AMD vs. Nvidia dGPU market share 2003-2014

Courtesy of Beyond3D



Not surprising for those of us who've kept up with GPUs for a while, but still fascinating nonetheless. The end of the graph is terrifying.

 

Looks like something happened in 2006 and AMD/ATI never recovered.

2004 is around the time I started building desktops, and I remember spending a considerable amount of time debating between Intel/AMD and ATI/NVIDIA.

Sadly, not so much anymore.

Pretty soon Intel/NVIDIA will be another Microsoft - you can either take what they give you or simply not get a PC at all.

 

wow....not good. I hope AMD can step it up and get nvidia sweating...otherwise we are screwed as PC gamers.

 

While I do feel a bit miffed about the absence of the mobile GPU lines, I think it's best they actually aren't shown.
This is troubling, indeed. And I don't think AMD and gamers are the only ones worrying.

 

8800 GTX happened. AMD almost but not quite bounced back 3 years later when 5870 finally regained the performance crown and Fermi stumbled out of the gate. But not being competitive at all for 3 years is an eternity so the damage was already done.

I took the liberty of making one myself:

 

Wow... If it was not for the consoles all using AMD chips, I wonder if AMD would be bankrupt? Bleak future. No wonder nVidia has made so many anti-consumer moves lately...

 

While this does paint a bleak picture for the future of amd, please also keep in mind that this graph is comparing the market share of the r9 200 series compared to the newest released nvidia 900 series. This is slightly biased as the r9 200's were never supposed to really compete with the 900s and i imagine most amd supporters are holding off on purchases until the r9 300s come out as competition. The graph might sway a bit into amd's favour if all goes well with the r9 300 series with all the new features they bring. I dont imagine nvidia wants amd to fail overnight, but this does allow nvidia to pull as mentioned before the very strong "anti consumer tactics".

 

Between Intel's dick move of bribing OEMs to not use AMD CPUs because Netbust was garbage and wouldn't sell otherwise (obvious hyperbole alert ), and nVidia's GameWorks filth, AMD just can't catch a goddamn break.

The fact that 290X matched the vanilla Titan just goes to show how much AMD is punching above its weight. Or put it differently, how little nVidia has actually pushed the envelope.

Btw Maxwell is "efficient" because a) DP completely nerfed and b) aggressive dynamic throttling algorithm, which I ranted about here. There's no magic to it at all.

 

nVidia is playing a cruel game of cat and mouse with consumers and AMD if you ask me. They can do a lot more than they are, they just have no real motivation right now.

 

Actually the numbers are from JPR. They include all AIB graphics.

 

I agree. If AMD had been as competitive as ATi was back in the 9800 Pro days, I guarantee we'd still be seeing 50% improvements each generation. It's just sad that we now cheer at a measly 35% improvement and think it's some godsend, when in reality it's basically nVidia twiddling its thumbs and waiting for AMD's next move.

As far as CPUs go, a 4 year old Sandy 2600K still provides more than enough grunt especially if overclocked, which is why I'm personally not as annoyed that we're only seeing 5-7% improvements each generation. Though I guess it is annoying if you need every last drop of single thread performance. Really at this rate one could upgrade their CPU every 5 years and not miss out much at all, especially if DX12 reduces as much CPU overhead as it's hyped to be.

 

A 4 year old CPU still provides enough grunt because it's still consider high end on the consumer desktop market. If mainstream CPU performance doubled for whatever reason developers will use it and (technically) better games will appear. They don't because such software is useless for now anyway.

They hardware has to happen first. Games developers can't control this.

 

Even after the release of the 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro, which is before the graph starts, Nvidia still had more market share. It really took the failure of Nvidia's response, the infamous GeForce FX Series, for ATi to rise above Nvidia. Which is sad, because it shows that it doesn't matter how compelling or competitive of a product ATi/AMD has, even if they release it months ahead of Nvidia. They will never outsell Nvidia unless Nvidia screws up big time . Since Q3 '09, which was the last time AMD was the undisputed king-of-the-hill with its 5870, AMD has had an equivalent or faster card at every price point with the exception of the Titan (290X came out 6 months later) and Titan X (TBD). Despite that, AMD's market share has gradually eroded before falling off a cliff after Maxwell 2 release.

 

Even after the 970 disaster, most of the response was still "I'm mad at nVidia, so I got a 980 instead". LOLWUT. I mean with customers like that you're pretty much guaranteed a free pass no matter what you do.

