Whoever at AMD who refused to match the offer probably made a terrible decision. This is about the worst time to lose that talent right after inking a gpu die deal which, in light of this news, will only be temporary. AMD just got played.
If I were AMD, I would review Mark Papermaster's comp and incentives to ensure he doesn't leave.
(I'm long AMD)
I think the recent Intel + AMD custom chip was probably the last thing Raja did before he got pulled RTG got the reins put back on and now he’s hoping ship to peruse what he’s wanted all along. To work with more independence.
More power to him.
I know AMD has access to some resources, but If Intel decided he was a strategic hire, the game was over before it started. It’s not just that they are richer, it’s worth spending more to them because you could argue it ties into their most important long term IP battles in related areas like massively parallel computing, ML, etc.
At that point you have to just cut the line.
Gaming customers don't care because it's only consuming more when actually playing - 500 hours played in a year times 0.1 eur/usd per kwh says you only save 50 eur or usd per year per 1000 watts reduction on power consumption, so it's like 2.5 eur or usd per year for a 50W difference. Cryptocurrency miners have voted with their wallets and gone AMD. There are some 24/7 HPC GPGPU users who put weight on power consumption but it is a small market segment.
Of course lower power consumption lets you do all kinds of useful engineering decisions within the product, so lowering it would make the product faster or cheaper, but that is already accounted for in the direct cost and performance numbers of the current product.
> There are some 24/7 HPC GPGPU users who put weight on power consumption but it is a small market segment.
Ugh latest estimates on machine learning are something like $40B by 2024.
See https://wccftech.com/nvidia-second-quarter-2017-fy-18-analys...
With cryptominers I'm not sure they are actually "voting" for anything, to me it rather looks like they are buying up pretty much all the decent mid to high range cards in bulk, regardless of brand, it's more about availability.
In the mid-range (/general audience) it's true heat can sway the buying decision, and in fact, everything that comes along with heat (for example, space occupation) is taken into account in the price.
Right now, if you are building a new computer and get to make all your own component selections, a Vega 56 card at MSRP can be a really good deal, at that segment AMD GPUs are really competitive except at the very top -- you might pay a little more in the PSU and your power bill, but the sticker price of the GPU will make up for that. However, if, like >90% of gamers, you don't make all your own component decisions and don't have the power budget, the NVidia 1050Ti reigns supreme. The best competition AMD can muster against it in the "no external power connector" segment are some RX560 models. This is in itself a terrible marketing decision as it prevents the kind of word of mouth "just buy a 750Ti" advertising that worked really well for nVidia, on top of the fact that in the segment the AMD cards just do much less well than the nVidia ones.
If Vega were smoking a 1080 Ti then you wouldn't hear any grumbling at all. It's when you get into a situation where Vega is pulling more power than a 1080 Ti and delivering performance that's barely above a 1070 in many titles that people start to get queasy about it.
PCGH just put out their new benchmark charts and the only Vega part that can even match the 1080 on average is the 64 Liquid Cooled version, which is roughly a $650 product at the moment. You're paying 1080 Ti money for a 1080 that pulls twice as much power as a 1080, which is a pretty unappealing on the whole. The only real value argument AMD has been able to make is FreeSync, but it can't really make up for that kind of performance/value deficit.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Grafikkarten-Grafikkarte-97980...
Another little-discussed disadvantage is that Vega is a delicate little flower, even moreso than Fiji was. Even most board partners that normally allow you to keep your warranty while using a waterblock have decided that Vega is just too delicate to have users taking the cooler off. You put a waterblock on, you lose your warranty. Many stores are not allowing returns for them either and I suspect this is a factor (along with generally immature drivers and other problems resulting in generally low user satisfaction).
Indeed, they're not voting for anything.
And if Ethereum gets any significant traction, the ASICs will come. That's pretty much inevitable. Heck, I bet ASIC would be worth the investment even for Argon2d hashes —even though that one was designed for modern stock hardware.
You mean like a $30 billion market cap? [0]
Afaik not all blockchain implementations profit from ASIC hardware, some even actively discourage ASCI use by making ASCI hardware use not efficient, like Monero [1], could be that Ethererum does something similar.
[0] https://cryptocoincharts.info/coins/info
[1] https://monero.stackexchange.com/questions/47/is-monero-amen...
Gamers care about noise and heat very much.
I am short AMD, long NVDA. Keep an eye open on ER tomorrow.