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  • colinstu - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    And another sticker stamper bites the dust... nothing of value lost.
  • Phynaz - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    PowerColor is AMD's OEM.
  • SaberKOG91 - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Pretty sure Sapphire is the OEM for all radeon stuff, not just FirePro/Radeon Pro? Are you sure about that?
  • atlantico - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Sapphire is AMD's OEM in GPUs. Never heard of TUL.
  • Phynaz - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link

    Doh! Yeah, you're right.
  • jabbadap - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    OEM is of course amd itself(Better abbreviation is IHV), it designs and releases specifications for reference design boards and it's own gpus. They might use some EMS and ODM to manufacture them in cheap labor countries, but that does not change the fact oem is amd.

    PowerColor(TUL), SapphireTech(private), HIS(private), XfX(Pine Technology Holdings ), MSI(public), ASUS(public) and Gigabyte(public) are AIB suppliers for amd, which uses amd's reference design(thus amd is the oem) or design their own cards(still not oem not another company is using their design, VAR(value-added reseller) could be more correct abbreviation if you insist using some arbitrary ones).
  • extide - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Yeah but the thing is I believe Sapphire actually makes the AMD ref designs and all the AMD branded stuff.
  • Nagorak - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    It definitely used to be that way back when ATi made their own branded cards (before opening it up to partners). I wouldn't be surprised if that relationship is still the same.
  • {1,0,1{{0}}1,01} - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    What is a sticker stamper?
  • Gigaplex - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    They stamp a sticker on products. In other words, rebranding the same product. Since they had separate engineering teams, I don't think the term applies here.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Shutting down brands that sell budget cards makes sense when there are no budget cards to sell. Affordable graphics adapters that people actually want to purchase (~50-80 USD) are largely missing from the market or are a couple generations old. It should surprise no one that people are being forced to either skip the extra GPU or purchase one something higher end which explains both the overall slowdown of the GPU market AND the increase in sales of higher end graphics cards. All of that's market-driven due to the lack of competitive pressure in the GPU market. Companies are able to ignore volume sales in favor of higher per-unit sales prices.

    We all knew this was coming when the GPU ad CPU companies out there declined to two for each. The only silver lining that may come out of this is that more software developers will be forced to take integrated graphics into account if they want to land many sales. Making something that runs well on an Intel HD-whatever is what will probably end up making or breaking a game studio in the not-too-distant future. Since most games that are making any money these days are mobile phone apps, we're already heading that direction anyhow where companies pay less attention to graphics and more to a winning combination of game mechanics.
  • mapesdhs - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Or of course one can just buy a more powerful previous-gen mid-range GPU 2nd-hand within the same budget cap (power issues not withstanding).
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    2nd hand parts aren't a good option for everyone. There's a lot of hassles with getting things from a previous owner like unknowns about how protected during shipping and what the previous owner did to/with it to the problem of personal safety when meeting someone to make an in-person purchase (not all of us are hulking meat mountains that tote a loaded firearm). Don't misunderstand me, I pick up a lot of second-hand computer parts. The pile of laptops in the corner of my hobby room are all retired business computers or systems I got from ebay, from family, or grabbed at a yard sale. However, this sort of thing isn't for everyone so the lack of lower end graphics cards really does pose a problem for quite a few people. Personally, I absolutely loathe the idea of dual slot graphics cards. It's annoying to see the card bulge into the next slot over. It's frustrating to see it requires it's own power connector. It's really stupid that they generate so much waste heat and require enough electrical power to run at least one lamp in every single room of my home (and that's something like a GTX 1060...nevermind the wasteful garbage both companies are or have sold in segments above it).
  • StrangerGuy - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    When the #1 card by far on Steam is a $330 MSRP one, calling "Affordable graphics adapters that people actually want to purchase (~50-80 USD)" is really rich.
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link

    So, 1.5 percentage points means "by far" now? And the next 12 cards are iGPUs or below 200USD GPUs. And Steam hardware survey is already heavily biased towards better graphics cards.
  • Nagorak - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    AMD has really taken it on the chin. Three quarters of the decline in discrete cards has come out of AMD's share. This is why Nvidia now has 80% of the graphics market. Any partners making only AMD cards are going to have to be suffering too (PowerColor and Sapphire). That is an absolutely brutal decline.

    The fact TUL shut down their other brand is really no surprise at all when you see the numbers.

    That being said, even Nvidia is in a precarious situation. The number of cards they are selling is down also. Even if AMD disappeared entirely, that would put them barely above the sales numbers they had back in 2011.

    But...either AMD turns it around this next year in CPUs and GPUs or they're basically toast. I really wish AMD hadn't bought up ATi, as I think they've basically just dragged them down with them.
  • ddriver - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Actually, that would be 80% of the 30% graphics which are NOT intel LOL. According to the stats, intel sells the most graphics by a very wide margin.
  • Nagorak - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Fair enough.
  • lilmoe - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    If Zen is at least comparable to Core i5 in ST performance, then Intel is going out the door from all my laptops/builds (also breaking two large pottery pots while am at it).

