Nvidia RTX Series

[Sarex]

https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-preliminary-financial-resultsfor-second-quarter-fiscal-2023

[Zoraptor]

TLDR -19% (-$1.4bn in absolute terms) on projected revenue for Q2.

Wonder if they'll cop another fine for lumping crypto losses in with 'gaming' again?

 

[Keyrock]

Don't worry, I'm confident that Jensen's leather jacket fund is safe.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

On 8/8/2022 at 5:31 PM, Zoraptor said:

Wonder if they'll cop another fine for lumping crypto losses in with 'gaming' again?

I doubt it, the GeForce is their gaming line and they don't know what end-users are doing with the cards (someone might be gaming, another rendering, and another mining - but they're all using the consumer gaming product line).

[Zoraptor]

That was more snark than a serious suggestion. Hardly matters whether they get fined anyway except for the embarrassment factor; it's like .2% of their profit so not even a rounding error.

(would have thought the potential issue would be all the cards they sold direct to miners rather than Joe Bloggs using his 3080 for it, they could hardly claim no control/ knowledge of end use then. Relies on if nVidia had said that crypto wasn't significantly impacting their business like they did last time though)

[Sarex]

 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Sarex

[Zoraptor]

nVidia, disrespecting a partner? Well I never.

For any tl;dw'ers this isn't an XFX type situation and they aren't going to make AMD or (lol) Intel cards now, they're just gone from the market. Interesting- and very deliberate, one suspects- timing since nVidia has an announcement scheduled for Monday which presumably is for 4000/ Lovelace. Going to be some questions not only why their most prominent partner has pulled the plug, but there's apparently enough animosity for the news to be timed to do as much potential damage as possible to a flagship launch. Is anyone going to cover that news now without mentioning EVGA won't be there any more?

Whatever the beef was it must have been pretty egregious considering nVidia already tried to tacitly appropriate all their 3rd party partners branding via their Partnership scheme a few years back. Hard to think of much worse than that.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Zoraptor

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

Whatever the beef was it must have been pretty egregious considering nVidia already tried to tacitly appropriate all their 3rd party partners branding via their Partnership scheme a few years back. Hard to think of much worse than that.

I don't know, the conclusion the Gamers Nexus video arrives at seems fairly sensible. Between EVGA having to sell cards at a loss in the current environment, nVidia making it deliberately worse in preparation for the 40 series launch (in the Q2 earnings call Jensen Huang pretty much said as much), having nVidia dictate price floors and ceilings and undercutting the market by selling their own Founders Edition cards it sure sounds like that's enough for Andrew Han to decide that he's too old for that sh*t and dealing with nVidia is no longer worth it.

[LadyCrimson]

Well, fudge. Nothing lasts forever and I can respect the reasons, but now which 40xx or 50xx am I supposed to get? I've bought evga nivida for a while now, I've loved the ones I purchased a lot. I guess it's Asus, these days? Sigh.

I joke about drooling over 30xx sometimes (cause, well, I'm a semi-well-off nerd or something) but reality it never felt worth upgrading the 2080ti for. I figure I'd see 10-20fps more (at 4k) on games that I already largely can get 60 or mostly 60 on. Oh well. Hm.

[Zoraptor]

ASUS support is rubbish, unfortunately*. They've also had some 'interesting' cost cutting on their cards, though mostly on the AMD side. Probably the best overall rep for a 3rd party now is Sapphire which isn't much use for the green side of things.

*Though to be fair, EVGA's support was pretty rubbish too, outside of NA.

2 hours ago, majestic said:

I don't know, the conclusion the Gamers Nexus video arrives at seems fairly sensible. Between EVGA having to sell cards at a loss in the current environment, nVidia making it deliberately worse in preparation for the 40 series launch (in the Q2 earnings call Jensen Huang pretty much said as much), having nVidia dictate price floors and ceilings and undercutting the market by selling their own Founders Edition cards it sure sounds like that's enough for Andrew Han to decide that he's too old for that sh*t and dealing with nVidia is no longer worth it.

I don't disagree with that analysis of course, and it probably wasn't just one thing, but a whole bunch of smaller things adding up to something unsustainable.

(At least one of the problems is that I'm pretty equivocal on how to view this in terms of the level of, for want of a better term when applying it to companies, 'personal animosity')

[Humanoid]

They may claim to be exiting the market altogether, but no real reason to believe it's the absolute truth beyond the immediate short-term. It may be posturing for a better deal given it would be irresponsible for AMD/Intel to not even try talking. It may be because they feel it's too late to pivot right now with the next-gen launch being imminent, and that there's no reason to commit to any vendor before seeing the generation that follows. It may be some vestigial contractual with nVidia that they cannot, or cannot afford to break yet. Linus speculates that it may be fear of being blacklisted *on an individual employee level*, which would be rough on any imminently departing staff.

At any rate, the way they've done it for now is probably sensible. It was only ever going to get worse if they stayed, the hotter, thirstier 4000 series will no doubt require even heftier engineering in terms of the cooler, the PCB, and everything sandwiched between the two. And those extra costs will likely be wholly borne by the board partners. Without the ability to set margins, and without the (crypto) conditions that set up the price bubble of the previous generation, the forthcoming one may skip the "initially profitable" part of the product's lifecycle and jump straight to the money sink phase.

[majestic]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

(At least one of the problems is that I'm pretty equivocal on how to view this in terms of the level of, for want of a better term when applying it to companies, 'personal animosity')

That's fine, I do the same with AMD. Company can go to hell for all I care (best not, of course, because Intel and nVidia without competition would be way worse), and I'm certainly never going to buy any product of theirs.

[Zoraptor]

I was meaning more the way that Humanoid has it, how much EVGA 'really' 'hates' nVidia vs how much they're saying they do in the hope that that provides leverage for them.

Funnily enough, while I may loathe nVidia with a burning passion that makes star WR102 look like a cool dip in the pool I apparently manage to consistently underestimate their malice compared to some... apparently Linus (of the TT variety, not of the 'f___ nVidia' variety) thinks EVGA won't make AMD/ Intel cards because they believe that Jensen will permanently blacklist not just EVGA the company, but everyone who works for them. Which is cartoon villain level.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Zoraptor

[Keyrock]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

because they believe that Jensen will permanently blacklist not just EVGA the company, but everyone who works for them. Which is cartoon villain level.

I wouldn't put it past Jensen.

[LadyCrimson]

I did see some theorize about the timing of EVGA's announcement, something about an upcoming Nvidia announcement/news and how this would make EVGA's name pop out of everyone's mouth with any story re: nvidia's thing. Sorry, don't remember what it was exactly. EDIT: wait, was that in that above YT video, that I only skimmed around thru? Maybe it was. My memory....

eg, I do sorta wonder if they'll end up reversing at some point if nvidia sweetens the pot/capitulates in some fashion.

I think nvidia as a company has been rather poop for a while, but I still like their gpu's and (likely somewhat irrationally) don't like anyone else. Mostly a matter of nvidia=good gpu personal experiences, other names I've tried (AMD, MSI, whatever) = annoying/mediocre gpu/other hardware (or the software that comes with) experiences, making me gunshy. Plus the whole online-returns hassle vs. same-day/instant retail walkin exchanges. When I was paying $150-200 for a gpu in those early days it was easier to try someone else. When you're paying $1000-$1500 that gunshy factor gets bigger and bigger...

Edited September 17, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Zoraptor]

If it was in this thread that was pretty much what my speculation was*, that EVGA had timed this deliberately to be released the (working) day before the announcement for 4000 series (though see below) so that every article about 4000 series mentions EVGA pulling out and Jensen potentially gets asked lots of questions about it too.

nVidia's GTC Conference is 19-22 September, that is- allegedly- when 4000 series gets announced.

*There was a slight mistake there, since Jensen's keynote is probably when an announcement would be made and that's Sept 20 rather than 19th. Doesn't materially effect things though, I'd say.

[LadyCrimson]

So, my minimal understanding is the 4080 12GB version is basically what would be considered a 4070, with a price hike.
The "real" 4080 is the 16GB one.  Seems like if you have the money to blow, depending on perspective, this time around the 4090 might actually be the "better value."  (editedit-that's based on specs only, no testing yet ofc)

Also, DLSS 3 will be 40xx exclusive apparently? Luckily I don't care about DLSS but that sucks for people who do care and bought a 30xx/weren't planning on upgrading.  Edit: this almost has me wanting to get a 3090 while I can - wouldn't have to deal with giant new form/3 mobo slot sized card, different pin connector stuff, or the power draw.  Even if AMD is a little cheaper with theirs, I'm sure it'll still be nuts.

