AMD admits choosing not to develop RTX 4090 competitor because AMD doesn't want your $1600

[AlTech]

Note: All quotes taken from the source were translated with Google Translate so there may be a few minor errors.

Additional Note: This isn't in the tech news subforum cos it is a month old news about an interview that happened in December 2022 so I felt it wasn't appropriate to put in the tech news subforum.

 

Summary

AMD executives, David Wang and Rick Bergman, in an interview with a Japanese media outlet, IT Media, have admitted choosing not to develop an RTX 4090 competitor because they don't want to sell $1600 GPUs to consumers.

 

Or at least that's what they want you to believe .

 

The executives point out that AMD can make big stonking GPUs if they want, see AMD's Radeon Instinct MI200 series GPUs with over 100 CDNA Compute Units, but that making a $1600 gaming GPU is not necessarily what they plan for. They plan to sell $999 GPUs instead.

 

AdoredTV calls BS on this and believes AMD isn't selling RTX 4090 competitors cos they don't want to lose money. He estimated that Radeon Desktop and Laptop GPUs account for around $100 Million in Revenue, not profit. It should be noted that Radeon GPUs do make money selling: APUs to Laptops, APUs to Valve for Steam Deck, and Console APUs to Sony and Microsoft. AdoredTV estimates Sony and Microsoft paid $5.7 Billion to AMD in 2022 for Console APUs, considerably more than AMD's $100 Million revenue from Desktop and Laptop GPUs.

 

Quotes

Quote

Mr. Bergman　Technically, it is possible to develop a GPU with specs that compete with theirs (NVIDIA) . However, the GPU developed in this way was introduced to the market as a ``graphics card with a TDP (thermal design power) of 600W and a reference price of $1,600 (about 219,000 yen)'', and was accepted by general PC gaming fans . After thinking about it, we chose not to adopt such a strategy .

 

Quote

Bergman　The RDNA 3-based GPU "Radeon RX 7900XTX" released this time is targeted at $ 999 (about 136,000 yen), which is considered to be the "upper price" assumed by high-end users among general PC gaming fans. Developed . The "Radeon RX 7900XT" below it is said to be $ 699 (about 95,000 yen).

　The price strategy is the same as the previous RDNA 2 (Radeon RX 6000 series), with the top-end "Radeon RX 6900XT" and "Radeon RX 6800XT" targeting $999 and $699, respectively. However, the target price changes for each GPU generation .

　We take this strategy to fit into the mainstream infrastructure (hardware environment) utilized by today's PC gaming enthusiasts . At the same time as demanding high performance, it should be possible to operate with an existing ``common sense'' power supply unit, ``be able to cool the inside of the case with ``common sense'', and ``can be installed without requiring an extremely large case.'' ――The Radeon RX high-end product group was designed with these in mind.

 

 

Quote

Mr. Wang　If I may say a few words, we at AMD are developing and releasing ultra-high-performance GPUs. For example, two years ago, we announced the " Instinct MI200 series " as the world's first multi-die GPU.

　The top model of the series, " Instinct MI250X " marked the world's fastest theoretical performance of FP32 (single-precision floating-point arithmetic) at about 48 TFLOPS at the time. Since this is an Instinct series, it is not a GPU for gaming. However, if you look at the Instinct series, you should know that AMD can develop (ultra-high-end GPUs) if they want to .

　We just don't think such GPUs are suitable for consumer use

 

My Thoughts:

I think this is quite a damaging and frank admission if ever there was one. Nvidia can drive up the price of the 90 class GPUs safe in the knowledge that AMD won't compete with that class of card. All the while AMD is afraid of spending money to get GPU marketshare and are content with Surrendering to Nvidia as AdoredTV says. Though I vehemently object to AdoredTV's conclusion that people should buy Intel GPUs instead of AMD GPUs. The future of Intel GPUs is uncertain and AMD will continue to provide an option for those that cannot accept Nvidia. The same cannot be said with any degree of certainty with Intel.

