"Does Nvidia have a future?" - Bit-Tech

[LedHed]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...ave-a-future/1

Does Nvidia have a future?
Over the next few months, we’re going to be looking at the future prospects of some of the key companies in the technology industry. To start the series off, we’re looking at one of the most hotly debated companies in recent times, Nvidia.

Ever since its archrival ATI was acquired by AMD in October 2006, some commentators have believed that the writing has been on the wall for Nvidia. But the question is: is the writing on the wall for the graphics maker, or is the company on the cusp of a period of massive growth?

The biggest question - and one brought sharply into focus by AMD's buyout of ATI - was Nvidia’s CPU situation. Nvidia doesn’t have an x86 license, which means it is unable to compete with Intel and AMD when it comes to making x86 CPUs. And with CPUs and GPUs seemingly on a collision course, some believe that an x86 license will be an essential part of Nvidia’s long term survival plan.

AMD and Intel are both placing a renewed focus on platformisation – a term that Nvidia itself has used quite extensively in the past. The x86 instruction set may be a key part of that going forwards and lacking access to it may leave Nvidia in troubled waters... but on the other hand it may not be a problem. As we'll see, certain changes in the tech industry have arguably left the traditional alliance of x86 CPUs and Microsoft Windows more vulnerable that any point in the last ten years.



Nvidia finds itself at the intersection of many interesting trends, the most obvious being chip design.Take CPUs: they've have always been very programmable, but they hit a brick wall in terms of frequency during the Pentium 4 era, which led to both AMD and Intel deciding that the only real way forwards was to parallelise, with many-core chips.

HyperThreading had already existed long before Intel made the decision to increase core counts and there were clear benefits to this technology. After HyperThreading came the first true dual-core chips and quad-cores followed soon after. More recently, we’ve seen hex- and octa-core CPUs, which are currently aimed at server and high-performance computing markets. To take things one step further, Intel’s upcoming Larrabee processor looks, design-wise, like a cross between a CPU and a GPU – its tens of simple (but heavily vectorised) cores will feature x86 extensions so that it can theoretically run code that already exists after a simple recompile with the Larrabee compiler.

On the other hand, the GeForce 8800 GTX was the first major stepping stone in this direction thanks to its underlying CUDA-compatible architecture. G80 was effectively a massively parallel vector processor and so developers, as well as writing graphics code for it, could also write applications in a C language (known as C for CUDA) with a few extensions. As a result, developers could theoretically, write any kind of application and it could run on a GPU, and as long as the code was highly parallel - i.e. suitable to run over the GPUs many stream processors - good results would follow.

The question this raises, of course, is whether x86 matters to developers going forwards or whether it’s merely there for backwards compatibility. Nvidia hopes that it’s the latter because, at least in systems where x86 instructions are needed, there will be an x86 CPU as well as a GPU, or heavily parallel processor.

To read more follow the link

[JPennStar]

I think this article is missing the fact that the motherboard would have to completely change also in order for their to be one processor. Many great changes would have to happen before we saw a single chip solution such as a cooling solution for all those transistors.

So I think Nvidia has a long ways to go in the business. AMD/ATI has the right idea but they too will continue to make the products seperately.

A very intersting discussion though. Unity is the goal if SKYNET is to take over the world.

[DSK]

They woun't have a future if they keep acting like fags and charging outrageous prices for they're products.

[Chouji]

I have a feeling nVidia will start making cpu/gpu combo chips, and i dont mean the ones that exist now that are cpu's with GPU's connected to them.

But rather a cpu that Has so much paralleled processing power to perform complicated graphics.

A CPU that can process the graphics directly without need of an external chip.

Could you imagine a cpu able to handle multi-threaded AI, Physics, Graphics rendering, and everything. All contained in a single chip.
With onchip memory controllers, there would be no need for video ram AND system ram.
Just use normal Desktop memory in multi-channel configurations. Theres no reason quad channel memory can't exist.

