AMD Worries Cryptomining GPU Demand Could Fall

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, asus killer said:

that's not market share, it's R&D expenses, just wanting to show they may lack in R&D but they sure spent a lot in it.

Those are not correct because you didn't pull out the R&D for GPUs only, plus you forgot to look at ATI.

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Consoles and low end OEM PCs and laptops keep them going rather well, nothing to the extended to really allow them to grow but they won't go under unless they do something self inflicted like a massive failed project.

I wish I could find the articles from back in 2013.  I remember something about them having a probability of bankruptcy somewhere around 76% for 3 years running.

 

EDIT: here it is, for 5 years their Z score was in the distressed region (meaning high probability) in 2014.  Not a very nice analysis.

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/261053/a-bankruptcy-analysis-of-amd-groupon-and-radioshack-

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

EDIT: here it is, for 5 years their Z score was in the distressed region (meaning high probability) in 2014.  Not a very nice analysis.

https://www.gurufocus.com/news/261053/a-bankruptcy-analysis-of-amd-groupon-and-radioshack-

I'm sure if it came down to it they could have prevented it but it would have been a massive lay off and restructure so more likely would have resulted in a sale to another company not Intel or Nvidia (would have been blocked), probably someone like Samsung or Huawei. 

[Humbug]

Now it's very clear to everyone that AMD is not going away. They are making profits again and have upped their R&D. And we still haven't even seen the impact that the Zen APUs and Epyc will have. Particularly the laptop segment is going to be very lucrative for AMD in 2018, this market has been all intel for so long. And on the graphics front basically they are selling out anything that they can manufacture. So even though Vega was too little too late for gamers the mining craze is allowing RTG to make lots of money on it until they can try again Navi.

 

But 2-4 years ago it was all doom and gloom. Most people thought that AMD was done and that they would never comeback from bulldozer.

[LAwLz]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Playing nice with consumers who don't actually buy your products is a doomed business discussion though, as much as we can hate it going after profit is the correct thing to do. If you like AMD for some reason then supporting them making more money is something you should do, because you support them as a company right?

 

P.S. Collective you

 

AMD is just playing a card game and has been dealt a losing had, it's still possible to tie or win if you play your cards right.

I know that, and I am not saying AMD are doing the (financially) wrong thing.

What I am saying is that people who think AMD are the "good guys", and Nvidia are the "bad guys", are naive and blind to reality.

[Jahramika]

19 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

AMD has claimed that lower demand for GPUs from cryptominers could adversely affect the company.

 

AMD experienced a soar in market shares due to cryptomining so it's understandable that they would worry about the GPU demand falling.

 

AMD seems to be experiencing less of a shortage than Nvidia, since Nvidia caters more to gamers than AMD does.

Interesting, I haven't heard anything about Nvidia worrying about GPU demand falling. Guess it relates to how AMD experienced more of a shortage. 

 

I honestly expected to hear about this kind of news from Nvidia, although I didn't know how much AMD contributed to the cryptomining industry. 

 

Source: https://www.ccn.com/amd-warns-gpu-market-could-be-adversely-affected-if-demand-from-miners-dries-up/

Not sure what your babbling about. AMD makes GPU's for the computer market and they cant control who choose to buy them at what price that is set by retailors. All I see is Nvidia wished they would have sold all the product AMD sold last years to miners in addition to gamers they already sell to.

 

https://wccftech.com/amd-discrete-gpu-share-rises-highest-level-nearly-4-years-global-gpu-shortage-crisis-continues/

 

[Doobeedoo]

Well Vega was severly hit by it specially cause of release timeframe too. 

Now while it's far off, it really is the big question how Navi will go, will it be hit by price gouging and shortage, or by then prices will be back to normal and all well. 

[AnonymousGuy]

5 hours ago, Humbug said:

But 2-4 years ago it was all doom and gloom. Most people thought that AMD was done and that they would never comeback from bulldozer.

