If Samsung screwed up they would absolutely officially put it out there, see not only would they have sold 175M to crypto miners, but they would have also have a perfect excuse for why the consumer channel isn't seeing any stock, it would be a win/win from Jensen's standpoint.
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Nvidia Posts Record Q3 Earnings, Sales of GPUs to Crypto Miners Reach $175 Million
- Thread starter FrgMstr
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If Samsung screwed up they would absolutely officially put it out there, see not only would they have sold 175M to crypto miners, but they would have also have a perfect excuse for why the consumer channel isn't seeing any stock, it would be a win/win from Jensen's standpoint.
MVidia planned this out pretty well, they get the Crypto miners dealt with early before AMD can get in there and get the Etherium 2 stuff built out for the NVidia hardware. They cede some early sales to AMD but cause AMD to sell out far faster than they anticipated. Now that AMD is all sold out and being pressed to deliver on their 5000 series CPU’s as well as Microsoft and Sony pressuring them for more deliveries NVidia can switch back over to consumer production and pick up not only their customers but a number of disenchanted AMD customers who can’t get one of the 6000’s and doesn’t want to wait any more.
Teenyman45
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If I am "winning" at a level of "x" and instead feel I should be winning at a higher level of "y" then, yes I most certainly would throw somebody under the bus. Just think of a person placed a bet expecting their favorite football team to beat a 15 point spread and instead the team only won by 12. Yes, the team won by a great deal, but still was not "winning" enough... and depending on the size of the bet that person might literally be thrown under the bus.
Hard to fathom the benefit for Nvidia on selling a rather large quantity around the launch date meant for the gaming group. A group which also a number of developers, artists, programmers and companies need to prosper and to grow. Why stagnant the very area one has built, won in etc.? So far this makes zero sense to me the reasoning or the motive for Nvidia to bother at this point in time. Is this really a Crypto Mining buy? Who are the members that bought that quantity of GPU's seems ridiculous. Looks like there are other AIB partners, Crypto Mining AIB partners in play? Anyways could this actually be GPUs meant for like GeForce now data centers in Asia? Is this move to push gamers to use game servers, such as GeForce Now by restricting access to hardware? Well either the information is speculative and not reflecting accurately the amount or some other plan/motive is in operation that is not clear. No one seems to ask the question of how many Ampere GPU's are being supplied to update or expand GeForce now.
I could see China wanting most games to be played over their governmental oversight, what a way to manipulate, control in another fashion their population. Just a thought.
I could see China wanting most games to be played over their governmental oversight, what a way to manipulate, control in another fashion their population. Just a thought.
its a gpu not an F22 Raptor
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Not even sure what that means. Could you be more specific?
Why would they highlight the issues with the process? Like, how some of the gpus are having difficulty reaching high clocks and have to be downclocked with a new bios. Even if they were to blame Samsung, it was still Nvidia's decision to go with them. They managed to sell all the gpus they got, numbers are good, wall street is happy.
What would be the point of losing market share in gaming but gaining it in mining?
DooKey
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They look at the big picture. Wall Street company wants profits. Doesn't matter where they come from. Simple.
All publicly traded companies do the same thing. Profits and the faster the better.
It's not a conspiracy as some would have you believe. Simply about the benji's.
Teenyman45
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It's not hard at all to fathom Nvidia has essential zero reciprocal loyalty to their own loyal customers (not that AMD ever seems or seemed to have much more loyalty either). Shipping hundreds of thousands of the newest high-end GPU to a handful or double handful of miners, stripped down to just a package of the GPU and RAM (do some of them even forgo buying PCBs?) and cutting out the hassle of dealing with middlemen AiBs is likely more attractive than dealing with the clamoring crush of gamers who are going to howl and scream regardless of lightly or fully stocked retail channels are with cards. Besides, this let Nvidia create an artificial atmosphere of scarcity for a few months so far and several more at least into the future.
Granted this practice is loathsomely sleazy and utterly unfriendly to the broadest base of general and loyal consumers, but what are they going to do... stop playing video games? Not like Intel has any competing products or AMD has any stock of product, and that is about all that's left of the graphics market thanks to consolidation and buyouts. Oligopoly has its perks for the people at the top.
Yes but did they not make launching and availability claim to the other clients that are getting, the claim is that they should have went to a specific clients (PC gamers) over an other specific clients, for that claim to hold we need to avance reason why one client should have had priority over the other.
Do you also think that every RDNA 2 going to an XBox or PS5 should have went into the PC gaming market instead ? I doubt AMD marketing/commitment to PC gamers was a bigger one than the one they did to Sony&Microsoft.
