Nvidia has reported great financial results for fourth quarter ended January 28 and Fiscal Year 2007.
The last three months were really good with sales of $878.9 million almost up 39% compared to the same quarter last year. Even better, profits for the same period increased from $97.4 million to $163.5 million (+68%).
For the fiscal year, sales jumped 29% to $3.07 billion from $2.38 billion last year. Net profits reached $448.8 and increased 49% Year-Over-Year.
Nvidia explains these good performances by the improvement of gross margins but also and mostly by conjoint sales of laptop computers (+120% over a year!) and the leadership for this market (58% shares). Two other product lines have also contributed to this success, the nForce chipsets with 89% revenue improvement year-over-year and the Quadro (high profit professional graphic cards) with 24% sales improvements for the same period.
These figures confirm published by Jon Peddie Research regarding market shares in terms of units sold. With such results and the technological advances in DirectX 10 GPUs, Nvidia’s current position is very comfortable. On the longer term, however, the company will have to face the considerable economies of scale that ATI could beneficiate if the acquisition by AMD creates substantial R&D synergies.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
AMD to cut prices
As planned, AMD has cut prices for the second time in two months (the last time was January 22). Here is the table, slightly modified compared to our news published a few days ago.
As you may have noticed, our source was wrong for the price of the 3600+ which won't finally plunge under $100. For the other processors, our analyse is still up to date and we appreciate that AMD has finally realised, 6 months after the release of the Core 2, that their price policy for middle and high end dual core was far from being competitive. Better late than never!
As you may have noticed, our source was wrong for the price of the 3600+ which won't finally plunge under $100. For the other processors, our analyse is still up to date and we appreciate that AMD has finally realised, 6 months after the release of the Core 2, that their price policy for middle and high end dual core was far from being competitive. Better late than never!
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
Do you think that the Core 2 Duo is too expensive? Aware of this fact, but not too eager to cut prices, Intel has decided to release less efficient models in 2007. The first one of this series is the Core 2 Duo E4300.
As you may have noticed, in addition to slightly lower frequencies than a E6300, the main difference is the utilisation of FSB800, or 200 MHz in practice. Knowing that the bus is capable of transferring 4 instructions of 64 bit per clock cycle, the bandwidth between the chipset and the processor is reduced to 6,4 GB/s, from 8,5 GB/s for other models.
In practice, the Core 2 Duo E4300 is also distinguished because of the exclusive use of a new core. If the Core 2 Duo uses the stepping level B2 and the Core 2 Quad, B3, this one uses L2.
What difference does it make? B2 and B3 include 4 MB of L2 cache and half of it is deactivated with the E6300 and E6400. With L2 stepping, introduced with the E4300 and with E6300 and soon the E6400, the cache is immediately 2 MB. Knowing that 4 MB of cache required 40% of the Core 2’s die, dividing it by two makes it possible to noticeably increase the number of die per wafer and production costs. Also, this stepping is supposed to noticeably diminish power consumption in stand by despite a similar voltage at 1.325V.
So in order to reach 3.2 GHz, required FSB will be 355 MHz instead of 457 MHz for the E6300. On paper, the E4300 is really excellent for overclocking, but now let's found out if it is really the case in practice. To do so, we have progressively increased the frequency and voltage of the processor with a P5B Deluxe. Each overclocking is validated by 15 minutes of two sessions of Prime95.
The voltage reported is the bios and in practice our P5B Deluxe is affected by a Vdrop of 0.05V approximately with a Core 2 Duo. It means that if we ask for 1.5V, the CPU in fact receives 1.45V in use.
With a starting frequency of 1.8 GHz, we have reached 3.06 GHz without changing the voltage. This represents 70% improvement! Then, we have increased the voltage progressively to reach 3,375 GHz (+87.5%), the increase required to reach 3.42 GHz was a bit more abrupt.
n short, this processor seems to be as comfortable for overclocking as the B2 and B3, even if we will have to wait for more test samples made on CPUs sold in shops to be absolutely certain of this information. Now let's find out if performances are equivalent!
For dual core, AMD's only choice is to cut prices. The 4000+s compete with the E4300, but it should rather be the 4800+! But what would AMD do with slower products and what will the manufacturer do when the E4300 price will be reduced to $113? Maybe just pray for the release of the K8L?
As you may have noticed, in addition to slightly lower frequencies than a E6300, the main difference is the utilisation of FSB800, or 200 MHz in practice. Knowing that the bus is capable of transferring 4 instructions of 64 bit per clock cycle, the bandwidth between the chipset and the processor is reduced to 6,4 GB/s, from 8,5 GB/s for other models.
In practice, the Core 2 Duo E4300 is also distinguished because of the exclusive use of a new core. If the Core 2 Duo uses the stepping level B2 and the Core 2 Quad, B3, this one uses L2.
What difference does it make? B2 and B3 include 4 MB of L2 cache and half of it is deactivated with the E6300 and E6400. With L2 stepping, introduced with the E4300 and with E6300 and soon the E6400, the cache is immediately 2 MB. Knowing that 4 MB of cache required 40% of the Core 2’s die, dividing it by two makes it possible to noticeably increase the number of die per wafer and production costs. Also, this stepping is supposed to noticeably diminish power consumption in stand by despite a similar voltage at 1.325V.
OverclockingBecause of the FSB800, the E4300 needs a higher multiplying coefficient than the E6400 and E6300 to reach 1.80 GHz. It’s nine and similar to the E6600. This characteristic is really interesting in terms of overclocking since it is possible to reach high frequencies without using a high FSB, which are sometimes problematic for chipsets. The 975X, for example, is blocked around 400 MHz. This can also be problematic for memory with a chipset that can't be run out of synch like the P965 Express.
So in order to reach 3.2 GHz, required FSB will be 355 MHz instead of 457 MHz for the E6300. On paper, the E4300 is really excellent for overclocking, but now let's found out if it is really the case in practice. To do so, we have progressively increased the frequency and voltage of the processor with a P5B Deluxe. Each overclocking is validated by 15 minutes of two sessions of Prime95.
The voltage reported is the bios and in practice our P5B Deluxe is affected by a Vdrop of 0.05V approximately with a Core 2 Duo. It means that if we ask for 1.5V, the CPU in fact receives 1.45V in use.
With a starting frequency of 1.8 GHz, we have reached 3.06 GHz without changing the voltage. This represents 70% improvement! Then, we have increased the voltage progressively to reach 3,375 GHz (+87.5%), the increase required to reach 3.42 GHz was a bit more abrupt.
n short, this processor seems to be as comfortable for overclocking as the B2 and B3, even if we will have to wait for more test samples made on CPUs sold in shops to be absolutely certain of this information. Now let's find out if performances are equivalent!
For dual core, AMD's only choice is to cut prices. The 4000+s compete with the E4300, but it should rather be the 4800+! But what would AMD do with slower products and what will the manufacturer do when the E4300 price will be reduced to $113? Maybe just pray for the release of the K8L?
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