NVIDIA Could Capitalize on AMD GCN Not Supporting Direct3D 12_1

[Techhog]

I'm a broken record at this point, and you can find my full-length explanation in a couple different threads. If you want long-term competition, it's better AMD dies now rather than 5-6 years later. Intel would get the GPU IP, and Nvidia would grab the CPU IP, reigniting competition on both fronts.

You really think it would happen that way? lol. No. This also assumes that AMD's death is an absolute certainty.

[Opcode]

- snip -

Welcome to the world of LTT where everything gets blown out of proportion without reason. I think more people are interested in buying into speculation than the actual facts themselves. Either side will pounce on the other if the opportunity arises. It's an every day thing around here and grows tiresome with very few of putting forth any real collaboration instead of the "omgawd GCN no supporth FL 12_1 die wif fire pew pew" or the "omgawd 3.5 GB memoriez such brokens die wif fire pew pew".

 

I'm a broken record at this point, and you can find my full-length explanation in a couple different threads. If you want long-term competition, it's better AMD dies now rather than 5-6 years later. Intel would get the GPU IP, and Nvidia would grab the CPU IP, reigniting competition on both fronts.

How does that help anyone other than complicating the market all the more. AMD doesn't need to die they just need Zen and GCN 2.0 to deliver to further their financial interests. Make no mistake AMD is extremely capable given the right circumstances. They've just hit a rut over the course of the past few years and need to bulldoze their way out of it. Given what the company can do in financial ruins should at least tell a story of how big of a threat they really would be if they were entirely profitable. In that respect if either Intel or Nvidia wants AMD gone they need to hit them hard now because the longer they wait the more opportunity AMD has to gain market share. Giving the company any kind of "breathing room" would be a terrible mistake.

[Eroda]

If the Xbox One supports DX12 then it'll almost be an instant switch to DX12 "for newer games obviously" or unless devs go back in and support DX12 but that's a stretch.

 

Microsoft also said DX12 is being adopted by developers as fast or faster than DX9. if xbone is not dx12_0 feature level compliant, that might suck for adoption of dx12_0 features on PC, at least with multi-plat games.

 

An interesting side note however, is  that the hardware is the same in the PS4, which means the PS4 is fully compliant with Vulkan, the next stage of OpenGL that was build from the ashes of the Mantle API. Microsoft is touting performance gains on the XBone with DX12, but those gains would be nullified by Vulkan on the PS4. It's something I haven't heard talked about much, if at all. Not entirely sure why...

 

 

xbone has a GCN GPU in there if its getting dx12 support it will be for direct x 12.0 since the console doesnt have 12.1 support since its a little on the older side

[HalGameGuru]

-snip-

 

What are your thoughts on Samsung coming in in the interim and procuring some debt to put themselves in a position to strengthen future cooperation on IP and fabrication, or forgive debt for stock and then offer a stock swap to pull in a quick minority stake and let Samsung subsidiaries get access to shared IP and dip their toes into the Intel/AMD/nVidia guerrilla war for the long haul? Those agreements only cover controlling interest, and the swaps involved could turn samsung subsidiaries into legit AMD third parties.

[Linusinium]

What are your thoughts on Samsung coming in in the interim and procuring some debt to put themselves in a position to strengthen future cooperation on IP and fabrication, or forgive debt for stock and then offer a stock swap to pull in a quick minority stake and let Samsung subsidiaries get access to shared IP and dip their toes into the Intel/AMD/nVidia guerrilla war for the long haul? Those agreements only cover controlling interest, and the swaps involved could turn samsung subsidiaries into legit AMD third parties.

 

Samsung is preferable to either market leader. Intel & NV would be too concerned with shutting each other out of "their" markets than to actually compete, shareholders and CEO's alike prefer monopoly concerns over rich and R&D strong competitors.

 

I get it, the idea of a Intel 14nm dGPU or a NV 8core CPU tuned to work with their GPU's may sound enticing but the assumption that AMD would be split even & fair between the two market leaders belongs in fairy tales. Who would want Intel penetrating their market? NV would rather spend a fortune now to prevent Intel entering their domain than bleed out to Intel over time like AMD did.

 

Samsung absorbing AMD and innovating semi conductors would be the ideal scenario. An equivalent of a sub 10nm silicon, to produce 10bil+ transistor chips, beat Intel and NV with raw power sooner and worry about architecture later.

[s3ns3]

Why would an AMD fanboy buy a Nvidia card if the old amd cards already support dx 12?

you just answered your question. 'old amd cards' . like i said because most of the 300 series will be rebrands

 

 

So you're expecting/hoping for an Nvidia monopoly and AMD's death by the end of the year?

yes. hell yes. so amd can be bought by someone with deep pockets . to have real competition again. 