Imagine 32GB-256GB of 1kbit+ System memory, that doubles as graphics memory.
Running on a 12core cpu, each core with hundreds, possibly thousands of stream processors.
Having a system that can efficiently process in that manner would be awesome.
And don't think of the memory like shared memory in current IGP's.
But rather, the textures for games are loaded into the memory and are processed as needed. No need to transfer data from system ram to a separate partition of graphics ram.

[Mega_Death]

Originally Posted by kylzer

They woun't have a future if they keep acting like fags and charging outrageous prices for they're products.

LOL! Amen brother!

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by JPennStar

I think this article is missing the fact that the motherboard would have to completely change also in order for their to be one processor. Many great changes would have to happen before we saw a single chip solution such as a cooling solution for all those transistors.

AMD Fusion...... CPU+GPU on a single die. Intel is doing the same thing....

Originally Posted by kylzer

They woun't have a future if they keep acting like fags and charging outrageous prices for they're products.

nVidia is losing money....which was started by them lying to consumers. Lying to consumers has always proven to be detrimental to companies which rely on consumers to survive.

Originally Posted by Chouji

I have a feeling nVidia will start making cpu/gpu combo chips, and i dont mean the ones that exist now that are cpu's with GPU's connected to them.

But rather a cpu that Has so much paralleled processing power to perform complicated graphics.

A CPU that can process the graphics directly without need of an external chip.

Could you imagine a cpu able to handle multi-threaded AI, Physics, Graphics rendering, and everything. All contained in a single chip.
With onchip memory controllers, there would be no need for video ram AND system ram.
Just use normal Desktop memory in multi-channel configurations. Theres no reason quad channel memory can't exist.

Imagine 32GB-256GB of 1kbit+ System memory, that doubles as graphics memory.
Running on a 12core cpu, each core with hundreds, possibly thousands of stream processors.
Having a system that can efficiently process in that manner would be awesome.
And don't think of the memory like shared memory in current IGP's.
But rather, the textures for games are loaded into the memory and are processed as needed. No need to transfer data from system ram to a separate partition of graphics ram.

In case you missed it....Intel and AMD are both moving in this direction already. AMD actually has the patent for it as well.....which without licensing, prevents nVidia from doing so. Also, the fact that Intel holds the patent for x86, and AMD the patent for x86-64.....nVidia is pretty well screwed on the idea of creating a CPU/GPU combo. Both are very unlikely to license the instruction sets to nVidia based on statements made against both companies by nVidia.

[GhostXL]

A few reasons mentioned is why I'm on the ATI side of things for now. Unless the GT300's are cheaper than the last few series.

I still think Nvidia has something good in CUDA. It's interesting to see where it will take them.

[Redemption80]

Originally Posted by sykozis

nVidia is losing money....which was started by them lying to consumers. Lying to consumers has always proven to be detrimental to companies which rely on consumers to survive.

Nvidia aren't losing money, they just posted Q2 profits of around 2-300million, while AMD posted losses of roughly the same amount, can't remember off the top of my head exactly though.

Alot of people seem to think they are losing money, no idea how this rumour started though, when its AMD/ATI who are in trouble financially.

But neither company is going anywhere anytime soon.

Nice article though, interesting about the licences, and good little insight about TWIMTBP games.

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by GhostXL

A few reasons mentioned is why I'm on the ATI side of things for now. Unless the GT300's are cheaper than the last few series.

I still think Nvidia has something good in CUDA. It's interesting to see where it will take them.

Cuda has it's up side...that's unquestionable. The problem is getting wide spread support for it.

Originally Posted by Redemption80

Nvidia aren't losing money, they just posted Q2 profits of around 2-300million, while AMD posted losses of roughly the same amount, can't remember off the top of my head exactly though.

Alot of people seem to think they are losing money, no idea how this rumour started though, when its AMD/ATI who are in trouble financially.

But neither company is going anywhere anytime soon.

