Monday, November 4th 2024
AMD Falling Behind: Radeon dGPUs Absent from Steam's Top 20
As we entered November, Valve just finished processing data for October in its monthly update of Steam Hardware and Software Survey, showcasing trend changes in the largest gaming community. And according to October data, AMD's discrete GPUs are not exactly in the best place. In the top 20 most commonly used GPUs, not a single discrete SKU was based on AMD. All of them included NVIDIA as their primary GPU choice. However, there is some change to AMD's entries, as the Radeon RX 580, which used to be the most popular AMD GPU, just got bested by the Radeon RX 6600 as the most common choice for AMD gamers. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 now holds 0.98% of the GPU market.
NVIDIA's situation paints a different picture, as the top 20 spots are all occupied by NVIDIA-powered gamers. The GeForce RTX 3060 remains the most popular GPU at 7.46% of the GPU market, but the number two spot is now held by the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU at 5.61%. This is an interesting change since this NVIDIA GPU was in third place, right behind the regular GeForce RTX 4060 for desktops. However, laptop gamers are in abundance, and they are showing their strength, placing the desktop GeForce RTX 4060 in third place, recording 5.25% usage.
Source:
Steam Survey
NVIDIA's situation paints a different picture, as the top 20 spots are all occupied by NVIDIA-powered gamers. The GeForce RTX 3060 remains the most popular GPU at 7.46% of the GPU market, but the number two spot is now held by the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU at 5.61%. This is an interesting change since this NVIDIA GPU was in third place, right behind the regular GeForce RTX 4060 for desktops. However, laptop gamers are in abundance, and they are showing their strength, placing the desktop GeForce RTX 4060 in third place, recording 5.25% usage.
222 Comments on AMD Falling Behind: Radeon dGPUs Absent from Steam's Top 20
The RX 7000 series had a pricing problem. The 7900xtx was competitive, but the 7900xt sure wasnt. The 7800xt was late to the game, and was competitive when it finally released, but the 7700 wasnt. Neither was the 7600. All too expensive for what they were.
Also, this is in raster. The moment you bring RT into the conversation AMD falls apart on competitiveness.
AMD doesnt have the pull to play nvidia pricing games. By the time prices made sense the generation was nearly over, and with the high end being dropped, those like me that bought a 6800xt have no upgrade path with the 8000s.
At the launch of RDNA3 in October 2022, AMD had 7900-series at crypto prices and that was it; the 7600 came along May '23 and the 7700 XT and 7800 XT in Sep, and the 7600 XT only launched Jan '24! If you're following along, that's well over a year to launch 6 SKUs at arbitrary dates. Consumers don't like arbitrary, nor do suppliers and stores.
Meanwhile NVIDIA had 4090 in Oct 2022, 4080 in Nov, 4070 Ti in Jan '23. Then 4070 in Apr, 4060 Ti in May (one day before 7600!), 4060 in Jun = 9 months to launch 6 SKUs in an incredibly predictable cadence communicated well ahead of time. Consumers like that, stores like that, suppliers like that.
That means for anyone who couldn't afford a $900+ 7900-series between Oct '22 and May '23 but wanted a new GPU, their only options were 4070 or 4070 Ti. Similarly, anyone who couldn't afford $900 but wanted something better than 7600 had no AMD option until Sep '23 - just 4060 or 4060 Ti.
So basically, if you are baffled why consumers were buying NVIDIA products when those were literally the only products they could buy that match their budget, then you need your head examined. The failure of RDNA3 to be delivered at a compelling price, and then on time, handed the market to NVIDIA on a silver platter. I can't even begin to express how little effort NVIDIA had to make here to gain the marketshare they now have, they literally did nothing different from normal while AMD shot itself in the foot repeatedly.
NVIDIA's success and AMD's failure is not rocket surgery or skullduggery, but basic business. Because NVIDIA understands basic business and AMD does not. Because NVIDIA is able to be consistent and AMD is not. Because NVIDIA doesn't have to try to succeed, while their so-called competitor fails again and again and again (at this point I would not be surprised if NVIDIA does not even consider AMD as actual competition).
This is not a size issue, it's not a market capital issue, it's a management and mindset issue: AMD's biggest enemy is AMD. Until it realises that, and acts to change it, it will continue to be a has-been, an also-ran, a could-have-and-should-have-done-better.
Questionable. Said success from where I am standing is simply entities who wanted in on AI craze but couldn’t secure some of the limited NV shipments, buying what they could for now. I am not sure this will keep. Might be wrong on that, sure, but this seems like a circumstantial success to me.
See, I remain unconvinced. It feels like AMD is doing the exact same strategy that keeps failing them in consumer GPUs, but now in HPC. That tactic is being the “we have NVidia at home” option and… kinda that’s it. Maybe I am overly cynical on this, but they need more than one generation of HPC wins in a wild time for the industry to actually have a solid footing.
