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  • JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Odd, apparently AMD's selling more GPUs now than in a long time, but I _still_ cannot find a new RX 480 4GB for the MSRP of $200. Every once in a while one will drop to $234.99, but that's just under the EX 480 8GB MSRP of $240.

    Forever waiting.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Correction: RX*
  • zmeul - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    apparently the chinese miners are grabbing them
  • wumpus - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    And mining what? Not bitcoin (you need as ASIC or you won't cover the electricity). Perhaps litecoin or some local to China coin?
  • Despoiler - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Ethereum
  • psychobriggsy - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Etherium is most likely.

    In these graphs, what does Q2 refer to? April, May and June?
    Because Polaris was launched on June 29th IIRC so would have had very little effect on these results. And this is also true for Pascal.

    We will need to wait for Q3 results to actually see how these product launches affected marketshare and total sales (I believe a lot of people were waiting for these 14/16nm cards, affecting sales of 28nm cards for quite a long time, so there should be a jump in the next few quarters).
  • firerod1 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Newegg has a ASUS/SAPPHIRE RX 480 4gb for $229 in stock when i looked yesterday
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    ... with $5 shipping. So again, $234.99.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

    That's still over a 17% markup from the MSRP of $200. I sure would like a sale price that's under MSRP, but we still haven't even gotten MSRP RX 480 4GB, so I can forget about getting one for under $200...
  • Meteor2 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Well it's good news for AMD, if not the consumer.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    I'm not so sure.

    I'm fairly certain that AMD gets money based on the prices they sell the bulk videocards to retailers. If retailers are pricing it over MSRP, any extra they get above what they paid is _their_ profit, none of it going to AMD. So Newegg is the winner here. For AMD to be a winner, they just need to push a higher volume of cards being sold, and for that to happen the prices need to go down, and therefore Newegg needs to be willing to decrease the profit margins from the RX 480's they're selling. But at the moment, they probably think that with such short supply of RX 480's, there's little need to price them any lower, as they're still constantly getting bought up at ~17% or more over MSRP anyways.

    If supply on AMD's side can go up, retailers will buy more stock and therefore lower their margins as they'll be pushing out larger volumes too, and then consumers might get to see actual MSRP RX 480's.

    Until then, the "premium VR graphics card for $200" is nonexistent (discounting buying used video cards).
  • xenol - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    NewEgg themselves typically sell at MSRP except in that one case of the HD 7970 being up for grabs as a miner. If you see a price significantly higher than MSRP, it's probably a third party vendor that NewEgg is hosting.
  • Despoiler - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Newegg typically sells above MSRP when an item is in demand. They will always change at least $10 more. It's only when supply catches up and they have to compete with other retailers that they do.
  • Voldenuit - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    >Until then, the "premium VR graphics card for $200" is nonexistent (discounting buying used video cards).

    If you think you're going to get a "premium VR graphics card for $200", you're gonna have a bad time:
    http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/14731899227...

    Note that the 480 and 1060 benchmarks were typically run at lower visual settings than the FuryX/980Ti/1070/1080, so neither card is doing great even at lowered settings.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    I'm well aware that the card isn't capable of a "premium VR" experience. That's why I put that statement in "quotes". Those were Raja Koduri's words, not mine. I don't plan to use mine for VR stuff anyways.

    It's just the best value card when combined with a 144hz framesync (freesync, since this is AMD) enabled monitor. RX 480 ($200) + 1080p 144hz Freesync ($210) = $400. Meanwhile, GTX 1060 ($250) + 1080p 144hz Gsync ($300) = $550, for basically the same experience.