 

It is a major disappointment that AMD will surrender the ultra high end to Nvidia but it's not totally unexpected.

 

Sources:

https://www.itmedia.co.jp/pcuser/articles/2303/13/news035.html

 

[thekingofmonks]

Their poor attempt at virtue signaling

[Dedayog]

Couldn't disagree more with your thoughts.

 

A company knowing its market and abilities is refreshing.   How many 4090's are sold? How many 7999XTXXXX's would be sold?  

Are they abandoning the ultra high end market?  Those with $2000 for a GPU are already prejudiced for Nvidia.  It's not a market worth chasing, IMO.

 

They know where the bulk of the money is, and they went after it very well with the new Radeons over the past few years.  The 6800/6900 and 7900 lines are very good at being in the meat of the upper end of the bell curve.

 

If I were AMD, I would probably look to see if I could make a 4090 killer but I would just let those who need to feel good about themselves spend it on Nvidia.  Not worth chasing.  Besides, if you look at those buying the 4090, the vast majority don't utilize it fully.  It's always thus on the bleeding edge, look at cars, watches, etc.  Trying to buy status.  Not all, but most.  Too fickle a market since it's not about performance as much as it is perception.

 

Not a damaging admission at all.

[Levent]

No company will give up making more money. If it made sense for them to make one, they would. In the end, AMD is the one who makes landfill special cards like RX6500 and RX6400.

[YoungBlade]

AMD had a flagship GPU that went toe-to-toe with the previous generation flagship - one that even cost $500 less - and people turned up their noses at it. If you look at historical examples, like the R9 290(X), AMD has to not only compete in performance, but also come in at a lower price in order for people to care.

 

It has been demonstrated repeatedly that AMD can't just have a GPU that trades blows with the Nvidia flagship. They would need a GPU that absolutely crushes it into the ground across the board. Minimum 20% better in all circumstances, ideally 30% better, and winning by 50% in select titles. If that were the case, then people would (probably) be willing to spend 4090 money on the RX 7970 XTX or whatever they would call it.

[Fasauceome]

21 minutes ago, Levent said:

AMD is the one who makes landfill special cards like RX6500 and RX6400.

They sell better than they have any right to, otherwise why would they waste manufacturing resources making them?

 

And as @YoungBladepointed out, people really do just scoff at AMD's halo products in the GPU department.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Fasauceome

[YoungBlade]

3 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

They sell better than they have any right to, otherwise why would they waste manufacturing resources making them?

I regularly see people defending the 6400 and 6500 as "the cheapest new GPUs on the market." There is a sizable minority (maybe actually it's the majority?) who refuse to buy used, and so only look at new products.

 

Right or wrong, consumers want cheap, new GPUs, even if they have tons of compromises.

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Right or wrong, consumers want cheap, new GPUs, even if they have tons of compromises.

I usually have to decide for someone I'm building for whether they want a used graphics card. It probably didn't even cross their mind until I bring it up most of the time. New is the default choice for most anybody even when an old GTX 1070 would be a better pick.

[tkitch]

50 minutes ago, Levent said:

No company will give up making more money. If it made sense for them to make one, they would. In the end, AMD is the one who makes landfill special cards like RX6500 and RX6400.

The 1630 and other NVidia cards say "Hello, team green fanboy!"

[tkitch]

31 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

They sell better than they have any right to, otherwise why would they waste manufacturing resources making them?

 

And as @YoungBladepointed out, people really do just scoff at AMD's halo products in the GPU department.

I'm now running a 7900XT...  
And it's performing like an absolute champ of a card.  Awesome framerates, and I'm fully CPU Bottlenecked by my 10850K in a number of titles at 1440.  (With average FPS at 140+ Frequently.)

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, tkitch said:

The 1630 and other NVidia cards say "Hello, team green fanboy!"

Yeah, they both have these fun aspects.  There are just so many misleading scenarios and questionable business practices all over the place.

 

Kind of sad to have to pick between the lesser of two evils some days.

