Soleron said:
AMD Q1 '11 CPU shipments. Phenom II X6 made up 3.1% of AMD's desktop processor sales (anyone buying a sub-$200 CPU will not buy two GPUs). Let's say that represents the AMD enthusiast market. Now, what percentage of those enthusiasts would buy a dual-GPU setup? Then subtract those that would choose Crossfire. I don't think 0.5% is unreasonable. That same minority are extremely vocal on tech sites. You just don't see the computer purchasing decisions of 95% of the market. I agree there is demand for AMD SLI, it just won't affect, specifically, the marketshare figures. And you're not correct. Only BD motherboards whose ODMs pay a license fee to Nvidia will be able to use SLI without hacks. Some companies won't bother; some will only license their top motherboards. The installed base of SLI-capable motherboards will be fairly small. |
What mobos do most enthusiasts buy? Top-end. And I'm sure most AMD enthusiasts would use Nvidia as most bitch and complain that AMD's GPUs suck for folding@home. And F@H that is important for a lot of gamers.
Edit: Then again, I don't see why anyone cares about AMD anymore. They are being heavily beaten by Intel, and Nvidia has entered the CPU market with their CPUs benching faster than a Core 2 Duo.
And then there is this: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/05/04/intel-announce-3d-tri-gate-transistors/1
AMD is behind in technology and performance. All AMD does is beat Nvidia in price, which if Nvidia cuts prices AMD is screwed.