I still believe AMD is finished.  Once mining dies out again on GPU's they're going to find that NV has taken nearly all of the gaming market and they have no customer base anymore.  I don't even look at AMD graphics cards and haven't for the past 5 years, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

[Jahramika]

3 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

I still believe AMD is finished.  Once mining dies out again on GPU's they're going to find that NV has taken nearly all of the gaming market and they have no customer base anymore.  I don't even look at AMD graphics cards and haven't for the past 5 years, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

Why the negative outlook on AMD? Look around at all the products just starting to take use of Vega from AMD APU, Intels APU/Nuc, AMD Laptops and of course Computer GPU gaming/mining.

[Murasaki]

Thats silly, once this stops, people can actually start buying cards again normally yo.

[AnonymousGuy]

9 minutes ago, Jahramika said:

Why the negative outlook on AMD? Look around at all the products just starting to take use of Vega from AMD APU, Intels APU/Nuc, AMD Laptops and of course Computer GPU gaming/mining.

I don't see their current operating environment as being something they can survive in.  Intel and NV are individually massively larger than them.  I think Intel's shitty IOTG division makes more money than AMD's entire graphics and computing division: that's how ridiculously stacked the deck is against them.  Their GPU business is fucked by miners, and their CPU business is fucked by being too dependent on process technology advancing for them (never rely on another company for your own survival!).   They don't really have any other businesses to work with.  Consoles never went anywhere (zero profit), APUs never went anywhere (they've been trying the last 10 years), datacenter isn't going anywhere (Intel way too dominant).

 

They sort of exist in a world where they only survive because Intel and NV let them survive.  "The people " like them because we like underdog stories, but from a business perspective I don't see how they aren't fucked in the long term.

[FreeDev]

21 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

I still believe AMD is finished.  Once mining dies out again on GPU's they're going to find that NV has taken nearly all of the gaming market and they have no customer base anymore.  I don't even look at AMD graphics cards and haven't for the past 5 years, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

I disagree and I think AMD have a great future ahead while it may be difficult road for them, I've seen a lot of my peers begin to use AMD GPU and CPU more, because of the cost, security and compatibility on Linux (Seriously, Intel CPU is a disaster on security front with Spectre and Meltdown and the biggest problems are their attitude and unwillingness to do something about it.) On Wayland, a lot of the DE simply doesn't want to support Nvidia EGLStream, so it's just Intel integrated graphic and AMD GPU for Wayland on most of the DE that utilize GBM.

 

In some of the more computationally intensive facility that I've worked at, we've seen a huge number of AMD GPU bring brought in, because of better compliance with Vulkan, EGL, OpenCL and various spec as opposed to Nvidia according to my coworkers along with cost. We use Redhat Linux on most of our computers though for security with configured SELinux policy (Mandatory Access Control) and better line of support on security updates from Redhat.

 

Even now, I'm planning on making a full switch to AMD EPYC CPU and AMD RX 580 GPU for my workstation sometime next year.

 

I would say it's far too soon to pass off judgement on AMD when we could wait and see in couple generations on their CPU/GPU offerings.

[bcredeur97]

gamers:

1. Buy your $700 GTX 1080.

 

2. Mine with it (at like 65% power target so it doesn't wear out much) when you aren't playing games for 2 months.

 

3. Enjoy your $500 GTX 1080.

[Morgan Everett]

21 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Don't forget about Vega, that's been struggling with availability longer than the 1060. 

They're readily available here in Britain.

 

For more than double RRP, of course.

[Humbug]

2 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

Well Vega was severly hit by it specially cause of release timeframe too. 

Now while it's far off, it really is the big question how Navi will go, will it be hit by price gouging and shortage, or by then prices will be back to normal and all well. 

High end Navi is quite a significant change from the current line up. Not only will it be on a new 7nm process but it will be multiple smaller GPUs connected on the same die via infinity fabric to create a big powerful GPU, while still getting good yields. It's the same method that makes threadripper such a monster in the CPU world while maintaining good yields and costs.

 

So at least from that point of view availability should be a lot better.

However it's all a moot point if the HBM 2.0 is still in shortage. If it is then it won't matter that yeilds of Navi are good, AMD still won't be able to put out mass scale production.