 

do you think that we would see gtx titans and 980 ti if amd would be competitive ? hell no the gm200 thats inside the titan and the 980ti would have been in gtx 980 at 500$.

[othertomperson]

Beating a competitor out of the market doesn't invite lawsuits unless you do it illegally (in an anti-competitive manner). Monopolies are legal if earned the correct way. Seriously, do you people bother doing any research before opening your mouths irl or posting online?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

 

Do you?

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

you just answered your question. 'old amd cards' . like i said because most of the 300 series will be rebrands

 

And the rebranded cards will support DX12... 

 

I fail to see why it would make even the biggest AMD fanboy buy an nvidia card

[mr moose]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

 

Do you?

 

From your link:

 

The courts have interpreted this to mean that monopoly is not unlawful per se, but only if acquired through prohibited conduct

 

 

A monopoly in and of itself is not illegal, and cannot be prevented outside of disallowing a merger in the first instance.   A company rising to the point of monopoly through legal/ethical activity is does not automatically break any laws, however as soon as it can be proved that company used its monopoly in an illegal manner (anti trust) then it faces legal repercussions.

[othertomperson]

From your link:

 

 

A monopoly in and of itself is not illegal, and cannot be prevented outside of disallowing a merger in the first instance.   A company rising to the point of monopoly through legal/ethical activity is does not automatically break any laws, however as soon as it can be proved that company used its monopoly in an illegal manner (anti trust) then it faces legal repercussions.

 

Nvidia actively "putt the knife in", as it were, would definitely be anti-trust.

 

The point is that becoming a monopoly, aside from being horrific to the consumer and actually against the whole ethos of the free market, would open Nvidia up to an extreme level of scrutiny of their every action. That's something that they do not want. For them it's far simpler to just keep their 75% market dominance.

[Techhog]

yes. hell yes. so amd can be bought by someone with deep pockets . to have real competition again. 

 

do you think that we would see gtx titans and 980 ti if amd would be competitive ? hell no the gm200 thats inside the titan and the 980ti would have been in gtx 980 at 500$.

If a company buys AMD, it'll be for the patents. They won't make x86_64 CPUs or dGPUs. Intel and Nvidia will have complete monopolies, makings things worse, not better.

[patrickjp93]

You really think it would happen that way? lol. No. This also assumes that AMD's death is an absolute certainty.

R 300 and Zen would have to be smash hits, and you have financial analysts who went into the actual offices and were given a view of all current and some future product lines. If they're saying AMD's likely to go bankrupt by 2020, you can probably bet on it. And I've spent a couple nights looking at the state of the industry. There's only 2-3 ways that situation would unfold. The third option of Qualcomm swooping in to take over AMD is not even worth discussing.

[patrickjp93]

What are your thoughts on Samsung coming in in the interim and procuring some debt to put themselves in a position to strengthen future cooperation on IP and fabrication, or forgive debt for stock and then offer a stock swap to pull in a quick minority stake and let Samsung subsidiaries get access to shared IP and dip their toes into the Intel/AMD/nVidia guerrilla war for the long haul? Those agreements only cover controlling interest, and the swaps involved could turn samsung subsidiaries into legit AMD third parties.

Samsung's not nearly that predatorial. Furthermore, it's heavily invested in custom ARM via Exynos at this point. Samsung is very much aware the PC space is drying up, and to break into HPC would require partnerships it just doesn't have. AMD has little value for Samsung in spite of what Korean pot stirrers may gin up.

Samsung/GloFo was a mutually beneficial partnership. I don't seem Samsung/AMD as such, and the entire HSAF membership is waiting for AMD to prove it can work. Until that time comes, no one's motivated to back the standard and back an AMD that has systemic structural problems and bleeding money.

[patrickjp93]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

Do you?

I do. And that page still pretty much agrees with me, and their #3 is blatantly false if you actually read the laws it's based on. As long as Nvidia does nothing to artificially wound its competition and beats it fair and square, there's nothing any court system in the world can do. Winning the competition and becoming a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself. I'm sorry but ask any living economist or professor of economic law or a lawyer/judge to that effect.

[Guest Strangerbob]

clickbait bullshit to start up shit....

 

WHY wasnt this locked instantly? ... mods slacking off

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

clickbait bullshit to start up shit....

