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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BrokenCrayons - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Shutting down brands that sell budget cards makes sense when there are no budget cards to sell. Affordable graphics adapters that people actually want to purchase (~50-80 USD) are largely missing from the market or are a couple generations old. It should surprise no one that people are being forced to either skip the extra GPU or purchase one something higher end which explains both the overall slowdown of the GPU market AND the increase in sales of higher end graphics cards. All of that's market-driven due to the lack of competitive pressure in the GPU market. Companies are able to ignore volume sales in favor of higher per-unit sales prices.We all knew this was coming when the GPU ad CPU companies out there declined to two for each. The only silver lining that may come out of this is that more software developers will be forced to take integrated graphics into account if they want to land many sales. Making something that runs well on an Intel HD-whatever is what will probably end up making or breaking a game studio in the not-too-distant future. Since most games that are making any money these days are mobile phone apps, we're already heading that direction anyhow where companies pay less attention to graphics and more to a winning combination of game mechanics.
mapesdhs - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Or of course one can just buy a more powerful previous-gen mid-range GPU 2nd-hand within the same budget cap (power issues not withstanding).BrokenCrayons - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
2nd hand parts aren't a good option for everyone. There's a lot of hassles with getting things from a previous owner like unknowns about how protected during shipping and what the previous owner did to/with it to the problem of personal safety when meeting someone to make an in-person purchase (not all of us are hulking meat mountains that tote a loaded firearm). Don't misunderstand me, I pick up a lot of second-hand computer parts. The pile of laptops in the corner of my hobby room are all retired business computers or systems I got from ebay, from family, or grabbed at a yard sale. However, this sort of thing isn't for everyone so the lack of lower end graphics cards really does pose a problem for quite a few people. Personally, I absolutely loathe the idea of dual slot graphics cards. It's annoying to see the card bulge into the next slot over. It's frustrating to see it requires it's own power connector. It's really stupid that they generate so much waste heat and require enough electrical power to run at least one lamp in every single room of my home (and that's something like a GTX 1060...nevermind the wasteful garbage both companies are or have sold in segments above it).StrangerGuy - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
When the #1 card by far on Steam is a $330 MSRP one, calling "Affordable graphics adapters that people actually want to purchase (~50-80 USD)" is really rich.Death666Angel - Sunday, August 7, 2016 - link
So, 1.5 percentage points means "by far" now? And the next 12 cards are iGPUs or below 200USD GPUs. And Steam hardware survey is already heavily biased towards better graphics cards.Nagorak - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
AMD has really taken it on the chin. Three quarters of the decline in discrete cards has come out of AMD's share. This is why Nvidia now has 80% of the graphics market. Any partners making only AMD cards are going to have to be suffering too (PowerColor and Sapphire). That is an absolutely brutal decline.The fact TUL shut down their other brand is really no surprise at all when you see the numbers.
That being said, even Nvidia is in a precarious situation. The number of cards they are selling is down also. Even if AMD disappeared entirely, that would put them barely above the sales numbers they had back in 2011.
But...either AMD turns it around this next year in CPUs and GPUs or they're basically toast. I really wish AMD hadn't bought up ATi, as I think they've basically just dragged them down with them.
ddriver - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Actually, that would be 80% of the 30% graphics which are NOT intel LOL. According to the stats, intel sells the most graphics by a very wide margin.Nagorak - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
Fair enough.lilmoe - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
If Zen is at least comparable to Core i5 in ST performance, then Intel is going out the door from all my laptops/builds (also breaking two large pottery pots while am at it).Their GPUs and drivers are nothing but glossy brown stuff. They're charging an f'ed up premium for their "higher end" GPUs. Desktop performance is nothing short of crap, and at this point in time (after years of waiting), we can understand that they're literally purposefully breaking Windows 10 with absolutely no sign of meaningful optimization.
Can't wait to get a Zen APU with HBM and decent graphics/drivers/multimedia. I pray AMD doesn't F this up.
jabber - Friday, August 5, 2016 - link
You'll never get more than one hamstrung Zen laptop, possibly from HP. The OEMs just don't want to sell fully equipped AMD gear anymore. If they do it will have a crappy screen and single channel ram paired with a 5400rpm HDD for $800.