If PC gamers got marketed a product and miners didn't not, got a surprise launch on their side, yes that could be an argument, I am not sure that is the case at all, for all we known Nvidia commitment to them was even more formal than to pc gamers (that suspected not being able to get one, to the point of waiting in line outside store to have a chance), why should NVidia not fulfill a clearer commitment to fulfill a weaker one ?
This should blow up in their face, but in a duopoly it is unlikely.
Exactly bot AMD prioritising console and NVidia prioritising miners and other client is unlikely to hurt a lot their position among PC Gamers, thus my question about the use of the word should part.
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Smoked Brisket
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I am confused about this profit motivation. The cards would have sold out quickly anyway. Nvidia was to the market first so it seems miners would have scooped up the stock from retail if they had to. Nvidia gets paid either way. Do I believe Nvidia would sell to miners? Yea, of course, but they are not the only ones. The only real facts that are out there is two companies are keeping available launch units a secret. Now why is that?
Simple, there is no reason for either company to share that data. Sure it would sate your curiosity and mine, but how does either company benefit?
Like said above isn't quite rare for a company to say any details of the sorts if they do not need to do so.
We never know how much Dvds for a movie or ticket sold, how many of a video game get sold, F-150 available at launch (how often do we know how many of any product is available.. ?)
Etherium 2 is a thing that is happening shortly, by NVidia getting the miners their hardware first it more or less guarantees that the software developed to mine it will be based on the NVidia’s. Once that software is developed and deployed unless AMD pulls a massive rabbit out of their hat and comes up with something that completely trounces NVidia that is unlikely to change. So that means those miners are probably going to stay with NVidia for the duration. And it’s not like it’s actually harmed any of NVidia’s sales, AMD went out of stock almost as fast as NVidia did and because of their contracts and TSMC’s other clients needs they can’t refresh that stock as easily. So NVidia can now start bringing them to market, still completely unable to meet demand but more or less uncontested.
Ethereum*
The software to mine crypto is never developed for one company as opposed to another. It's developed to make efficient use of any hardware running it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread ethereum is a memory limited algorithm. The gddr6x plays a bigger role in the mining performance then the software or actual GPU asic.
There are already well performing asics for ether. The actual compute portion of the algo can be easily optimized on a asic. There is no reason a GPU asic would be used for this and I see no reason anything other then a fully built graphics card would hold any value outside of the period these can mine.
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Etherium 2.0 is POS (proof of stake) moving from POS (Proof of Work). The move to POS in 2021 will be a move to CPU based processing by voting. GPU/Asic/ALL Mining at that point will be dead for Eth.
So then they have to move to some alt coins many are still ASIC driven. Wasn’t there something about Etherium 1.5, point is the miners are all going crazy for the 3060’s.
Ethereum miners need to either move to 2.0 making all their existing hardware obsolete as I get it’s CPU driven but in the mean time 1.5 is there, they are all raging about how great the 3060’s are for it. And when 2.0’does launch they can move that hardware over to some other ASIC based coin and keep on going on those while they all fight over the 5600’s or what ever CPU they determine is the sweet spot for the new currency.
DarkSideA8
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Ok - I could be wrong, but let me develop this... (Remember, everyone above thinks 'absolutely, you throw a company under the bus if you feel like you did not get what you were promised, so keep in mind the pervasive silence):
As early as May, and confirmed in Oct, rumors were that NV were going to shift some Ampere products to the TSMC 7nm and early - 1 quarter after launch. These rumors partly attribute this to NV concern over Big Navi. Presume they (NV) do their intelligence. The early rumors are that NV is thinking about Navi - only the later rumors hint that Samsung has yield issues. So also presume the first rumor was correct - NV planned on shifting the bulk of the product life to to the 7nm process, but keep some (presumably lower class boards) on the 8nm out of concern for competitiveness vs BNavi.
NV controls the clock on when to launch. Remember all the talk of Mindshare? So NV launches Ampere on 8nm to incredible hype - in the process stealing a march on AMD - but very very few reaching gamers or AIC partners.
So - why?
Why shift the bulk of the produced 8nm ASICS to miners? Why screw over the AICs who have forecasted and planned on making Holiday profits from selling Ampere - and why are those AICs so quiet? It looks like only cherry picked 8nm cards got a Nvidia brand or NV AIC name - but the real Ampere supply won't be 8nm fab.
Why are the AICs not losing their shit all over the place with the press or their boardrooms /investors? If NV could be expected to shit on Samsung for bad yields - and did not... There's a reason. So why are the AICs not shitting all over NV?
One answer might be that they knew all along what to expect.
