Techlopnik: R.I.P. in Peace, Titan X

"PS9" (PS9)
05/30/2016 at 19:04 • Filed to: None

Been following PC hardware for a long time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! I can’t believe they hit that performance target on a ~160W card. WTF Charles.

DISCUSSION (15)

facw > PS9
05/30/2016 at 19:11

This is why I’ve been waiting for Polaris/Pascal. The jump from a process shrink is big stuff, especially as they’ve been trying everything to wring performance out of 28nm for 4 years, so they get those benefits, plus the natural process shrink boost.

The really scary thing is that until Polaris parts launch (and maybe not even until Vega), Nvidia has no real competition, which means these parts may well be priced much higher than they need to be. Given the difference in die size, unless the 16nm has significant yield problems, Nvidia likely has significant room to make these cheaper while still making money. I’m curious to see where prices go once AMD gets their stuff out the door, and also whether AMD’s “no high-end until Vega” includes mid-range parts as well.

JGrabowMSt > PS9
05/30/2016 at 19:17

I would consider a 1070 to replace my aging GTX660Ti, especially for the price being very similar to what I paid a few years ago.

Now if only E5-2670v2 CPUs would drop in price just a little bit....two of those plus a 1070, or dare I say 1080 would be a fine upgrade for video editing. Definitely.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > PS9
05/30/2016 at 19:21

My next card! I love my 970, but this is such a huge step up it’s hard to ignore.

The real winner, this time, I think is going to be the 1060. The performance for they money on that should be amazing.

PS9 > facw
05/30/2016 at 19:25

The really scary thing is that until Polaris parts launch (and maybe not even until Vega), Nvidia has no real competition, which means these parts may well be priced much higher than they need to be.

No way. ~$400 is a completely fair price for Titan X level performance, given that your only other options besides spending $1200 on a video card to get that were the 980ti and the Fury X( ~$600). Throw in the additional VRAM, the slashing of the power consumption and the fact that you’re getting a new video card with new features and improvements over the old ones and ~$400 becomes a steal.

Could AMD have done better? Maybe, but a few things surrounding the Polaris launch make me heavily doubt that (the month-long NDA they had every one sign at polaris’ unveiling at computex, the rumored pushing of Vega’s launch up to october from sometime in 2017, the leaked benchmarks). If AMD thought they could deliver Titan X level performance at a much lower price than nVidia, there’s no way they would have given nVidia all of June to sell video cards to people without any competition from them.

PS9 > PanchoVilleneuve ST
05/30/2016 at 19:29

If the 1060 is less than $300, it’s going to be hard to resist the value. But blender would love that VRAM doe...

facw > PS9
05/30/2016 at 19:38

Well the question is not what that performance is “worth” it’s how much it costs to make. Right now, there’s no competition, so Nvidia can set a high margin, because they are obviously killing it performance wise compared to last-gen cards (both theirs and AMD’s). However, these chips a much smaller than the previous-gen chips, which means they’ll be a lot cheaper to make (obviously TSMC will charge a premium to help pay off the fab upgrades, and yields may be lower, but at the same time, with smaller chips, defects cost you less.) I would not be at all shocked if prices on these go down quickly if AMD can come up with a competitor. Of course AMD would rather compete on merit rather than price, which is why they haven’t been trying to undercut Nvidia here yet. They also have the issue that between their lowend-first approach, their need to fill orders for the PS 4K, Nintendo NX, and their third console project that has been mentioned, they simply may not have good enthusiast parts to compete with for a while. Which is too bad for them. They don’t need to compete at the very high-end, as those are low volume parts, but if they don’t have anything in the $150-400 segment, they are going to move anything, especially once Nvidia gets the rest of their line to 16nm.

CB > PS9
05/30/2016 at 19:51

And now we wait for the 1080 TI.

Panther Brown Tdi Volvo Shooting Brake Manual Miata RWD Wagon Stole HondaBro's Accord. > PS9
05/30/2016 at 20:03

Ahhhhhhhhh I hope my 960 can keep up for 2 more years.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > PS9
05/30/2016 at 20:44

I’m excited for the 1080. One code I wrote at work is GPU-accelerated and currently running on a FirePro W7100. We need 8GB on the card for it to work. The 1080 checks that box, and throws in a ton more cores at higher speed for about $100 less. As soon as PGI adds compiler support for the architecture (should be soon as nVidia owns them now), I plan on pestering my boss to pick one up.

PS9 > facw
05/30/2016 at 21:10

Well the question is not what that performance is “worth” it’s how much it costs to make.

