More AMD Brain Drain [BSN]

[nismotigerwvu]

To be honest, anything we try to glean from this is pure speculation. While these fellows have (EXTREMELY) impressive resumes and would certainly be missed at any company, unless Mr. Mandpati and Mr. Wong themselves come out and say "I left because of xxx" we will have no clue. The death of AMD has been talked about almost nonstop (with the exception of the clawhammer highs) since the 80's. This is a resourceful company (as was ATI as well) and I'm pretty sure they will have some bright minds ready to step up into these positions. Who knows, maybe even a "fresh set of eyes" could assist in what most would agree is a low water point for the company right now.

TLDR: This hurts, but certainly isn't a KO punch (no offense to the men who left, for what we can presume to be even better positions elsewhere).

 

[Keysplayr]

Thats because most NV issues are kept to the official NV forum and going there was a eye opener.
The official AMD forum is useless so few bother posting there.

I don't think so.

 

[RussianSensation]

When GTX 680 launched a lot of people were similarly unimpressed and figured they'd just wait till the next generation or at least until prices fell for the GTX 6xx series.

NV had the graph of GTX680 selling 40 or 60% faster during the initial 4-6 week period than did GTX580. While some people did wait for a GTX670, GTX680 didn't experience any official price drops under $499. Even now the cheapest 680 is a reference $500 model. In the same period of time HD7970 fell from $550 to $360 (TigerDirect specials going all month) and $400 on Newegg. Even now 7970 undercuts 680 easily by $30-50 and 680 is still selling something like 3-4x more? Keep in mind prices worldwide are much higher for the 680 by a large differences than in the US.

UK:
MSI Overclocked Radeon HD 7950 Twin Frozr - £270
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X (Hot Seller) - £328
Sapphire Overclocked Dual-X Radeon HD 7970 - £336
SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY Radeon HD 7970 Vapor-X GHz Edition - £370

vs.

Cheapest 680 - EVGA 2GB GeForce GTX 680 SC - £399
Gigabyte 2GB GeForce GTX 680 3X OC Windforce 3X - £420

7950/7970 cards cost significantly less in Europe and in Canada too. Steam market share shows NV selling something like 4x more 670/680s.

 

[Keysplayr]

NV had the graph of GTX680 selling 40 or 60% faster during the initial 4-6 week period than did GTX580. While some people did wait for a GTX670, GTX680 didn't experience any official price drops under $499. Even now the cheapest 680 is a reference $500 model. In the same period of time HD7970 fell from $550 to $360 (TigerDirect specials going all month) and $400 on Newegg. Even now 7970 undercuts 680 easily by $30-50 and 680 is still selling something like 3-4x more? Keep in mind prices worldwide are much higher for the 680 but a lot more than $30-50.

What could this truly be attributed to? Only superior marketing? Or is there something else? Is there something to be said about better or less troublesome drivers? Less bloatware overall? I mean, when presented with both a 7970 and a GTX680, and the more expensive option outsells the less expensive option 3-4x like you say, well what is the reason?

 

[Final8ty]

I don't think so.

Well what you think and know are 2 different things.
I didnt know a fraction of NV issues before i went to the official NV forum, while there was nothing that i didn't already by know going to the AMD official forum and in fact there was much less there, AMDs forum was not the place to go to find out and resolve issue.

Go link me to the Official AMD user forum and see how many are viewing it.
There is a good reason why im asking you to link it.

 

[Final8ty]

What could this truly be attributed to? Only superior marketing? Or is there something else? Is there something to be said about better or less troublesome drivers? Less bloatware overall? I mean, when presented with both a 7970 and a GTX680, and the more expensive option outsells the less expensive option 3-4x like you say, well what is the reason?

Yes the same reason Apple does so well.

 

[Siberian]

Well what you think and know are 2 different things.
I didnt know a fraction of NV issues before i went to the official NV forum, while there was nothing that i didn't already by know going to the AMD official forum and in fact there was much less there, AMDs forum was not the place to go to find out and resolve issue.

Go link me to the Official AMD user forum and see how many are viewing it.
There is a good reason why im asking you to link it.

If no one is buying their cards, then that's probably why no one is visiting their forums.

 

[Final8ty]

If no one is buying their cards, then that's probably why no one is visiting their forums.

Your totally clueless obviously and i wont be wasting any time with further replies to on this sublet because your not worthy of my time seeing as that is the best that you could come up with.

 

[AnandThenMan]

What could this truly be attributed to? Only superior marketing? Or is there something else? Is there something to be said about better or less troublesome drivers?

Got any more red herrings to toss out there?

 

[IlllI]

wonder where we would be today if amd bought nvidia instead of ati.

 

[NIGELG]

Fake sympathy for AMD by Nvidia zealots is laughable.

I think we need at least two players in the GPU and CPU space.But someone needs to buy ATi from AMD and let the ATi brand be reborn.AMD should be bought by some firm who can inject the capital to let it be competitive and focus on CPU'S ALONE.

My 5850 has the ATi logo...lol

 

[RussianSensation]

What could this truly be attributed to? Only superior marketing? Or is there something else? Is there something to be said about better or less troublesome drivers? Less bloatware overall? I mean, when presented with both a 7970 and a GTX680, and the more expensive option outsells the less expensive option 3-4x like you say, well what is the reason?

Average Person: "GTX660Ti is faster than HD7970 in BF3! OMG, NV's $300 card beats AMD's flagship. . AMD sucks."

