Friday, December 28th 2007
NVIDIA Asks Card Makers to Reduce Manufacturing Costs of 8800 GT Cards
NVIDIA recently contacted its graphics card partners asking them to reduce the number PCB board layers used in GeForce 8800 GT-based graphics cards from ten to six in order to reduce manufacturing costs and so lower the card's ASP (average selling price) in the market. The redesign would allow the NVIDIA cards to compete in terms of pricing with AMD's Radeon HD 3800 series products. Although the Radeon HD 3800 series was launched three weeks later than the GeForce 8800 GT, Radeon 3800 demand has started to pick up, bringing the market shares of NVIDIA and AMD from 90% and 10%, originally, to 70% and 30%. If the PCB layers are reduced from ten to six, graphics card makers are expected to save more than US$10 for each card, which would allow the NVIDIA products to go into price competition with those of AMD. Despite the cost benefits, some graphics card makers are unhappy with NVIDIA's suggestion, pointing out that the chip maker is in effect asking them to do the job of improving the price/performance ratio of its products, while preserving its own profit margins. NVIDIA responded in saying that the redesign is only a suggestion which it believes is the best solution to meet the current market conditions. Card makers will not be forced to implement the change, the company stressed.
Source:
DigiTimes
61 Comments on NVIDIA Asks Card Makers to Reduce Manufacturing Costs of 8800 GT Cards
The price is high do to production costs, demand has nothing to do with that! They simply cannot get enough of them to market (which can explain why they are losing market share). The whole point of the article is to reduce cost! They are trying to reduce MSRP by making the product cheaper!No kidding LOL, instead of just cutting prices they put the burden on AIB parters to R&D 6 layer cards to be just as effective as current cards on the market! Time will tell how this will turn out!
nvidia commissioned a special batch of "super" 512 8800gt cards at a better price point and better performance rushed into market in limited numbers for one purpose and one purpose only.. cos the coming ati 3800 series had em worried..
the reason for shortage was they only commissioned a relatively small amount.. just enough to do the intended job.. the tricked worked remarkably well..
as i say ati are leading nvidia are reacting..
trog
Edit:- The 8800GT is available here but costs 18,000Rs(450$) when it arrived here.
@newtekie1 If it was easy for them they would have done it. Now they again have to spend a bit of money on R&D and all, instead they can just buy/produce more of the present PCB while they are making it for the other card. Plus by the time they sort it out 9x series may come. In the end it has to be looked from all sorts of views. Would have been easier if Nvidia reduced prices of th chips.
If you read the article, after AIB partners complained Nvidia response was reducing PCB layers was a suggestion. SUGGESTION is the key word here! Therefore, it's not entirely viable to use 6 layers!
Lamington Road, Mumbai or Nehru Place, New Delhi.....for us it's better than a nude beach.
All you want is there.
Not when they responded to their AIB partners that it was a suggestion. You gotta read between the lines here.
EDIT: 6 Layers eh... thats not TOO bad. In fact for a GPU, I wouldn't really complain. Anyway, in AUS, the ASUS 8800GT 512MB TOP with the nice cooler costs $366, while the Sapphire HD3870 512MB Costs $333... with only such a small price difference the HD3870 isnt very desirable. Whats worse for AMD is the fact that the 8800GT 256MB is ONLY $300! Now generally it does have more performance overall for everything under around say, 1280x1024 but it does show a lot.
What, it isn't viable because it the manufactures haven't developed it yet?
They haven't developed 32nm GPUs yet either, but I'm sure their viable.
Of course you have no actually clue how much time has been spent on developing a 6 layer PCB for the 8800GT, but we can all just take your word for it.
Yep, you really make a compelling argument.
with cutting out the uneeded stuff and more room between the tracked layers the interference may be less,
dont really see what the fuss is about, its just a pcb redesign, like 8800gt rev2