AdoredTV at it again - Over an hour long video about Nvidia's business practices.

[GorbazTheDragon]

The situation AMD is in is entirely their own making, there are several videos on the same channel about where they have screwed up their marketing and development priorities.

That video quite objectively points out a lot of the dirty practices that have made NVidia successful, however I will likely keep buying NVidia cards in the future unless AMD does actually present a compelling alternative or NVidias practices become so disgusting I don't want to continue to throw money into the gaming industry.

 

[RejZoR]

R9-290X was "so bad" that AMD was able to rehash it as R9-390X and still compete against NVIDIA GTX 980... Only terrible R9 290X were reference ones. Where we can say the same for reference GTX 980. They were all rather crap.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

And the opposite is also true...

Also, not quoting you but @Vya Domus instead, do you recall when AMD went honey-nut-loops crazy about Fermi's power draw? Nvidia was hugely 'roasted' about that Fermi blunder. So on your part, it's massively disingenuous to say the 290X power draw and heat issues were unfair. In fact, it was Fermi that brought Nvidia to where it is. They dropped the hot'n'hungry hippo that was compute (and mostly unnecessary for games) and increased clocks. They went leaner. Then AMD dropped the ball with the first HD7970 (should've released the GHz edition) and they stopped being budget friendly. Nvidia released the now historically odd GK104 (GTX680) and not a GK100.

That whole episode allowed Nvidia to release the not so top tech card as the initial enthusiast part, raking in the $$$, at the same time AMD tried and failed to match it (and in some cases they did, but in the perf/watt metric (and acoustic), they were losing big time. Plus, while we're being factually accurate, the crossfire issues AMD had meant incorrect fps measures (read: inflated performance results) that meant I dumped 2 x 7970's and haven't been back to AMD since (not for GPU anyway). They fixed CF but the damage was done.

No matter what shady practices are shown, AMD, with its popular exploitative PR machine tends to keep aiming at its own foot. Jokes about Fermi being hot - then releases super hot'n'hungry chips itself. Recent 'Poor Volta' viral PR stunts, whoops! And the list goes on.

We all want AMD to get it right, hell, or else I hope Intel does in 2020. All I know is, I won't move from my 1080ti until I absolutely need to because the inflated prices are the biggest crime.

And I can't watch the video because, as a Scot, that accent is an aberration of dialect... Sorry dude.

I agree with you here ,ill say this first.


But again and not you per say , loads of tangential arguments from Nvidia fan's but No hard facts countering those in the video, just opinions, which is ok but none are noted as such??.

 

[Fluffmeister]

R9-290X was "so bad" that AMD was able to rehash it as R9-390X and still compete against NVIDIA GTX 980... Only terrible R9 290X were reference ones. Where we can say the same for reference GTX 980. They were all rather crap.

It did kinda compete:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/30.html

But at the expense of even more horrendous power consumption:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/28.html

 

[OneMoar]

/me gets some popcorn

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

That was 3 years ago...

Let me know when VEGA is a compelling gaming option

 

[FordGT90Concept]

If NVidia did not acquire Ageia, it would end up in the same place as their Cellfactor Evolution. If you don't remember or if you are not familiar with it, it's a showcase game for PhysX accelerators. It started as a AAA game project with bad-ass graphics, lots of real-time physics, action-packed multiplayer etc. etc. Halfway through the development of both PhysX SDK and the game they've ran out of money cause no one wanted to spend $200+ on a PPU (with a final nail in a coffin being BFG going out of business). The game ended up being released years later as a generic C-grade PS3 shooter (really awkward considering it was originally built for PC), and the remaining PPUs became a collectors item even before they hit a "5-years since release" mark.

Microsoft probably would have swooped in to buy it to make it part of DirectX. Instead, we had to wait over a decade for Intel to buy out Havok, do absolutely nothing with it, then sell Havok to Microsoft while NVIDIA gave up trying to monetize PhysX because hardware-specific middleware doesn't work (3dfx Glide anyone?).

