AMD Retreating from Enthusiast Graphics Segment with RDNA4?

[GanjaSMK]

Credit TPU

 

Quote

AMD is rumored to be withdrawing from the enthusiast graphics segment with its next RDNA4 graphics architecture. This means there won't be a successor to its "Navi 31" silicon that competes at the high-end with NVIDIA; but rather one that competes in the performance segment and below.

 

Poll attached, curious what everyone thinks. 

[pio]

I certainly hope not.  Maybe it means something different with RDNA4?  I thought AMD was working on chiplet type designs for the next gen of GPU's?  If they were, it wouldn't be difficult at all to make top end cards.  Both AMD and Nvidia need to take a look at current pricing structures though.  I get inflation and all that jazz, but this is getting ridiculous when GPU's have appreciated in value over a decade more so than new cars or houses percentage wise.  So in THAT sense, I'd hope to see both companies come out of that realm.

[ozlay]

If midrange keeps the TDP at reasonable levels. I am fine with that. Id rather have midrange with lots of headroom.

Edited August 7, 2023 by ozlay

[rares495]

If true, I'm not a fan of this decision. This will hurt their Radeon brand a lot. Casual shoppers already perceive Radeon as a cheap, low-quality alternative to GeForce, as they have for the past 15 years or so. Lack of high-end products will only make that worse. Not to mention that this could hurt innovation in the software department at AMD. What's the point of releasing FSR 3 and all that other stuff if you don't have any hardware to run it on?

[The Pook]

doesn't mention that it'd be a permanent withdrawal from the high end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

RX 480 was AMD's highest end GPU for over a year and it still sold well even though NVIDIA had the 1080. 

 

if they released a ≤$200 GPU (without kneecapping it ala 6500 XT ) and it "only" matched NVIDIA's 60/70 series it'd still sell well 

Edited August 7, 2023 by The Pook

[UltraMega]

AMD has already left the enthusiast market in a sense because they have nothing to compete with the 4090, and they don't seem to have much interest in making ultra expensive GPUs in general, but they also have power draw issues with their current line up in the sense that they could have made a card to compete with the 4090 on performance but it would have been ~600 watts. Perhaps the investment needed to bring the ultra high end to a good place on power efficiency for AMD just isn't worth it right now. 

[Sir Beregond]

Dumb move. They've been down this road before and all it did was lose marketshare overall.

 

RDNA3 clearly had issues that kept it from hitting the performance targets they wanted. If they fix those issues going forwards into RDNA4 and beyond with multi-chip design I don't see an issue with them competing in the top end space. The biggest issue is they need to do better than just slotting into Nvidia's dumb pricing, or else be a massive discount because they've yet to reach a feature parity and are playing catchup still in RT and DLSS - which say what you want about them, do seem to matter as points of comparison at the top end.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Sir Beregond

[EHW Ai]

AMD Fanbois are explaining how this will make AMD stronger.

 

Its the same thing the EVGA fanbois said when EVGA said they were exiting GPU's period. Sounds like sour grapes tbh. Nvidia won.

[UltraMega]

8 minutes ago, TonyBombassolo said:

AMD Fanbois are explaining how this will make AMD stronger.

 

Its the same thing the EVGA fanbois said when EVGA said they were exiting GPU's period. Sounds like sour grapes tbh. Nvidia won.

I don't see anyone explaining how this will make AMD stronger. IMO anyone looking for the ultra high end right now would go with Nvidia, because anyone looking to spend more than a grand on a GPU is going to want the better RT and DLSS that Nvidia has to offer. Since AMD can't really compete in that area right now, they might as well not try. 

 

You are right, Nvidia did win in the ultra high end market for sure. AMD offers good value at certain price points, but when value isn't the main objective Nvidia is the clear winner. 

[pio]

7 hours ago, TonyBombassolo said:

AMD Fanbois are explaining how this will make AMD stronger.

 

Its the same thing the EVGA fanbois said when EVGA said they were exiting GPU's period. Sounds like sour grapes tbh. Nvidia won.