Uhh, what? It will never not be a question of what the performance is worth, because that is what they are selling. What that is worth is a combination of what it costs to make and what they expect to get in terms of margin. While it is interesting from a ‘behind the scenes’ standpoint to discuss what their costs pre-margin might be, it is an irrelevant figure to us as consumers. These are multinational corporations owned by shareholders who expect year-over-year growth. We are not going to get these products for zero margin or below cost new. And really, any PC part priced beyond $350 or so is going to be a high-margin luxury item anyway regardless of who makes it (see also; Fury X, 6-8 Core i7 Extreme, 3200DDR4 overclocking RAM, High end motherboards, and so on and so on)

Nvidia can set a high margin, because they are obviously killing it performance wise compared to last-gen cards (both theirs and AMD’s). However, these chips a much smaller than the previous-gen chips, which means they’ll be a lot cheaper to make

Ok, by how much? Without an number backed by a solid understanding of all the costs facing nVidia in the production of these cards and what it’s shareholders expect in terms of margin performance, There’s no way to substantiate the suggestion that it’s margins are too high.

I would not be at all shocked if prices on these go down quickly if AMD can come up with a competitor.

They won’t. AMD would not sit on a potential GTX 1080 competitor they thought they could sell for far less for an entire month while letting nVidia sell video cards without competition. I’m also not buying the idea that their other commitments would prevent them from launching such a product; a paper launch (a thing nVidia just did) requires 0 products available for immediate purchase. You only need a few retail sample boards to send to reviewers, something they’d definitely have at this point. Also, the lead time on video card production is almost 3 years. If they weren’t planning on hitting Titan X/Fury X level performance with the first Polaris products, they do not at this moment have the opportunity to ‘come up with something’ beyond moving the launch of Vega from next year to later this year.

It’s also worth noting that competition from AMD has not recently lowered the prices of performance targets in this industry. 98o ti level performance was still a ~$600 proposition whether you were getting it from nVidia or AMD. I’m not convinced they’d launch a GTX 1080 competitor for much less than the GTX 1080 retails for, given that.

They don’t need to compete at the very high-end, as those are low volume parts, but if they don’t have anything in the $150-400 segment, they are going to move anything, especially once Nvidia gets the rest of their line to 16nm.

A lack of competition at the high end is what has killed AMDs market share both graphics and CPU sides of the PC industry. If you look at nVidia’s business model, you see that the high end, high margin parts don’t offer all that much more relative to other models down the line. But that’s the point; if you can’t afford a Titan X, you can still get 60% or so of what that card offers in the GTX 970. For $300, that’s a good deal. Every other product they sell is varying degrees of ‘almost like a Titan’ which is powerful marketing. People want the best. If they can’t get that, then they want the next best thing, and nVidia offers that across every market segment they serve.

Contrast that with AMD who has still yet to product an effective competitor to the GTX Titan. Without a ‘titan slayer’, AMD cannot benefit from this kind of comparison to itself that nVidia can, so it must be compared to them directly which puts them at a disadvantage already. To beat nVidia here, it’s products must be superior in almost every way, but in recent times, they’ve been worse in one degree or another. When your competition markets themselves as the best, and consumers agree with them, this is not acceptable. The key to taking away market share from nVidia (and intel for that matter) for AMD, is to make a high end product that performs better and market the rest of their offerings beneath it. That way, people will compare AMD to AMD, instead of AMD to someone else.

PS9 > FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
05/30/2016 at 21:15

8 GB huh? It’ll probably fly with 16 GB then, ehh?

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > PS9
05/30/2016 at 21:23

The code actually processes data from a specialized piece of hardware, so the RAM needed is pretty much set for now. But 3840 cores for under $1500 would be hard to argue with.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > PS9
05/30/2016 at 22:01

My Asus ROG computer is really new and has the 980, damn it!

PS9 > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)
05/31/2016 at 07:21

You could ebay the 980 and get a ~$300 discount on a new gtx 1070! You might be without a GPU for a while if you go this route though.

Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition > PS9
06/01/2016 at 19:40

The first GeForce’s were a much bigger jump. They were so advanced that games didn’t start using the features for almost a year. It was the first card that performed the same regardless of your CPU. I replaced a RivaTnt and 2 Voodoo 2 cards with a single GeForce and it blew those cards away. I am glad that I waited to upgrade my current rig though. I’m not sure if the wait and put the low end Broadwell i7 in it or not. I’m kinda waiting to see the motherboard choices. Right now my rig is a 2x 4 core Xeon’s, 32GB DDR3 ECC, and 2 7870's. It’s getting time my CPU’s are showing their age with games that don’t support multiple processors.(which are more than you think)