Nvidia steals 11 percent market share from AMD, 'Excavator' reveals efficiency gains

[Shawn Knight]

In its quarterly report of the GPU market, graphics and multimedia research firm Jon Peddie Research highlighted a swift market share swing among the two largest players.

According to their data, AMD owned a 35 percent market share in the fourth quarter of 2013. A year later, that figure dropped to just 24 percent – an 11 percent dip year-over-year. Nvidia, meanwhile, saw its market share rise from 64.9 percent to 76 percent during the same time period, good for an increase of 11.1 percent.

The numbers appear to be a reflection of the good fortune that Nvidia has enjoyed as of late, largely from the release of its Maxwell GPUs. Earlier this month, the GPU maker reported quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street expectations and further reiterated the fact that PC gaming is standing strong.

That’s not to say that it’s been all rainbows and unicorns for Nvidia as of late as they’ve dealt with some negative press over the past several weeks.

Last month, it came to be known that the GTX 970 had a memory performance issue that many believe the company failed to mention until after the fact. And just a week or so ago, Nvidia confirmed they had removed the overclocking feature in GeForce 900M GPUs. The feature was supposedly never meant to be enabled yet after much backlash, Nvidia backtracked and promised to restore overclocking in its next driver update.

AMD, meanwhile, is looking to the future with a recent preview of its next generation Carrizo APU, codenamed Excavator. Compared to existing Kaveri silicon, users can expect big energy-efficiency gains thanks largely to a CPU module that is 23 percent smaller in area than Steamroller. The smaller size doesn’t mean fewer transistors, however, as Carrizo contains 3.1 billion of them.

As TechPowerUp notes, each Excavator core features two x86 64-bit CPU cores which is similar to AMD’s past three core generations. All said and done, we can expect power consumption to be a whopping 40 percent less than Steamroller (and double-digit battery life improvements) which will make it ideal in both notebook and tablet use.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/59844-nvidia-steals-11-percent-market-share-amd-excavator.html

 

[cliffordcooley]

I wonder how this would average out, if CPU market share with Intel was factored in? Independently either one would make AMD look bad. But what if they were both factored together?

 

[amstech]

I'll be honest about this and its the only thing I will say about Nvidia's 970 (since its mentioned in yet another article). If I bought one of those cards I'd be pretty pi$$ed.

Nvidia are charging maximum for their GPU's; consumers trust in them to deliver the second to none goods. Say what you want to say about the actual issue... having to use all the VRAM, its overall affect and bla bla bla, I love Nvidia, but I hope they get a good slap in the face for this.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I'll be honest about this and its the only thing I will say about Nvidia's 970 (since its mentioned in yet another article). If I bought one of those cards I'd be pretty pi$$ed.

I kinda agree with you. It is my opinion that this technique should have never been done to the top two (possibly three) tier cards.

 

[Cryio]

AMD's Carizzo sound pretty good for an APU stuck on the same lithography for 3 years now. But Godaveri? Man, that's awful.

They are reducing price AND performance across the board with only the flagship APU getting a slight boost in CPU and GPU frequency, both normal and Turbo.

At least Richland showed some substantial gains compared to Trinity. And overall, I see the GPU in the 7850K still performing worse than an AMD 7730.

 

[guest]

I find it funny how almost everyone wants a competitive AMD on the GPU market only so they can buy NVidia card cheaper, but at the same time no one is willing to actually do something for it.
Same thing with builders who make PCs for others, they keep saying that every CPU made in the last five years is fast enough for everyday use and consumption difference is marginal on that stress level, but in 9 out of 10 cases they still recommend and make Intel centered PCs. Because who in their right mind wants AMD to get a bit more money on the low segment, and help them return to the medium and high end, right?
Just my 2 cents.
P.s: AMD is also at fault on some market areas: I am still waiting to see new dGPUs from them that use a more fresh iteration of GCN, say 1.1 or 1.2.

