Professional Graphics Workstations Cheaper because of AMD

[caveman-jim]

GraphicSpeak, a Jon Peddie Research publication, has published an article that demonstrates how a valid and innovative competitor is good for consumers - in this case, AMD are forcing prices lower for professional workstations, despite low market share:

There’s one supplier in particular that can take a good chunk of the credit in recent years, and the name might surprise: AMD. Yes, the volume of its FirePro professional GPU business, inherited in the ATI purchase back in 2006, still pales in comparison to dominant Nvidia (83.0% to 16.1%, respectively). And in 2011, it’s shipping a mere fraction of a percentage point of the CPUs that end up in workstations. But the company remains a force driving the tremendous price/performance today’s CAD and DCC professionals see shopping for hardware today.

In the quarters immediately following the ATI acquisition, AMD’s presence in professional graphics slumped considerably, as the latter struggled to assimilate the former. Unable to mount a credible threat to Nvidia, by mid-2008 AMD’s presence in the professional graphics market had sunk to a low of 8.6%. But just as it bottomed, the graphics arm appeared to once again be hitting its stride with a well-engineered new GPU, the RV770, which spawned more competitive FirePro products, especially when it came to price/performance. AMD re-captured some market attention, parlaying that rebound to a stronger position with last year’s Evergreen generation, one that shined a bit brighter in the context of rival Nvidia’s delays with Fermi.

AMD’s fortunes in the market grew, and by the fourth quarter of 2010, FirePro was back up to 16.1% share. Though still trailing Nvidia by a huge margin, AMD’s resurgence had begun to put more pressure on market leader Nvidia, enough to push the prices for Quadro hardware down, particularly high-end models in and around $1,000.

Read the full article at gfxspeak.com