[Levent]

4 minutes ago, tkitch said:

The 1630 and other NVidia cards say "Hello, team green fanboy!"

I actually forgot that exists. Presumably because I never seen it for sale here. 
 

Looking at release dates, you can see that Nvidia actually copied AMD on releasing landfill products. 6500 was released 6 months before 1630.

 

I am not a fanboy, I just hate it when people claim or act like AMD is the company of the people while pulling shit like these.

[tkitch]

Just now, Dedayog said:

Yeah, they both have these fun aspects.  There are just so many misleading scenarios and questionable business practices all over the place.

 

Kind of sad to have to pick between the lesser of two evils some days.

I mean, my personal opinion at this point is to not ever suggest anything below an RX 6600.  
At 220-ish, depending on model, it's so much better than a 3050, or other lower performing cards?  There's no reason to look at them.  

 

Are the 6400 or 6500 good cards?  Absolutely not.  They're trash.  But the 1630 (another fairly new product from NVidia) is just as bad, if not worse.

 

As Linus covered in a recent video, there's just no reason to buy them.  At all. 

[xFluing]

Once again, that 600w quote is a mistranslation. The actual quote is saying "we didn't really want to develop a 600w card to beat the 4090", just of course not in those words, I am just paraphrasing.

[AlTech]

5 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

They sell better than they have any right to, otherwise why would they waste manufacturing resources making them?

Both of those were originally laptop GPUs re-purposed into OEM and desktop cards. Presumably done because Nvidia chose not to compete in that segment and there was an appetite for cards at those prices.

5 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

And as @YoungBladepointed out, people really do just scoff at AMD's halo products in the GPU department.

They do though a silent minority are still buying their halo cards anyways.

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

They do though a silent minority are still buying their halo cards anyways

We as enthusiasts have better appreciation for the finer things in life, of course. I always have to keep in mind the normies when wondering why business decisions are made

[thekingofmonks]

2 hours ago, Levent said:

AMD is the one who makes landfill special cards like RX6500 and RX6400

I swear I'm not picky when it comes to brands, but gosh, was the 6500 XT an embarrassment.

[xAcid9]

2 hours ago, xFluing said:

Once again, that 600w quote is a mistranslation. The actual quote is saying "we didn't really want to develop a 600w card to beat the 4090", just of course not in those words, I am just paraphrasing.

 

 

 

[XZDX]

 

I don't watch a lot of Adored TV anymore after his little explosion pre-ryzen-release, but I've been thinking about this topic for a good little bit.

 

What happens when the console manufacturers don't need Radeon APU's anymore?  What happens when AMD has to rely on their server computer products and wonky desktop sales?  The market may be balancing out, but field research has changed from large processing pipelines into AI and AI specific pipelines.  I haven't heard much about Instinct AI ASIC's lately, have ya'll?

 

Where do you think they will go from here?  Especially with Nvidia accepting the bitcoin rollout is over for now, moving back towards low end GPU's?

 

What does AMD have to cement them down in the GPU sector?

[bezza...]

release 7600xt 7700xt 7800xt now to swallow a large amount of market share

[AlTech]

45 minutes ago, XZDX said:

 

I don't watch a lot of Adored TV anymore after his little explosion pre-ryzen-release, but I've been thinking about this topic for a good little bit.

 

What happens when the console manufacturers don't need Radeon APU's anymore?  What happens when AMD has to rely on their server computer products and wonky desktop sales?  The market may be balancing out, but field research has changed from large processing pipelines into AI and AI specific pipelines.  I haven't heard much about Instinct AI ASIC's lately, have ya'll?

AMD has those covered with their Xillinx purchase.

 

They're slowly introducing them into Epyc and some Ryzen CPUs.

45 minutes ago, XZDX said:

Where do you think they will go from here?  Especially with Nvidia accepting the bitcoin rollout is over for now, moving back towards low end GPU's?

 

What does AMD have to cement them down in the GPU sector?

iGPUs, Consoles, and CDNA Compute Graphics.

