AMD Expected to Reach 40% GPU Market Share in 6 Months

[falchard]

I'm surprised AMD doesn't have a 70% market share. They have had the best cards since the HD4870. Even the HD3870 was a better card if you compare it today to the 8800 GT.

 

[billgatez]

Are they counting consoles in this.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Their products are loud hot and noisy and 50 dollars more than the gtx 780. Who wants to put up with that for a 10% performance increase? No thanks I'll take a 500 dollar gtx 780 any day. And let's not even get into driver performance.

And you forgot to mention 3 AAA games that do NOT come with 290x.

Also most don't buy ref, so benchmarks like linustechtips has is more accurate, or at least shows you'll break even perf at worst:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djvZaHHU4I8
fast forward to about 8:38 (min/sec) for benchmarks. Who runs reference? If you buy a 780 it will be OC'd out of the box anyway and high OC's for the same price as ref or $10 more, so maybe you can knock a few % off these guys who overclocked both 290x/780 to max. But also consider at best with an aftermarket fan that 290x OC cards may come with you'll get a few more % but same noise, heat, temp you'd get from the default card already benchmarked. Putting on a fan won't magically allow a huge OC without bringing back the noise, heat, temps. So that new fan either makes it remove these 3 issues, or allows faster clocks and keeps them. There may be a happy medium, but it isn't going to beat a quiet 780 OC'ed card then.

Remember they benchmarked it before the price drops, so his comments are not the same now obviously. Now it's $50 cheaper than 290x and has 3 AAA games on top, no noise, heat or temps and wins everything if both OC'd to max as they show. It's comic they got a lot of flak for replicating exactly what we'd all end up buying (an OC card out of the box).

 

[somebodyspecial]

Lol-"AMD has never had driver issues" as Battlefield 4 launches with driver problems specific to AMD...

Which is twice as funny because it's the first mantle game so they've been working hard with these guys to get this game right...How bad is your driver team when this happens for your top headliner title?

 

[tobalaz]

AMD has written great drivers for Windows PCs running a single graphic card, which is the majority of us.
AMD Crossfire has been choppy and you can visually notice the microstuttering (but I hear it runs flawlessly on the new 290x), for the longest time if you wanted multiple cards you basically had to go Nvidia.
AMD Linux Open GL drivers for 3d acceleration was terrible for the longest time (but 2d desktop drivers were fine), but is rapidly getting better.
Depends on which drivers we're talking about here to say they write "bad" drivers.

 

[somebodyspecial]

If they are talking Discrete I see nothing to prove this. I also see nothing at the source page quoting ANY source. The price drop, 3 AAA games, less heat, noise, temps and even now showing driver problems with their top game (the first mantle game, AMD should have regular play worked out already right?) tells me they won't move the needle 1mm. If 780TI is any good I expect AMD to lose share not gain. As it is I expect no change in stats or a slight gain from NV as they have the better deal hands down vs. 290x with all the problems i mentioned and 3 AAA games, gsync, shield coupon etc. I expect AMD to change add a bundle of games, but that will just kill profits. I don't expect a profit knowing that on top of the 200mil owed to GF dec 31. I expect the two quarters (last 48mil+this next Q) to end in a loss total when counting the GF payment.

As the article notes gpus dropped and so did notebooks. AT best they bring it to no more losses. They might have been correct if NV had NOT responded at all. But they responded with such a discount I think AMD is going to get hurt more than simply stopping losses (and anyone thinking 290x=gains after the NV response is crazy). They might have also been correct at 40% if mantle had been embraced (in some fantasy world) by consoles. But as suspected they block anything that will diminish the ability to port to anywhere easily (if you can port easily you don't need a console eventually, or stuck on directx).

If everyone gets Enterprise email (exchange) RIMM isn't special. Look at the stock now (can't even sell that turd company). If everyone gets retina screens and talking search help Apple has nothing special...Look at apple stock for the last few months. IF everyone gets modems QCOM isn't special....Watch for this one to play out over the next 2yrs (already hurts margins last few quarters as others enter modem game, Intel just got added to NV/broadcom etc).