    So I'm still waiting...
  • Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    You can't count shipping in the street price and ignore shipping in MSRP when comparing them.
  • Dirk_Funk - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Comments like this remind me how blessed I am to have gotten a 4gb for $199 the day after launch. Somehow the early adopter tax was reversed in this case, it's more like the "you shoulda went for it when you had the chance" tax.
  • Alexvrb - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    You missed the boat on MSRP reference cards. Now there's only aftermarket designs with upgraded cooling and a slight factory OC. As long as they're still selling well, these are the prices they're going to charge. I do feel that these prices are inflated due to demand from cryptominers. But it also seems there's little incentive for the various manufacturers to undercut each other.
  • Jleppard - Thursday, September 15, 2016 - link

    Gotta remember a % of these cores are going to Sony to be merged with a CPU to create an APU for the PS4 Pro and sure there is also volume going to Apple as well. So AMD is producing more than you can see.
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    "when Intel integrated their GPU into their CPU itself in 2010 with Sandy Bridge."
    This is wrong. The 32nm die shrink of the Nehalem architecture, Westmere with its Clarkdale and Arrandale CPUs was the first Intel processor to have the GPU and CPU combined. Granted, they were only available as low end 2 core parts with no 4 core + GPU variants. But still, SB wasn't the first.
  • drjlaw - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    "This is wrong. The 32nm die shrink of the Nehalem architecture, Westmere with its Clarkdale and Arrandale CPUs was the first Intel processor to have the GPU and CPU combined."

    No, you're wrong. Westmere did not integrate the CPU into the CPU. Westmere tied a separate GPU into the CPU package. You'll notice two separate hunks of silicon, e.g., http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/21683-intel-32nm...
  • silverblue - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Westmere is the microarchitecture between Nehalem and Sandy Bridge.

    I know people don't class Wikipedia as a good source, but here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmere_(microarchi...
  • Nintendo Maniac 64 - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    Even if we rule out Westmere it's still wrong as Sandy Bridge launched in 2011.

    Fun fact: AMD's Brazos (their first APU) launched literally 1 week earlier
  • plopke - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Now if only they could produce enough RX 480 or have a less expensive distribution chain to there end-consumers. The price/availability of those are still underwhelming.
  • slickr - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Don't get it how anyone can game on an integrated gpu. Sure they've been increasing in power, especially the AMD's APU igpu's, while Intel's are still relatively weak, the latest gen are much better than previous igpu's, but still lagging behind AMD.

    With all that said games did flatten out in terms of graphical prowess from 2012 to 2015, especially with many games reviewing downgrades over what was shown in trailers or special demo's. But in 2016 we are yet again seeing much better graphical fidelity and even the latest gen igpu's won't be able to play them even at 720p resolutions and low settings.
  • Dribble - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    I suspect this has much to do with the move from desktop to laptop. If you had a desktop you could cheaply and easily add a discrete gpu. However many now only have laptops - the upfront cost of one with a decent discrete gpu is a lot, and you can't add a gpu to one of them later.

    Hence I bet there are a lot of kids playing pc games on some cheap laptop their parents bought and they have no choice but to use the integrated gpu.
  • TEAMSWITCHER - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    They're not, they're gaming on consoles instead. Looking at these charts it's clear that despite all the noise - PC gaming is in decline. The only thing that can save it now...is to have integrated graphics improve substantially in the next couple of years. I need a laptop...and I need a smartphone. If I do most of my gaming on a console, I just don't NEED a desktop PC anymore...
  • T1beriu - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    "Don't get it how anyone can game on an integrated gpu."

    Most of them don't and can't game. The overwhelming chunk of PC sales are for office work.
  • wumpus - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Most gaming is stuff like farmville/bejewled/cow clicker, and don't forget the all time winner (for time played): solitaire.

    Even WoW doesn't really need a full-blown discrete system (unless they've been disastrously careless in their improvements since 2006 or so).
  • Achaios - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    I have a laptop PC with an Nvidia GeForce4 460 Go 64MB DDR GPU. The CPU is a Pentium 4 Single Core at 3.06 GHz with HT. I use it at work.

    I game on it just fine. I play STARS! and WoW:Vanilla. Ofc, I am also the boss, so nobody to hide from and nobody to make fun of my 2003 laptop.
  • Arbie - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    My Dell Venue Pro 11 tablet runs Crysis - at the lowest settings, but it's playable. This has a Core M-5Y10a with HD Graphics 5300. I was very surprised.
  • Murloc - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    it's good enough for 2D games.
  • DanNeely - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Is there any chance of an inverted version of the 2nd graph (shipments by segment over time); any movements in the higher end segments are largely masked by the variability at the bottom.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    I agree. It would make more sense to stack the graph the opposite way, in order to illustrate the point that is being made.
  • ayqazi - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    (Possible) Correction: The title that reads "Q2 2015: Good for PCs, Not Bad for Discrete GPUs" should probably start "Q2 2016" (I think the year is wrong).
  • Yojimbo - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Are miners really buying that many AMD GPUs again? That whole situation may be good for AMD financially but it's probably not good strategically for competing in the gaming market.