Plus, the argument about Cuda and Gameworks is pointless. It's their SDKs, and they are meant to work on their cards, with no obligation to optimize it for their competitors hardware.

And so you get it: this was the beginning of NVIDIA writing software to make people buy their hardware.

Gamedevs choose Gameworks, Hairworks or PhysX because it's available in a nice and intuitive package, it's free, it has a huge library of sample code.

No, they did it because of Market Development Funds (should sound familiar). Developers who agree to use Gameworks can get free hardware and programming support from NVIDIA. Why? Because it sells hardware for NVIDIA down the road.

ATM there's no alternatives.

Except the dozens of OpenCL alternatives. Additionally, a lot of these GameWorks features wouldn't be used at all if they weren't getting paid (via support) to do it. HairWorks is #1 on that list. How many games actually use it? 10? That feels generous.

PhysX is specifically a problem because major engines like Unreal Engine have embedded the middleware in their core. Developers making a game based on an engine will overwhelmingly use what's there over trying to jury-rig an alternative on. Very, very few of these games actually require/use GPU acceleration so PhsyX in practice ends up being no better than Havok (which is still used in a lot of games).

 

[RejZoR]

It did kinda compete:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/30.html

But at the expense of even more horrendous power consumption:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/28.html

The only objectionable issue was desktop and BluRay playback. Gaming consumption, who cares. It's like worrying how efficient a Ferrari is. But is a bit annoying if it's chugging too much when standing still, idling...

 

[cadaveca]

It's not quite, in my opinion, as clearcut and simply damning, as his companion video about Intel. A lot of what he talks about, well, he has the evidence for it, but from the tech press, devs, etc, whereas in the Intel video he often relied on actual court transcripts and documents released during lawsuits that Intel ultimately lost.

In any case, there's definitely a lot of truth in what he's talking about here and it's well worth watching.

Any large business with excessive amounts of money to invest operates in this fashion. This is called success.


Welcome to the real world, enjoy your stay. Souvenirs are available at the gift shop.



Its not like we have recent GPUs or CPUs filling landfills, do we? Products are sold out? So I don't see where the actual problem here (other than the distribution of wealth) is?

 

[kruk]

The reason AMD couldn't deliver is because they decided not to deliver. Its really that simple and its really obvious as well. If you can read between the lines and judge the product at face value, they even say so themselves. - Polaris: 'We will focus on the midrange where volume of sales is highest'. Vega: 'we are primarily making a HPC product, not a gaming GPU'. GCN: 'we need an architecture not specifically for gaming but for everything'.

That are all cost cutting measures and IMO they were a smart way for RTG to survive until more cash flows in. This has finally happened, so they can put GCN to rest. We will see what RTG under the new leadership can do.

I will not reopen the mindshare debate again, because it has been debated to the death, but IMO it is a big factor: just ask non-enthusiast people around you ... for them gaming === GeForce and it has been like that for years, even when AMD/Ati had much better products.

What really needs to happen is for this ship to sink, and to get recovered by a company that IS willing and able to compete with Nvidia. A company also that knows how to play the market in the same, merciless way Nvidia does it.

Or that company would say: »Forget PC gaming, we will only waste money there ... let's only compete in HPC/Pro markets where the margins are significantly higher.«
Game over with the bad ending for all PC gamers ... I would not like to risk it ...

Investments, also, that have improved gaming in real ways. FreeSync would not have existed if it wasn't for Gsync. Tech like TXAA and FXAA similarly are results of Gameworks that benefit us all. Nvidia has many engineers that go out to visit devs and support them to optimize performance. Those are real investments that deserve, and create real payoffs and its really odd to criticize a company for doing that, because 'its competitor doesn't do it'.

They do that now when they have boatloads of money and PC gaming has become their playground, but in the past they have been holding back progress for years. I don't mind if they optimize performance for their architectures, but I do mind if in the process they intentionally harm the competition ...

