The AMD Radeon RX 480 Preview: Polaris Makes Its Mainstream Mark

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• stereopticon - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link

  the gtx 970's price could easily be dropped to 240 to compete

• smilingcrow - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link

  In the UK the 970 is already cheaper than the RX 480 8GB if you shop around which is where it should be priced I think.
  The RX 480 only has one redeeming feature but that's an important one; PRICE.

• ptmnc1 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link

  Well, it *could*, I suppose. But the 970 is a 398mm² chip and the 480 is a 232mm² chip so AMD can make 1.7x as many from the same wafer even before accounting for yields. With similar memory systems there's no way for nVidia to win a price war at this performance level with its 28nm parts.

• DigitalFreak - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link

  AMD has no monies to fight a price war. Nvidia could drive them out of the market right now if they wanted to. They won't because of monopoly concerns.

• ptmnc1 - Wednesday, June 29, 2016 - link

  nVidia can't flog 970s below cost without various anti-dumping laws kicking in as well as the risk of having their company disassembled. Plus AMD would still be making a profit at that point.

• Yojimbo - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link

  I'm pretty sure that NVIDIA wouldn't have to sell the 970 for below cost to use it to compete or even undercut the current MSRP of the RX 480. NVIDIA's profit margins are significantly higher than AMD's to begin with. If NVIDIA prices the GTX 970 at just below the price as the RX 480, they probably sell more of them than AMD sells of the RX 480s. A price of the 970 GPU to AIB partners which would allow them to sell their card for $180 should not be below cost. I really don't know how such accounting works, but I am guessing that most of the research, development, and validation costs have already been amortized. Production cost of the chip really is not that much, comparitively. Surely regulators must recognize a cost advantage of a long-run production of a product.

• fanofanand - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link

  I'm not sure anti-dumping laws apply to obsolete (based on not being the latest) hardware. How else would a company be expected to clear out existing inventory prior to a product refresh?

• ptmnc1 - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link

  Yojimbo: The 970 has almost exactly the same memory system as the 4GB 480, the only differences in manufacturing costs are going to be the other parts of the board (e.g. VRMs) and the chip itself. The principal cost difference is going to be the chip, and when it's a 232mm² chip vs a 398mm² chip, the latter is going to cost a lot more to make even if yields on Samsung's 14LPP aren't as great as TSMC's 28nm: as long as they're not catastrophically worse (and there's no indication that's the case), there's just no way to build a 970 cheaper than a 4GB 480.
  
  On monopolies, you don't have to abuse one in order to attract a lot of undesirable attention from regulators.
  
  fanoffanand: There's a difference between clearing existing obsolete inventory and deliberately manufacturing new inventory at a loss for the purpose of pushing a competitor out of business.

• Yojimbo - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link

  The major cost of a chip is research, development, testing, and validation, not manufacturing costs. I assume these costs must be amortized over the life of the product. I am guessing that NVIDIA has already mostly done so, because they have sold a whole lot of chips already. You are worried about dumping, well how can the government come in and say NVIDIA is selling below cost when their research, development, testing, and validation costs logically apply over a run of 2 years, during which they already sold a high volume of chips?
  
  Regardless of whether it costs more or less for NVIDIA to make a 970 than AMD an RX 480 (I agree that the AMD RX 480 production costs should be lower), I feel confident in saying that NVIDIA doesn't need to sell at below cost to sell a 970 at a price below $200.
  
  "On monopolies, you don't have to abuse one in order to attract a lot of undesirable attention from regulators."
  
  Regulators don't just sit there and watch everything. NVIDIA would have to be sued for abuse of power, i.e., some company would need to be willing to spend money to oppose NVIDIA. If NVIDIA does not abuse its market position they shouldn't be too concerned with losing such a suit. If they don't plan on making any aquisitions in the GPU space then i think they don't need to worry about regulators. I'm mainly just repeating what I already said here, but you aren't saying what sort of "undesirable attention" you see NVIDIA getting or how it will affect them, so I'm not sure what else I can do.

• fanofanand - Friday, July 1, 2016 - link

  Nvidia isn't currently manufacturing new 970s.