 

[Footsoldier]

I find it funny how almost everyone wants a competitive AMD on the GPU market only so they can buy NVidia card cheaper, but at the same time no one is willing to actually do something for it.
Same thing with builders who make PCs for others, they keep saying that every CPU made in the last five years is fast enough for everyday use and consumption difference is marginal on that stress level, but in 9 out of 10 cases they still recommend and make Intel centered PCs. Because who in their right mind wants AMD to get a bit more money on the low segment, and help them return to the medium and high end, right?
Just my 2 cents.
P.s: AMD is also at fault on some market areas: I am still waiting to see new dGPUs from them that use a more fresh iteration of GCN, say 1.1 or 1.2.

I'm using an AMD graphics card 7970. It's a good card and has been all good for more than a year. However, whenever there is a new driver update, my card will become unstable/freezes randomly and causes my pc to reset itself. It only happens for the first few days though, after that it's all good. I've no idea what causes it but I gave up trying to fix it. AMD has some pretty poor driver support. My previous geforce cards never have these problems. But still, the price is good when I bought it so I'm happy with this card.

 

[QuaZulu]

I find it funny how almost everyone wants a competitive AMD on the GPU market only so they can buy NVidia card cheaper, but at the same time no one is willing to actually do something for it.
Same thing with builders who make PCs for others, they keep saying that every CPU made in the last five years is fast enough for everyday use and consumption difference is marginal on that stress level, but in 9 out of 10 cases they still recommend and make Intel centered PCs. Because who in their right mind wants AMD to get a bit more money on the low segment, and help them return to the medium and high end, right?
Just my 2 cents.
P.s: AMD is also at fault on some market areas: I am still waiting to see new dGPUs from them that use a more fresh iteration of GCN, say 1.1 or 1.2.

My desire for a strong AMD has actually been so that there is good healthy competition that results in the best GPUs at the best prices regardless of manufacturer. I had a couple 6000 class AMD GPUs that had issues with power and heat in my rig (sounded like a tornado in my box under load). My current 770 has behaved much more "civilly." If AMD's next generation of GPUs bests NVIDIA on the power/heat/performance ratio, I'm not averse to going back to them. Good competition, though, means the consumer wins in the end.

 

[Axle Greese]

I find it funny how almost everyone wants a competitive AMD on the GPU market only so they can buy NVidia card cheaper, but at the same time no one is willing to actually do something for it.
Same thing with builders who make PCs for others, they keep saying that every CPU made in the last five years is fast enough for everyday use and consumption difference is marginal on that stress level, but in 9 out of 10 cases they still recommend and make Intel centered PCs. Because who in their right mind wants AMD to get a bit more money on the low segment, and help them return to the medium and high end, right?
Just my 2 cents.
P.s: AMD is also at fault on some market areas: I am still waiting to see new dGPUs from them that use a more fresh iteration of GCN, say 1.1 or 1.2.

System builders build Intel based PCs because most buyers want an Intel CPU in their PC. Intel is a well respected company among non PC enthusiasts, too. They've heard of AMD, but the attitude towards AMD is different. It's pretty much "meh". They get it from us DYI builders when we give advice. It is how most of us feel about AMD.

 

[MPeter03]

"....whenever there is a new driver update, my card will become unstable/freezes randomly and causes my pc to reset itself. It only happens for the first few days though, after that it's all good. I've no idea what causes it but I gave up trying to fix it. AMD has some pretty poor driver support. My previous geforce cards never have these problems. But still, the price is good when I bought it so I'm happy with this card.

I have the same problem (recently) with my HD7800 card....

 

[isomage]

I'll be honest about this and its the only thing I will say about Nvidia's 970 (since its mentioned in yet another article). If I bought one of those cards I'd be pretty pi$$ed.

Nvidia are charging maximum for their GPU's; consumers trust in them to deliver the second to none goods. Say what you want to say about the actual issue... having to use all the VRAM, its overall affect and bla bla bla, I love Nvidia, but I hope they get a good slap in the face for this.

....I'd be upset if it didn't perform like a bat-out-of-hell....which it does...especially relative to the price.