    Also, Q2 2016 numbers aren't really that interesting. Q3 and Q4 2016 numbers will be much more interesting to look at, since the 1080/1070 and 480 launched in late Q2 and the 1060 and 470/460 launched in Q3. The 1050 will launch in late Q3. In addition, whatever the factors are for causing this, NVIDIA's historical numbers seem to show a much more marked trend for shipments cratering in Q2 and subsequently sharply recovering in Q3 than AMD's do. Except for 2015 and 2011, AMD has gained significant market share during Q2 for every year since 2009, only to lose it in Q3. Maybe it has to do with how channel sales are made or reported by the two companies. Since total shipments are generally down in Q2 anyway, Q2 is perhaps the least important quarter to be considering for long term trends.

    On a quarter by quarter basis NVIDIA's gaming GPU revenue has trended pretty flat the past 3 quarters amid decreasing shipments. So their ASPs have increased. Unfortunately, from what I see, AMD does not report separate results for CPUs and GPUs. AMD's Q1 2016 revenue for their "computing and graphics" segment was $460M. for Q2 2016 it was $435M. If their CPU revenue was flat between the two quarters, it means that AMD sold about the same number of GPUs in Q2 as Q1 and got about the same amount of revenue from it. Meaning ASPs were flat.

    All this doesn't seem to point to a big turnaround in AMD's discrete GPU business to me. It looks like AMD is being increasingly pushed to the low end, and AMD Q3 market share may drop back to 25% or so in Q3 (based on historical trends, without consideration of how the new product offerings will affect things). Again, Q3 and Q4 information will be far more telling. The thing is it's easy to predict that with Polaris, any market share gain realized in Q3 will be in the lower to mid segments, and, furthermore, high end market share can be expected to decline as they don't currently have products competing with the 1070 or 1080. Capturing share is not enough. Being pushed to the low end of a shrinking market is a terrible position. If VR doesn't pick up and increase the market size their position will continue to weaken.
  • Jleppard - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Think your really are missing it AMD is not being pushed into the low end, the low end has been pushed up to where the mid/high use to be. The real thing is high end is getting eaten up by the low end movement.
  • Yojimbo - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    You have it backwards. How could revenues be rising while unit shipments are falling if the high end were getting eaten up by the low end? The high end is thriving. The low end is shrinking. the average selling price of the market as a whole is rising but AMD's average selling price is stagnant. They are getting pushed to the shrinking low end.
  • StrangerGuy - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    Anybody who equates rising ASPs as evidence of how the high end is dying off probably isn't intelligent enough understand your rebuttal anyway. Just like the other Apple naysayers "only volume/marketshare matters, profits per device sold doesn't" since 2011.
  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    The polaris cards didnt even go on sale until the very end of the 2nd half. Yet AMD's market share has been rising steadily for 4 quarters. What to explain that?
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    The price/performance of the R300 series was actually really good. They were more power hungry than the Maxwell cards, but they could go toe to toe with them for the most part, for a lower price.
  • StrangerGuy - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Geez, do people actually read articles and have a bit of critical thinking anymore?

    AMD shipped a little more in absolute numbers, but NV sales tanked hard as expected because Maxwell was getting EOLed and Pascal won't be selling in appreciable numbers until Q3.

