Nvidia CEO Admits Tegra 4i Didn't Pan Out as Hoped
Nvidia's CEO talks about Tegra 4i, a $3,000 graphics card, and more.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang recently spoke to CNET about why his company is no longer focusing on smartphones. He admitted that the Tegra 4i "didn't pan out," that in a business sense, it just wasn't the success Nvidia hoped for. The phone marketplace has commoditized extremely fast, he said, and it's not Nvidia's strategy to go after commodity phones.
"I think that I learned we are not a commodity player," he said. "Going after something that starts with mainstream should have discouraged us. At the time, it looked like our 4G solution was quite far ahead of the market...But that window's closing very quickly. We're just not a cost player."
Read more: Nvidia Tegra 4i Wiko Wax Hands-on with Benchmarks
Later on in the interview, CNET and Huang talked about paying $3,000 for a graphics card. He was asked how Nvidia made sure that whoever buys it won't see the card become obsolete two to three years down the road. After all, $3,000 is a lot of money; that amount could purchase a decent high-end gaming PC.
"Most of the customers that buy Titan Zs buy it every year," he said. "And the reason for that is the people who buy Titans and Titan Zs have an insatiable need for computing capability, graphics computing capability. So either they got tired of using just a 1,080p monitor, and they just bought a 4K. My Titan all of a sudden's not enough. For a 4K monitor, a $3,000 to $5,000 monitor, I need something bigger to drive it. So that's Titan Z."
Huang also admitted that Nvidia is currently working on a new Shield handheld system. He said that the Shield platform will be what the company will use to turn Android into a great gaming platform. He also said that Android is "an operating system that epitomizes the future of computing."
"It is arguably the world's best mobile operating system that's connected to the cloud," he said. "Cloud computing and mobile computing are intertwined in a way that can't be separated. I also think that cloud connected to mobile and mobile connected to cloud is essential to the future of gaming, as well...And so if the computer platform is evolving into mobile and cloud, there's no reason why we can't imagine that happening to gaming."
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
"Shield is our platform for making that possible," he added.
To read the full interview, head here.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
-
de5_Roy "tegra 4i didn't pan out as hoped."Reply
No !@#$ sherlock! :D
instead nv got butkicking from mediatek. what excuse will they use when mediatek expands to high end? -
derekullo "The phone marketplace has commoditized extremely fast, he said, and it's not Nvidia's strategy to go after commodity phones."Reply
I believe his strategy is abandon ship. -
twstd1 You can buy a 1500 dollar R9-295x or a 1600 dollar set of 780Ti's and still get great performance in 4K. There is no justification for a $3000 Titan Z. NONE (well for gaming anyway). Unless you have 6K just laying around and you want MOAR pixles than your eye can handle. Then you can get two Titan Z's and win the internets forever! If you had that kind of rig and someone bumped into it, would you name it TITAN FALL Z??? lol Meh, to each their own I guess.Reply -
Martell1977 At $3k for the Titanz, it better trounce the R9 295X2 or this guy is going to look rather stupid.For twice the price, even with diminishing returns, it better beat it by over 30%. Which is probably why it has been delayed.Reply
This is going to be an interesting year in the GPU market. -
peterson99 Anyone who's willing to pay $3000 for a graphics card probably doesn't care about the cards longevity. Sadly I'm not one of those people.Reply -
southernshark Yeah I don't think this card is for people who care about price or for it lasting 3 years. They likely buy a new card and cpu every year or so. I wish I was one of those people, but aren't.Reply
Still though for 3k it has to really beat AMDs 1500 dollar model, or even those customers won't go for it. -
suture oh mediatek and their cheapy crappy easy selling arm socs.Reply
I would love to have a tegra 4 / k1 device, but the market lacks products with it.
Till then i guess i will stick with snapdragon. -
Vlad Rose Nvidia definitely likes to blow a lot of smoke up people's rear ends. When it comes down to it though, they are almost never able to follow through with their hype. The Tegra 4i is one, the Shield is another, and the $3k Titan will definitely be another as well.Reply -
hahmed330 If Tesla K40 costs $5300... Then a Titan Z worth $3000 makes sense ( although you miss out on ECC and few other features)... But definitely not for gaming unless you are making one hell of a micro atx machine...Reply
T4i I think is a pretty good processor considering it marginalizes snapdragon 600 only running at a lowly 1.7Ghz... even though it can run upto 2.3Ghz