Nvidia cuts GTX 460 prices?

[trinibwoy]

Right. And I say that their margins are closer to 0 % than 40 % with these chips.

According to what? On one hand you have their financial results with 40%+ margins. What's your evidence for 0%?

[marten_larsson]

Well, you don't have any quarterly results with the GTX460 yet so you wouldn't possibly know what kind of margins they have on them...

[DilTech]

I know I couldn't resist temptation. I snagged a palit 460 GTX 1gb sonic platinum for $200 new locally to tinker with for now. Not really much out these things can't handle when clocked up, so it'll make a fun tide-me-over card.

[saaya]

okay.

the total margins for the company have grown from 45% to 47% over the past few quarters.

some things they sell will be over that, and some things will be under.

your guess is as good as mine. maybe quadro is 100% and geforce is 20% and factoring in sales quantities it ends up being 47% total. even in that case they are making a lot of money on geforce.

their quadro and tesla cards sell for how much? 3000-5000us$ right? and those cards dont cost a lot more than geforce cards... which they sell for 300-400$ these days... and i doubt they sell gf100 cards for a loss... which means they sell gf100 gpus for 200-300$, and it probably costs them 150-250$ to make them... that would be 20-33% yields, which they should def reach especially if you take into account the gtx465 and the quadro cards which are mostly damaged/broken chips...

so that would mean they barely make any money on gf100 geforce cards, 25% margin max id say, wouldnt be surprised if its single digit margins...

but then look at their tesla and quadro cards, some of those actually use chips that are too damaged to be used as geforce cards, yet they sell for several thousand us$... still wonder where their profit and high asp comes from?

i guessed a gf100 costs them 150-250$ to make, and lets say the card costs 100$ on top of that... lets say tesla and quadro cards cost more, lets be really generous and lets say a tesla or quadro card costs nvidia 500$, thats really generous... and they sell for 3000-5000$... that would mean a margin of 600-1000%...

even if nvidia sold gf100 cards without making any money at all, all they would have to do to reach a 50% margin would be to sell 1 tesla/quadro card for every 12-20 geforce cards...

about the gtx460... nvidia managed to sell more of them in 1 month than they managed to sell gtx480 cards since april, which is 6 months...
so no matter how low their asp for gf104 is, and hence its margin, they sell 3x as many as gf100... so it all adds up...

overall i think nvidias good financial results are a result of their tesla and quadro lineup... ati was too cheap/greedy to invest in that segment in the past, which was clearly a mistake... on the other hand, nvidia risks going the way of 3dlabs if they focus too much on this segment...

anyways, nvidia knows what to sell, when to sell it and how to sell it...
if they are lowering the asp of 460s now despite its huge success, it means their yields are either spectacular, or they want to ruin the 6000 series party for ati... possibly both...

personally id still wait for what ati has to show as im not in a rush to upgrade... everything runs smooth with what i got... so the worst thing thatll happen is that a 460 is still the best card to get price perf wise, and that its price hasnt dropped even further while its lifetime has been reduced cause i didnt buy it earlier... no big deal...

[saaya]

forgot to add where i got my numbers from
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=pc

i really wonder what atis margins are... they sold almost 10x as many dx11 parts as nvidia and still make less money?

[Mungri]

forgot to add where i got my numbers from
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=pc

i really wonder what atis margins are... they sold almost 10x as many dx11 parts as nvidia and still make less money?

Im more surprised that ATI still have such a small segment of users compared to Nvidia after a whole year of ownage with the HD 5000s.

[saaya]

Im more surprised that ATI still have such a small segment of users compared to Nvidia after a whole year of ownage with the HD 5000s.

i think thats not the right conclusion... they have a what, 90% market share of dx11 cards?

the problem isnt their cards, the problem is dx11...
that plus the gaming market stagnating big time...

there was no big need for more graphics horse power in the past 2 years, most people are equipped well enough to play new games on their old rigs...

and so far dx11 has been about what? tesselation... and the only games that use it look about the same with tesselation enabled and disabled... you have to freeze the game or look at a wiregraph model to actually spot a difference :P

sure, tesselation isnt just about better iq, but also about saving performance... but that doesnt work at all, current dx11 cards arent exactly rendering fast when you enable tesselation :P

so, if ati is smart, and if nvidia is smart, what they will do is get us 5850/460 performance at a lower price... thatll make them more money than faster and more expensive cards... nvidia already got the hang of it, the 460 is already VERY affordable at 199$, and look at the steam numbers... like i said, in 1 month they sold as many cards as they sold 470s in the past half year!
correction, what they need to do is give us as much performance as possible in the 200$ segment... thats the sweet spot...

if theyd have had had a 460 late last year or early this year, dx11 would be dominated by nvidia for sure... so once again, it was a very bad decision from nvidia to go massive first and then fine tune... they knew the sweet spot, they should have gone for it right away and worked on gf100 and gf104 in parallel, just like ati works on 2 or even more designs in parallel...