 

ps- I am assuming that Navi uses HBM 2.0

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, Jahramika said:

Why the negative outlook on AMD? Look around at all the products just starting to take use of Vega from AMD APU, Intels APU/Nuc, AMD Laptops and of course Computer GPU gaming/mining.

AMD Vega APU,Intel APU,and laptops are all low end or a niche space in the market,mining could decline again and leave their GPU division broke like it did with the writeoff of 2xx gpu's. AMD also made the mistake of going HBM 2.0 only with Vega,supplies are so short not even miners are getting them.

29 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

gamers:
1. Buy your $800 GTX 1080 if you can even find one in stock.

2. Mine with it (at like 65% power target so it doesn't wear out much) when you aren't playing games for 2 months.

3. Enjoy your $600 GTX 1080 with dried TIM and worn out fans

Fixed that for you.

1 hour ago, FreeDev said:

I disagree and I think AMD have a great future ahead while it may be difficult road for them, I've seen a lot of my peers begin to use AMD GPU and CPU more, because of the cost, security and compatibility on Linux (Seriously, Intel CPU is a disaster on security front with Spectre and Meltdown and the biggest problems are their attitude and unwillingness to do something about it.) On Wayland, a lot of the DE simply doesn't want to support Nvidia EGLStream, so it's just Intel integrated graphic and AMD GPU for Wayland on most of the DE that utilize GBM.

AMD has a bright future with CPU's however with their small R&D it seems like they can only make a competing CPU or GPU,not both. AMD has an advantage in Linux but it isn't gaining them market share.

Everything is vulnerable to Spectre and it's the more difficult vulnerability to patch,probably something we'll have to deal with or have slower cpu's,at least Intel can fully fix Meltdown in their next processors.

[bcredeur97]

6 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Fixed that for you.

pfft the fans dont even have to run at a very high rpm @ 65% power... no different from cards years ago that had to run with their fans on all the time. Many people left their PC's on 24/7 for years (like me) and never had a problem...

 

and the TIM doesn't dry out in 2 months lol. especially not around 55C...

 

edit: not getting a card with sleeve bearing fans is also a good idea...

[Doobeedoo]

3 minutes ago, Humbug said:

High end Navi is quite a significant change from the current line up. Not only will it be on a new 7nm process but it will be multiple smaller GPUs connected on the same die via infinity fabric to create a big powerful GPU, while still getting good yields. It's the same method that makes threadripper such a monster in the CPU world while maintaining good yields and costs.

 

So at least from that point of view availability should be a lot better.

However it's all a moot point if the HBM 2.0 is still in shortage. If it is then it won't matter that yeilds of Navi are good, AMD still won't be able to put out mass scale production.

 

ps- I am assuming that Navi uses HBM 2.0

Right, I wonder how those dies and overall GPU will perform in the end with infinity fabric, like would it be the same if it was just a single die. It will probably be fine though.

Yields will definitely be much better that way for sure. As for HBM3 it may not be ready for Navi but they're both far off we can't know. But by then i doubt memory shortage in general will last.

But what I'm interested is general crypto popularity though, will prices of GPUs be at standard MSRPs by launch of Navi or if not it would be really terrible.

[Humbug]

2 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

I still believe AMD is finished.  Once mining dies out again on GPU's they're going to find that NV has taken nearly all of the gaming market and they have no customer base anymore.  I don't even look at AMD graphics cards and haven't for the past 5 years, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

RTG has lost the high end gaming GPU market to Nvidia. But they will try again with Navi, and so on... They may fail or succeed. But that battle alone will not finish AMD. Overall Zen CPU cores are far far more important to AMD's success.

 

For AMD to be finished there has to be a financial reason for them to fold. They made a 204$ Million profit in 2017. They have even increased their R&D budget.

 

Haven't looked at AMD GPUs for the past 5 years?

I still run my Sapphire R9 290 vapor-x. Thank God for it, still serves me great. And easily beats it's former Nvidia rival the GTX 780, and even the next gen GTX 970.

