Nvidia is the only real option for AI work. Before Trump lifted the really restrictive ban on GPUs to china they had to smuggle in GPUs from the US, and if you’re Joe Schmo the only GPUs you can really buy are gaming ones. That’s why the 5090 has been selling so well despite it being 2k and not all that much better than the 4090 in gaming.
Also AMD has no high end GPUs, and Intel barely has a mid range GPU.
To be fair, AMD is trying as hard as they can to not be appealing there. They inexplicably participate in the VRAM cartel when… they have no incentive to.
When the bill of materials is really only like $100-$200 more, at most. Nvidia can get away with this because everyone is clamoring for their top end cards
In other words, with a phone call to their OEMs like Asus and such, Lisa Su could lift the VRAM restrictions from their cards and say 'you’re allowed to sell as much VRAM on a 7900 or 9000 series as you can make fit." They could pull the rug out from under Nvidia and charge a $100-$200 markup instead of a $3000-$7000 one.
…Yet they don’t.
It makes no sense. They’re maintaining an anticompetitive VRAM ‘cartel’ with Nvidia instead of trying to compete.
Intel has more of an excuse here, as they literally don’t manufacture a GPU that can take more than 24GB VRAM, but AMD literally has none I can think of.
My theory is that they’re just scared to annoy Nvidia too much. If they priced their GPUs so as to really increase their market share, Nvidia might retaliate. And Nvidia definitely has the deeper pockets. AMD has no chance to win a price war.
Wait wait wait… If I push your theory a bit, it then means that Nvidia could crush AMD at any time, becoming a full fledged monopoly (and being able to rake in much more profits), but they are… Deciding not to? Out of the goodness in their hearts maybe?
That article is a year old and is missing the latest generation of cards. Neither AMD nor Nvidia produce those GPUs anymore. AMDs best GPU from their 9000 series competes with Nvidias 5070/5070ti. The 5090 and 5080 are unmatched.
Kind of my point, these were high end and still usable by 95% of people. Everyone is chasing 1% gains for twice the price. I have an new RTX via work equipment for rendering, I play games on the side but that RTX dosnt really make the gameplay that much better. It looks great with the shine on metal, or water reflections, but when totally immersed in game play that stuff is wasted
Honestly stuff like Unreal’s Lumen or Crytek’s SVOGI has obsoleted RTX. It looks freaking incredible, and runs fast, and you can put the rendering budget to literally anything else; who in their right mind would develop RTX over that?
Nvidia is the only real option for AI work. Before Trump lifted the really restrictive ban on GPUs to china they had to smuggle in GPUs from the US, and if you’re Joe Schmo the only GPUs you can really buy are gaming ones. That’s why the 5090 has been selling so well despite it being 2k and not all that much better than the 4090 in gaming.
Also AMD has no high end GPUs, and Intel barely has a mid range GPU.
To be fair, AMD is trying as hard as they can to not be appealing there. They inexplicably participate in the VRAM cartel when… they have no incentive to.
What’s the VRAM cartel story? Think I missed that.
Basically, consumer VRAM is dirt cheap, not too far from DDR5 in $/gigabyte. And high VRAM (especially 48GB+) cards are in high demand.
But Nvidia charges through the nose for the privilege of adding more VRAM to cards. See this, which is almost the same silicon as the 5090: https://www.amazon.com/Blackwell-Professional-Workstation-Simulation-Engineering/dp/B0F7Y644FQ
When the bill of materials is really only like $100-$200 more, at most. Nvidia can get away with this because everyone is clamoring for their top end cards
AMD, meanwhile, is kind of a laughing stock in the prosumer GPU space. No one’s buying them for CAD. No one’s buying them for compute, for sure… And yet they do the same thing as Nvidia: https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Professional-Workstation-Rendering-DisplaPortTM/dp/B0C5DK4R3G/
In other words, with a phone call to their OEMs like Asus and such, Lisa Su could lift the VRAM restrictions from their cards and say 'you’re allowed to sell as much VRAM on a 7900 or 9000 series as you can make fit." They could pull the rug out from under Nvidia and charge a $100-$200 markup instead of a $3000-$7000 one.
…Yet they don’t.
It makes no sense. They’re maintaining an anticompetitive VRAM ‘cartel’ with Nvidia instead of trying to compete.
Intel has more of an excuse here, as they literally don’t manufacture a GPU that can take more than 24GB VRAM, but AMD literally has none I can think of.
My theory is that they’re just scared to annoy Nvidia too much. If they priced their GPUs so as to really increase their market share, Nvidia might retaliate. And Nvidia definitely has the deeper pockets. AMD has no chance to win a price war.
Seems like a weird strategy to not compete out of fear of success.
It’s fear of failure not success because success isn’t an option.
Cause if they start to “succeed” then they actually fail since they will be crushed by Nvidia.
Their options are to either hold the status quo or lose more because they angered the green hulk in the room
Wait wait wait… If I push your theory a bit, it then means that Nvidia could crush AMD at any time, becoming a full fledged monopoly (and being able to rake in much more profits), but they are… Deciding not to? Out of the goodness in their hearts maybe?
You don’t want to anger the 800 pound gorilla.
This suggests AMD has comparable GPUs, in some cases better, some cases worse. People seeking diminishing return gains will never be happy. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nvidia-vs-amd/
That article is a year old and is missing the latest generation of cards. Neither AMD nor Nvidia produce those GPUs anymore. AMDs best GPU from their 9000 series competes with Nvidias 5070/5070ti. The 5090 and 5080 are unmatched.
Kind of my point, these were high end and still usable by 95% of people. Everyone is chasing 1% gains for twice the price. I have an new RTX via work equipment for rendering, I play games on the side but that RTX dosnt really make the gameplay that much better. It looks great with the shine on metal, or water reflections, but when totally immersed in game play that stuff is wasted
Honestly stuff like Unreal’s Lumen or Crytek’s SVOGI has obsoleted RTX. It looks freaking incredible, and runs fast, and you can put the rendering budget to literally anything else; who in their right mind would develop RTX over that?
Hardware Lumen looks way better than only software
It’s still infinitely faster than ‘raytracing’ though.