Nice article though, interesting about the licences, and good little insight about TWIMTBP games.

Incase you missed it...nV lost more than 60% of their value a year ago...and has lost more since. They have not recovered at all. Showing profits doesn't mean that a company's value has increased. Intel has even lost value, though also showing profits. Profits almost never reflect a company's value.....unless you're a privately held company. Publicly held company's show value based on stock price...which hasn't recovered for nVidia since last summer's "lie and deny" decision in regards to G84/G86. A lot of consumers still don't trust nVidia because of that....and until they regain trust, their value won't increase at all.

[Redemption80]

Originally Posted by sykozis

Incase you missed it...nV lost more than 60% of their value a year ago...and has lost more since. They have not recovered at all. Showing profits doesn't mean that a company's value has increased. Intel has even lost value, though also showing profits. Profits almost never reflect a company's value.....unless you're a privately held company. Publicly held company's show value based on stock price...which hasn't recovered for nVidia since last summer's "lie and deny" decision in regards to G84/G86. A lot of consumers still don't trust nVidia because of that....and until they regain trust, their value won't increase at all.

Every company in the world has lost value recently, and regardless of that, showing a profit is always better than massive losses, and while its true that many people in the know don't trust Nvidia, the majority of casual customers would buy a GeForce before a Radeon, and the majority of customers will be the casual kind.

[Corrupt^]

Duh, does the economical crisis ring a bell... like redemption said, EVERY company in the world has lost value recently.

However if we're moving in the direction as stated in that article, it might be a smart thing for intel to buy nvidia when that crossroad is near and nvidia begins to struggle. This is not a problem for ATI since they're merged with AMD who already makes cpu's, they would just have to combine their technical know-how. Intel on the other hand seems like the company that likes to do things on their own.

But tbh this is not something I see happening for at least 5 to 10 years.

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by Redemption80

Every company in the world has lost value recently, and regardless of that, showing a profit is always better than massive losses, and while its true that many people in the know don't trust Nvidia, the majority of casual customers would buy a GeForce before a Radeon, and the majority of customers will be the casual kind.

Actually, the majority of casual users have Intel's IGPs....not nVidia chips.

Originally Posted by Corrupt^

Duh, does the economical crisis ring a bell... like redemption said, EVERY company in the world has lost value recently.

However if we're moving in the direction as stated in that article, it might be a smart thing for intel to buy nvidia when that crossroad is near and nvidia begins to struggle. This is not a problem for ATI since they're merged with AMD who already makes cpu's, they would just have to combine their technical know-how. Intel on the other hand seems like the company that likes to do things on their own.

But tbh this is not something I see happening for at least 5 to 10 years.

In the tech sector, nV has taken one of the biggest losses because they chose to lie to customers. If you were one of the people that bought a laptop with a faulty G84/G86...would you still be an nV loyalist? The local Best Buy store hasn't been able to keep ATI cards in stock since the G84/G86 fiasco last summer. I went looking a few weeks ago for an HD4550 and was told that they're selling the HD4670 and lower faster than they could get them on the shelves.

For those who have missed the trends....companies that mislead or outright lie to consumers, in most cases, end up in serious financial trouble. CompUSA and Circuit City come to mind.... Cyrix as well. Creative is one of the few companies to mislead consumers and not see financial problems as a result.

[Redemption80]

Originally Posted by sykozis

Actually, the majority of casual users have Intel's IGPs....not nVidia chips.

Meant casual gamers picking a standalone card, not people picking store PC's

Originally Posted by sykozis

For those who have missed the trends....companies that mislead or outright lie to consumers, in most cases, end up in serious financial trouble. CompUSA and Circuit City come to mind.... Cyrix as well. Creative is one of the few companies to mislead consumers and not see financial problems as a result.

I see no indication that Nvidia are in financial trouble though, they are still throwing millions at game developers and while the R&D budget isn't what it used to be, thats more a sign of the present time.

