ATI Radeon HD 4850 Preview: AMD Delivers Performance for the Masses

AMD: The Peoples' GPU Maker

This week AMD came out and codified its new GPU strategy, but in reality it's the same strategy that has been in place since the release of the R600 GPU (Radeon HD 2900 XT). On paper (or LCD), it's the best idea ever, take a look:

Obviously this mythical GPU that can let you play at any resolution with any detail settings doesn't exist, but the idea is that AMD will continue to target the $200 - $300 market segment with its GPU designs.

The buck doesn't stop there though, AMD will continue to build more and less expensive GPUs, they will simply be derived off of this one mainstream design. Again this is nothing new, it's exactly what AMD did with R600 and RV670.

NVIDIA's approach is markedly different as this week's GT200 launch clearly illustrates. NVIDIA continues the approach of building a very large, monolithic GPU, eventually scaling the architecture down to lower power and price points. The GT200 is the latest example of the large monolithic die and subsequent mainstream parts will be based on some version of that GPU.

AMD argues that NVIDIA's approach means that there's too long of a time to market for high speed mainstream GPUs and it keeps power/costs high. There is truth in what AMD is saying but not entirely.

NVIDIA could just as easily introduce a brand new architecture with a mainstream part, it simply chooses not to as it's far easier to recoup R&D costs by selling ultra high end, high margin GPUs.

The power/cost argument is a valid one but AMD's approach isn't actually any better from that standpoint:

A pair of RV770s, AMD's new GPU, end up consuming more power than a single GT200 - despite being built on a smaller 55nm process.

A pair of these RV770s only costs $400 compared to $650 for a single GT200, but I suspect that part of that is due to differences in manufacturing process. If NVIDIA hadn't been so risk averse with the GT200 and built it on 55nm (not that I'm advocating it, simply posing a hypothetical), the cost differences would be smaller - if not in favor of NVIDIA since GT200 is built on a single card.

When the smoke clears, AMD's strategy is to simply build a GPU for the masses and attempt to scale it up and down. While NVIDIA is still building its GPUs the same way it has for decades, starting very large and scaling down.

AMD isn't taking a radically different approach to building and designing GPUs than NVIDIA, it's simply building one market segment lower.