 

[RejZoR]

AMD/ATi has done great through times. The HD4800 series doubled the performance of old gen. HD5800 doubled it again compared to HD4800. HD7900 was also a huge success and R9 290X, despite higher thermals, it was a brutal machine that lasted for ages thanks to raw throughput. Things like this aren't insignificant and people tend to forget them just because AMD wasn't a "top dog" for a while. Also look at Ryzen. Bulldozer architecture was more or less a flop. And Ryzen/Threadripper is now one of the most competitive designs on the market. It's not impossible for RTG to rise again. AMD has done it several times. They were forced to do it right with CPU, same is happening to their GPU segment. They are forced to make it a success. Ryzen was a bit of a thinking outside of the box. Navi is suppose to be similar outside of box thinking as Ryzen, but it's all a mystery for now. We'll see.

 

[Fluffmeister]

The only objectionable issue was desktop and BluRay playback. Gaming consumption, who cares. It's like worrying how efficient a Ferrari is. But is a bit annoying if it's chugging too much when standing still, idling...

That card is literally using more than TWICE the power to achieve the same peformance as a stock reference GTX 980, but I guess as you say it does "compete" with it. People like efficiency, less power consumption means less heat, which means less noise. This particular issue doesn't have to be brand fanboy related, hell who wouldn't want GTX 1080/Vega 64 performance at say a maximum of 100W?

But I digress, Nvidia are mean in this free market for sure.

 

[GlacierNine]

Any large business with excessive amounts of money to invest operates in this fashion. This is called success.


Welcome to the real world, enjoy your stay. Souvenirs are available at the gift shop.

This is not a justification. At one point it was part of "Success" and "the real world" that slavery was an institution, upon which large businesses success depended.

The same can be said to a greater or lesser degree of serfdom, divine right, etc. The simple fact is that in the intervening centuries between the founding of those ideas, their abuse, and today, we elected that they were not morally justifiable. Monopolistic practices, and the use of a dominant market position to crush the competition, are no different.

As inescapable as the reality is, the fact remains that it is tautological and invalid to imply that could ever be a good reason for it to remain reality.

 

[RejZoR]

That card is literally using more than TWICE the power to achieve the same peformance as a stock reference GTX 980, but I guess as you say it does "compete" with it. People like efficiency, less power consumption means less heat, which means less noise. This particular issue doesn't have to be brand fanboy related, hell who wouldn't want GTX 1080/Vega 64 performance at say a maximum of 100W?

But I digress, Nvidia are mean in this free market for sure.

It's like 2 generations older card, of course it's not so power efficient. But it was so powerful it was able to compete performance wise with the latest and greatest from NVIDIA. What does that tell you?

 

[MrGenius]

They had me pretty much back on their team. Right up until GPP. As soon as I saw that I said "you know what? FUCK YOU!!! You just lost a potential customer. Probably for life!". Stupid assholes. Yes...I will by an "inferior" product. Even if it costs more. And I'll be perfectly happy with it. So long as it doesn't have your filthy ass name on it!

Can't wait to pick up a Vega 64 now that it can be had at MSRP. GTX 1080 is better for same price? Good for you. Don't care. Not in the least. Truth is I don't really need something as good as either one. Had my eye on a GTX 1070. Now I'm just gonna throw as much money as I can AMD's way just to prove a point. Take that bitches!

 

[Fluffmeister]

It's like 2 generations older card, of course it's not so power efficient. But it was so powerful it was able to compete performance wise with the latest and greatest from NVIDIA. What does that tell you?

Check out the GTX 980's performance per watt vs 14nm Polaris:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/25.html

It tells me the GM204 was a gem.

 

[Divide Overflow]

Thread and video aren't about if nVidia has a good performing product. It's about the dirty, underhanded and disgraceful business practices that nVidia employs. The facts brought up in the video can be ignored but nobody has been able to refute them.

 

[RejZoR]

Check out the GTX 980's performance per watt vs 14nm Polaris:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/RX_480/25.html

It tells me the GM204 was a gem.

