by Anton Shilov
03/24/2007 | 04:18 PM
X-bit labs: Hello, can you introduce yourself to our readers?
<%BANNER[article]%>John Byrne: My name is John Byrne. I am AMD’s vice-president of worldwide GPU and Chipset Channel Sales
X-bit labs: How long have you been in the graphics industry?
John Byrne: I have been in the high-tech industry for the past two decades and in the graphics industry since 1998.
X-bit labs: Since we are talking about a relatively new position at AMD, can you describe what exactly do you do and how is the whole GPU channel sales division is organized?
John Byrne: I will partner with P.Y. Ferrard to improve our WW channel strategy, whilst helping our partners grow their businesses and improve their overall margins.
I will also support the worldwide OEM PC sales teams, by helping to coordinate the design-in activity between the sales teams and business unit leaders.
X-bit labs: Now that ATI is a part of AMD, do you expect any changes in ATI’s go-to-market strategies?
John Byrne: After leading the performance market for so many years, it is good to see that we now have such a well-balanced product line. Coupled with our incredible dedication to WHQL-certified drivers for both Windows XP and Windows Vista, I find it very encouraging to see such strength and balance across ATI’s low to mid-range parts.
While the media regularly become fixated on uber-performance parts like the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX or GeForce 8800 GTX from Nvidia, the vast majority of graphics products sold are priced at less than €150 – and our offer here is very strong.
There are a lot of hype about products like ATI’s Radeon X1950 XTX or Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTX, but the most of the money (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20061229150853.html) come from performance mainstream offerings, the market segment, where ATI did not perform well all the time back in the days. The situation got much tougher when ATI’s high-end parts emerged months after Nvidia’s. Perhaps, the company knows how to improve such omissions?
X-bit labs: Products like the Radeon X700 and X1600 did not manage to achieve the success of Nvidia’s GeForce 6600, 6800 GS and 7600 GT. Are you working to avoid such situations in future?
John Byrne: Any comparative group test that includes the Radeon X1950 Pro will show you just how seriously we take the mid-range market. In a very competitive market, you will always have areas where you win easily and others where the competition put up more of a fight. In the end, it is this competition that drives the market forward and – ultimately – delivers a better experience for the consumer.
X-bit labs: The introduction of the code-named R600 will be the second time when ATI/AMD is several months late to market compared to the arch-rival Nvidia. Do you have a strategy to evade the same going forward?
John Byrne: Traditionally, at ATI, we have always had a strong dedication to quality – and this is an ethos that is shared with our colleagues throughout AMD. Quality means putting out the best solution possible – not rushing products to market. We are very confident in both our DirectX10 hardware and WHQL-certified drivers for XP and
X-bit labs: Do you plan to continue refreshing your product lineup every six months, or do you plan to change that in some ways?
John Byrne: That question focuses too narrowly on one segment of our roadmap. One of the things that most attracted AMD to ATI was the broad diversity of our product range.
In the graphics arena alone, we have not only the world’s most advanced graphics products for desktop systems, but also the world’s fastest consumer graphics for notebooks. At the same time, two out of three of the most advanced consoles also use ATI graphic products.
From there we can easily branch out to hand-held and embedded devices – as well as other offers for the workstation and server markets. With so many roadmaps and such a massive, on-going investment in R&D, it is easy to see why AMD’s graphics division is set to continue innovating at such a rapid pace.
Back in the days ATI introduced a brand-new graphics chip with brand-new functionality and feature-set for the high-end market and brought a little bit simplified version of the previous-gen product for the mainstream.
As a result, the company’s mainstream offerings were either a generation behind (in 2001 with Radeon 8500 and Radeon 7500, in 2002 with Radeon 9700 and 9100/9200 and in H1 2004 with Radeon X800 and X600/X300) or came a quarter or two later than the flagship offering (in 2003 with the Radeon 9700 and 9600 [the 9500-series was not really popular], in 2004 with the Radeon X800 and the Radeon X700). As a result of the Radeon X1800 (R520) delay, the company introduced a lineup of DirectX 9 shader model 3.0 supporting chips, but that was rather an exception, as low-cost Radeon X1900 (R580) derivative Radeon X1950 Pro/X1650 XT (RV570) came eight months later.
In fact, Nvidia has always had similar approach (with the exception of the GeForce FX, which was the case similar to the R520), but maybe introduction of GPUs with similar functionality, but with different performance and at different price-points makes sense too?
X-bit labs: Do you think it is strategically important to introduce a family of graphics processors for different markets, but which support similar functionality?