I swear, there's an inverse correlation between IQ and how much one prefers nVidia. Wouldn't be surprised if it's true since the market is saturated with nVidia's BS marketing hype, whereas you really have to be a true enthusiast to wade through all the FUD and BS, and understand the real value AMD hardware provides.

Seriously if you look at recent charts the 7970 is like 10% behind 780 at 1440p and 4K. (yes I know technically it's the 7970 GE, but pretty much every 7970 could be overclocked to 7970 GE speeds so the point stands) Longevity-wise AMD is still king. nVidia will always make sure it has the current performance crown true, but as soon as something new is released you bet your ass they'll stop any and all optimizations and hang the owners out to dry.

Now for a bit of rant: (1AM BOOK ALERT)
That the 7970 can come close (or match if you overclock it heavily) a 780 with only 61% of the transistor count is an astonishing achievement, but of course you'll never hear that get talked about, because "omg it's AMD they must suck!". Not a minute goes by without someone bringing up driver, heat, power draw, or noise. Funny how those metrics get completely overlooked when not in nVidia's favor -- I'm looking at you 480, you overheating, power sucking, ear deafening PoS. It's like, heaven forbid AMD does something good. I mean it's AMD, it can't be possible simply because it's AMD! I mean really, I read about it on the internet so it must be true!

Goddamn.

Well I guess I can't blame it all on the consumers when you have blatant nVidia shills like PCPer passing off a garbage anti-Freesync propaganda piece as some kind of "review". Seriously compare PCPer's review with that of TechReport's.

Pretty obvious who is talking out of their ass and who isn't me thinks.

P.S. Sadly I also bought into the FUD and may have even helped to spread some of that bovine excrement back in my earlier days. But I'm glad 970 happened, because it made me dig deeper into past history, and to think critically instead of being lazy and buying into FUD because it's mainstream and it's cool to hate on AMD. Argumentum ad populum and argument from ignorance does nobody any good.

 

I think I'm the worst of the bunch - I'm still considering to get a 970...

 

I'll sell you mine, srsly.

 

What i meant was that since the r9 300 series have not come out, amd supporters may have not yet bought any graphics cards anticipating the release, and therefore the amd market share compared to the nvidia 900 series is eschewed as nobody wants to buy old generation cards when new stuff is very fast on the way. I would wager the market share gap would close a bit when the r9 300 series comes out and maybe can wow everyone with the performance, especially the supposed stacked HBM.

 

If that's the case, the waiting has been a bit too long.

 

@octiceps @n=1 - I can't agree more. The truth is - nVidia can do nothing wrong. It's more and more obvious for a few of us around here, and it's VERY obvious for nVidia themselves. They can do whatever they want, they'll still have their buyers on line for the next "best" thing. Why in quotes? Because I'm pretty damn certain that they can do a lot better than what they show. But why they should? They have their market share secured with the same, or even inferior hardware, so why bother? The forums/reviewers/sellers trolls do their job pretty well as it seems. I mean you have to be very dedicated to walk in a store for an AMD and exit with one. I can go on and on, would it matter? Most likely not. People are buying Intel and nVidia by default and it wont change anytime soon. In other news, this leaves me hoping: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/44634/amd-itll-reveal-next-gen-video-cards-month/index.html

 

That graph would have been a LOT more depressed if it wasnt for Bitcoin. Are you guys aware how much AMD sold to miners? We are talking mining farms consisting of thousands of GPUs. And since AMD GPUs did far better with mining, I guarantee that a huge part of the sales was because of mining.
That is what kept AMD from dropping like an anchor. Mining is dead on GPUs. You see how that reflects on Q2 2014 and to now.

Wouldn`t suprise me that Nvidia are at 80%+ now and AMD below 20%. With Nvidia looking to release GTX 980Ti in May to beat AMD to the market and to steal AMD`s thunder at Computex and the reveal of 390X, its gonna get nasty. Real nasty

 

Unfortunately though open minded as I am AMD had no compelling product in the mobile sector. Even the 680M is the better choice over the impressive 7970M.....

If AMD bought out something interesting I would certainly give it a try.

 

I would like to remind about AMD Catalyst drivers. They are just bad, and AMD makes them worse and worse over the years, feature-wise.