 

WHY wasnt this locked instantly? ... mods slacking off

the same reason this thread wasn't locked. 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/377771-anandtech-gtx980-ti-shows-a-significant-pixel-fillrate-difference-vs-gtx-titan-x/page-6#entry5109097

[HalGameGuru]

I do. And that page still pretty much agrees with me, and their #3 is blatantly false if you actually read the laws it's based on. As long as Nvidia does nothing to artificially wound its competition and beats it fair and square, there's nothing any court system in the world can do. Winning the competition and becoming a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself. I'm sorry but ask any living economist or professor of economic law or a lawyer/judge to that effect.

 

There is actually some interesting historical context for anti-trust independent of monopoly. There is a lot of economic study surrounding the stagnation of american auto makers in the 60/70's stemming from anti-trust threats, over market share rather than monopoly, causing innovation to grind to a halt. SO when those players who had no market share, i.e. east asian imports, entered the market to play hard ball they could innovate at breakneck speed and gobble up huge portions of the market with no threat of intervention. And if we keep going on that train those events leading up to that are also what caused the more recent troubles, union structures and agreements, lackluster designs and technology, inefficient and dated powertrains and components, etc. Heck, in a lot of the historical cases where anti-trust was enforced the offending corporation was never a monopoly and in one case by the time anti-trust proceedings began the market share held by the offender had shrunk to a minority stake of the market. 

 

On an earlier comment someone made, monopoly is rarely the problem it is touted as, in the free market at least (or as free as we can get it), and there are many examples of historical monopoly that do not follow this bogeyman story. THere are some good videos put out by Mises Media that go over some of this. Austrian economics is an interesting field and incorporates many more facets of human behavior than more widely followed schools. we often see problems of contrived or machinated monopoly, especially where state regulation or interference leads to such situations rather than direct competition. Like Cable companies, at&t and the Bell companies (Which are still basically monopolies even now), Railroads, heck there is a great example of state sponsored monopoly failing in the face of free market competition which itself became a temporary sort of monopoly in New York Ferry service and Vanderbilt. There are some good videos on the subject if anyone is interested.

 

There is threat of anti-trust long before monopoly ever comes into the picture, and there are de facto monopolies all over the place, many of them provided their teeth or protected by the state and regulation. It is an "interesting" system where monopoly is both supported and protected by short sighted regulation and cronyism, versus the threat to monopolist industry by the same state regulatory bodies and congressional oversight. 

 

I'll throw in a few videos just to whet appetites for the interested.

The Robber Barons and the Progressive Era

Monopoly, Competition, and Anti-Trust

 

And to be fair these are going over historical examples and into legal and economic extrapolation, not directly concerned with our current debate, but offering color commentary for the forces at work.

[othertomperson]

I do. And that page still pretty much agrees with me, and their #3 is blatantly false if you actually read the laws it's based on. As long as Nvidia does nothing to artificially wound its competition and beats it fair and square, there's nothing any court system in the world can do. Winning the competition and becoming a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself. I'm sorry but ask any living economist or professor of economic law or a lawyer/judge to that effect.

 

I suggest you start arguing with things I've actually said, rather than picking your own argument and trying to make points against that.

 

That you consider a monopoly "winning" is also quite interesting. The only difference between a monopoly and public ownership is the the latter at least pretends to be of benefit to someone.

[patrickjp93]

 

There is actually some interesting historical context for anti-trust independent of monopoly. There is a lot of economic study surrounding the stagnation of american auto makers in the 60/70's stemming from anti-trust threats, over market share rather than monopoly, causing innovation to grind to a halt. SO when those players who had no market share, i.e. east asian imports, entered the market to play hard ball they could innovate at breakneck speed and gobble up huge portions of the market with no threat of intervention. And if we keep going on that train those events leading up to that are also what caused the more recent troubles, union structures and agreements, lackluster designs and technology, inefficient and dated powertrains and components, etc. Heck, in a lot of the historical cases where anti-trust was enforced the offending corporation was never a monopoly and in one case by the time anti-trust proceedings began the market share held by the offender had shrunk to a minority stake of the market. 

 

On an earlier comment someone made, monopoly is rarely the problem it is touted as, in the free market at least (or as free as we can get it), and there are many examples of historical monopoly that do not follow this bogeyman story. THere are some good videos put out by Mises Media that go over some of this. Austrian economics is an interesting field and incorporates many more facets of human behavior than more widely followed schools. we often see problems of contrived or machinated monopoly, especially where state regulation or interference leads to such situations rather than direct competition. Like Cable companies, at&t and the Bell companies (Which are still basically monopolies even now), Railroads, heck there is a great example of state sponsored monopoly failing in the face of free market competition which itself became a temporary sort of monopoly in New York Ferry service and Vanderbilt. There are some good videos on the subject if anyone is interested.