    Come Q3/Q4 and AMD will be obliterated once again in marketshare, this is not even as the fact that NV is dominating the high-end which has most profit share as Apple proved time and time again to naysayers.
  • owan - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    This has been bugging me every time this data gets published. (BTW people have been writing articles about this for like a month now AT, wake up). None of these articles really mention the market conditions that lead to this result: AMD discounting R9 3xx series to steal market share as demand for NV's products goes totally soft prior to the Pascal launch. Supply issues might soften the numbers for NV in Q3, but expect things to swing back the other way. AMD is almost certainly not shipping as many 480's as nvidia has shifted 1070/1080/1060's and the 470/460 didn't show up until mid/late Q3.
  • Yojimbo - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    AMD's market share has recovered somewhat from a historical low. After the initial Maxwell surge, AMD competed on price. This is why, if you look at AMD's quarterly reports, despite increased shipments their revenues have actually gone down slightly. Now it's hard to see clearly because of the way AMD lumps their CPU and GPU revenue into one segment, but for the six months ended June 27, 2015 they reported $911 million dollars in net revenue in their computing and graphics segment and for the six months ended June 25, 2016 they reported $895 million dollars in net revenue in the segment. The more-or-less flat revenue is despite the fact that, from the Jon Peddie chart in this article, they shipped about 4.65 million units of discrete desktop GPUs in the six months ended June 27, 2015 and 5.54 million units in the six months ended June 25, 2016.
  • StrangerGuy - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    The smartphone market has already shown sacrificing margins for marketshare is a "strategy" that has never worked, and here we are again...
  • bcronce - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    I was going to purchase a 480, but then they turned out to be only $10-$20 less expensive than the 1060, and both the 480 and 1060 were never in stock, so I purchased a 1070 and undervoltaged it to run 15%-45% TDP and perma-boosted because it's so cool. Even at full load, my GPU fan is at 25% and the GPU is 40c. Some of my games can't even break out of desktop mode. The GPU will be 700mhz @ 0.6v with 40% load. Consumes less power than my LED LCD monitor.
  • Morawka - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Excellent graphs.. whoever swapped to this new format deserves a raise.
  • xenol - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    What the heck happened in 2007 that caused a peak?

    All I recall from that year was the GeForce 8 and Radeon HD 2000 series coming out.
  • xdeadzx - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Crysis happened. May not be the actual cause though. Also Unreal Tournament 3. But the 8800 series was already out for about a year before q4 2007. The 8800 GT/GTS were the only two released in q4, rest were q1 or 2006.
  • Kvaern1 - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    Enter Windows Vista.
  • colonelclaw - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    I have to say, with recent high-end card pricing, Nvidia have been somewhat taking-the-piss, so I'm glad to see AMD gain back some market-share. Hopefully Nvidia will react by dropping prices to something us mere mortals can afford.
    I wonder, with the new AMD cards being just fine for 1080p60 gaming, might this have caused the gain in market share? The 'average' card is now so good, I guess there isn't as much reason to go with the top end unless you have a 4k TV.
  • bigboxes - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Eff mining. That screwed up the pricing of AMD's cards the last time that peaked. I'm sure AMD loved it, but us normal customers that were searching for a gaming card did not.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    Crypto "currencies" need to die. They're nothing but a gigantic waste of power for people trying to cash in on the Ponzi schemes. None of them will ever catch on as an actual functioning currencies and ten years from now they'll all be forgotten.
  • StrangerGuy - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - link

    The bitcoin fallout was the #1 reason, if not the #2, that gave the much larger gaming segment and mindshare over to NV on a silver platter in the Maxwell era.

    Just like any badly managed company they are still catering to miners "because this time won't be any different! They said."
  • althaz - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    Great to see AMD doing better, even if they still don't sell anything I actually want (GTX1080 owner here).

    We desperately need some competition for nVidia - they are just taking the piss with their prices now.
  • Ranger1065 - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    Fuck Nvidia.
  • StrangerGuy - Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - link

    Yup, what AMD really needs now are more crybabies like you who don't understand how a competitive free market works.

    It's all Nvidia's and economics 101 fault that AMD doesn't have an answer to GP104 to charge high prices or put pricing pressure with.
  • versesuvius - Thursday, September 15, 2016 - link

    AMD is dead!

