NVIDIA Analyst Day: Jen-sun Goes to the Mat With Intel
by Derek Wilson on April 11, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Tackling the Market Share Myth
Largely, 2007 and 2008 have been big years for NVIDIA's growth. With the rock solid performance domination of G80 since the last quarter of 2006 - a situation that is largely unheard of in the usually very fast paced and aggressive graphics market - confidence in NVIDIA (or rather a lack of confidence in the competition) has helped bolster their position in the industry as a whole. AMD certainly still offers some good price/performance alternatives in the midrange, as they can compete in price with the added flexibility of their smaller GPU and fab process. But they don't have the high margin high end market or the mind share to match NVIDIA right now.
The market gains made by the NVIDIA juggernaut combine with some interesting insight into sales data have combined to show NVIDIA as the current king of the roost in terms of desktop graphics sales. For a long time, Intel had been able to claim that it shipped a higher volume of computer graphics hardware than anyone in the world. This is true due to the pervasiveness of Intel's integrated chipsets on the desktop and in mobile solutions. Intel does offer a good solution for people who are uninterested in graphics performance or quality. They offer a 2D solution that supports a minimal set of DirectX features but, as Jen-sun said, "is a joke" when compared to any real 3D hardware.
So what's different aside from the already clear gains NVIDIA has made in the market place? NVIDIA says that something called double attachment is much to blame for inaccuracy of the data spread by Intel and analysts. Jen-sun claims that a huge proportion of Intel motherboards with include integrated graphics have discrete graphics cards plugged into them. The idea is that Intel basically gives away their integrated hardware and there's no reason not to ship it in a system. But shipments say nothing to illustrate the actual usage of these parts.
As an example, Jen-sun made the point that if Intel integrates a tiny graphics core on to all their CPUs, they would be able to claim 100% market share of graphics running on Intel systems using their current logic. The problem is that if you give away crap it doesn't mean people will use it. To help determine double attachment, NVIDIA looked at a couple different metrics relating to CPU and GPU sales.
With total GPU shipments at 336 Million units and total CPU shipments hitting only 273 Million, double attachment can help explain why so many more GPUs were sold than CPUs: if CPU sales more closely represents the number of systems sold or built last year, there are a large number of computers with unused integrated graphics in them which count as two shipped GPUs. This overlap would mean that Intel's shipped graphics number greatly over inflate the market impact of their graphics products.
Of course, we can't ignore the fact that the average PC enthusiast will likely upgrade their graphics card before their CPU and that multi-GPU solutions do account for at least a few of those shipments. We can't discount all of these shipments as double attachment, but it seems at least plausible that NVIDIA's real market share is somewhere between 65% and 75% based on the numbers they showed us. This is definitely more impressive than what we see on the surface.
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segerstein - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
As I read the article, but I wasn't wholly convinced about the arguments made by the CEO. As we have seen with EEE and other low cost computers, the current technology was about serving the first billion of people. But most people still don't have computers, because they are too expensive for them.Nvidia, not fully addressing even the first billion, because of its expensive discrete solutions, will see its market share shrink. Besides, there are many consumer electronics devices that would benefit from a low powered "System-on-a-chip".
Intel has Atom+chipset, AMD bought ATI precisely because it want to offer low powered "System-on-a-chip" (but also multicore high performing parts).
It would only make sense for Nvidia to buy VIA. VIA Isaiah processor seems promising. This was they could cater to a smaller high-end market with discrete solutions and to a growing market for low cost integrated solutions.
BZDTemp - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
Seems Nvidia does not like to be in the receiving end.I do remember Nvidia spreading lies about PowerVR's Kyro 3D cards sometime back when it looked like they might have a chance to be the third factor in 3D gaming hardware.
With ATIAMD in crisis I think it's great that Nvidia and Intel start competing even though I sincerely hope ATIAMD to come back strong and kick both their asses. After all I can't recall the red/green guys using unfair tactics and like to see integrity rewarded.
Finally I would Anandtech to be more critical when reporting from such venues. Try and google Kyro Nvidia and pdf to find the old story or just check out the pdf directly: ftp://ftp.tomshardware.com/pub/nvidia_on_kyro.pdf">ftp://ftp.tomshardware.com/pub/nvidia_on_kyro.pdf
duron266 - Saturday, April 12, 2008 - link
"Jensen is known as a very passionate, brilliant and arrogant guy but going against Intel on a frontal full scale might be the worst thing that they ever decided. Nvidia went from close to $40 to current $19.88 which means that the company has to do something to fix this but this is simply too much."duron266 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
NVIDIA...too high-profile,if they were going to vanish,
Jen-Hsun would be the number one to blame...
anandtech02148 - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
there's a huge differences when audio is being process on a many core cpu like intel and on a stand alone pci card.putting the pci card in you can feel the cpu less bogged down, and the motherboard chipsets generating less heat.
An Integrated gpu, audio, and many cores doesn't solve the problem, there will be bandwith issues too.
Nvidia should hit Intel hard with a low powered, high performanced gpu, to prove a point.
epsilonparadox - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
NVidia will never be able to compete on the low power arena with intel. Intel just have a better process and fabs for that process. NVidia has other companies building their chips. Plus graphics chips don't go with a new process like cpus do.poohbear - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
very nice article, but how many of us are gonna understand the analogy:"someone's kid topping of a decanted bottle of '63 Chateau Latour with an '07 Robert Mondavi."
wtf is that?!? im guessing he's talking about wine, but whatever.
kb3edk - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Well of course it's a wine reference, consider the audience: Institutional investors. These are people who are much more likely to spend $500 worth of disposable income on a bottle of Chateau Something-Or-Other instead of a GeForce 9800 GTX.Also note the Mondavi reference because they're in Napa just on the other side of San Fran from nVidia HQ in Silicon Valley.
And it's still a bit odd seeing such strong words from nVidia against Intel considering that nVidia/Intel is the main enthusiast platform out there these days (as opposed to an all-AMD solution).
Khato - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Really quite enjoyed this, makes me all the more confident in the products Intel is currently developing.I mean really, how similar does NVIDIA's ranting sound compared to AMD's back when they were on top? No question that they're more competent than AMD, but they've done just as good a job at awakening a previously complacent beast at Intel. Heh, and they've never had to compete with someone that has a marked manufacturing advantage before...
tfranzese - Sunday, April 13, 2008 - link
Intel is no beast in these parts. Their track record in the discrete segment and drivers up to this day is complete failure. Until they execute on both the hardware and software, both monumental tasks, they'll continue to be right where they are in the discrete market (i.e. no where).