GeForce GTX 680 A Sellout Success: NVIDIA

[btarunr]

NVIDIA's flagship single-GPU graphics card, the GeForce GTX 680, achieved performance leadership over AMD's Radeon HD 7970, and forced a price-cut, however, a section of the community feels that availability is an issue with it. According to NVIDIA, availability is attributed to sales, and not lack of volumes. At an annual investors' meeting with the company's top-brass, NVIDIA released a slide which depicts GeForce GTX 680 as having 60% higher sales than GeForce GTX 580, six weeks following their respective launches.

There is one cosmetic inaccuracy in the graph, though. GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 580 are labeled "GT". One inference that can be drawn out of the graph is that NVIDIA is seeing some success in putting the 28 nm silicon fabrication process to use, despite the GTX 680 being one of the first chips built on it. In comparison, the GTX 580 arrived when the 40 nm process achieved a higher level of maturity. There seems to be a genuinely high demand for the GTX 680.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[dj-electric]

Ok NVIDIA. Now that you're happy and know you can make lots of money off a 500$ GPU what can we do? really?

 

[btarunr]

We could call bluff on "yield issues".

 

[ZoneDymo]

teh GTX680 is a sellout for sure, sad that so many people supported this price fixing bs instead of demanding progress.

 

[syeef]

What do you mean "Sellout Success" ? I am still waiting for it to hit my Country... waiting for months to get one...

 

[dj-electric]

We could call bluff on "yield issues".

Yes we could. The community's problem is that it seems to buy products no matter how much they cost. This is the main fuel for the high prices, Just feed us with a spoon on expensive graphics cards and we'll invent reasons to pay 500$ and more for them.

 

[Andy77]

Sell out?... selling mid-range chips at a high-end price, yet they made half the profits they did with Fermi 1.1. WOW! More like a sell-short.

 

[mastrdrver]

In a related story, nVidia is the only one complaining about TSMC's 28nm process.

 

[v12dock]

People are still going on about the mid-range chip thing? Its a name

 

[yogurt_21]

no suprise here, the 580 was what the 480 should have been, so the the 680 being wholly new will help sales. Also it's perf/watt being far better helps immensely.

 

[OneCool]

Marketing propaganda...move on

 

[eddman]

Sell out?... selling mid-range chips at a high-end price, yet they made half the profits they did with Fermi 1.1. WOW! More like a sell-short.

LOL, 680 launched March 22; just 10 days before Q1's end.

In a related story, nVidia is the only one complaining about TSMC's 28nm process.

If others are not complaining, does not mean the process doesn't have problems.

 

[sc]

I think they forget most people don't upgrade yearly.
The major upgrade for a lot of people was the 400 series, not the 500. Now, after almost 3 years, they upgrade to 600 series.

 

[Fluffmeister]

In a related story, nVidia is the only one complaining about TSMC's 28nm process.

Publically at least, pretty sure Qualcomm feel constrained by supply too.

 

[Benetanegia]

LOL, 680 launched March 22; just 10 days before Q1's end.

If others are not complaining, does not mean the process doesn't have problems.

Making sense? Using logic? Get out of internet.

I think they forget most people don't upgrade yearly.
The major upgrade for a lot of people was the 400 series, not the 500. Now, after almost 3 years, they upgrade to 600 series.

So your proposition is that many people bought the 400 series, which was nearly a flop actually, but only a few upgraded from 8800/9800 or 200 series (also a 2-3 year cycle) to the much better 500 series? The fact is that much much more people bought the 8800/9800 and GT200 series than the 400 series and by your logic about buying cycles, 500 series would have sold a lot more, not only because it was fairly better, but because of the timing. Take a look at Steam hardware survey there's much more 500 series cards than 400 series cards and in fact 500 series is one of the most succesful lines released.

EDIT: Ok Steam survey does not work atm, at least for me, probably because they are updating with data from May. Better yet, tomorrow we'll see what percentage of GTX680 are there. I bet there's actually more of it than any HD7000 card. Like I said several weeks ago AMD needs to give the impression that they can deliver and meet demand, because demand is lower than they can supply. Hence they don't mention 28nm problems with yields and demand, even though their pricing speaks volumes. Nvidia put up several "excuses" because they would not be able to meet the demand, even if higher than "normal" (for a flagship card) demand is the culprit, because no matter how much they've been selling the concept of "not meeting demand == losing potential profits" is something that scares the hell out of investors and partners.