[Flukester]

I just saw this thread and strolled across a few financial reports. I agree, I don't know where anyone gets off saying nVidia is in trouble. All you need to do is read this and see nVidia is fine and as a matter of fact doing excellent. If I were forced to buy an ATI product, I'd give up on PC and stay console. I had ATI and even today ATI/AMD is junk. When I had a crummy card from ATI a bunch of years ago, I didn't stiff em, I went out and bought another card from them. It was after having the new card that I said, F ATI I'm going back to nVidia. Tired of crap drivers, tired of their useless phone support and sick of their stupid community sites. Worst I was ever on was Rage3D, god I hated that site.

http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/NVIDIA_%28NVDA%29

[SickBoy254698]

[quote=Flukester;3252647]If I were forced to buy an ATI product, I'd give up on PC and stay console. I had ATI and even today ATI/AMD is junk. When I had a crummy card from ATI a bunch of years ago, I didn't stiff em, I went out and bought another card from them. It was after having the new card that I said, F ATI I'm going back to nVidia. Tired of crap drivers, tired of their useless phone support and sick of their stupid community sites. Worst I was ever on was Rage3D, god I hated that site.]

Same here. Nvidia has a future because ATI/AMD is more concerned with cutting costs than they are with performance.

I have owned about 8 ATI cards and 7 Nvidia cards over the last 6 years. All the ATI cards gave me nothing but hassles. Driver issues, multiple cards that were defective, poor performance, and IMO inferior image quality.

The Nvidia cards were the exact opposite. I honestly couldn't have been happier with any of them. Occasional hiccups but never a major issue. ATI's Catalyst drivers are notorious for having serious problems. I think I've only had issues with 1 or 2 Nvidia driver's and they were easily solved. That's not bad considering I install every new driver that gets released including the Beta's.

If ATI would invest more in the Quality Assurance Division they would be a lot more profitable. I honestly don't get it. They make a card that on average gives the same performance, or very close too, of a comparable Nvidia card that costs twice as much. They only have themselves to blame for being in the position there in now. Even if ATI/AMD develops a CPU-GPU cross there gonna have a hard time getting there tarnished image back from the community.

[vbetts]

Even if they are losing money, everyone is losing money! Haven't you seen stocks lately?

Well, almost everyone is losing money. Walmart ftw.

[pimp_gimp]

Originally Posted by vbetts

Even if they are losing money, everyone is losing money! Haven't you seen stocks lately?

Well, almost everyone is losing money. Walmart ftw.

Actually Wal-mart is also losing money, that company is just a bunch of money grabbing, lying idiots (I used to work there) and they say that they don't lose money when actually its just the opposite of what they report.

[vbetts]

That my friend, is illegal. And the point where Walmart is, they couldn't afford to lie. But they're doing the main thing business' strive to do. Make money.

[SickBoy254698]

Saying everyone is losing money right now is like saying everyone has to breath or they will die. You're missing the point. ATI hasn't earned a profit in years. Even in some of the more recent "good times" they couldn't pull there heads out of there a$$.

[H83]

Read the article a week ago, interesting stuff.

About Nvidia´s future, i think that they are here to stay for a very long time, but not in the same way as in the past, they will probalby evolve from a company that produces graphics cards (GPU) to a company that produces powerfull general purpose chips or cards (GPGPU) to challenge CPU makers. I think that Nvidia is well aware of the challenges ahead and is starting to tackle them with their products. I think that the reason the GT200 generation wasn´t as good as the previous one because of Nvidia shifting from a company that make graphic cards to a company that produces something with more value and capable of tasks that belong to CPU´s before, so instead of a monster gaming card they delivered a decent card and CUDA and started marketing their cards as something capable of more than just gaming and the new GT300 may confirm this direction. For me, they are trying to send a message to people that it´s better to buy a 800€ GPU and a 200€ CPU than the other way around. Maybe that´s why the CEO said that they would open a can of asswhopping to Intel...
Also, they are entering new markets with products like Tegra because they now of the danger their main product is facing.

