of its piss poor display would be). But who is asking for them? I am. I have a Shield. I have a Shield TV. nVidia makes a Parker/Tegra shield with an OLED screen I'm all over it. Outside of me, I don't know anyone else who is really asking for it.

In the old early days of PC gaming, *EVERYONE* was asking for it- now, not so much.

Thank you for this awesome explanation!  This is what I was suspecting, and you pretty much confirmed it all the way for me. 

So, do you have lots of Nvidia stock?  Like tens of thousands invested into NV stock? 

Ya know, perhaps it is possible for NV to get LG to manufacture OLED panels for the next Shield Tablet design?  Outside of you, there are many others who would really like exactly what you would like. 

Yet, the best and biggest thing for Nvidia is to just make a 4K gaming console with upgradeable Pascal modules (along with 16 custom Denver cores). (EDIT - or 8 next-gen Denver cores, plus 8 A72 cores, or even an Intel CPU, if Nvidia can force a deal).