About 6 months ago my friend built a PC with a RX 580, Polaris 8GB graphics card. He is using it in the living room for gaming on the TV. He has had a stellar experience so far. He certainly doesn't wish he had a GTX 1060.

Oh and before that he had an R9 280x in his previous build, which served him well for many years. Thank God he chose that over the GTX 770.

All those purchases were within the last 5 years. And in every case it was the correct choice, over Nvidia.

 

I am not claiming AMD rules, far from it. But you should be aware how many happy customers AMD has because of the good experience of using their products. Thinks are not as one sided as you claim.

 

AMD is not finished. Look at the numbers. They were making big losses for a long time. If they were going to fold that was the time.

But they cut their losses, became leaner and got through that patch. Now they are making profits again, mostly thanks to Zen cores which is their foundation for the next half a decade. And a lot of the things which will come out of Zen cores haven't even begun to show up on their balance sheets yet.

[Humbug]

43 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Right, I wonder how those dies and overall GPU will perform in the end with infinity fabric, like would it be the same if it was just a single die. It will probably be fine though.

I highly doubt it will be the same as a single massive die. In terms of performance / die area it will be lower.

 

However the trade off will probably be more than worth it.

 

What I mean by that is that is

-On the high end AMD has to stop trying to ramp up clockspeeds to compete with Nvidia. They need to start keeping their chips within a more optimal efficiency range.

-The only way they can do that while still competing with Nvidia on performance is by going wide; with big chips to give big performance

-But when they go big yields are very low, so they produce less. This is only worthwhile if you can sell at high margins, they cannot do that because they do not have Nvidia's brandname.

 

So really if they want to start competing on the high end again the Navi direction is the only logical step. Smaller GPUs, clocked for peak power efficiency; connected together via infinity fabric to give one big powerful GPU. LOL basically the opposite of the monolithic inefficient Vega64. That's the objective anyway... Will be interesting to see what happens. Can't really predict anything because nobody has done this before in the GPU world. Nvidia is going to eventually adopt this approach too but not as soon as AMD.

[TheRandomness]

22 hours ago, Energycore said:

Except for some reason R9 280s and 280Xs, you can find those for very cheap used. I'll see sometimes an auction for a working R9 280 closing below $100 on ebay.

 

OT: I think AMD might be worried about the used market being flooded like what happened in 2014. Back then the crypto space dove into a bear market for a year and change, and every card that had been used for mining was fed into the used market, taking away from new GPU sales.

 

Nvidia didn't care about that because people will buy a rusty toaster for $500 if it's got the Geforce branding on it.

Because recently any 3GB cards were rendered useless for mining by the DAG file size increase.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I know that, and I am not saying AMD are doing the (financially) wrong thing.

What I am saying is that people who think AMD are the "good guys", and Nvidia are the "bad guys", are naive and blind to reality.

Oh I agree, was meaning the people who for whatever reason like AMD that are getting salty at them for riding the mining boom should actually like it as it is making the company financially stronger meaning better GPUs can be developed, or better drivers or better game dev support. I mean how can you like a company and also not want them to be more profitable, doesn't make much sense.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

AMD Vega APU,Intel APU,and laptops are all low end or a niche space in the market

Laptops are not a niche space in the market

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/

 

Desktops are a niche market.

[Mihle]

13 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

I still believe AMD is finished.  Once mining dies out again on GPU's they're going to find that NV has taken nearly all of the gaming market and they have no customer base anymore.  I don't even look at AMD graphics cards and haven't for the past 5 years, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

If that's really true you are either a fanboy and/or have missed out.

 

Or only care about the top of the top like 1080 ti. Or the other x80 ti.

 

R9 290 and RX 480 was both good perf for the money.

[Blademaster91]

26 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Laptops are not a niche space in the market

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/

 

Desktops are a niche market.

Well yes desktops have been for quite a while,but I don't get why they project that tablets will go up? Tablets are already selling less when a smartphone does everything a tablet can. However I meant the APU laptops are a bit of a niche,as most don't need better than a igpu,those that want a gaming laptop are buying them with a discrete gpu.