NV has a reason to sell the vast majority of the 8nm ASICS to miners. NV may not be sharing that reason - but there is a reason. Perhaps the benefit is selling all the Samsung 8nm at a profit while waiting for TSMC to ramp production on the real Ampere. One with high performance and headroom. The miner ASICS won't affect the mindshare - they are unbranded and won't hit the gamerspace as NV Ampere gamer products later on.
So maybe NV feels like the bulk of 8nm stability isnt enough to beat AMD (most 3080 cards are effectively max overclocked out of the box - whereas 6800xt's have headroom... And they're 'on par' with each other, given the exception of RT... So selling 8nm to miners is a win - if you ignore the grumpy gamers who feel like stock should be available nao!
NV gets to be first out with the new cards, apparently forced AMD to rush their launch, and still has mindshare. Once they have 7nm products with a fancy appended name in quantity - a 'ti' that outperforms BNavi and has headroom... It's a win.
Don't forget - they had a record breaking quarter - and none of their partners are throwing shade.
There's gotta be a reason
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GoodBoy
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Anyone you can reach out to at Nvidia for comment on why so many went to miners? My contact is not there anymore.
Did they misjudge the market demand? Expect AMD to compete much better in video card space? Is it simply a higher profit sale to go to the miners?
Did they misjudge the market demand? Expect AMD to compete much better in video card space? Is it simply a higher profit sale to go to the miners?
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So that they could keep the ~60% margin that their stockholders expect/demand. I do not think there was any way to sell those GPUs into the retail channel and keep margin. I have actually talked about this since right after launch.
A bunch of their partners are very upset because they did not get allocated expected inventories. But let's be real here, do you know what speaking up against NVIDIA will get you as a partner? The answer is a lot more of no allocation. NVIDIA rules its partners with an iron fist.
DarkSideA8
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You have explained that about the margins since the beginning - and I did not know that NV had such advantage over the AICs.
So why the early shift to TSMC 7nm? Will that solve the margin problems?
Is there anything they can do about headroom /stability with 7nm - or is beating AMD merely a factor of the higher quality VRAM and maybe adding more of it?
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More expensive process most likely, better count per wafer.... The rest is ASIC design dependent. Don't have the right information to answer either of your questions. Could only give you assumptions.
TSMC is certainly not cheaper than Samsung but Samsung did offer NVidia a substantial discount for moving an order over to them. So they very well could have used Samsung for the initial launch so they could get some product out while TSMC was feverishly pumping out AMD’s console parts. They could also choose to keep some parts on one and some on the other side ho knows, maybe the TSMC rumours are false??
At this point who knows what either AMD or NVidia are doing, other than counting money.
staknhalo
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The cards/chips "should" go to whoever is giving Nvidia money for them, gamers aren't being denied some civil liberty or something if Nvidia is selling to or prioritizing miners. Does it suck for the gamers? Sure. But it's video games for crying out loud. Not insulin or something.
I've been without a card since August when I sold my 2070 Super in anticipation of the 3xxx series, and yet for some reason I'm not butthurt like so many here. A lot of people are coming off very self-entitled or concerningly displaying addiction like symptoms. In regards to both Nvidia's and AMD's current stock/availability situation.
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Never suggested anything of the sort. Just pointing out facts and analysis from my end.
What did you meant by should in that sentence then ? Because I cannot imagine a reasonable reader not understanding that has suggesting/implying exactly this.
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Context is everything, at least quote me on what you are specifically asking.
The quote was just above in the current conversation flow I was quoting you on(https://hardforum.com/threads/nvidi...ers-reach-175-million.2003895/post-1044829721) :
I suspect it is closer to 500K as NVIDIA ships these in ASIC BOM kits; GPU and RAM. These are Chinese industrial miners, not some local yocal with racks of AIB video cards. These guys build their own cards to the specs they want and NVIDIA gives them the ability to write their own drivers as well. So let's say 350K to 500K GPUs that should/could have been in the retail channel for gamers.
What should implied if not that NVidia should have directed those toward PC gamers ?
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You know you can just highlight the sentence and then click "reply" and the system will pull that for you automatically?
Here is your sentence in question: "So let's say 350K to 500K GPUs that should/could have been in the retail channel for gamers."
You will notice that I used "should/could" there for the user to fall back on how they saw it. Me, being a gamer, and in this industry for 25 years, thinks that NVIDIA SHOULD have sold those to gamers. Just my personal bias. Yes, I would like those GPUs to go to gamers, you know the ones that spent all that money on NVIDIA over the years that gave it the capital to do what it does now. Not sure why that is a big issue with you. Seems like you just want to pick a fight over what you think I should not think about NVIDIA.
NVIDIA can do whatever it pleases. I have never said otherwise.
