TUL Shuts Down VTX3D Graphics Cards Brand
by Anton Shilov on August 5, 2016 7:59 AM EST
TUL Corp., the company behind graphics cards sold under PowerColor and VTX3D trademarks, has decided to shut down one of its brands. From a post on the company website, effective immediately, the VTX3D (or VTX 3D, both arrangements are used) products and the brand will be phased out and TUL (which, in the end, means PowerColor) will handle the warranty liabilities of the company.
TUL introduced the first video cards sold under the VTX3D brand in early 2009 to sell budget ATI Radeon graphics in some Asian and European countries. Over time the brand introduced more advanced graphics cards targeting the high-end of the market, and at times could compete against PowerColor as well as Club3D (which is a very close partner of TUL in Europe).
The reasons behind TUL’s decision to shut down the brand have not been revealed by the company. However, there is a combination of explanations why TUL might no longer want to keep its low-cost brand. Firstly, the available market for discrete desktop graphics cards shrank from around 68.4 million units in 2011 to approximately 44 million units in 2015, according to data by Jon Peddie Research. It is important to note that while sales of higher-end enthusiast-class graphics cards increased in 2015, shipments of low-end adapters has declined. Secondly, sales of AMD’s standalone desktop GPUs also significantly dropped in the recent years: from around 27 million in 2011 to 8.88 million in 2015 (based on data from JPR). Given the shrunk TAM (total addressable market), both for GPUs and for Radeon, it might not make sense for TUL to support so many brands at all. Both PowerColor and VTX3D had their own sales, engineering and support teams, which might be inefficient from a financial point of view. By focusing on only one brand, TUL would optimize its costs and creates one brand moving forward.
Those, who own a VTX3D graphics card and require RMA services should contract eusupport@vtx3d.com. The VTX3D website has the original message (in Chinese).
Source: VTX 3D
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lilmoe - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Not sure that'll be the case afterwards. We'll see.jabber - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
Its been the case for the past...10 years or more so I don't see the trend changing. Has a manufacturer ever issued a AMD laptop with at least dual channel ram? Even my Compaq R4000 laptop from 2005 had a desktop Athlon in it but still single channel ram to hobble it against Intel based machines. Every odd review for a high end AMD APU laptop still notes...single channel low spec ram, which for a APU based setup is criminal. Like fitting a V8 Dodge Hellcat with a 1 gallon gas tank.jabber - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
By the way...don't get me wrong...would love to see a top end AMD based laptop that pulled out all the stops for a sensible price. It's just that I gave up on Santa and the tooth fairy a long time ago.lilmoe - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
I would too. The thing is, prior to Zen, AMD hasn't been producing any high-end mobile parts...lilmoe - Saturday, August 6, 2016 - link
"desirable" ones, that is.StrangerGuy - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
dGPUs NV and AMD shipped combined in 2015 barely hit 30 million units, which is 1/2 the quantity of iPhones sold in a single 2015 quarter which itself is a minority in the phone market, which is to say how small the dGPU market has become.Given the absolutely pitiful 20% marketshare AMD had in 2015, there is only like 6 million AMD GPUs spread thin across so many AIBs: At the least we have big three Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and the AMD-only XFX, Powercolor, HIS, Sapphire. Made even worse by how Nvidia is dominating not only in pure marketshare, but also sheer % of the high-end and in turn profitability looking at Steam HW stats: All the HD 79xx series combined sold to date since Dec 2011 after so many price cuts barely outships a $650 MSRP 980 Ti!
It's pretty telling that HIS never even bothered to announce a custom RX 480 so far, so bets are on them leaving the GPU business anytime soon.
Flunk - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I thought PowerColor was a budget brand.Achaios - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Ηere's my $0.02:I wanted to buy a laptop for my gf just to play WoW Vanilla on a Private Server. After some research, I ended up buying a 250 euros laptop with just an Intel Pentium 3825U (Broadwell dual core w/HT) on board as well as Intel Graphics ofc.
This laptop is able to run WoW Vanilla at maxed out settings at 1366X768 resolution and yield 30 FPS.
10 years ago when WoW Vanilla was gold, I would have been forced to buy a laptop with a high-end discrete GPU and pay around 1500 euros.
INTEL Graphics is pushing out discrete GPU manufacturers from the very low/low end Graphics market, and this trend is expected to continue indefinitely.
stephenbrooks - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Of course, AMD also make integrated graphics (their APUs), so in a way they're pushing themselves out of the low-end discrete GPU market too.Flunk - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
I agree with you, I was shocked to see how competent the integrated graphics on my new Dell XPS 15 (Intel 530) were, good enough for all desktop tasks and even light games. I probably wouldn't have tried to hard to find a system with discrete graphics if I had known before hand. Since I also own a gaming desktop the Intel 530 is good enough for the notebook and probably the vast majority of users overall.