 

I feel like they really don't care about the mobile sector right now. They're focused on the desktop market which is more profitable and where they have a better chance of regaining some ground.

And as sad as it is, that's probably the best strategy for them to use right now.

Think about it - even if they were to put out a card that could compete with the 980M, Nvidia pretty much has Intel in its pocket. Very few laptops would accommodate AMD GPUs (because this would require AMD and Intel co-existing in one machine since AMD doesn't have anything that's even remotely close to being competitive in the mobile CPU market). The stigma of 'OMG AMD POWER-GUZZLING FURNACES' is still there and hurts them even more in the mobile market since heat and efficiency is a bigger concern for laptops. Couple that with Nvidia's impressive yet deceptive marketing, better game bundles and better game optimization in general, and the maximum amount of market AMD could recover there would be around 10-15% (rough estimate), most of that coming from people like us.

 

oh AMD absolutely care about mobile, there are a lot of money to be made here as well. But in mobile its about how much performance you can stuff in a 100W envelope,
Since Nvidia can offer way more per watt with Maxwell than what AMD can offer with GCN, they are unable to compete

 

Which, what I think, is why AMD is trying to go for the lower-end of the laptop market as opposed to the high end. I mean, that's their best option as their high end GPUs, the m290x and m295x, are only found in select laptops and All-in-Ones (we must not forget that most All-in-Ones use mobile GPUs). They can make high-end mobile GPUs to have some variety/competition in the market, but it won't make a budge on Nvidia.
That, and they're APUs are usually better than Intel's iGPUs.

 

They are choosing not to compete because their R&D budget is very limited and, as a business that's losing money fast, they are doing the smart thing; investing money where more money can be made. If the mobile sector was a priority for them, the M295X would not be what it is.

 

I came here to say this as I was reading through the thread. Not sure the general consumer is aware of driver quality, but AMD is definitely behind nVidia in this regard. But we can see from that graph what one good product launch can do.

The best thing AMD has done lately however, was software based. It was good thing they gave the API space a kick in the pants with Mantle and forced DX12 to move forward quicker.

 

AMD drivers are fine and they've made enormous strides performance-wise in the last few years. When was the last time you owned a current-gen (read: GCN) GPU?

This is exactly the kind of FUDGE so prevalent on the Internet that turns off people from even giving AMD a chance.

 

octiceps, I never owned a laptop with recent AMD graphics, however those few laptops with AMD graphics I serviced soon after they were released, including the 4740s I currently use, were literally ****ed up, driver-wise. Even now, while stability and performance problems are solved, many crucial options in the latest Catalyst driver are simply not available.

 

Enduro seems very half-baked, so if you're referring to that, I agree with you. Then again, Optimus is by no means perfect either (see GTA V release), and has its own set of limitations which can be considerable for some users.

For example?

 

Well thats one way to look at it.
We must also remember that all the money (R&D) that goes toward building a better desktop card, automatically is transfered to mobile as well. Meaning 7970M was derived from 7870 which was a really good card back in 2012. A contender against GTX 980M would also be derived from a desktop card.
No new mobile card, no new desktop card. Meaning AMD doesnt even have R&D for engineering the desktop cards they want.
Its that bad today.

Don`t you get scared thinking about this for the future? First AMD giving up racing against Intel for high end CPUs. Then AMD waving the white flag for high end mobile?

I mean one could think AMD have given up, but I think it comes down to not having the funds available to make a new efficient architecture on an exisiting 28nm node due to TSMC being late with 16nm/20nm. Nvidia on the other hand got loads of cash and man power. They bragged about GM200 took several thousands man hours to create, so it kinda explains the complexity of just one chip.
Nvidia absolutely got a better hold on OEMs and can therefor sell more hardware, but at the same time, could it be related to not so stellar drivers from AMD? I can`t know this for sure, but I don`t think Nvidia control OEM market by persuading them like Intel did against AMD earlier. I think it comes down to drivers (both quality and quantity), having better support for replacing broken hardware if something happens with it (bigger team working for Nvidia, a result of less funds available for AMD to spend) and getting out more efficient hardware for the OEMs to build around (reduced cooling required, smaller PSU, less risk of something breaking etc).

MSI, Clevo and Dell all used 7970M when it was available. Asus is mostly pure Nvidia now. So I think the will to buy GPUs from AMD is there. But AMD is down for the count most likely til 2016 before getting out a new efficient architecture. Which is no good for competition.
Here`s to hoping AMD will be able to compete in 2016 as well as Zen become a huge success. Its pretty boring watching Nvidia become the new Intel of GPUs. I just hope AMD is able to bounce back and not fall a generation behind Nvidia.