Now it's about games. Only AMD/NV are special there. NV will rake it in over the next few tegras as desktop gets a free ride to mobile (chips already done for both, just shrinking them all to socs, drivers done, games optimization done, devs know AMD/NV gpus inside out), and AMD, if they can live long enough might get a good chunk of money too. But my money is on NV just because of their balance sheet and products quality (recently, and even now, cooler, no noise, low watts). Gsync will be adopted too, the question is how fast and that depends on if they license it or just try to use it to kill AMD for a long while. Mantle will NOT be widely adopted (as Sony/MS show). MS will not help you get off directX or consoles...LOL. Gsync could also be licensed early to everyone but AMD for a while to ensure card gains while getting it into everything (smartest option if I was running the show that's what I'd do). You need it running in everything with a screen, but no need to help AMD for a while to accomplish that. I might make sure Qcom doesn't have a lic for a while either...LOL.

In a world where 40% of the time on mobile devices is spent on gaming, pitting the gaming vs. your modems which are quickly becoming not special (NV already has that covering asia, parts of america & shortly everywhere), I like the guy who has gaming/drivers/dev support as top notch. Raise your hand if you think we'll be talking about modems in two years. Nobody. Raise your hand if you think we'll be talking about the great mobile games in 2years...I see a lot of hands Shield's huge upgrade with mapping the gamepad, shadowplay, streaming out of beta etc just added a lot to their desirability (and $100/50 coupon off makes it a $200/$250 device while selling a vid card). The modem story is a tougher sell if only because of data caps everywhere. I just race to my caps faster than before. Better games however, are a game changer 😉. Qcom has about 6-12 months left on the modem train then its all gaming from here out as everyone integrates a multimode modem that goes everywhere. Intel will probably be late to this, but what 12-15months instead then? - you get the point. I don't think qcom will go down as badly as rimm, but they're going to get hurt the same way without a real GAME plan (pun intended). If carriers suddenly get generous and give unlimited data cheaply maybe the modem starts to get talked about again, otherwise, carriers seem to be about to end the speed party as we already hit caps monthly easily so what good does a faster network do past what we have now?

 

[laststop311]

funny how downvoted my statement was on the first post and it was 100% true. How unintelligent are these people?

 

[demonhorde665]

I agree people who rehash the "ati drivers suck" line must have really got butt hurt by ATI drivers in 1996-97 . I've used just about ati only since the Radeon 9700 pro (did get a gf 9600 and 9800 during the radeon 3000 series days). Never once had a driver issue, my experience with ATI/AMD has been solid.

now about the article, I an guessing they are not counting the gpu side of the console apus ? because if they did AMD would easily take over Nvidia in the numbers

 

[talkischeapc9]

AMD v NVIDIA? Who cares... It's all about EVGA and whatever brand they choose.

 

[lostgamer_03]

It's a fact that AMD has been lacking severily on their support for their drivers. The frame latency, the slow implement of scaling in crossfire, slow implement of optimization for newer games. It can't be hidden. I own a system with a dedicated AMD GPU and a system with a dedicated Nvidia GPU. Nvidia also suffers from their drivers now and then, but compared to AMD it's peanuts. I just hope AMD get their sh*t together and become more competetive, because the only losers in a market with no competetion are us - The consumers.

 

[RooD]

I love when people act like AMD or Nvidia cares about them and their wallets. They care about profit margins which are tied to customer satisfaction. Hence why when there is not competition you get reamed

 

[xerxces]

I just switched from two 6870s that would never preform right even with the new drivers with frame pacing. I got a 760 and have to say I am sold on Nvidia. I can throw another 760 and have something that beats the Titan is many cases. I always had problems with my 6870s for some reason, even the 5770s I had before them did not perfrom well.

 

[catswold]

The R9 290X will rule until the GTX 780ti is rolled out. It's pretty clear that it will be the full 2880/240/48 GK110 with 3, then 6 gB (and possibly 12) of ram.

Ain't competition grand? I like Green (I used to like Red) and others like Red . . . the end benefit accrues to all of us with progressively faster, more powerful GPUs.

 

[beethree]

Another comments section full of "OMGzors AMD driver is are badzors!"

From someone who doesn't own an AMD card.

Funny, I have had my 7970's for quite a while and haven't had driver issues.

 

[Guest]

Let me explain why people complain about bad drivers since people inhere don't know this so it seems: Under windows XP I recall having to install .net framework program search for the right version 32bit or 64bit download it install it takes half a day or more to install the right drivers. If things went wrong your windows could be messed up. Another point the mouse cursor on ATI/AMD drivers doesn't stay inside the monitor very annoying! A lot of people always complained about opengl etc in pro applications and drivers issues I have never noticed this. And let's not forget CUDA if you need to use this.