Dude, nobody here is an AMD fanboi?  Nobody here is even defending AMD on these actions (or even condemning them), we're just talking about it.  I mean I GUESS you could say I am, "kinda".  Since I have a collection of ATI / AMD cards dating back to the Radeon 7500 up to the current 6900XT realm (haven't bought a 7900 yet).  Does that make me an AMD fanboi though?  I have Nvidia cards too, and I love them just as equally.  It just wasn't as easy to create a collection of Nvidia with all the Ti's and Titans mucking up the lineup making it more difficult to buy a top tier card of every gen.  Plus the Nvidia tax, even on older stuff....yeah. -_-

I'm a hardware lover in general, I don't take sides.  I'm pretty darn sure that 99.99% of our website feels similar about hardware.  Nobody is specifically a "fanboi" on this site.  We're all here because we love hardware.   Just wanted to address that, because that type of mentality and thinking is exactly why I left OCN.

[acoustic]

AMD hasn't competed at the high-end in years. This doesn't feel like news to anyone who's been in this industry for the past.. what, at this point, decade?

 

They could barely keep up with NV while NV was running around on inferior nodes. When I heard that Lovelace would be on TSMC 5nm, I knew it was going to be bad news for competition. NV took the awful Samsung 8nm and made something dominant; AMD had a serious node advantage with TSMC 7nm and what did they do? Squander it, as usual.

 

The reality is that AMD isn't even winning at the low-end. Intel is doing an awesome job pricing competitively, and I think Arc is an interesting product.. can't say the same about the RX7600. Considering how poor AMD's GPU section seems to be managed, it's not surprising they haven't realized Intel isn't competing with NV -- Intel is stealing what little pebbles of market-share AMD still had, and AMD is letting them.

 

I'm hoping Intel keeps momentum going, because it's AMD's fault for the lack of competition in the GPU market. They have failed time and time again, to the point of annoyance as a customer hoping for competition.

Edited August 8, 2023 by acoustic

[EHW Ai]

55 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Dude, nobody here is an AMD fanboi?  Nobody here is even defending AMD on these actions (or even condemning them), we're just talking about it.  I mean I GUESS you could say I am, "kinda".  Since I have a collection of ATI / AMD cards dating back to the Radeon 7500 up to the current 6900XT realm (haven't bought a 7900 yet).  Does that make me an AMD fanboi though?  I have Nvidia cards too, and I love them just as equally.  It just wasn't as easy to create a collection of Nvidia with all the Ti's and Titans mucking up the lineup making it more difficult to buy a top tier card of every gen.  Plus the Nvidia tax, even on older stuff....yeah. -_-

I'm a hardware lover in general, I don't take sides.  I'm pretty darn sure that 99.99% of our website feels similar about hardware.  Nobody is specifically a "fanboi" on this site.  We're all here because we love hardware.   Just wanted to address that, because that type of mentality and thinking is exactly why I left OCN.

 

 

Agreed, and my apologies if people here took this to mean on this site. I meant in general. I'm pretty good at naming names . I dont mean anyone on this site.

 

r/AMD or even OCN has plenty of examples of the fanbois behavior, and if you look on threads there you will see me naming those people

 

sorry for my poor wording on this everyone, I was speaking in generalities and Im simply pointing out how similar AMD exiting the top tier GPU segment is with EVGA exiting the segment altogether and how fans of both of those companies are imo head in the sand over the reasons

[pio]

1 hour ago, TonyBombassolo said:

 

 

Agreed, and my apologies if people here took this to mean on this site. I meant in general. I'm pretty good at naming names . I dont mean anyone on this site.

 

r/AMD or even OCN has plenty of examples of the fanbois behavior, and if you look on threads there you will see me naming those people

 

sorry for my poor wording on this everyone, I was speaking in generalities and Im simply pointing out how similar AMD exiting the top tier GPU segment is with EVGA exiting the segment altogether and how fans of both of those companies are imo head in the sand over the reasons

Fair enough, I can understand that point.    My apologies for throwing things slightly OT. 

[GanjaSMK]

Quick interjection into what seems to be a conversation purely based on the market share of PC GPU value/s; I have a theory. 

 

AMD nailed the 'other' major revenue stream that NV didn't capture = console market. 

 

AMD's been in the lead there for at least the last two iterations, that's basically a decade.  This plays into that market share from an R&D perspective if that's the case, IMHO. 

 

Thoughts?

Edited August 8, 2023 by GanjaSMK

[Sir Beregond]

31 minutes ago, GanjaSMK said:

Quick interjection into what seems to be a conversation purely based on the market share of PC GPU value/s; I have a theory. 

 

AMD nailed the 'other' major revenue stream that NV didn't capture = console market. 