John Byrne: It is very important. As software development moves on to a new platform with the advent of Microsoft Windows Vista, so consumers will want to experience the new environment on PC and Apple, desktop and notebook. At the same time, developers using state-of-the-art ATI FireGL workstation cards will also be creating content targeted at the new API. Implementing a unified shader architecture across a range of devices, with rock solid drivers, will become increasingly important in the future.
Historically we have always focused on producing a high-end part first and then following up with a broad range which covers the remainder of the market. The mid-range parts are typically much the most important to us in terms of revenue, but there’s no doubt that a good high end card whets people’s appetites. In that sense the full range is important, but it’s OK to deliver the mid-range part a little later…
In terms of similar functionality there’s no doubt that it’s critical to us to provide the same core functionality in these later chips too. As DirectX 10 games start to arrive in the middle of 2007 you’re going to start to see the convincing reasons to choose DX10 hardware. At that point you can be confident that AMD’s range of hardware will support all these new games (and all your old favorites too).
X-bit labs: Do you think it makes sense to intro a DirectX 10 family of chips as soon as possible to the market, or it is better to start from the high-end while offering high-performance DX9 chips to the mainstream?
John Byrne: We’d love to be able to give everyone the choice – and for that reason we hope to be more aggressive in the way we plan to bring the full range of products to market than we have before now. Against that is the fact that there are no DirectX 10 games ready to buy so far – so it’s very hard to see how to measure the real benefits of buying DX10 hardware. When the games do arrive the hardware needs to be available, that’s one of the key reasons why it hasn’t been necessary for us to rush our products to market. Instead we’ve had the relative luxury of being able to spend the time to make sure we have the right solutions.
X-bit labs: In fact, if you introduce a family of GPUs that perform relatively well in DirectX 10 environment, you would catalyze game developers to employ more DX10 effects, which would eventually catalyze people to upgrade to next-gen DX10 hardware quicker. What do you think?
John Byrne: Making the big move to a completely new platform takes a lot of smaller steps. Content creation is intensely resource-hungry and time consuming. Then you have to allow for an installed user base to grow. At the same time, driver maturity is vital. The mass-market will be catalysed by the introduction of our complete range of DirectX 10 products – with fully certified WHQL drivers – which will help create a base of users that will prove attractive to developers. It is a virtuous circle that we all play a small part in creating/energising.
Games developers don’t really need us as a catalyst. The transition to DirectX10 is a major jump – so it’s true that there are quite a few games developers who have decided to stand back. But there are also many developers who have embraced the new API and will showcase some great new games (particularly in the second half of this year. Also, when you bear in mind the fact that
Chipsets with integrated graphics cores (or integrated graphics processors, IGPs) have been increasing their market share for several years now with the primary target to attack being entry level graphics cards. ATI used to have support from Intel and its Radeon IGPs are still popular. But without such support in future ATI will need to strengthen its entry-level stronghold even more.
X-bit labs: Going forward, it is highly doubtful that AMD will develop chipsets for Intel platform (which still has 75% of the market) and to maintain the share in the market of graphics cards, you will need to push entry-level graphics cards aggressively into the market. Do you have any special strategy for this?
John Byrne: AMD’s Fusion strategy shows clearly how we intend to provide the best customer experience in a world increasingly reliant upon 3D graphics, digital media and high-performance computing. With Fusion processors, AMD will continue to promote an open platform and encourage companies throughout the ecosystem to create innovative new co-processing solutions aimed at further optimizing specific workloads.
AMD executives say that graphics processors are like floating point co-processors back in the eighties, which have become an integrated part of any CPU currently on the market. As a result of the FPU integration the discrete math co-processors ceased to exist, it is really interesting, what will happen to standalone GPUs…
X-bit labs: Your colleagues believe that the GPU is a math co-processor of our times. Don’t you think that this essentially means the end of GPU as a discrete product?
John Byrne: Math co-processors were, essentially, very similar to the CPUs they were complimenting in both architecture and the types of processing demand placed on them. Our GPGPU initiative showed the tremendous levels of parallelism available within today’s graphics engines. Although the clocks are orders of magnitude slower than for CPUs, the actual throughput is amazing. That difference is likely to be here for some time. Innovation within our market is moving at a tremendous pace, but you can still see a solid place for dedicated GPUs into the foreseeable future.
X-bit labs: Can you imagine a situation when AMD decides to quit standalone GPU business?