This, I mean you were clearly implying and not saying explicitly that they should have put a client over another client and people are asking why ? We all would have prefered them to do so, but that a different thing that saying that they should have.
Should:
used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/should
correct or best thing to do
I was curious why you thought it would have been the correct thing to do for Nvidia and has I suspected because of sense of respect from their first client base.
I think it is a common sentiment, one we also have once a game studio/franchise start prioritizing or going exclusive on console when it was PC gamers that started them (that would be a long list).
But maybe has someone with a long experience you had more industry base reason (and interesting reason's) on why they should have instead, like market share in that segment, more secure future and so on.
Has a similar question, do you think the same for all the GPU going into consoles right now, that they should have went into the PC gamers market, the ones that spent all that money on ATI video cards making it possible for them to get into the Nintendo/Xbox/Playstation ? If not what is the distinction between the 2 situations ?
No one suggested that you said NVIDIA was in the illegality here, curiosity about why you thought a different business decision was a better one or one more in line with obligation's than another one.
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Yes, it is my personal opinion that it would have been best for the gaming community for NVIDIA to sell those 500,000 GPUs to gamers and not Chinese corporate miners. I have no problem standing behind that statement. I will no longer reply to you as you seem to have issue with respecting my opinion.
DarkSideA8
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I'll say this: those of us who enjoy this hobby (DIY computer building) are pretty much a neglected segment. AMD and NVidia both seem to be selling to the custom computer sellers in addition to miners or console mfrs. We are clearly the bottom of the barrell.
Case in point: People are now recommending to get a card, that you buy a pre-built and sell the parts. Seriously??!!?? Newegg is pretty much the only source (US, nationwide) for computer parts. Otherwise, we have retailers like Best Buy and Walmart or B&H that are not PC focused. Some very few cities enjoy a MicroCenter. CompUSA has been gone for years. Once people started buying throw away devices like tablets and phones, and consoles caught up in performance, the PC community started to lose any clout as a market force
Case in point: People are now recommending to get a card, that you buy a pre-built and sell the parts. Seriously??!!?? Newegg is pretty much the only source (US, nationwide) for computer parts. Otherwise, we have retailers like Best Buy and Walmart or B&H that are not PC focused. Some very few cities enjoy a MicroCenter. CompUSA has been gone for years. Once people started buying throw away devices like tablets and phones, and consoles caught up in performance, the PC community started to lose any clout as a market force
GoodBoy
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It's clear that selling to miners is (mostly) upside, that is why they did it:
Pros:
1) guaranteed market, miners probably bought them in a deal made months ago
2) safe bet in the case that AMD pulled a rabbit out of a hat and somehow had better performance at all of the price points
3) guaranteed sales-> it was entirely possible that the Gamer market would suffer due to the unemployment caused by covid layoffs. So if you were choosing allocation amounts months ago, sales to miners is the obvious choice
4) guaranteed sales-> if someone had to make a choice between a new console or a new GPU, they might opt for the console over the GPU and keep using their existing GPU. Even a 1080Ti is still a good card. They are not only competing with AMD, they are competing with themselves and with 2 brand new console laucnhes. Also, prior history of launches timed with new consoles might show that sales of videocards are lower during those timeframes (no I didn't go research that, but you can bet Nvidia did)
5) drastically reduce miners buying up videocards, which is good for the GPU market but also
6) is more profitable, for multiple reasons. Higher markup on the chip as Kyle mentioned, also don't have miners buying videocards instead -> which have a lower margin than what we think Nvidia is getting from selling directly to the miners
Cons:
1) annoy the shit out of Gamers and Nvidia fans
2) could give up market to AMD
It's really kind of obvious. It even annoys me, even though I am not upgrading this cycle. But makes complete sense. And if I understand your wordy-ass question, it is in the best overall interest to the company, the board of directors, and to the shareholders.
And as far as your consoles question, those contracts and production counts were likely agreed upon years ago, which means they (AMD in this case) are bound to to meet those agreements as best they can. So if production of videocard GPU's has to be lowered in order to meet those console contract demands, they obviously will do that.
My brother in law bought an Alienware in Canada about 2 weeks ago, 10900kf/32GB ram/3800. I checked the same rig in the US and it was priced at the same price even though 1 USD is about 1.3 CAD. It seems that there are some unique US supply issues.
For the gaming community that is an obvious statement, no one would ever argue with the statement, that was not the question. I do respect that opinion (that 100% of the people share, it would better for the gaming community if a company would put them first), that was not the question nor the initial statement.
I think it would be everyone opinion that it would been best for the pc gaming community for AMD to sell all those GPU going into console to PC gamers and not console gamers, that is quite a different statement than saying that they should have done it.