 

You don't even know what you're talking about. Catalyst drivers have been fine since revision 13 onwards, and every update they do put put has made a sizable performance boost. Yes, AMD drivers were horrid from 2011 and earlier, but with the advent of the 7970M/GCN, their drivers have been on par with nVidia from my personal experience. Not as frequently updated, but when they are, they make good performance increases.

 

In regards to this graph and Cloudfire's reply to me (I'll touch more on your reply later), I checked up on all* the currently-being sold laptops with a mobile AMD GPU of at least R9 m265x power. (*I could have missed 1 or 2.)

1. Lenovo Y40 (m275/m375) (between a GT 845m and GTX 765m; unknown for m375, but maybe better than GTX 765m)
2. Toshiba Satellite P550t (m265x) (between a GT 750m and GT 845m)
3. MSI GT70/XoticPC's Force 1763 (m290x) (below GTX 870m/GTX 965m)
4. Dell Precision m4800 / HP Zbook 15 G2 (FirePro m5100; slightly less powerful than the m270/275)
5. Dell Precision m6800 / HP Zbook 17 Gz (FirePro m6100; slightly less powerful than a m290x) (between GTX 860m/960m and m290x)
6. Alienware 15 (m295x) (between GTX 880m and GTX 970m)
7. Alienware 18 (dual m290x, and yes, I know it's discontinued, but Dell still sells them new, so it gets considered) (between GTX 980m and dual GTX 880m)
8. ASUS N551ZU (m280x) (about as good as a GTX 850m/950m)
9. Close considerations: HP Zbook 15u G2 (W4170m) and Dell Latitude e6450 (8790m; both have about the same power). (between m265x and GT 750m)

Total: 10* (excluding close considerations; 9 if we exclude the AW18).
So many options...
Not really, no.

 

octiceps, here are all the options available to me. Latest 15.4 Beta. Other tabs contain nothing of value except for switchable graphics behavior (no, I can't force AMD GPU only!) and some 3d settings. Serviced some VAIO year or two ago, it was even worse.

 

Actually, the R9 275 used in the Y40 is slower than the GT 650M/750M/755M used in the older Y400/Y410p since Lenovo gimped the Radeon by using DDR3 instead of GDDR5. The R9 375 used in the refreshed Y40 is a rebrand, so the exact same thing.

None of the notebooks you listed are competitive with similarly priced offerings featuring Nvidia graphics. The Y40 is probably the best-selling of the bunch due to its low price. And even then, I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia moved an order of magnitude more mobile GPU than AMD does. Nvidia's got the entire market locked up at every segment.

This doesn't show me anything since you didn't expand any of the tabs. There are a ton of options under Video and Gaming. What exactly is missing?

 

Why on earth should anyone sell let alone buy any notebook with M290X/8970M/7970M today? They are garbage to what Nvidia can offer. Even 780M is superior to those GPUs. A GPU that came out in March 2013 lol. The low end from AMD is miles behind the Maxwell GT cards from Nvidia as well.
Supply follow demand, so there is no wonder why you can`t find any more.

When 7970M was new, well then you could find a lot more

 

I find it rather difficult to believe nVidia would release another full GM200 with 6GB of vram in May, because it would instantly cannibalize 90% of Titan X sales. (Some people on the internet would have you believe that it's because nVidia doesn't want to piss off the Titan X owners, to which I say LOLOLOLOLOL)

They may release a significantly cut down GM200 that's about 15% faster than the 980, and that I may believe, but full fat GM200 only 2 months after Titan X launch? No bloody way.

As far as mining goes, short term it did AMD wonders, however we're really starting to see the long term effects now what with the mining crash and used cards completely clogging up the channel. If you have the time please go through AMD's earnings call transcripts from Q2 2014 to Q1 2015, and you'll see Rory Read and Lisa Su touch upon this subject.

Look no disrespect to you two, but this is exactly the kind of FUD I'm talking about. If anything several nVidia converts on [H]ardForum have reported first hand that they encountered no issues with drivers after making the switch, despite all the "sky will fall" warnings.