[AlTech]

4 hours ago, Levent said:

I actually forgot that exists. Presumably because I never seen it for sale here. 
 

Looking at release dates, you can see that Nvidia actually copied AMD on releasing landfill products. 6500 was released 6 months before 1630.

 

I am not a fanboy, I just hate it when people claim or act like AMD is the company of the people while pulling shit like these.

Those cards made sense for the time that AMD released them, the mining boom was still ongoing and cryptominers bought up all the cards with 8GB or more of VRAM so AMD had to limit them to 4GB to stop miners buying them. And AMD wanted to deliver a cheap card that people could acruly buy near MSRP.

 

The problem is now that the mining craze is gone or substantially reduced that those cards will always have 4GB VRAM.

[jaslion]

Amd did sell halo tier products before but nobody bought them even if they were better.

 

So logically they wouldn't make them anymore.

 

Basically what we saw with the rx5000 series. There could have totally been a 5800, 5900,... but no they stuck to the more budget market and they seemingly sold quite well.

 

I think people forgot that amd retreated out of the high end gpu market for years and focused on mid tier stuff which sold very very well. So why would they really bother now with halo stuff that won't sell when their lower tier stuff is what flies of the shelves?

 

Also keep in mind EVERYONE wants a nvidia gpu basically. Amd only exists in their mind to make their prices lower. The only time a amd card gets bought is when it's the noticeably cheaper better option.

 

Right now their latest architecture seems to be focused on crazy high efficiency aka a mobile first approach which is one of their biggest consumer markets next to consoles rn.

[Zando_]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Amd did sell halo tier products before but nobody bought them even if they were better.

At least in my experience (coming in around 2016-7-ish), they just didn't support them, nor continue making them. The Fury X was a weird one-off, they didn't support it well, they didn't improve on it. The Radeon VII was the same, weird one-off, they barely supported it at all, didn't improve on it. AMD halo tiers don't do well because AMD never commits to consistently creating and supporting halo tier products. 

25 minutes ago, jaslion said:

I think people forgot that amd retreated out of the high end gpu market for years and focused on mid tier stuff which sold very very well. So why would they really bother now with halo stuff that won't sell when their lower tier stuff is what flies of the shelves?

Yep, they like to stick with easy to sell stuff, thus the focus on midrange consumer GPUs, and enterprise gear. It's the same on the CPU side with HEDT Threadripper. They promised support for TRX40 then dumped it in favor of the higher margin TR Pro workstation platform. TR users still suffer from the same TPM issues AMD already fixed on the AM4 platform, as AMD just doesn't care to support their HEDT at all. 

[jaslion]

20 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

The Fury X was a weird one-off, they didn't support it well, they didn't improve on it. The Radeon VII was the same, weird one-off, they barely supported it at all, didn't improve on it. AMD halo tiers don't do well because AMD never commits to consistently creating and supporting halo tier products. 

It does align with these products basically not selling so why invest a ton of support for what might be maybe only 10k cards in existence at that point. Sucks for the people that bought it but hey. I got a vega 7 for 350 brand new because it was not moving for 2 years even at low prices :p. Friend has it and it works the same as a vega gpu. Plays games pretty decently but other than that doesn't do much else.

 

21 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

They promised support for TRX40 then dumped it in favor of the higher margin TR Pro workstation platform. TR users still suffer from the same TPM issues AMD already fixed on the AM4 platform, as AMD just doesn't care to support their HEDT at all. 

I do believe the 16 core consumer cpu's suddenly coming out is what killed their platform as the people that needed cpu power suddenly had a cheap platform to go to.

 

It's why I do see this version of the hedt platform being actually support for a while since now we have a set threshold of 16 cores on desktop and everything else on hedt.

 

BUT intel is showing a interesting side which I do believe amd will follow and that is a budget 6 core, 8 core,... hedt cpu that is very in line with their desktop pricing BUT has the pcie lanes some people need. So it feels like this time HEDT is mean to ADD to the consumer and general user experience instead of be a entirely different market that got confused with server grade stuff.