 

[Xzibit]

Nice graph but I have numbers too

GTX 580 released
11/09/2009 - 13.34
12/24/2009 - 18.09

Take out the fact that it was Holiday season. The stock went up so its a success

GTX 680 released
03/22/2012 - 14.35
05/31/2012 - 12.43

Hmm. So if your stock goes up 5 points its whatever, but if you loose 2 points its a 60% success over gaining 5 points in stock value.

I want this guys job.

 

[sc]

So your proposition is that many people bought the 400 series, which was nearly a flop actually, but only a few upgraded from 8800/9800 or 200 series (also a 2-3 year cycle) to the much better 500 series? The fact is that much much more people bought the 8800/9800 and GT200 series than the 400 series and by your logic about buying cycles, 500 series would have sold a lot more, not only because it was fairly better, but because of the timing. Take a look at Steam hardware survey there's much more 500 series cards than 400 series cards and in fact 500 series is one of the most succesful lines released.

It's not about performance here, it's about how much money people have and are willing to spend on computer hardware.
Let's say the 700 series will be launched tomorrow and the performance would be triple of the 600 series. I doubt that more than 1% of the people that just got a 600 series card would upgrade to it in the next year or so. Get it now?

 

[Fluffmeister]

It's not about performance here, it's about how much money people have and are willing to spend on computer hardware.
Let's say the 700 series will be launched tomorrow and the performance would be triple of the 600 series. I doubt that more than 1% of the people that just got a 600 series card would upgrade to it in the next year or so. Get it now?

That's a bad example fella, if they released a card tomorrow that was three times faster than a 680, I guarantee the world and their mother would buy it.

 

[Benetanegia]

It's not about performance here, it's about how much money people have and are willing to spend on computer hardware.
Let's say the 700 series will be launched tomorrow and the performance would be triple of the 600 series. I doubt that more than 1% of the people that just got a 600 series card would upgrade to it in the next year or so. Get it now?

No I don't get it because it makes no sense. First of all, yeah what fluffmeister said.



Now secondly, that 500 series sold much more than 400 series is a fact. I could have just said that, but decided to argue with your logic.

So 500 series sold more, hence people would be much more inclined to skip the 600 series, like they did with 400 serie and NOT the 500 series, which HAS sold a lot.

Even though it's true that most upgrade every 2 or 3 years, not all people upgrade at the same time. That's where your logic fails badly. People would skip 400, 500 or 600 just as easily based on their buying cycle... Now 500 series was much better than 400 series, which one is far more likely to be skipped? 400 series, oviously. And that's what happened actually. People are buying the 600 series in masses, because for the current climate is a hell of a card.

@ Xzbit

You always mention stock as if it means anything. It doesn't, not on this matter. Sales of a high-end card has very little to do with stock price. That is based on what people wnat to do with their stock and nothing else and is 90% of the times based on what some moron said or in what the think is a trend than on hardware or actual sales of an especific product. Investors know absolutely nothing about hardware, they buy or sell out of oportunity and what they perceive as trends, as I said. In particular the stock price grew up in 2009 mostly because of Tegra and Nvidia seriously entering the smartphone and tablet market.

 

[syeef]

FYI, I am trying to upgrade from a 8800GT to a GTX680... I upgrade my System every 3 years...

 

[sc]

Oh boy... arguing on the internet is pointless.

 

[Benetanegia]

FYI, I am trying to upgrade from a 8800GT to a GTX680... I upgrade my System every 3 years...

The 8800 GT was released 5 years ago...

Oh boy... arguing on the internet is pointless.

Especially when you are wrong. The GTX680 is selling like hotcakes and it's selling more than GTX580 because it's a more desirable card based on its own merits. Not because of your distorted view of upgrading cycles. The GTX580 sold very well too, better than the 480/470 and better than AMD cards on the same bracket, which is the only thing we can compare with.

 

[syeef]

The 8800 GT was released 5 years ago...

Well my country is slow... I bought it 3.5 years ago. Now, I want to buy a GTX680, still waiting for it. GOD knows when it will get here....

 

[Nkd]

Bullshit, I don't believe that they are so damn popular that they are still hard to find after over 2 months of launch. Seriously if anyone believes this they are just being fanboys. I am sure they are popular but to believe that they are hard to find because they are getting sold out is bullshit. I work in retail channel and these things are non existent, place an order for 10 and you get allocation of 1 if you are lucky.

Yes they are popular and I mean very popular but to say that the reason we can't find them is because of demand is bullshit.

 

[mlee49]

Nvidia might just have the best/worst marketing team ever.

Every press release has graphs, charts, and useless numbers in them.