Tuesday, March 30th 2010
XFX Abandons GeForce GTX 400 Series
XFX is getting cozier with AMD by the day, which is an eyesore for NVIDIA. Amidst the launch of GeForce GTX 400 series, XFX did what could have been unimaginable a few months ago: abandon NVIDIA's high-end GPU launch. That's right, XFX has decided against making and selling GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, saying that it favours high-end GPUs from AMD, instead. This comes even as XFX seemed to have been ready with its own product art. Apart from making new non-reference design SKUs for pretty-much every Radeon HD 5000 series GPU, the company is working on even more premium graphics cards targeted at NVIDIA's high-end GPUs.
The rift between XFX and NVIDIA became quite apparent when XFX outright bashed NVIDIA's high-end lineup in a recent press communication about a new high-end Radeon-based graphics card it's designing. "XFX have always developed the most powerful, versatile Gaming weapons in the world - and have just stepped up to the gaming plate and launched something spectacular that may well literally blow the current NVIDIA offerings clean away," adding "GTX480 and GTX470 are upon us, but perhaps the time has come to Ferm up who really has the big Guns." The move may come to the disappointment of some potential buyers of GTX 400 series, as XFX's popular Double Lifetime Warranty scheme would be missed. XFX however, maintains that it may choose to work on lower-end Fermi-derivatives.
Source:
HardwareCanucks
The rift between XFX and NVIDIA became quite apparent when XFX outright bashed NVIDIA's high-end lineup in a recent press communication about a new high-end Radeon-based graphics card it's designing. "XFX have always developed the most powerful, versatile Gaming weapons in the world - and have just stepped up to the gaming plate and launched something spectacular that may well literally blow the current NVIDIA offerings clean away," adding "GTX480 and GTX470 are upon us, but perhaps the time has come to Ferm up who really has the big Guns." The move may come to the disappointment of some potential buyers of GTX 400 series, as XFX's popular Double Lifetime Warranty scheme would be missed. XFX however, maintains that it may choose to work on lower-end Fermi-derivatives.
199 Comments on XFX Abandons GeForce GTX 400 Series
I almost don't even care about this stuff right now, with the release of the gtx480/470 the ati fans are cheering publicly, and the nvidia fans are mumbling quietly off in the corner. I'm sort of glad nvidia is taking a little bit of a bash atm, one gpu maker in decided control of the market is bad for us all, But the two camps going at it like this is just exhausting. I'm honestly pretty sick of the gpu wars and it's various camps of devotees. I've had cards from both companies be good products, and the bashing is just too juvenile. It's splitting the PC gaming community apart (and has for a while) and creates situations like Batman: AA and Crysis, where support is thrown wholly behind one manufacturer of gpus and not another. Which does a great disservice to all PC gamers by narrowing our choices...I guess that was sort of a rant, sorry.
No fan of enthusiast hardware should EVER rout for the complete demise of competition. That is the absolute worst thing that can happen to any consumer. So, despite the difficulties at Nvidia, and the fact that I chose to go with ATI this generation, I really hope that they pull out of this strong.
Secondly about Nvidia being a sinking ship, seriously? We're talking about the second or third largest hardware company. Their IP portfolio has more pages than the Bible. We cannot even begin to compare it to 3dfx because the current situation is so much different: 1)The graphic market is huge and so are the players involved in it 2) Nvidia has spread out in many different fields, like a moderns day Lernaean hydra(Geforce, computing, ion, optimus, tegra, etc.) 3) They sit on a huge stockpile of cash 4)Even tho I don't like their last 2 generations, we need a second player on the market to keep Ati's greediness in line.
I cant say they are wrong, i woud'nt like to have a card in my computer that chrunches at 95 celcius default. :laugh:
Haw-Haw!
since the currently availably coolers cant really cool the existing GPUs nicely and the new Nvidia ones are even hotter its not gonna be a big seller and a warranty nightmare.
R300 vs. NV30 - ATi had the lead
R350 vs. NV35 - ATi increase the lead
R423 vs. NV45 - nVidia decreases ATi's lead
R580 vs. G70 - nVidia pulls even with ATi
R580+ vs. G71 - nVidia takes the lead
R600 vs. G80 - nVidia increases the lead and we have the reverse of what he have today(R600 comes 6 months late, and is a power hungy expensive disappointment)
RV670 vs. G92 - nVidia's lead stays pretty steady
RV770 vs. GT200 - ATi decreases nVidia's lead
RV870 vs. GF100 - ATi takes the lead with a similar result to R600 vs. G80 but in reverse
It is a cycle that we've seen a few times in the past, and will likely continue to see in the future. NVidia will work on their GPUs to come back, then ATi will do the same, and so on.