For people to understand the financial side, say a card of that caliber will last until 2026. If you spend 650 in 2020, the 6800xt will cost you 108€ a year. If you spend 500 in 2023, the 7800xt 166€ a year. So 55% more money per useful lifespan. Insanely bad. This is one of the few things we agree on, AMD doesn't have the fab space. But then the question is, why do people act like nvidia has cast mindpsells and thats why people buy nvidia when you yourself admitted that amd prefers to not compete in this market?
AMD got lucky with Zen, and they risked the entire company on it being successful. In order for AMD to get something competitive out they'd have to take away money used on the CPU side of the business, I want Radeon to do better but at the same time I don't want to see AMD trying to compete with both Nvidia and Intel and falling behind on both CPU and GPU.
And I mentioned it possibly being an MS problem as they've been completely incompetent with developing anything for gaming and Windows for a while now. I guess I haven't seen these boxes showing game screenshots, and last I checked Nvidia claims they're an AI company, they're just selling gaming cards on the side. I agree, the reviewers and tech media will just find some reason to complain about AMD cards, even if AMD could deliver competitive products with the same software tech. And reviewers having a bias for Nvidia in video format reviews is why I miss having more options for written reviews, at least its easy to tell right away in a written review if a reviewer is pushing for one brand over the other.
As for TPU I thought it was odd they had every AIB 4000 series card review up on launch day, while there were only a few AMD cards reviewed on launch, and iirc TPU had an AMD gpu review where they listed not having DLSS as a downside. I still trust TPU for their reviews but unforturnately they're biased towards Nvidia as most of the tech press gets free review samples for promoting Nvidia over AMD. I think it was Hardware Unboxed that gave their honest opinion with an Nvidia card review, then Nvidia took away their review samples. Exactly, AMD's GPU business is just a fraction of what Nvidia spends on developing their tech and that isn't even their main business anymore.
RTX 4080 review - HUB = "Good performance, bad pricing, next month XTX is coming that should comfortably beat it while being cheaper". Yeap, sounds nvidia biased.
RTX 7900xtx - TPU = " Much more affordable than 4080, faster than 4080, incredibly energy efficiency, 24gb vram". Yeap, sounds nvidia biased too.
RTX 7900xtx - HUB = At 1000$ us it's not exactly cheap but it looks pretty good next to the RTX 4080"
What are you people talking about :D And nvidia broadcast is godsend when you want to go on discord.
Midrange has historically been the best selling tier for obvious reasons. Saying that you either don't care about graphics and you're fine with a 6500 XT, or you care about graphics and you need a 4090, and there's nothing in between is nonsensical.
I'm going to have to bring up RT in this as well. It may be popular to dismiss RT as having little value in the future but it will be the future. By that I mean that it will continue to be in use in more and more games (there are over 500 right now). A common mistake is to look at what we have now and make a final decision of it's worth based on that. Hardware will improve. Software will improve. Time takes time. I bring this up to point out that there has already been articles about big improvements in hardware RT handling coming next generation from AMD. Despite the RT detractors, there is good reason for what AMD is doing by significantly improving RT hardware. It would mean one less strike against their GPUs anyway in people's buying decisions. So, I say we give AMD a chance to back it up.
It's all well and good for Nvidia to be the "gold standard" in the minds of people for gaming, but it won't help if people can't afford the gold standard anymore. Anecdotal but even my dyed-in-the-wool-Nvidia-user boss is balking at the price of the 5090 (upgrading from his 3090). This hasn't happened before.
And yes, indeed, if you build CPUs and GPUs you need design wins, what other right of existence do you have otherwise? If you're just pooping new chips that are more of the same, you've basically written your own death sentence in this business, unless you've got the market locked down to your company already (like Intel used to, and Nvidia does today - this is why we get a Blackwell that is what it is, and why Intel could push quadcores for a decade). In the end this is about competence and management. Not money.
Let's also not forget AMD has been producing chips with GPUs in them for consoles, quite a lot of them too - enough even to rival Nvidia's total share of shipped gaming GPUs per year, go figure. So really, EVERYTHING was working for AMD. People are buying their RDNA GPUs, they have every reason to go all in, and last but not least, you also run AI models on GPUs. There is simply no excuse here to NOT go all in. There certainly isn't a world on the horizon where AMD would have been positioned more favorably to capture market share ever since they acquired ATI. Its just gross incompetence and a glaring lack of strategic planning. Every time. They're on TPUs news feed almost daily. If you want to do some half serious, but even casual gaming on a PC that is more than browser activity you are probably getting into something along the x50ti-x60 range of price/GPU. So that is the 250-350 dollar segment; not the glorified IGP segment. I build the occasional system for that target demographic and you generally end up in that segment for GPU, higher is deemed too expensive and 'doesn't pay off' for these people. They don't care about graphics at all, they just want it to run and not look completely shit and rarely have over $1k to spend.
And believe it or not but this is precisely what AMD and Nvidia target for mass markets, its also precisely what Steam surveys show as the most prevalent 'real' gaming GPUs that aren't IGPs. The overwhelming majority of gamers aren't graphics whores, but people who want to just play games.