[bamtan2]

so, if ati is smart, and if nvidia is smart, what they will do is get us 5850/460 performance at a lower price... thatll make them more money than faster and more expensive cards... nvidia already got the hang of it, the 460 is already VERY affordable at 199$, and look at the steam numbers... like i said, in 1 month they sold as many cards as they sold 470s in the past half year!
correction, what they need to do is give us as much performance as possible in the 200$ segment... thats the sweet spot...

companies know this, populations fall on a bell curve, and all that geforce 2 mx, etc.

[spursindonesia]

With 640 SP Turk, 1280 SP Bart, and 1920 SP Cayman (plus ofcourse the flagship, king of the hill dual chip Antilles) using 4D SP array & improved tesselation capability, i think nVidia will find itself caught beetween rocks and hardplaces, with GTX 460 coming as the first victim (price cut at its best selling moment ? LOL). The only saving grace is a 4 GPC chip based on GF 104 mArch, but that chip will be GF 100 sized with similar ~300 w TDP, yield will still suck, and only performs around Cayman which will be 380 mm^2 & 200 w TDP, coming in Q2 2011 at the earliest, when Norther Islands will be in full force (launched fully) and Llano would have arrived (killing the low end discrete market for them). Not a pretty picture for green team fanbois around the globe, eh ?

[cegras]

Im more surprised that ATI still have such a small segment of users compared to Nvidia after a whole year of ownage with the HD 5000s.

That's legacy market share from G92 and 7600GTs. If you compare generation by generation RV770 and RV870 has been outselling nvidia.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

I was hoping gtx 470/480 cards would drop. With bing gone, prices seem sky high for them now and I really need one!

[Ejizz]

i think thats not the right conclusion... they have a what, 90% market share of dx11 cards?

the problem isnt their cards, the problem is dx11...
that plus the gaming market stagnating big time...

there was no big need for more graphics horse power in the past 2 years, most people are equipped well enough to play new games on their old rigs...

and so far dx11 has been about what? tesselation... and the only games that use it look about the same with tesselation enabled and disabled... you have to freeze the game or look at a wiregraph model to actually spot a difference :P

sure, tesselation isnt just about better iq, but also about saving performance... but that doesnt work at all, current dx11 cards arent exactly rendering fast when you enable tesselation :P

so, if ati is smart, and if nvidia is smart, what they will do is get us 5850/460 performance at a lower price... thatll make them more money than faster and more expensive cards... nvidia already got the hang of it, the 460 is already VERY affordable at 199$, and look at the steam numbers... like i said, in 1 month they sold as many cards as they sold 470s in the past half year!
correction, what they need to do is give us as much performance as possible in the 200$ segment... thats the sweet spot...

if theyd have had had a 460 late last year or early this year, dx11 would be dominated by nvidia for sure... so once again, it was a very bad decision from nvidia to go massive first and then fine tune... they knew the sweet spot, they should have gone for it right away and worked on gf100 and gf104 in parallel, just like ati works on 2 or even more designs in parallel...

Long story short...
The reason why DX11 market share is low, is firstly TSMC 40nm output is low compared to 55nm, meaning they physically can't make enough cards, hence why prices are soo high.

GTX460 in March, wouldn't enable Nv to dominate the market either, they would have done better than they are doing as they would have had more cores per wafer and more demand for them so they didn't have to pass up TSMC allocation but it still wouldn't of made a drastic difference, maybe Nv could have had a DX11 market share of around 20%?, but nowhere close to 50/50.

Edit:
Saaya, do you know what Nvidia's margins are like on the 460's?

[cegras]

Well, their gross margin is 16.6% (http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19451), but individual margins are anyone's guess.

[Periander6]

Well, their gross margin is 16.6% (http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19451), but individual margins are anyone's guess.

That's only after yet another big bumpgate charge against their GMs included. Subtract that out and they were 40.5%.