Polaris was literally made with specific thing in mind. To fit in a very specific price bracket at expense of things while still performing well. I can't believe people don't understand this even today. And if it wasn't for stupid mining garbage, nearly every gaming box would be running a Polaris. Because of mining, literally every mining rig was running a Polaris...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Yup, RX480/RX580 are fantastic cards for 1920x1080 gaming. Better at it than the R9 390/R9 290X it replaced for less money/power.

But yeah, off topic. NVIDIA has been wrapped in shady business for a over a decade now.

 

[HTC]

I've watched the video in full. With that out of the way, i say this: nVidia is totally ruthless, much more then i thought they were!

Nobody can deny nVidia currently has the best gaming cards (performance and power usage wise) and this is so for the last 2 - 3 years: that's not a problem, by itself. That they used and continue to use shady practices is the problem.

Don't agree?

Picture this scenario:

- AMD makes some new architecture that outpaces nVidia's
- they create some libraries that get general adoption and run great on their architecture but cripple nVidia's
- they make those libraries proprietary
- they "convince" game devs to force the use of these libraries for games to "run properly" knowing full well those that had GPUs from the competition would be hurt, performance wise, and in some cases quite severely

Would you not cry foul?

 

[Fluffmeister]

Polaris was literally made with specific thing in mind. To fit in a very specific price bracket at expense of things while still performing well. I can't believe people don't understand this even today. And if it wasn't for stupid mining garbage, nearly every gaming box would be running a Polaris. Because of mining, literally every mining rig was running a Polaris...

Heh i remember the dodgy marketing, VR is not for the 1%! What nonsense.

----------------------------

Picture this scnerio, Intel take GPU land serious and push AMD down into third place, that would be a riot.

Whataboutisms and all that.

 

[ShiBDiB]

Frankly, as it stands now, i dont care how the cow is killed, as long as i get my steak.

This x1billion

Who cares? Brand loyalty is the dumbest thing, buy the best product for what you're trying to do regardless of it has a red or green sticker. These companies don't care about you, so you shouldn't care about them.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

This x1billion

Who cares? Brand loyalty is the dumbest thing, buy the best product for what you're trying to do regardless of it has a red or green sticker. These companies don't care about you, so you shouldn't care about them.

To me this has nothing to do with brand loyalty, rather the fact that NVidia has continually pushed dishonest market practices well beyond what should be considered acceptable.

I buy their cards out of necessity and because I am well informed enough to not waste my money on cards that do not perform in the workloads I need or are sold under those dishonest market practices. But turning a blind eye to these practices that we manage to dodge and get around will only exacerbate the problem to the point that the PC gaming market will not be worth spending money on.

 

[R-T-B]

R9-290X was "so bad" that AMD was able to rehash it as R9-390X and still compete against NVIDIA GTX 980... Only terrible R9 290X were reference ones. Where we can say the same for reference GTX 980. They were all rather crap.

Hawaii was probably AMD's last decent card. Yes, AMD can indeed point to it and be proud of it on it's own accomplishments, but it feels so very long ago now...

 

[cucker tarlson]

They had me pretty much back on their team. Right up until GPP. As soon as I saw that I said "you know what? FUCK YOU!!! You just lost a potential customer. Probably for life!". Stupid assholes. Yes...I will by an "inferior" product. Even if it costs more. And I'll be perfectly happy with it. So long as it doesn't have your filthy ass name on it!

Can't wait to pick up a Vega 64 now that it can be had at MSRP. GTX 1080 is better for same price? Good for you. Don't care. Not in the least. Truth is I don't really need something as good as either one. Had my eye on a GTX 1070. Now I'm just gonna throw as much money as I can AMD's way just to prove a point. Take that bitches!

And that attitude I can respect. At least you have the ballls to admit you're boycotting nvidia out of spite. I can't liten to this "if you choose amd it's a win for all gamers" nonsense anymore.