Enthusiast: "HD7970 overclocks well, handles mods, 8xMSAA, and makes $ on the side bitcoin mining, making it free long-term. It is also has good performance in games other than WOW, BF3, Lost Planet 2, Max Payne 3 and Crysis 2, while costing less".

For 6 months before Fermi launched, I am sure many people bought GTX285 over the HD5850.

 

[AnandThenMan]

But someone needs to buy ATi from AMD and let the ATi brand be reborn.

AMD completely turned around the ATI products, before the acquisition ATI was floundering and heavily bleeding marketshare.

 

[SirPauly]

ATI was having record revenue before AMD.

 

[Arkadrel]

7950/7970 cards cost significantly less in Europe and in Canada too. Steam market share shows NV selling something like 4x more 670/680s.

I have a hard time believeing there are sold 4 times as many 680/670s as 79xx cards.
Im not sure why but Steam %'s always just seem off to me.

 

[Hypertag]

Average Person: "GTX660Ti is faster than HD7970 in BF3! OMG, NV's $300 card beats AMD's flagship. . AMD sucks."

Enthusiast: "HD7970 overclocks well, handles mods, 8xMSAA, and makes $ on the side bitcoin mining, making it free long-term. It is also has good performance in games other than WOW, BF3, Lost Planet 2, Max Payne 3 and Crysis 2, while costing less".

For 6 months before Fermi launched, I am sure many people bought GTX285 over the HD5850.

Who could find the damned 5850s? They launched with a MSRP of $250~, and sold out instantly within about two hours of the launch. After several months, you could actually find some in stock priced at $350+. I didn't track the 5870 prices as well as it was never a logical choice over the 5850, but it was basically just as bad.

 

[Hypertag]

ATI was having record revenue before AMD.

They would have lost everything even if AMD hadn't purchased them. The 8800 GTX was just that good compared to everything else, and the 2900 XTX was just that bad.

 

[AnandThenMan]

ATI was having record revenue before AMD.

Before meaning when exactly? In 2004 ATI had netted about $200 million. In 2005, about $17 million. Margins will also very low in that time period IIRC, and they had absolutely nothing to go up against with what became a juggernaut from Nvidia.

 

[Haserath]

ATI was having record revenue before AMD.

Because revenue is everything.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Average Person: "GTX660Ti is faster than HD7970 in BF3! OMG, NV's $300 card beats AMD's flagship. . AMD sucks."

Enthusiast: "HD7970 overclocks well, handles mods, 8xMSAA, and makes $ on the side bitcoin mining, making it free long-term. It is also has good performance in games other than WOW, BF3, Lost Planet 2, Max Payne 3 and Crysis 2, while costing less".

Where have you seen and who would say that the 660Ti is better than the 7970 in BF3?
Where have you seen 7970 costing less that the 660Ti?

 

[Keysplayr]

Got any more red herrings to toss out there?

If it annoys you. Sure, if you want.
But seriously. Red, Blue, White, what's the difference. Still a question now.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Where have you seen and who would say that the 660Ti is better than the 7970 in BF3?
Where have you seen 7970 costing less that the 660Ti?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/508?vs=647

That was a mistake. The 7970 is not less that the 660ti, but the 660ti is technically faster in bf3.

 

[TheMeanestGuest]

I am still perplexed as to why this AMD DRIVERS BAD I HEARD IT ONCE thing persists with so much stubbornness.

 

[RussianSensation]

Where have you seen and who would say that the 660Ti is better than the 7970 in BF3?

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/08/16/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-2gb-review/comments/

"Harlequin 16th August 2012, 14:31
£250 and it kills AMD`s best oO"

Where have you seen 7970 costing less that the 660Ti?

That was in reference to the 680 selling more units despite costing more. 7970 / 7970 GE cost less than GTX680, and yet 680 outsells them. In Europe the price difference gets very substantial when looking at the quiet Sapphire Vapor-X vs. similarly quiet 680 cards such as Asus DCUII or Point of View. That was the point I was making, despite 7970 GE generally considered the faster card and a better overclocker, its price advantage isn't helping either. That means neither the price nor the performance nor the price/performance are sufficient for AMD to get NV users to switch.

I am still perplexed as to why this AMD DRIVERS BAD I HEARD IT ONCE thing persists with so much stubbornness.

Certain things are justified like coming out of sleep issues with 7900 series. However, a lot of new "safety" features such as black screens/screen freeze/driver recovery happen during unstable GPU/memory overclocks on HD7000 series. As far as I am aware after owning 4800 and 6900 serires, HD7000 is the first series to attempt to recover the driver during an overclocking failure. Other AMD cards such as the 6950 would lock up or BSOD. I bet a lot of those "driver problems" are NV users going wild with overclocking and not understanding these driver safety features of 7900 series. There are some legitimate problems such as CF scaling that takes months to work out or HDMI audio to receiver dropping out, or when using AdobeFlash/YouTube acceleration, sometimes the UVD3 does not allow the card to boost back up to full speed upon closing the application without a restart.

But the general myth that AMD drivers don't work / suck seems similar to The IBM Deskstar "Deathstars" 75GXP hard drives from 10 years ago. Hitachi is still paying the price for that even though current drives have nothing to do with that specific problem. If AMD drivers were that bad, how come AMD has > 50% mobile discrete GPU market share? If their drivers didn't work, would Apple use AMD cards in their products?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

AMD definitely needs to step up their marketing. That Borderlands 2 PhsyX video from nVidia and - I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up as an actual commercial on TV.