    Their GPUs and drivers are nothing but glossy brown stuff. They're charging an f'ed up premium for their "higher end" GPUs. Desktop performance is nothing short of crap, and at this point in time (after years of waiting), we can understand that they're literally purposefully breaking Windows 10 with absolutely no sign of meaningful optimization.

    Can't wait to get a Zen APU with HBM and decent graphics/drivers/multimedia. I pray AMD doesn't F this up.
  • jabber - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    You'll never get more than one hamstrung Zen laptop, possibly from HP. The OEMs just don't want to sell fully equipped AMD gear anymore. If they do it will have a crappy screen and single channel ram paired with a 5400rpm HDD for $800.
  • lilmoe - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Not sure that'll be the case afterwards. We'll see.
  • jabber - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Its been the case for the past...10 years or more so I don't see the trend changing. Has a manufacturer ever issued a AMD laptop with at least dual channel ram? Even my Compaq R4000 laptop from 2005 had a desktop Athlon in it but still single channel ram to hobble it against Intel based machines. Every odd review for a high end AMD APU laptop still notes...single channel low spec ram, which for a APU based setup is criminal. Like fitting a V8 Dodge Hellcat with a 1 gallon gas tank.
  • jabber - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    By the way...don't get me wrong...would love to see a top end AMD based laptop that pulled out all the stops for a sensible price. It's just that I gave up on Santa and the tooth fairy a long time ago.
  • lilmoe - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    I would too. The thing is, prior to Zen, AMD hasn't been producing any high-end mobile parts...
  • lilmoe - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    "desirable" ones, that is.
  • StrangerGuy - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    dGPUs NV and AMD shipped combined in 2015 barely hit 30 million units, which is 1/2 the quantity of iPhones sold in a single 2015 quarter which itself is a minority in the phone market, which is to say how small the dGPU market has become.

    Given the absolutely pitiful 20% marketshare AMD had in 2015, there is only like 6 million AMD GPUs spread thin across so many AIBs: At the least we have big three Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and the AMD-only XFX, Powercolor, HIS, Sapphire. Made even worse by how Nvidia is dominating not only in pure marketshare, but also sheer % of the high-end and in turn profitability looking at Steam HW stats: All the HD 79xx series combined sold to date since Dec 2011 after so many price cuts barely outships a $650 MSRP 980 Ti!

    It's pretty telling that HIS never even bothered to announce a custom RX 480 so far, so bets are on them leaving the GPU business anytime soon.
  • Flunk - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    I thought PowerColor was a budget brand.
  • Achaios - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Ηere's my $0.02:

    I wanted to buy a laptop for my gf just to play WoW Vanilla on a Private Server. After some research, I ended up buying a 250 euros laptop with just an Intel Pentium 3825U (Broadwell dual core w/HT) on board as well as Intel Graphics ofc.

    This laptop is able to run WoW Vanilla at maxed out settings at 1366X768 resolution and yield 30 FPS.

    10 years ago when WoW Vanilla was gold, I would have been forced to buy a laptop with a high-end discrete GPU and pay around 1500 euros.

    INTEL Graphics is pushing out discrete GPU manufacturers from the very low/low end Graphics market, and this trend is expected to continue indefinitely.
  • stephenbrooks - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    Of course, AMD also make integrated graphics (their APUs), so in a way they're pushing themselves out of the low-end discrete GPU market too.
  • Flunk - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    I agree with you, I was shocked to see how competent the integrated graphics on my new Dell XPS 15 (Intel 530) were, good enough for all desktop tasks and even light games. I probably wouldn't have tried to hard to find a system with discrete graphics if I had known before hand. Since I also own a gaming desktop the Intel 530 is good enough for the notebook and probably the vast majority of users overall.
  • Achaios - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    The above laptop should be good for MOBA's too (such as LoL).

    There's millions of gamers who play only MOBA's and they can do so with a mere 250 euros laptop.
  • Gigaplex - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link

    WoW is a very old game with low requirements.
  • Nagorak - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    Yeah, it actually would be pretty pathetic if an integrated GPU could not run a 12 year old game. Even if there have been a few graphical improvements it's still an incredibly old game, and if an integrated GPU could not run it, then it could not run anything.
  • stardude82 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link

    The current low end situation is a bit frustrating actually and I think that card makers are leaving money on the table. I really could use a modern 25W low profile card if just for HDMI 2.0. The best option for a 25W discrete card is the GT 730 which is about equal to the Intel HD 530 (which itself is about equal your classic 9800 GTX or HD 4850.) That's a Kepler card and Pascal is about 80% faster per Watt. A hypothetical GT 1030 would put it around somewhere like a GTX 460 SE or Intel's Iris Pro.
  • jabber - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link

    I had a VTX3D HD 5770 for several years. In fact it's still in my 'Tech Cupboard'. It had a fairly simple cooler setup so was easy to put some top quality thermal paste on it and pop some copper heatsinks on the ram. Was a solid little card.

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