On this year's CES stage, AI has become the absolute protagonist. On the day before the opening, the battle drum of chip giants had already been sounded first.
In the field of GPU chips, NVDA. NASDAQ and AMD. NASDAQ almost monopolize the global market share and are known as the industry duo. On January 8th local time, Nvidia launched the GeForce RTX SUPER series graphics cards, allowing gamers, designers, and other computer users to better utilize artificial intelligence (AI) on their personal computers (PCs); AMD has released the highly anticipated Ryzen 8000G series desktop processor, indicating that AMD's layout in AI officially covers desktop platforms.
Specifically, Nvidia's GeForce RTX SUPER series graphics cards have three new products: RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and RTX 4070 SUPER.
Justin Walker, Vice President of Nvidia, stated that the new graphics cards comply with export control requirements and can be provided to Chinese consumers, providing another option for researchers who cannot access Nvidia's most powerful chips. But he did not mention which specific product was offered to the Chinese market.
In terms of price, Nvidia stated that these chips are updated versions of existing products and will be offered at "discounted new prices". Among them, the RTX 4080 Super will be launched on January 31st, with a starting price of 8099; The RTX 4070 Ti Super will be launched on January 24th, with a starting price of 6499 yuan; The RTX 4070 Super was launched on January 17th and starts at a price of 4899 yuan.
These graphics cards not only surpass previous generation products in terms of performance, but also possess the superpowers of Nvidia's advanced ray tracing and AI technology platform RTX, which can improve the operational performance of games, applications, and AI tasks. "GeForce RTX SUPER graphics cards support over 500 RTX games and applications, and will prepare users for the wave of generative AI applications on PCs," said Matt Wuebling, Vice President of Global GeForce Marketing at Nvidia
It is reported that brands such as Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and MSI will all release AI laptops based on the GeForce RTX SUPER series.
For AMD, the Ryzen 8000G series processors are a desktop processor product line that has been upgraded again after 2 years and 9 months. There are four models available: Ryzen 7 8700G, Ryzen 5 8600G, Ryzen 5 8500G, and Ryzen 3 8300G.
Among them, the 8-core Ryzen 7 8700G and the 6-core Ryzen 5 8600G adopt a larger Phoenix 2 core and integrate the XDNA1 Ryzen AI accelerator, which can provide more powerful AI performance. The 6-core Ryzen 5 8500G and 4-core Ryzen 3 8300G use smaller Phoenix cores, eliminating the Ryzen AI accelerator.
With the gradual popularization of AI applications, AMD has already begun to lay out in the new battlefield of AI ahead of schedule. In addition to last year's Ryzen 7040 announcing the official entry of X86 processors into the AI era, this year's Ryzen 8000G extends this advantage to desktop platforms.
AMD has not yet announced the official launch price of the Ryzen 8000G series processors, only stating that the Ryzen 7 8700G, Ryzen 5 8600G, and Ryzen 5 8500G will be launched on January 31, while the Ryzen 3 8300G will not be directly promoted to the retail market, but will be supplied to system assemblers and will be launched in the first quarter of 2024.
2024 is known as the first year of AI PC development. AI PC is defined as a personal computer equipped with dedicated chipsets/blocks to carry end-to-end AI operational loads.
"The current development of AI PCs is similar to the early development of Windows systems. With hardware performance that can meet more diverse applications, software updates and iterations make user interaction more convenient, improve user work efficiency, and ultimately replace earlier DOS systems." Fan Zhiyuan, Chief Analyst of the Electronics Industry at Guojin Securities, wrote a research report.
According to Canalys, it is estimated that the global PC shipment volume in 2023 will be 249 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 12.4%. It is estimated that the PC shipment volume in 2024 will be 267 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%. Meanwhile, AI PCs will occupy a 20% share of the PC market in 2024, and this proportion will rapidly increase to over 60% in 2027.
To adapt to this trend, leading PC manufacturers including Dell (DELL. NYSE), HP (HPQ. NYSE), and Lenovo (00992. HK) plan to launch a series of new models with AI acceleration starting from 2024. These PCs will be equipped with a new generation CPU and Windows 11, providing a better AI experience.
In addition, chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA, Intel (INTC. NASDAQ), AMD, and others are constantly showcasing various new software and hardware products to cope with the new era of AI, accelerating the arrival of the AI PC era.
As of the close of the day, NVIDIA's stock price rose 6.43% to $522.53 per share, reaching a new high with a total market value of $1.29 trillion. At the same time, it drove the rise of US chip stocks, with AMD rising more than 5% and Intel rising more than 3%.