    AMD would have a greater market share if its card were available for purchase by customers. It is absolutly amazing how a company produces a new product and then fails so miserably to supply the market with that product. Nvidia's latest products are flooding the market and AMD is still the same stupid, ridiculous company that apparently relishes and revels in loosing its market share to its competitors. In other words the same bullshit that AMD has been in the past five years. AMD is dead. The competition in the GPU market will not be provided by AMD, because AMD has made an art of failing beyond everybody's wildest dreams and worst nightmares.
  • SeanJ76 - Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - link

    Amen! AMD has been dead for decades!
    the 1060GTX 3GB is what 199.00 and will run circles around that 480 from AMD!! WHAT A JOKE!
  • Jleppard - Thursday, September 15, 2016 - link

    Well if Zen is good the follow up Zen APU along with Intel Graphics is going to be eating even more into Nvidia's low end graphics sales soon.
  • versesuvius - Thursday, September 15, 2016 - link

    This is the road map for Zen:

    1- Talk about it for 3 years.
    2- Announce shipment of the product to markets.
    3- Do not ship anything to markets for 6 months.
    4- Talk about your road map for the next road map.
    5- Announce the next road map.
    6- Prepare slides for the road map.
    7- Wait for Intel and Nvidia to introduce and flood the market with their next architecture and products.
    8- Release some Zen CPUs to the market.
    9- Release the slides at the next Intel forum.
    10- Release some RX 480 Polaris GPUs to your partners.
    11- Revise your road maps that shows that you will be ahead of Intel and Nvidia by 4 years in 10 years.
    12- Show your revised slides and hold a CPU of unspecified proportions high in the air.
    13- Rebadge your Zen and Polaris chips and aim them at the market beneath the lower end of the market and call them ZenX and PolarisX.
    14- Fight the hostile takeovers by completely removing your products and your slides from the market and playing dead for two years.
    15- Hire Raja Khodoury back from retirement from Nvidia and start work on a new road map and call it RoadmapX.
    16- Leak some benchmarks from your next road map slides.
    17- Cherish your unique position in the market for one year.
    18- Fight of lawsuits attacking AMD's monopoly of the market below the low end of the market.
    19- Create a new market below the market below the low end of the market.
    20- Create a road map for that market and call it ExtendedMarketX.

    Beyond that is anybody's guess, but given AMD nothing can be ruled out.
  • SeanJ76 - Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - link

    Zen is all talk so far, no benchmarks showing it beating Intel in anyway shape or form.
  • beck2050 - Friday, September 16, 2016 - link

    This article neglects to mention that nvidia's Revenue share actually increased in the second quarter. Translation they are making more money than ever
  • SeanJ76 - Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - link

    Of course AMD isn't competing with their new 480@ $249.00.....
    If you want cheap, and don't care about getting 150+ fps or quality graphics, then buy AMD's 470/480, but don't say I didn't warn you.....
    Pascal are BEAST GPUs! The 1060GTX is fast as hell for $300, and will run circles around that new 480 that AMD released.
  • SeanJ76 - Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - link

    Sorry 1060 GTX is 199.00 @3GB VRAM
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/10580/nvidia-release...
  • Chris A. - Thursday, September 29, 2016 - link

    I don't see the supply issue of cards (if there is one, they may just be selling lots) down to AMD, they don't produce the silicone. When I look online, I can have an 460/470/480/1060/1070/1080 delivered tomorrow.

    I think NVidia aren't in as strong a position as people think. They sold a boat load of 970s and 980s and the 980 Ti still scores really well against the newest architectures. This means that the 1070/1080 is the only viable upgrade for those consumers and they are just too expensive for most. The 460/470/480/1060 consumers on the other hand are aligned to the 77xx/78xx/950/960 and below market which represents a reasonable upgrade.

    I see the 1060 3Gb equivalent to the 470, which is going for an average (cheapest 5 in stock cards) of £190.19 whereas the 470 is £184.99. A negligible difference of 2.7%.

    And before someone pipes up and to highlight that the RX series are no good in DX11, if I were interested in DX11, I wouldn't bother upgrading my graphics card, which makes the argument irrelevant.

    It is no secret that game developers target the console market, there is more money in the market of grannies buying nephew Johnny the latest GTA from Amazon and wrapping it up for Christmas than her logging into Steam and gifting a purchase. The alignment of technologies and simplification of porting is going to dictate direction.

    Either way, Nvidia or AMD, the market is far more interesting and exciting than it has been for a long time! Long may it continue.

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