John Byrne: Not at all. We are dedicated to our partners and this is something that we discussed with them very enthusiastically at our recent Global Partner Summits in
X-bit labs: Do you think game consoles, which are now capable of up to 1920x1080 resolutions pose competition to PC gaming systems?
John Byrne: The key advantage of the PC is that it is a ‘universal hub’ for all of your data processing requirements. Consoles are great, but generally fixed purpose. Also, consoles are developed on a much longer timeline to give programmers a ‘fixed target’ for their efforts. The results can be spectacular. Games created toward the end of a lifecycle for a console are, generally, impressive. However, one of the key reasons why they are impressive if because we (the audience) are impressed that so much has been achieved with so little. In the lifespan of a single console, CPUs and GPUs will have gone through many iterations. Our products can happily drive screens with resolutions of 2560x1600 at IQ levels that would make a console squeal. You also need to consider the audiences. Research by the BBC showed that most console owners are below 30 and most PC gamers are above. These products appeal to different audiences and compliment each other perfectly.
People have been predicting the death of PC gaming for many years and so far, I’m delighted to say, they’ve always been wrong. I think there’s no doubt that the new more powerful consoles are going to put pressure on the PC market – but I also believe that the PC market will respond as it always has.
Since we’re talking about graphics I think it’s fair to point out that technically the most powerful of the new generation of consoles is Xbox360, and Microsoft have done a great job by getting to an installed base of more than 10 million in around a year. The Xbox360 produces a terrific gaming experience with unsurpassed graphics – and it rightly deserves it’s success.
But the 10 million plus Xbox 360’s is a relatively small number when compared to the number of PCs out there capable of playing games. And while I appreciate that not all PC get used for playing games one of the really cool things about our GPUs is that they tend to make most PCs very viable games machines. That’s why we see so many casual gamers playing things like on-line games, and at the high end we produce graphics chips now which are already a generation ahead of what the consoles can do. I’m not trying to diminish Microsoft achievement in taking such a lead in the next-generation console battle, I’m just pointing out that the markets are still very different.
And, of course the ‘dark horse’ in the console war has been Nintendo’s Wii. It has shown that game play and in fact ‘pure fun’ is more important than technology. The best gaming machine focuses first on the enjoyment of the gaming experience and uses technology as an enabler of that experience. For that reason too the PC needs to be seen as different from the consoles. It produces a quite different gaming experience and is therefore not in direct competition with the consoles. Most console games players will chose just one of the consoles to buy, but they’re also quite likely to own a PC as well.
X-bit labs: What are your primary goals for the channel GPU business?
John Byrne: Our goal is always to improve our business. Despite nVidia introducing their GeForce 8800 products toward the end of last year, ATI managed to gain market share. This is largely because we have improved our range across the board and our major customers like the fact that we deliver a solid, updated, WHQL-certified driver each and every month of the year. The major OEM/ODM companies demand stability and quality – both of which we are able to deliver in ample supply. Meeting the customer’s needs directly impacts our ability to achieve our goals. In addition, I want to ensure that our Add-In-Board partners have a Profitable Business when selling our products.
In the fourth quarter of 2006 Nvidia introduced its GeForce 8800 graphics processors compatible with DirectX 10 and offering performance that is tremendously higher compared to previous-gen solutions from ATI and Nvidia. But despite of this, Nvidia’s market share went down in the Q4, which denies widespread opinion that customers look at the high-end and then buy more affordable solutions.
X-bit labs: Can you discuss what drove the sales of AMD’s GPUs up in the Q4 and what generally drives sales of add-in graphics cards?
John Byrne: There are a large number of factors, but you can never discount driver stability – especially when a new operating system is introduced. Our engineers worked very closely with Microsoft on the development of the new driver model and so we were well placed to take advantage of the new launch. The same was true for PCI-Express. Traditionally, ATI have exceeded expectation at key inflection points.
X-bit labs: Shipments of both desktop and mobile GPUs have been either stagnating or declining in the most recent quarters. Do you have any marketing and/or co/marketing plans to improve their shipments?
John Byrne: We have a number of new initiatives coming through that will drive sales in all segments of the market. However, you cannot escape the fact that more and more products are being sold with integrated graphics. When ATI launched the Radeon Xpress 200 at CeBIT 2005, we became the only company in the world to have integrated DirectX 9 graphics available for both AMD and Intel platforms – for desktop and mobile products. That is an amazing ‘first’ and it shows just how strategic our view of the market was. AMD’s Fusion program will continue this leadership into the future.
