They always say that competition in the market prevents the market from becoming stagnant, and now with both Nvidia and AMD announcing their new range of graphics cards in the run up to the winter holidays.
On October 12th, Intel intend to release their Arc A770 graphics processing unit for an RRP of $329, exactly the same day as Nvidia is releasing their RTX 4090 card at an RRP of $1,599, met to some criticism of being far too pricey.
During the Nvidia’s GTC conference last week, they announced the release of their highly anticipated 4000 series, a new line of graphics cards using “Lovelace” architecture, named after the prolific computer programmer Ada Lovelace and progenitor of the modern computer. Prices start from $899 as Jensen Huang unveiled the new range of cards, arguing “Moore’s Law’s dead.”
What is Moore's Law?
Gordon Moore, image courtesy of Forbes.
Moore’s Law was coined by Gordon Moore in 1965. In Layman’s terms, it is the standard in the chip industry that has been the expectation for decades. It states that, every two years, the number of transistors one can fit on a chip should double. Huang argued the law no longer applies as chip architectures becomes more and more complex and silicon wafers more expensive.
Nvidia's pricey new graphics cards were balked at by many, especially during a cost-of-living crisis and softening in consumer demand. But Nvidia are still anticipating big interest for their new line in the run up to the holidays.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger pushed back at Huang’s claims, saying: “[Moore’s Law] is alive and well”, unveiling the A770 in his keynote. Intel uses the x86 architecture it has used since Gelsinger helped design back in the 1970s as an Intel engineer. According to reports, their A770 runs 14% faster than Nvidia’s RTX 3060 which still retails around $360 to $400. They also released the 13tg Gen Intel Core processor family of chips, leading with the i9-13900K model, touted by the company as: “the world’s fastest desktop processor,” and offering the “world’s best gaming experience.”
Both companies are keen to expand into the other’s expertise, AMD into CPUs and Intel into GPUs, seeing opportunities to better their competition, which of course, we the consumer, will benefit from.
Will you be upgrading with AMD or Nvidia? Which one suits your budget better? Are you happy to see a more affordable GPU, or will you be investing in the pricier 4000 series?