 

AMD's been in the lead there for at least the last two iterations, that's basically a decade.  This plays into that market share from an R&D perspective if that's the case, IMHO. 

 

Thoughts?

Agreed. And holistically they have a booming consumer CPU and server business now too. GPU is small potatoes.

[Slaughtahouse]

Maybe it's simply a delay of a enthusiast graphics silicon. A lot of external factors could influence how they will launch RDNA 4.

 

Report: Apple buys every 3 nm chip that TSMC can make for next-gen iPhones and Macs

ARSTECHNICA.COM

---

TSMC is said to eat the cost of defective chips so it can keep Apple's business.

 

I voted no because we don't have the full picture. I would be inclined to believe that AMD would not get rid of a SKU with high margins, even if there is little demand vs. mid end segment. 

 

[ENTERPRISE]

I don't think they would leave the enthusiast market. Granted their top tier offerings cannot compete on the same level as Nvidia currently BUT that does not mean AMD do not or will not have enthusiast level GPU's. IF RDNA4 only comes in the guise of mid range, that is not certain indication of AMD leaving the enthusiast market and could be due to other unknown factors.

 

I don't see the logic in them leaving that market segment, it is not like their are other competing entities other than Nvidia. I could understand if AMD was losing to other entities but ultimately the only other player right now is Nvidia. 

[Sir Beregond]

To be fair, I am also not sure the consumer gaming graphics division really matters in the grand scheme of the company, but we'll see.

[Slaughtahouse]

18 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

To be fair, I am also not sure the consumer gaming graphics division really matters in the grand scheme of the company, but we'll see.

From their latest earnings report (Q2 2023) gaming represents 30% of their revenue. I've made a quick excel pie chart just to highlight how Gaming impacts their portfolio. 

 

Edit: Derp -> Someone at AMD already made a pie chart  

 

Investor Relations :: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)

IR.AMD.COM

---

For 50 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies for gaming, immersive platforms and the datacenter.

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Slaughtahouse

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, Slaughtahouse said:

From their latest earnings report (Q2 2023) gaming represents 30% of their revenue. I've made a quick excel pie chart just to highlight how Gaming impacts their portfolio. 

 

Edit: Derp -> Someone at AMD already made a pie chart  

 

Investor Relations :: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)

IR.AMD.COM

---

For 50 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and visualization technologies for gaming, immersive platforms and the datacenter.

 

I was never claiming gaming wasn't important. Does that segment include Ryzen or is that only gaming graphics?

 

If graphics though, very interesting, because that wasn't true 2 years ago.

[Slaughtahouse]

1 hour ago, Sir Beregond said:

I was never claiming gaming wasn't important. Does that segment include Ryzen or is that only gaming graphics?

 

If graphics though, very interesting, because that wasn't true 2 years ago.

I wasn't challenging your statement, rather just providing context. It's a sizable piece. I believe from their verbiage, Ryzen CPUs are excluded from Gaming. 

 

I'm not a financial analyst by any means but my main take away from their results in the context of this discussion is that the decrease in revenue from their Client segment increased the proportion (%) of revenue they receive from other divisions, like Gaming. In a more stable market where a segment isn't dropping 54%, I don't think Gaming would be at 30%. If that makes sense. 

 

More details from their press release:

• Client segment revenue was $998 million, down 54% year-over-year due to reduced processor shipments resulting from a weaker PC market and a significant inventory correction across the PC supply chain.
  • Revenue increased 35% sequentially as AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series CPU sales grew significantly, and PC market conditions improved.
  • More than 100 AMD-powered commercial PC platforms are set to launch this year.
• Gaming segment revenue was $1.6 billion, down 4% year-over-year. Semi-custom revenue grew year-over-year, which was more than offset by lower gaming graphics revenue.
  • Revenue declined 10% sequentially primarily due to lower gaming graphics sales.

https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_1c5716123238c600ef4e700df3da2d96/amd/news/2023-08-01_AMD_Reports_Second_Quarter_2023_Financial_1146.pdf

[UltraMega]

2 hours ago, Slaughtahouse said:

I wasn't challenging your statement, rather just providing context. It's a sizable piece. I believe from their verbiage, Ryzen CPUs are excluded from Gaming. 

