Why doesn't AMD flesh-out its low end cards with GCN?

[Dandalf]

I wonder if anyone could fill me in on this, because I am constantly perplexed. If you don't know, all AMD's (and I think Nvidia is in a similar situation, though I don't know for sure) low-end cards are VLIW4, as in, the 40nm graphics architecture that preceded the 29nm Graphics Card Next that we see in the 7xxx series. Why is this? The thing is, these cards find a market in people who need low profile/low power/low noise descrete cards, and GCN is so much more efficient than VLIW4 that AMD could really dominate the market by releasing passively-cooled cards that perform as good as VLIW4 dual-slot solutions. I for one would definitely buy one of these for small projects!

And while I'm at it, why don't they release an AGP card for legacy machines, but using GCN? I am aware AGP's bandwidth wouldn't handle a tenth of the raw gigaflops of a HD 7850, but they could easily saturate the AGP bandwidth with a low profile, passively cooled card that would also be the fastest card released for that slot. I refuse to believe there are not customers for this!

 

[wiggbot]

Short answer: there isn't a market. Why spend money researching, testing, and marketing an item essentially no one is interested in?

It would be like taking an old hand crank started vehicle, and building a new crank that was more effective. That's great and all, but modern vehicles have starters. We don't need a better hand crank.

 

[Dandalf]

Well there must be a market, otherwise the entire low-end card segment wouldn't exist; only high end. Both manufacturers are present in the segment, but if only one of them invested in bringing their latest technology there, they would effectively dominate!

 

[wiggbot]

Well there must be a market, otherwise the entire low-end card segment wouldn't exist; only high end. Both manufacturers are present in the segment, but if only one of them invested in bringing their latest technology there, they would effectively dominate!

Low end cards exist since not everyone needs a screamer of a video card. When the most graphically intensive program run is Farmville or Solitare, a gtx 680 would be more than overkill. It would also cost more than the rest of the computer put together. I usually cringe whenever people ask how much I spent on my desktop, because in their minds the price is ridiculous.

Going back to my previous comparison, if I started marketing my fancy new cranks, I'd be dominating the segment as well. That doesn't mean that I'm making money off of it.

Current gen passively cooled cards exist. Quick example: http://www.zotac.com/products/graphics-cards/geforce-600-series/product/geforce-600-series/detail/geforceR-gt-640-zone-edition.html

Put yourself in AMD's shoes. Do they want to devote resources to a) a next gen card that will be desired by many, or b) a very niche card that essentially no one wants.

Sorry to sound so blunt, but money talks.

 

[smeezekitty]

Because the old architecture is still perfectly good. May not be the most efficient but the R&D is already done and it is cheap to produce while still DX11 / OGL4 compatible.

 

[Dandalf]

Thanks for the answer wiggbot, I appreciate the bluntness

And that 640 is not Kepler, it is a rebadge 😉

 

[nforce4max]

Would be nice for those who just want the basic features of GCN without spending much but at least there is the 7730 that is soon to hit the market. 6670 is overpriced and the 5670 is getting rare. Running a cheap 4650 gddr3 for my pentium m build.