X-bit labs: Can you talk about perception of standalone graphics cards in different markets and regions? Which countries consume more high-end and which are all about entry-level products?
John Byrne: One of our guiding mottos has always been ‘Think Global – Act Local’. Every country needs to be approached with care and buying patterns can change everytime you step over a border. Larger countries can even show strong buying pattern differences by region –
X-bit labs: Do you think that the recent trends for merging between large hardware producers is a benefit or a threat for AMD’s GPU business? What’s the difference between working with a large company like Asustek Computer and smaller players like Tul Corp., for example?
John Byrne: At a fundamental level, all of our partners have the same core requirements. Namely, that we deliver ample supply of the highest quality products at competitive prices. From there, our AIBs will innovate and differentiate through a variety of mans, including cooling solution, memory configuration, bundled software, packaging, channel and warranty. As with all customers, we adapt to meet their diverse needs.
X-bit labs: Do you think platformization of computing platform is positive or negative for GPU business in general and AMD’s GPU business in particular?
John Byrne: It seems to be the natural way to go. Whilst it is always good for customers to have choice, part of our own development and improvement programme is that we also innovate within our own product ranges. Sometimes that means we create new interoperability that gives an advantage to the consumer. To have that innovation, a customer would need the entire platform. Ultimately, whether the market moves more toward platformisation or not will depend on customer demand – which is the best way forward.
X-bit labs: What has happened to All-in-Wonder lineup of graphics cards? We haven’t seen an update for over a year right now and AIWs are hard to find even at http://ati.amd.com. Did you decide to discontinue the AIW family?
John Byrne: There are no current plans for new products on the roadmap. Our focus at this time is on stand-alone TV tuners. Of course we do reserve the right to use the brand in the future if the opportunity presents itself.
X-bit labs: Would you expect AMD’s graphics products group to resurrect the All-in-Wonder lineup in future by adding HDTV/DTV capabilities and other interesting features that may attract attention of multimedia users to the AIW family?
John Byrne: It’s certainly under consideration and we may choose to pursue it at another date. We’ll certainly keep you up-to-date of all news in this area.
X-bit labs: What do you think about the practice of offering pre-overclocked graphics cards and do you plan to allow your partners to increase speeds of your performance-mainstream and enthusiast-class offerings going forward?
John Byrne: It’s a great way to attract enthusiasts. One of the most noticeable examples is allowing partners to pre-overclock even the high-end graphics cards: a lot of users do want to have highest performance graphics cards, but do not want to take a risk and/or lose warranty by overclocking the boards themselves. We have several partners that have chosen to do this.
X-bit labs: Do you think it makes sense to sell standalone graphics cards for notebooks in the retail, considering the popularity of notebooks with gaming capabilities?
John Byrne: It depends on whether the card is internal or external. With internal upgrades, the challenge is allowing users to crack open their laptops and doing it themselves. Warranty issues make this challenging for manufacturers. External graphics options are certainly technically feasible.
X-bit labs: Recently Asustek Computer introduced an external graphics card for laptops. Perhaps, this is a way to go when customers want to have higher graphics power on their mobile systems? Maybe AMD has plans to offer a standard reference design for external graphics cards for notebooks or evend desktops?
John Byrne: As you know, we don’t comment on future products, but that’s a really interesting idea.
X-bit labs: ATI was the first to introduce native PCI Express 1.0a graphics cards (and to validate for the 1.1 standard too). When do you plan to support the PCI Express 2.0 specification with future products that natively support the new interconnection tech? Do you think PCIe 2.0 ramp up will be quicker compared to 1.0a's?
John Byrne: We don’t comment on unannounced products, so I can’t say when we’ll be launching PCIe 2.0 products, beyond the fact that we’ll be ready to support the extra bandwidth of 2.0 once chipsets are available. It’s hard to predict whether take-up will be faster or slower than before. PCIe 2.0 is backwards compatible with 1.0[a], so the transition is likely to be invisible to most people.
X-bit labs: Your colleagues from ATI believed that we’ll see the first systems with DisplayPort in early 2007, though, they are nowhere around now. When do you think the market in general and the channel market in particular will be ready for DisplayPort? When do you think GPUs will support the technology natively?
John Byrne: That was given that DP1.0 was ratified a year ago. However, DP1.1 came along and changed plans. DP1.1 will be ratified very soon and products are expected later this year.
X-bit labs: Would you expect the price of high-end graphics cards to rise in future and make high-performance gaming PCs even more expensive that now?
John Byrne: Unfortunately, we don’t comment on future pricing.