 

There is threat of anti-trust long before monopoly ever comes into the picture, and there are de facto monopolies all over the place, many of them provided their teeth or protected by the state and regulation. It is an "interesting" system where monopoly is both supported and protected by short sighted regulation and cronyism, versus the threat to monopolist industry by the same state regulatory bodies and congressional oversight. 

 

I'll throw in a few videos just to whet appetites for the interested.

The Robber Barons and the Progressive Era

Monopoly, Competition, and Anti-Trust

 

And to be fair these are going over historical examples and into legal and economic extrapolation, not directly concerned with our current debate, but offering color commentary for the forces at work.

My microeconomics professor was very much into behavioral economics & game theory which are the other pillars of Austrian Economics. Boeing and Airbus are de facto monopolies as well, but the innovation goes ever onward. In the case of Intel though, with IBM, Nvidia, and AMD out of the way, who would step up? HP with the optical computing that's still getting nowhere? D-Wave or Google with Quantum Computing? Intel would go unopposed, and I'm pretty sure it'd happily slow down innovation to the bare minimum to keep driving sales.

[patrickjp93]

I suggest you start arguing with things I've actually said, rather than picking your own argument and trying to make points against that.

 

That you consider a monopoly "winning" is also quite interesting. The only difference between a monopoly and public ownership is the the latter at least pretends to be of benefit to someone.

You asked if I was familiar with antitrust law, and I am. That wikipedia page is also demonstrably false. If it wasn't Boeing would have been broken up a long time ago, as it is a monopoly in the U.S.. Monopolies are not illegal in and of themselves. They have to be gained in an anti-competitive manner.

 

Monopoly also tends to benefit someone: investors. Public ownership tends to keep repeating the tragedy of the commons too.

[othertomperson]

You asked if I was familiar with antitrust law, and I am. That wikipedia page is also demonstrably false. If it wasn't Boeing would have been broken up a long time ago, as it is a monopoly in the U.S.. Monopolies are not illegal in and of themselves. They have to be gained in an anti-competitive manner.

 

Monopoly also tends to benefit someone: investors. Public ownership tends to keep repeating the tragedy of the commons too.

 

Literally nobody but you is saying anything about monopolies being illegal.

[patrickjp93]

Literally nobody but you is saying anything about monopolies being illegal.

You asked me if I knew what I was saying about antitrust law and specifically sent me to a wikipedia page which says the following.

 

United States antitrust law is a collection of federal and state government laws, which regulates the conduct and organization of business corporations, generally to promote fair competition for the benefit of consumers. The main statutes are the Sherman Act 1890, the Clayton Act 1914 and the Federal Trade Commission Act 1914. These Acts, first, restrict the formation of cartels and prohibit other collusive practices regarded as being in restraint of trade. Second, they restrict the mergers and acquisitions of organizations which could substantially lessen competition. Third, they prohibit the creation of a monopoly and the abuse of monopoly power.

Which is demonstrably false and even contradicted later on in the article. By extension, I assumed you believed I didn't know what I was saying about Nvidia NOT being under threat of anti-trust actions should AMD be snuffed out.

[HalGameGuru]

Boeing is the only American producer, of commercial jumbo airliners, but its not the only available source of airliners, in America. While Boeing nor Airbus are in much danger from the other, I do find it sad we no longer have the plethora of manufacturers we once did. Sadly military contract is so much easier to pander and benefit from than competitive industry.

[LukaP]

This is sadly the truth. People clamour about change but rarely do they go forward with it. 

 

I think BF5 will be the technology showcase for DX12 and Frostbite 4, similarly Crysis 4 and the CryEngine. Maybe we will get another UE4 showcase too with DX12. IDK. I want the industry to start dumping DX9, 10 and 11 aside and move on already. Make all this new hardware actually work for once in a long time. 

Both UE4 and the latest unity will have support for DX12 from the get go. as well as option to compile your launcher for 2 executables. so one can be compiled for DX11 and the other for 12. for very little work. so i assume most games that will enter the dev cycle in Q3 2015 will be DX12/11 based

[Techhog]

R 300 and Zen would have to be smash hits, and you have financial analysts who went into the actual offices and were given a view of all current and some future product lines. If they're saying AMD's likely to go bankrupt by 2020, you can probably bet on it. And I've spent a couple nights looking at the state of the industry. There's only 2-3 ways that situation would unfold. The third option of Qualcomm swooping in to take over AMD is not even worth discussing.

Analysts are known to jump the gun. How many times have they predicted Nintendo going under, for example? Wasn't BlackBerry meant to have gone out of business already too?