Ian Ing, MKM Partners analyst, gave both Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) and Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) increased price targets on Tuesday as they both unveil their respective graphics processing unit (GPU) offerings this year.
According to Ing, GPUs, which are essential computer components to efficiently run gaming software, are likely to uplift the sales of AMD and Nvidia. While AMD is banking on its to launching its RX series based on Polaris Architecture, Nvidia relies primarily on its new Pascal architecture.
AMD’s RX Series
Ing gave AMD a price target of $5 from a previous $4. AMD will officially unveil its RX 480, the first model in the Polaris-architecture-based RX series, on June 29. The new GPU is the company’s long-awaited replacement for the R9 Fury, R9 Fury X, and R9 390X. Ing elaborated that the RX availability will enjoy a “steeper ramp” than the R9 last year given the lower-risk architecture of the former.
Accordingly, the new Radeon RX 480 is already capable of premium virtual reality (VR) technology at a reasonable price of just about $200. Raja Koduri, AMD Radeon Technologies Senior Vice President (SVP) and Chief Architect, noted that the new Radeon RX series highlights AMD’s commitment to making the VR experience accessible for everyone by slowly immersing the consumer market in its availability and relevance in today’s world.
Nvidia’s Pascal Architecture
Meanwhile, Ing boosted his price target for Nvidia to $52 from a prior $43. The company launched its new-generation GPU that is built on the Pascal architecture, the GeForce GTX 1080, last month. However, weeks later, customers are already experiencing supply shortage. The only concern on Nvidia is the persistence of product shortage in the following weeks. As a result, the GeForce GTX 1080 has a whopping price tag of about $600 presently.
Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia CEO, stated that the Pascal architecture uses Micron GDDR5X chips, which yields a performance a third faster than previous memory modules. Moreover, it has a smaller manufacturing process than the Maxwell architecture. This indicates that the new-generation graphic cards are far better in terms of performance and efficiency.