Conclusion: Nvidia has a future, but maybe not as a graphics cards maker...

[ottoyu34]

They will continue as a graphics card marker and better make the GT300 good.

but one point is that you have to take care of mid & low-end. Or else the market share is going back to ATI. I can recall when everyone had a Radeon 9600 series. heh

[sykozis]

nVidia will remain as a graphics card maker because that's their only place in the market. nVidia can not, and will not survive in direct competition with Intel in the CPU market. nVidia needs to actually start developing technologies instead of buying them. Read the history of GPGPU and you'll find out that nVidia had very little to do with CUDA's actual development. nVidia can do whatever they want with their GPU's....but they require processors to run them. AMD and Intel can build CPU-GPU hybrid chips and cut into nVidia's profits rather easily. nVidia is also getting worried about Larrabee...which is obvious if you actually read the statements they've made. Companies only comment on a competing product that early, if they're worried. Also, Intel is trying to stop nVidia from producing chipsets for their current and future processors....and with Hydra being released, they no longer need to license SLI from nVidia. All it would take now, is for AMD to pull away from nVidia and Larrabee to actually be successful.

CPU-GPU hybrid chip + AMD pulling away from nVidia chipsets + successful Larrabee = nVidia has a shortened life.

Also, if you take a look at Reuter's recently announced list of companies most likely to file bankruptcy this year....there's a few that are market leaders in their own industry. Only takes 1 bad decision to bankrupt a company. Hell, look at Cyrix.....they made 1 bad decision...and they went bankrupt. Of course, their 1 bad decision was to compete against Intel.... Advantage 1, Larrabee = ability to execute x86 instructions natively. Larrabee doesn't actually NEED OpenCL to execute x86 instructions and as such can be used to improve computing performance with less code. nVidia will always require CUDA or OpenCL...

[korn666]

@ this thread title.

[Liranan]

However way the market swings competition is a necessity. While my current system is AMD/ATI I do see the need for Intel and nVidia. We only need to look at the telecom and internet industry to see what monopoly does and the quality it creates. Nobody wants to see technology remain stagnant and cost 100x more than it does now just because manufacturers are too lazy to move on.

Also when it comes to the CPU/GPU hybrid we will still need video cards and CPU's for games, overclockers and enthousiasts. I would hate to see the computing world go back to the way it was 15-20 years ago, while those were fun days they were, compared to today, the dark ages of computing. What this CPU/GPU combo will do is feed the masses, who don't need anything but a PC that works. The majority of the market consists of people who just want to press the on button, ram a letter on their keyboard, play some solitaire and chat from time to time.

This is the market AMD are trying to cater for with their cheap video cards, this is where the money is and they know it. The margins are higher, obviously, on high-end cards and CPU's but they can take care of that when they have the majority of the market share. They already have the majority of the laptop market with their integrated chips, now they're aiming for the budget PC market. It's a good strategy that, hopefully, will pay off in the future.

The problem nVidia have is that their cards cost too much. While they were doing great during the fantastic 6000, 7000 and 8000 series AMD now have the upper hand. nVidia's chips are too big to be cheap enough to compete with AMD's, somewhat slower but cheaper, GPU's. Now with the GT300 having a yield of 2% AMD are going to sell loads of video cards and all nVidia can do is drop the prices on their overpriced cards. I hope this happens soon because I want a CUDA card for BOINC

I'm sure nVidia will release something very powerful but the question is at what price. They can claim they have the most powerful video card in the world but if hardly anyone's willing to buy one it will still cost you dearly, though being able to say you have the best is, in itself, prestigious.

[virendra]

I don't like nvidia's pricing policy. In our region [and many others], nvidia gpu's are so highly priced that one cannot afford to buy them. Although their gpu's are great, i don't like the way nvidia is coming up with ****ty drivers these days. There is always some or the other issue with a new drivers release. Rest is all fine, nvidia has a long way to go.