 

I'll admit that I originally thought the 980 Ti would never happen because I just didn't see a place for it, but recent news and rumors have really shaken me on this one. I think it's going to be a 6 GB GM200 gimped 5-10% with a few Cuda cores disabled launched specifically to compete with the 390X.

 

According to the graph, AMD's market share only went up 2.9% during the height of the mining craze, which is pretty underwhelming.

 

octiceps, there are no options to: force AMD adapter usage, adjust color options NOT during video playback, adjust desktop settings such as scaling etc. You have switchable graphics, hence no such options, you may say. Uh, oh - there weren't any of those options on the Sony I mentioned earlier, which had AMD 5xxx as the ONLY graphics adapter, either.

 

Aren't they in the Intel graphics driver settings? You do have switchable graphics right?

Wouldn't forcing dGPU be in the switchable graphics options under Power?

 

I personally think the 980 Ti (actually 1080 Ti would be more appropriate if you look at past naming conventions) won't be released until the 390X is here, because guaranteed nVidia will pull every trick in the book to reclaim the performance crown should the 390X give the Titan X a good spanking. Before you tell me you can't squeeze more performance out of GM200 because it's already a full chip, let me point you to Hynix's 8GHz GDDR5. That alone is worth at least a 5% improvement. Then nVidia simply has to up the power and thermal limits on the existing vbios, and there's another 5%. So that's 10% extra for basically not doing anything.

For crying out loud look at the following graph:


See how just by increasing the thermal and power limits, performance went up by 3.6%? Make no mistaking, nVidia is holding back the Titan X and keeping plenty in reserve to deal with any unexpected surprises the 390X brings.

Of course this will make the 1080 Ti a 275W card. But they're nVidia, so heat, power draw, and noise don't apply to them as long as the performance is there.

I wonder if they pulled those numbers from some automated hardware survey similar to the Steam hardware survey, so mining cards simply never got counted.

 

Who said it would skyrocket? Mining was more like to keep them afloat. Considering all the cards they sold when Bitcoin was popular, one should assume the market share would be way lower than it was if Bitcoin wasnt a thing.

Cannibalize what sales? GTX Titan X is more like vapourware right now. Newegg doesnt have them, and its been outsold for many weeks now in other stores.

I think GTX 980Ti is simply a way to offer a cheaper card to fight 390X while letting those who absolutely need 12GB (usually developers) pay a premium for Titan X. Wouldnt surprise me Titan X dropping to $899 while offering GTX 980Ti for $700-750.
We are so close to Pascal anyway now, why not let all the cards fall and have a full GM200 for less than a year before releasing Pascal with HBM2.
I do think we will see 2500 core Maxwell though. Perhaps as 970Ti.

 

As I mentioned before, the numbers are from John Peddie Research ( more). Idk what their method is.

 

^magical rainbow unicorns

But Cloud that just proves my point lol, Titan X is selling so well right now, that if nVidia were to release a 6GB cousin of it with the same full GM200 chip, only those doing surround 4K gaming or those who do a lot of GPU rendering would buy the Titan X for its ridiculous 12GB vram, while most everyone else would just buy the 980 Ti instead.

Why sell a card for $699 when you could sell the same thing with mostly useless extra vram for $999? That was my point.

 

Methinks JPR wants you to buy their report to find out

 

octiceps, I addressed your first question in ninja-edit of the post you quoted. As to the second - no, it's not there. Neither is it in BIOS, I can disable AMD gpu there, but not Intel.

 

Because they don`t have that luxury when 390X drops. They do now.
I`m not so sure Titan X is selling so crazy either. Newegg have been outsold for a good while so it seems that Nvidia may not deliver as many as they should. Which may be because Nvidia is holding back the GM200 die`s for exactly 980 Ti?

 

Still makes no sense. You don't start selling a cheaper product unless you have to. Right now the 390X doesn't exist, you can keep gouging customers because you have the fastest card on the market. You keep doing that until you're forced to actually compete. So when the 390X is out the 980 Ti will be released to counter it. But you don't preemptively counter a non-existent product when that counter would undermine your own sales.

 

So there's no Intel graphics options when you right-click on the desktop? Did you install the Intel driver?

I didn't mean disable Intel GPU completely since you can't do that in pure Optimus (no mux) either due to how the GPUs are routed to the internal display. I meant choosing which applications run on which card (iGPU or dGPU), which you should be able to do in the Switchable Graphics Global/App Settings under Power.