[Eastcoasthandle]

forgot to add where i got my numbers from
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=pc

i really wonder what atis margins are... they sold almost 10x as many dx11 parts as nvidia and still make less money?

Hmm, I recall someone posting those same percentages a month or so ago (I believe it was that link). Are you referring to June 2010?

[Periander6]

i really wonder what atis margins are... they sold almost 10x as many dx11 parts as nvidia and still make less money?

Why is it so hard for people to understand that Quadro is where Nvidia makes its money?

Check out page 25.

Compare with AMD earnings here.

Q2 results:
AMD's graphics division: 440M revs, 33M operating income (profit).
Nvidia's Professional Division (quadro): 215M revs, 85M operating income (profit)

[Iconyu]

Why is it so hard for people to understand that Quadro is where Nvidia makes its money?

Check out page 25.

Compare with AMD earnings here.

Q2 results:
AMD's graphics division: 440M revs, 33M operating income (profit).
Nvidia's Professional Division (quadro): 215M revs, 85M operating income (profit)

It's not just about profit for me, it about every developer making a DX11 game looking at the market share and deciding which side to spend time optimising for. Sure it mostly won't matter but Physx titles will probably take a hit.

[Nintendork]

saaya
Your point fails for this:

People can actually play with DX9 cards. specially 9.0c -low to highend- (if with my IGP any modern game can be played in low, any ultracheapo card than most illiterate people-average Joe- buy should suffice). Most of the cards in steam survey are just garbage, not your "bang for buck" type of a card. The majority of them will not buy a new card unless what they have decide to die on their own.

[Taskforce]

Lawdz this thread gone man, lolz

[Mungri]

i think thats not the right conclusion... they have a what, 90% market share of dx11 cards?

the problem isnt their cards, the problem is dx11...
that plus the gaming market stagnating big time...

I didnt think about that at all whoops.

It was simply because lots of people are still using DX9 / DX10 Nvidia cards, I have no idea how I missed that.

<---- quickly becoming my favorite emoticon.

As for the gaming market stagnating, I really think that 2011 should change that. There's quite an impressive overload of high quality titles planned to be released next year.

[railmeat]

this is my Next card
i will buy 2 card (GTX 460 SLI), and Overclocking to 830MHz ..... that will kick HD 5970 ASS

dont waste your money on 2 460,s taking more space,power,heat..grab a single gtx 480 for a tad bit more,then sli those wen 480 prices fall.

single gtx 480 beat the dual gpu 5970 in mw2....ati and there goofy drivers...disgrace

chart on bottom
http://www.guru3d.com/article/overcl...-gpu-voltage/6

[spursindonesia]

LOL, ty drivers happen on BOTH IHVs, only fanbois thinking otherwise, those frying driver of nVidia.

OTOH, furnace graphic chip isn't exactly the best stuff for anyone rig, especially if this baconator is gonna get owned in November by a chip that 30% smaller & consuming 33% less power.

[Mungri]

dont waste your money on 2 460,s taking more space,power,heat..grab a single gtx 480 for a tad bit more,then sli those wen 480 prices fall.

single gtx 480 beat the dual gpu 5970 in mw2....ati and there goofy drivers...disgrace

chart on bottom
http://www.guru3d.com/article/overcl...-gpu-voltage/6

1) If you wouldnt want to buy two 460s because they take up more space, power and heat, then why would you ever want to SLI two GTX 480s?
2) Two GTX 460s are less of a money waste than the GTX 480 when you compare the price to their performance.
3) An overclocked 5970 would still obliterate the single GTX 480 in that game, plus that is likely only one of very cases where a GTX 480 is slightly better than a 5970.

Also, on the topic of two GTX 460s vs one GTX 480:

The GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration absolutely obliterates the GeForce GTX 480’s performance scores, landing a 26% performance coup de grace upon its big brother after continuously battering it with wins in every benchmark at every setting. That would put it in the same performance class as a certain $700 dual-GPU card, according to Don Woligroski’s recent review. But—at less than $500—it doesn't even need to compete there.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2694-11.html

This is the reason why people are buying the GTX 460 SLI setup summed up very nicely. Also, do remember that a pair of decent GTX 460s on a motherboard with wide slot spacing wont go over 65 degrees each, even without any additional cooling. Mine dont anyway. When overclocking, all they need is a side fan to bring in fresh air and they still remain far cooler than a single GTX 480 does.