Or, alternatively, a good time to stop caring about new games/high tech gaming.  I'll just play Caesar3 forever.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Zoraptor]

I suspect a certain amount of the 'oddness' of this launch is precisely from trying to get people to buy 3000 series as being 'better value' for a couple of months. The overstocks aren't rumour any more, since they're in nVidia's quarterlies.

And it really is a bit of a weird launch. Lot of signs there of Lovelace being a stopgap due to MCM not being ready and the whole thing being prepped during the crypto boom. Outside of DLSS 3 performance claims seem to be pretty mediocre for what is, effectively, a double generation fab improvement. Perhaps the oddest is performance per Watt where the improvement really is... poor, considering how bad Samsung 8nm was meant to be. 850W PSU is probably wishful thinking for anyone pairing a 4090 with a 13900k, too.

Door very much left open for AMD- though I would say I fully expect nVidia to drop prices immediately before RDNA3 launches.

[ComradeYellow]

 Does Nvidia even have a long term strategy at this point?  "Keep pumping stuff out and stay ahead of the competition at all costs" doesn't sound like a good strategy, as most pc gamers are unwilling to keep tempo and throwing money at them like that.  Graphics cards aren't burgers and fries.

As Sun Tzu said, "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat".

Edited September 21, 2022 by ComradeYellow

[LadyCrimson]

Hasn't  Nvidia been branching out from (retail) consumer home PC gpu stuff for a while so much that the other stuff is taking up more of their attention/care in terms of making all of that grow massively. The data center, SOC, AI, or whatever else (I just occasionally see things mentioned in articles, not an nvidia expert). Not saying graphics aren't still their big thing, I just mean re: retail consumer cards it feels like they try to do just enough  to be  "relevant"/ahead/and in the news - so they can always be #1 or at least #2 - and not much else.

It does really start to feel like they don't even try to pretend to care about lower budget desktop gpu's anymore.

Edit: nvidia isn't the only company like that, ofc.

Edited September 21, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Bokishi]

Yeah I've known about these 4090 designs since July, but I haven't told anyone due to NDA. Zotac is supposed to send me the new card when they launch next month, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to get a new case and PSU for it (I just bought a case 6 months ago blah)

[Keyrock]

20 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Or, alternatively, a good time to stop caring about new games/high tech gaming.  I'll just play Caesar3 forever.

 

I'm already there, not the Caesar 3 part (great game, though), but I think I'm done with building traditional desktops. My last experience building a rig about 2 years ago, mind you I've been doing this for about a quarter century, was so off-putting that I never want to do that again. Granted, the chip shortage exacerbated the problems, but even without that, discrete GPUs have gotten so huge, so hot, so power hungry, and so expensive that, even though I can afford it, my attitude is "**** that!" This isn't a shot at Nvidia or AMD in particular, they're both in the same boat and Intel will be too if and when they compete at the high-end.

I'm going with APUs going forward in small form factor, relatively low power devices. I'm looking forward to the day of the 4K capable APU, I don't think that day is too far off. I mean, 4K capable APUs already exist, there's one inside the refrigerator-looking black console from Microsoft in my living room, but that's a 200W TDP part, you can't put that inside a microPC the size of a typical router or a handheld like the Steam Deck. You need an APU with a TDP no higher than 20W for that, hence why power efficiency is my main focus from now on.

[Bokishi]

Yeah this is pretty much asking for a new rig at this point, might as well just say screw it and get the 13900K as well

I also have been playing Caesar 3 on my Windows 95 Pentium 2 emulator, and yeah it totally holds up

[LadyCrimson]

I know zero about all this (micro) tech stuff, I'd probably have even more brainfarts trying to deal with that. Although if you mean something like a whole unit ala the Switch/Deck type thingies ... well, maybe. But the whole reason I liked gaming on a desktop was because of the ease of doing other things (video/sound capture, screenshots, then quickly editing such etc), directly with one unit. I tried video capture with console using one of those thingies and while it works, meh...or then needing all these things plugged into monitors for large display vs. just singular PC and .. it all starts falling into the too many devices category, and a lack of control that I dislike. Maybe I just don't understand it all tho.

But yeah...I'm not sure how much I want to deal with all the new game-desktop stuff anymore. It just doesn't feel worth it. Not just the money, but all the other considerations too.  4k/oled excited me for graphic clarity but nothing else game-tech wise really has. And gpu/cpu tech pushing feels like half the reason why (AA/AAA) game devs subsequently keep pushing tech marvels over gameplay/content.

Edited September 21, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Gfted1]

@Bokishi So, do you want to let go of your "old jalopy" of a PC?