Sunnyvale (CA) – Nvidia recently reacted to increased demand for cheap discrete desktop graphics cards with the 9400 GT model to reduce the company’s exposure in the $60 segment. But AMD is readying the third wave of its 4000-series GPUs and told TG Daily that the company has no intentions to hand Nvidia the competitive edge in the entry-level segment.
It took Nvidia only less than three weeks from an announcement to investors that there is what the company described as an unexpected high demand for cheap discrete graphics cards until the company actually rolled out such a product. The specs of the 9400 GT place such cards well below the previous entry-level model (9500 GT) and in an area in which this particular product may be competing with some high-end IGCs, such as AMD’s 780G.
So, is there a market segment evolving in front of us? We caught up with AMD’s Dave Baumann, who told us that AMD did not notice increasing demand in the $60 segment of graphics cards. However, he noted that demand isn’t decreasing either and has remained stable on a fairly high level. Commenting on Nvidia’s 9400 GT, Baumann said that AMD believes that this 55 nm G96 GPU may not be cheap to produce and represent a “quick-and-dirty-solution” to participate in the $60 market, which aims to provide PC users an affordable upgrade for IGC-equipped PCs.
Baumann hinted that AMD is preparing the launch of the third wave of its current-gen GPU rollout and will be competing with Nvidia in the entry-level segment. He believes that AMD will continue to surprise Nvidia with higher-performance graphics cards, which could force Nvidia to re-price some of its products. “If you have the performance high-ground, you can price your products according to performance,” Baumann said. “If you don’t have the high-ground, you have to price them to products around you.” He said that AMD believes it has this “high-ground” at this time.
Baumann declined to specify which products AMD will use against Nvidia in the entry-level segment, but if our sources are correct, then AMD will introduce two 4600-series reference cards with 320 stream processors on September 10. Based on the RV730Pro and the RV730XT core, AMD is expected to launch a HD 4650 model and a HD 4670 version with 512 MB and 1 GB GDDR3 memory.
It took Nvidia only less than three weeks from an announcement to investors that there is what the company described as an unexpected high demand for cheap discrete graphics cards until the company actually rolled out such a product. The specs of the 9400 GT place such cards well below the previous entry-level model (9500 GT) and in an area in which this particular product may be competing with some high-end IGCs, such as AMD’s 780G.
So, is there a market segment evolving in front of us? We caught up with AMD’s Dave Baumann, who told us that AMD did not notice increasing demand in the $60 segment of graphics cards. However, he noted that demand isn’t decreasing either and has remained stable on a fairly high level. Commenting on Nvidia’s 9400 GT, Baumann said that AMD believes that this 55 nm G96 GPU may not be cheap to produce and represent a “quick-and-dirty-solution” to participate in the $60 market, which aims to provide PC users an affordable upgrade for IGC-equipped PCs.
Baumann hinted that AMD is preparing the launch of the third wave of its current-gen GPU rollout and will be competing with Nvidia in the entry-level segment. He believes that AMD will continue to surprise Nvidia with higher-performance graphics cards, which could force Nvidia to re-price some of its products. “If you have the performance high-ground, you can price your products according to performance,” Baumann said. “If you don’t have the high-ground, you have to price them to products around you.” He said that AMD believes it has this “high-ground” at this time.
Baumann declined to specify which products AMD will use against Nvidia in the entry-level segment, but if our sources are correct, then AMD will introduce two 4600-series reference cards with 320 stream processors on September 10. Based on the RV730Pro and the RV730XT core, AMD is expected to launch a HD 4650 model and a HD 4670 version with 512 MB and 1 GB GDDR3 memory.
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