Nvidia Corporation's Ethical Pricing Problem - Monopolistic Price Skimming or Fair Value?

The current land of the pro GPU market place has transformed from an acceptably capitalistic venture to the point where one looks around wide eyed at the rising costs of a piece of silicon and wonders how no trust laws accept been broken. Nvidia'south (NASDAQ: NVDA) current pricing tactics are something which have raised many an eyebrow simply this  particular pricing revision was one that, I must admit, resulted in an exasperated sigh from my part.

The game Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) is playing is one of pure numbers, and involves (technically) legal tactics such equally price skimming and utilizing the gap in its competitor's lineup, all the while skirting the edge of legality and trust. The cost point strategy and positioning of the new TITAN-10 and the Quadro M6000 is what nosotros will be exploring in this opinion editorial.

A TITAN Idea - Some of the perks, without the full cost of going Pro

Let's start with the TITAN branding first. The TITAN branding was originally designed to constitute a brand new market. A market which Nvidia dubbed as "Semi-Pro" . The logic and rationale was articulate. TITAN serial GPUs would get unlocked double precision performance but not the ISV and Drivers support of the Quadro Series. A sort of midway betwixt the mostly single precision based GPUs of the usual nomenclature. Because of the unlocked DP, the toll tag had received a acrimonious nod from me. Having firsthand experience of how much double precision matters in some programs (AutoCAD and the video industry existence prime examples), information technology was something new, and something exciting. As a result, Dark-green gained some more momentum in the Manufacture, establishing an fifty-fifty stronger foothold in what was already more or less fix concrete.

The TITAN-10 - None of the perks, but nevertheless with some of the cost of going Pro

At the same time, the Quadro K6000 Flagship (with all its lineup) stood proud, with total ISV and drivers support. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) charged a price tag appropriately, and because of its monopolistic position in the professional industry, AMD could non compete. To be fair, the Quadro K5000 pre-dated the Quadro K6000 with one/24 FP32 but also a relatively marginal toll tag of just over 2000 USD. Something that once more, granted the nature of Quadro branding, could exist ignored.

The Quadro M6000: Some of the perks with all the price of going Pro

Then came the first brand new iteration of GM204 based Quadros, which had Double Precision completely crippled at 1/32 FP32 and were however priced equally meridian entrants. It was a GX Xx 4 dice with the Quadro branding (and all the perks that come up with it) so they still got a free ticket from the Manufacture. The nomenclature also suggested that the GM200 would be the die to await out for. The GM200 finally arrived, with much fanfare, but again the emperor had no wearing apparel.

The Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) Quadro M6000 flagship was supposed to exist the Quadro K6000's successor, volition probably be priced accordingly (upwards of $5000), and has 1/32 double precision functioning. So basically for ECC, 16-bit colour, full ISV and driver support consumers will pay a price thats roughly five times of the same chip without information technology. And speaking of Error Correcting Retention, I think its worth pointing out that the card has exactly 12 GB worth of GDDR5 retention on board (ECC memory ordinarily has two extra chips that handles the ECC calculations, which is not the case here). The significance of that fact becomes articulate when you consider the fact that with ECC enabled, the effective retentivity should fall to around ten GB which means for the end user to use the ECC perks they would have to give up approximately 2GB worth of vRAM.

In Nvidia's Defense,

As I already mentioned above, while trust laws advocate fair pricing, they do not hinder the pricing tactic called Cost Skimming (initially set a very high toll and then gradually lower it to fair value). If y'all take the Titan Z which was originally priced at $3000 just then dropped to $1500, you volition go what I mean by toll skimming. Even so, off-white value is very hard to decide. In the case of Quadro GPUs, the fair value is generally determined by the supply and need of the market, and considering the completely green ecosystem, it becomes increasingly hard to be anything other than what Nvidia wants it to be.

Another point to mention is that the Quadro series of GPUs was not actually designed for FP64 calculations - a very valid counterpoint I imagine Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) could take. The Tesla lineup was, and more often than not deals with scientific studies where 64 bit precision is of critical import. With that reflection, this particular op-ed comes to a close.

While in terms of sheer technicality lone, Nvidia appears to exist in the clear, but in terms of the pricing model, the question remains: does Nvidia Corporation face an ethical conundrum and potentially a trust trouble?

Source: https://wccftech.com/nvidia-ethical-pricing-conundrum/

Posted by: arnetttheitchers.blogspot.com

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