 

I'm not a financial analyst by any means but my main take away from their results in the context of this discussion is that the decrease in revenue from their Client segment increased the proportion (%) of revenue they receive from other divisions, like Gaming. In a more stable market where a segment isn't dropping 54%, I don't think Gaming would be at 30%. If that makes sense. 

 

More details from their press release:

• Client segment revenue was $998 million, down 54% year-over-year due to reduced processor shipments resulting from a weaker PC market and a significant inventory correction across the PC supply chain.
  • Revenue increased 35% sequentially as AMD Ryzen™ 7000 Series CPU sales grew significantly, and PC market conditions improved.
  • More than 100 AMD-powered commercial PC platforms are set to launch this year.
• Gaming segment revenue was $1.6 billion, down 4% year-over-year. Semi-custom revenue grew year-over-year, which was more than offset by lower gaming graphics revenue.
  • Revenue declined 10% sequentially primarily due to lower gaming graphics sales.

https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_1c5716123238c600ef4e700df3da2d96/amd/news/2023-08-01_AMD_Reports_Second_Quarter_2023_Financial_1146.pdf

Do we know how much of their gaming revenue is from consoles vs the PC market? 

I think the most likely truth to this has to do with the power draw of their current design not scaling well into the ultra-high end. If they could release a 4090 competitor that people would actually want to buy and make a profit, they would. Right now, they simply can't. If this is true for their next line up of card too, then I suspect they simply don't have a solution to the power draw issues yet. 

 

It doesn't make sense that AMD would decide to leave any part of the market open arbitrarily. It's got to be because of design issues. 

 

Quote

The Possible RTX 4090 Killer

Team red’s EVP, Rick Bergman, and the SVP, David Wang, sometime in December visited Japan and had a discussion with ITMedia. The interview revolved around various points of interest, but the topic of today’s debate is, ‘Why didn’t AMD reply with an RTX 4090 Killer?’.

Well, firstly, RDNA3 is a new architecture built on an industry-first chiplet-based design. It came with its own set of flaws and did fall short of expectations. The clock speeds are a perfect resemblance to what we mean by ‘fall short of expectations’. Nonetheless, the RX 7900 series still managed to outpace its Ada Lovelace competitors, in the price-to-performance segment.

Going into the specifics, AMD states that it is quite obvious that the Radeon RX 7900 series strikes a perfect balance between price and performance. One could go ahead and spend $1600 on an RTX 4090 and call it a day. But, you’ll get better value with the RX 7900 XTX.

From the raw figures, we see that the RTX 4090 is 60% more expensive, but only 22% faster than the RDNA3 flagship. Maybe, the 7900 XTX is the RTX 4090’s true competitor, probably as that’s the only thing even comparable to the RTX 4090.

AMD Does Have the Ability to make one

We have seen AMD take this approach many times. Apart from RDNA2, AMD did not aim for highest performance and simply went for more market share. Rick Bergman clarifies;

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 .

AMD saw what NVIDIA unveiled and simply thought it best to avoid the performance crown this time around. Matter of fact is, RDNA3 always takes a significant power penalty as the data has to physically move between the GCD and the MCD. This introduces higher power consumption, which explains why the RTX 4080 consumes lesser power than the RX 7900 XTX.

AMD Could Have Developed an RTX 4090 Competitor

APPUALS.COM

---

AMD states that it was very much possible for them to develop an RTX 4090 competitor, though they chose not to do so.

 

 

I'd imagine if AMD had released a $1600 600-watt GPU that more than likely still wouldn't have great RT performance, it would have received a lot of negative reviews. The only reason to spend that much on a GPU right now is for RT, there's just nothing else that needs that much performance for raster these days. 

[EHW Ai]

Has AMD ever released a GPU that is better than Nvidia's top end for anything other than synthetic benchmarks?

 

also lol @ them saying "We could have made one"

 

ffs

Edited August 10, 2023 by TonyBombassolo

[Slaughtahouse]

1 hour ago, UltraMega said:

Do we know how much of their gaming revenue is from consoles vs the PC market? 

 

No, I don't believe we have the visibility unless we have a whistleblower here from AMD

 

*looks from side to side...*

[UltraMega]

17 minutes ago, TonyBombassolo said:

Has AMD ever released a GPU that is better than Nvidia's top end for anything other than synthetic benchmarks?

 

also lol @ them saying "We could have made one"

 

ffs

AMD has been ahead on performance before, but not for a long time.