Oh, and did I mention they are very small cards? Same size as the 5770, yet with far more power.

[Dimitriman]

If you must buy nvidia there is no doubt that two 460 is the best choice out there.

still if you are agnostic like me it would not hurt to wait for november to see what ati brings to the table.

[saaya]

If you must buy nvidia there is no doubt that two 460 is the best choice out there.

still if you are agnostic like me it would not hurt to wait for november to see what ati brings to the table.

yepp... if your playing any games that just wont run fine on your machine and a 460 would get the job done... id say go for it... worst case, ati has something better for the same or a lower price, but i doubt the difference will be big enough to make you want to upgrade from a 460 to that...

but if your like me, everything runs smooth... why go for a 460 when we all know theres something new around the corner...

Long story short...
The reason why DX11 market share is low, is firstly TSMC 40nm output is low compared to 55nm, meaning they physically can't make enough cards, hence why prices are soo high.

still? i dont know about that... why would tsmc limit their 40nm capacity on purpose? and i find it hard to believe that they STILL havent managed to significantly ramp up wafer output... or maybe they do this on purpose to keep the 40nm wafer prices high and make more money?

GTX460 in March, wouldn't enable Nv to dominate the market either, they would have done better than they are doing as they would have had more cores per wafer and more demand for them so they didn't have to pass up TSMC allocation but it still wouldn't of made a drastic difference, maybe Nv could have had a DX11 market share of around 20%?, but nowhere close to 50/50.

gf104 is only 30% smaller than gf100, so you may be right... and while yields of gf104 are probably much better now than gf100, beyond what youd expect from a 30% smaller die, if they had had gf104 back then, the yields would probably have sucked as well...
so yeah, gf104 would have given them twice the chips out of the wafers, but that wouldnt have made a big difference... your right...

Edit:
Saaya, do you know what Nvidia's margins are like on the 460's?

no idea man... im just speculating...
but gf104 is still pretty big... at 100% yield they are at around 130 per wafer i think, and that would mean around 40$... and thats just the wafer cost...
even with great yield i doubt they are selling gf104 chips for much less than 100$...
50% yields which would be very good for an nvidia gpu on tsmcs 40nm node, would mean a chip cost of around 80$...
and a card costs around 50$ with pcb and memory and pwm and heatsink, if not more... so if they can get gtx460 margins above the single digit zone, they are doing an awesome job...

my guess is nvidias margin per bundle (gpu+mem) is less than 10%, and the margin per card wont be much higher either...

Hmm, I recall someone posting those same percentages a month or so ago (I believe it was that link). Are you referring to June 2010?

what do you mean?

Why is it so hard for people to understand that Quadro is where Nvidia makes its money?

Check out page 25.

Compare with AMD earnings here.

Q2 results:
AMD's graphics division: 440M revs, 33M operating income (profit).
Nvidia's Professional Division (quadro): 215M revs, 85M operating income (profit)

i think i got it now
atis/amds managers still didnt seem to have realized it...
the money theyd have to invest to gain more foothold in the pro segment would return to them within quarters... you cant really lose by going for the pro segment, worst case scenario is that you push prices lower and dont really make that high profits, but they would boost their market share, brand, and hurt nvidias profits...

saaya
Your point fails for this:
People can actually play with DX9 cards. specially 9.0c -low to highend- (if with my IGP any modern game can be played in low, any ultracheapo card than most illiterate people-average Joe- buy should suffice).

at a very low res and med details, sure... but who wants to do that if a 5750 barely costs more than 100$?

Most of the cards in steam survey are just garbage, not your "bang for buck" type of a card. The majority of them will not buy a new card unless what they have decide to die on their own.

what does this have to do with steam hardware surveys? its a very accurate overview of the actual market if you ask me... and yes, most people have crappy hardware and wont spend more than 20$ to upgrade, so? i dont get your point...

I didnt think about that at all whoops.

It was simply because lots of people are still using DX9 / DX10 Nvidia cards, I have no idea how I missed that.

<---- quickly becoming my favorite emoticon.

hey no worries man, no need for self mutilation ^^

As for the gaming market stagnating, I really think that 2011 should change that. There's quite an impressive overload of high quality titles planned to be released next year.

hmmm i hope so... but personally i havent heard of any kick4ss graphic titles...
nothing that will break todays hardware... even crysis2... they said if a rig can handle crysis itll be able to handle crysis2, so... : /