 

[typicalGeek]

Without stating what AMD's current market share is, this article is pretty meaningless. If they are expected to move from 39% to 40% that's not much of a change is it? On the other hand if they currently only have only 20% of the market, moving to 40% would be quite an accomplishment.

 

[nukemaster]

I have personally had FAR worse problems with Nvidia drivers in the past than AMD/ATI.

Truth be told Nvidia drivers made Vista unstable for at LEAST 9 months(they had started working on the 2XX cards and had stopped even releasing beta drivers for the 8800 cards for a while). Nice 600 dollar 8800GTX that HAD to be used on XP(Great use of a DirectX 10 card).

Beta drivers with inf edits did work with the card, but fixed one problem just to make another one.

Before someone jumps in and says it was Vista. That was what I thought as well so I figured I would drop in my old X1900XT to see if it was. Problem went away and never came back(Performance was not great, but it was stable). As soon as the 4870 came out never had another problem with performance or drivers on that system.

This is not to say AMD never had driver issues, but never anything this bad(almost every game was unplayable) or long lasting.

I am on a GTX 670(and a GTX 650 ti in my media center) as we speak(well the second one, the first was was unstable at stock clocks). I sure hope this card lasts because it DOES work very well and the drivers for it are also great.

 

[bowzef]

AMD all the way, i use be NV guy, then realized something, my wallet was more important then Nv and that GPU's always get outdated sooner or later no point spending 600+ on GPU that's going be consider crap in future. so i bought Red team and it was cheaper

 

[xiinc37]

Using a Radeon HD7950 here. Had it for a little over a year. Not even one, single driver issue in that time. These driver complaints need to stop, they are just flat out wrong at this point. Just because AMD/Ati had issues 5 years ago on cards no one uses anymore doesn't mean you have any right to make those complaints about their current product line. That's like saying Ford is a bad company today solely because of some issue that the Model Ts had.

 

[thewhitestigvk]

But what is their current market share?

 

[jigawatt]

what is this BS about bad drivers i'm literally ALWAYS reading about for AMD. i've had like one driver problem like 5 years ago, and it was MY fault. i don't understand.

gtx 780 at $500 is an excellent price. but people like the top commenter of course wouldn't mind getting shafted an extra several hundred dollars as long as it has a green logo on it. wait till 290 and 290x aftermarket cards. we'll talk then.

AMD is the sole reason I went back to Nvidia, their drivers were horrible. Nothing is more frustrating than being forced out of the game, or having BSOD's due to a driver issue.

 

[blukatz]

Drivers issues? try a gtx 560ti, I have one and its driving me crazy!!! I even reinstalled windows but I keep receiving crashes and messages like "the nvidia controller stopped working" from time to time. I miss my old hd 6850, the only problem with that card was that I couldnt play Age of empires 2 because of the water glitch... 🙁

You should look into the Forgotten Empires unofficial expansion! It fixes the weird colors on newer cards as well as allows for higher resolutions. I have a 6850 myself and I can play it on 1080, and it doesn't look all that bad!

On topic- what really gets me is how many people are willing to toss out $500+ for these massive cards, when the $150-$250 price range is generally plenty sufficient for what that person is actually doing. I spent $650 on my custom rig, and it handles everything just fine, I can't possibly justify spending basically that much on a single component.

 

[DjEaZy]

... if AMD can produce the needed quantity of chips and Mantle is any good, they might take a bigger share indeed...

 

[xerxces]

Also, lets not forget that AMD cards do not handle AA very well, that might of chnaged with the new cards but from 6870 to prior, Nvidia cards were much better at handling AA while AMD struggled.

 

[tomc100]

Having been an owner of pretty much all of ATI/AMD gpu since 9850, x850, 3850, 4870, 5870, and 7970, I have only had one problem with one of their drivers so it can't be due to their single gpu drivers. On the other hand, dual gpu and crossfire drivers are known to have problems but Nvidia's dual gpu and SLI also have problems, but these problems are more attributed to AMD for some unknown reason. Anyways, if mantle is a success on Battlefield 4 and other Frostbite 3 engines then it will be a significant boost to AMD gpus.