Probably better for those EVGA and BFG alike to bundled up GTX 480 with up to specs PSU to make sure it works no problem.
but anyone wonder about the price of of it? this monolithic chip is not cheap....all combined...XFX say:where is my profit?
@newtekie1, yeah, that can go on forth and back as long as partners can endure nvidia's treatment... and by the looks of it, XFX didn't want to put up with it anymore. FWIW progress also comes from gathering a series of partners around you that help in the development of products. For now, Nvidia has only swallowed what it considered useful and marginalized what it didn't, like XFX. That's not how a healthy business should be run if you want to consider longevity. Time will tell, but from the looks of it, they only managed to stay active this long because of those around them that supported them.
I wonder how many partners preordered Fermi cards in Dec / Nov / Whatever last year? i.e. filled Nvidia's pockets with money for non-existing products that helped them somewhat stay this long in the charts! Does anyone think partners will still be around if this happens the next time?
However, I'm not sure about the true cause that led XFX to skip GTX 480/470, if I had to guess I'd say it's a matter of yields. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if XFX takes back in the next days.
I've owned Nvidia's and ATi's and I've been very satisfied with both. I think everyone on this forum agrees that competition is the best for all of us, so be it, I'd love to see a closer 50/50 market share between greens & reds.
10 GTX480's + 10 GTX470's must be purchased along with 20 GT220's and 20 GT240's.
Guess XFX had ATI's for that market segment. :)
If I knew the forum post I read was based on Semi-Accurate I probably would have kept my mouth shut. :rolleyes:
For me, the 450 looks to perform way better then my EVGA 275 896MB. But I'll actually hold that speculation until I see some real-world testing and retail cost!
EDIT: I wouldn't be at all surprised if XFX contracts for revision 470/480's.
Something in my business intuitive gut says that XFX did not want to take on high RMA returns due to multiple reasons. XFX may have also wanted moar chips then NV could part to them and figured the production of few PCB's would cost more than the production of a large batch of PCB's. This cost then rises for the consumer. If the consumer can not afford the product, XFX loses return, interest and paying the bills. From a business standpoint, the HD5000 series has been very successful on 'sales'. The 'said' comings of the HD6000 series, while speculatively, make investors leave NV if... Well, there are many ifs, speculation is cheap!
Product Quality, Service and Warranty, Price Point and driver functionality are the main driving force behind the majority of 'consumer consumption'.
However a lack of availability on demand is also key to what will drive consumers to another market. NV should have learned this with the 200 series!
"Green with NV"
What was the time scale between the nv30 and the nv35 like 3 months?
You also seem to have the roles reverse, a lot of these partners wouldn't even exist today if it wasn't for nVidia and their successful products. Where was BFG, eVGA, and XFX before G70? All three jumped on the nVidia wave and rode it until this point, before G70 I don't think anyone would have even know who any of them were. XFX has just jumped from one wave to the other, if they can ride the ATi wave to even greater success I'm glad for them. Really it makes sense too. XFX is probably the best ATi partner right now, with little competition. No other ATi partner offers lifetime warranties, no other partner offers as good of bundles, XFX has a leg up on the ATi partners, and they would have a tuffer time in the nVidia market.
This sucks what they did. Out of all the 470 & 480's so far. I was liking their design on them. I'm a big fan of XFX. I guess theres always evga to fall back on.
Wonders if the price of there past cards will drop now since theres no more or will it go up for limited quantity and owning a piece of them to hold on to. just wonderin
Not only isn't nVidia second or third largest 'hardware company' (like you call it) but they're not even in the top 20.
On topic:
Well, like some of you have mentioned already, warranty may be an issue.
At work (computer repair), I can see a bigger failure rate of nVidia card over Ati cards. While nVidia does hold a bigger market share, it seems to me that a bigger percentage of cards die. 6000, 7000 & 8000 series cards seem to be very sensitive to heat. When a card gets clogged with dust, they just die. While Ati cards don't die when clogged but shut themselves off on time. Dust is a big problem but at least Ati cards save themselves.
We sold some computers with Asus 9800GX2's (refrence design) ... i can tell you that every single one of them died (within Asus' warranty of three years).
Seams forward thinking is in serious short supply these days :laugh: