Monday, February 4th 2013

It's Sony, Not AMD in GeForce Titan's Crosshair
When we first heard of NVIDIA launching its GK110-based consumer graphics card by as early as February, it took us by surprise. Intimidating naming (GeForce Titan 780?) aside, the graphics card is hoping to better NVIDIA's current-generation flagship, the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690, in a single-GPU package, but does the graphics card market really need NVIDIA to launch its card at the moment? Perhaps not, but the answer lies not with AMD and competition in the graphics card market, but Sony, and competition between PC and console platforms.
Over the weekend, it surfaced that Sony would introduce its next-generation PlayStation console (codenamed "Orbis") later this month, and it would mark the beginning of the next-generation of game consoles. PlayStation 4 features an updated hardware feature-set, and promises to raise the bar with graphics detail that the console industry held with an iron fist for the past half decade. This presents a challenge for not only NVIDIA, but PC gaming in general. Here's how.
It's no news that PC graphics have always trumped consoles, but lost out on the "cost factor." Advocates of consoles falsely compare the cost of an entire PC (approaching or crossing $1,000) with a $300 console. In our opinion, marketing honchos at both NVIDIA and AMD failed to adequately present the argument that a graphics card as a single component costs exactly the same as a game console, and transforms desktop computers that average households already own, into gaming PCs.
With the introduction of the next-generation PlayStation "Orbis," PC graphics companies such as NVIDIA need to launch new products to remind the masses that PC gaming looks, feels, and plays better than consoles, even the newest ones on the block. NVIDIA just happened to have the GK110 lying around.
The GeForce Kepler 110 (GK110) is NVIDIA's (possibly the industry's) biggest GPU. Conceived around the time when the 28 nanometer silicon fabrication process at TSMC was relatively new and prone to yield problems, it was put on the back-burner when NVIDIA realized its second fastest chip, the GK104, stood a real chance against AMD's "Tahiti" high-end GPU. Even as New Year's 2013 approached, the most audacious speculators in the press were led to believe that NVIDIA would take its time launching the GK110 with its GTX 700 series, some time much later than February. What changed? Well for one, Sony and Microsoft agreed to chart out their next-generation console launch schedules, so either's products get maximum market exposure, and that is bad for the PC platform.
The GeForce "Titan" 780 GK110 card, hence, is NVIDIA not only batting for its own GeForce brand (which already leads AMD Radeon in the PC space), but PC gaming in general. We don't expect to see crates full of these graphics cards making their way to stores just yet, but a text-book NVIDIA launch. Over the decade NVIDIA learned that when it has limited initial inventories of a new product and yet wants to avoid the dunce cap of a "paper launch," (a launch that's just on paper, with no public availability), it pools up just enough quantities of the product for worldwide press (for launch date reviews), and limited launches in key markets such as the US and EU.
Over the weekend, it surfaced that Sony would introduce its next-generation PlayStation console (codenamed "Orbis") later this month, and it would mark the beginning of the next-generation of game consoles. PlayStation 4 features an updated hardware feature-set, and promises to raise the bar with graphics detail that the console industry held with an iron fist for the past half decade. This presents a challenge for not only NVIDIA, but PC gaming in general. Here's how.
It's no news that PC graphics have always trumped consoles, but lost out on the "cost factor." Advocates of consoles falsely compare the cost of an entire PC (approaching or crossing $1,000) with a $300 console. In our opinion, marketing honchos at both NVIDIA and AMD failed to adequately present the argument that a graphics card as a single component costs exactly the same as a game console, and transforms desktop computers that average households already own, into gaming PCs.
With the introduction of the next-generation PlayStation "Orbis," PC graphics companies such as NVIDIA need to launch new products to remind the masses that PC gaming looks, feels, and plays better than consoles, even the newest ones on the block. NVIDIA just happened to have the GK110 lying around.
The GeForce Kepler 110 (GK110) is NVIDIA's (possibly the industry's) biggest GPU. Conceived around the time when the 28 nanometer silicon fabrication process at TSMC was relatively new and prone to yield problems, it was put on the back-burner when NVIDIA realized its second fastest chip, the GK104, stood a real chance against AMD's "Tahiti" high-end GPU. Even as New Year's 2013 approached, the most audacious speculators in the press were led to believe that NVIDIA would take its time launching the GK110 with its GTX 700 series, some time much later than February. What changed? Well for one, Sony and Microsoft agreed to chart out their next-generation console launch schedules, so either's products get maximum market exposure, and that is bad for the PC platform.
The GeForce "Titan" 780 GK110 card, hence, is NVIDIA not only batting for its own GeForce brand (which already leads AMD Radeon in the PC space), but PC gaming in general. We don't expect to see crates full of these graphics cards making their way to stores just yet, but a text-book NVIDIA launch. Over the decade NVIDIA learned that when it has limited initial inventories of a new product and yet wants to avoid the dunce cap of a "paper launch," (a launch that's just on paper, with no public availability), it pools up just enough quantities of the product for worldwide press (for launch date reviews), and limited launches in key markets such as the US and EU.
86 Comments on It's Sony, Not AMD in GeForce Titan's Crosshair
E3 2012. Nvidias main partners to GRID were GaiKai and Samsung.
Sony buys Gaikai and isnt using Nvidia GPU in PS4
GRID has to re-structure and after 1yr plus its still on trial runs but now only in China.
Since Nvidia decided to expand into mobile Samsung backed out and currently only LG is partner with them from Smart TV manufacturers.
Nvidia is probably also upset Tegra 4 is a dud so far. First comparisons barely compete with A6. Not to mention all the new SoCs from SECs Samsungs Octa and Qualcomms 800 series.
Project Grey after 2yrs plus of touting its almost ready is still a +1 chip to T4 and only integrated with the old slow and over priced Tegra 3. Plus they lost the new Nexus contract and Windows Surface to Qualcomm.
They also seam not to be selling many Tesla units as expected to goverment agencies
ElcomSoft: Nvidia Tesla K20 Beats a Dual GPU Configuration in Password Cracking
So selling inventory this way is a good way to make money.
Yo,
I thought Ps4 will use AMD too, no?
Also nVidia doesn't have a powerful CPU to offer a decent APU-like device to Sony like AMD can so this makes perfect sense imo.
nVidia makes a powerful GPU but I don't think that is what Sony is primarily looking for.
Who cares about Sony? Not nVidia!