AMD missed an opportunity with the RX500 refresh...

[EliteRetard]

They should've redone the RX470/570, and pushed all the GPU's down one notch.

RX570 = Current RX580 36CU's same MSRP 4GB $199 8GB $229
RX560 = 28-30CUs (vs RX470/570 32CU's) to better separate, easier harvest too MSRP 4GB $149 8GB $179
RX550 = Current RX560 full Polaris 11 16CU's 4GB same MSRP $99
RX540 = Current RX550 full Polaris 12 8CU's 2GB MSRP should've been $75

Why? Because the RX470 4GB has been/is pretty much a $125 (or less) card already...and makes choosing the RX580/480 almost pointless, even making the full fat 8GB option less enticing. AMD really needed better separation between the x70 and x80 cards, but there's no way they could do it now and make the RX570 slower than the RX470. With things as I suggest, technically all the new named cards are far better than their last gen counterparts...and it more strongly encourages people to pay up for the full fat Polaris 10, even if 4GB. The RX470 would certainly clear out fast at it's current prices, and should then provide AMD with better profits on all cards.

Yes this would've left the RX580 slot empty, but that shouldn't be any issue...and provides the slot for a weaker Vega to fit in (x80, x90, and a "Fury" for low/med/high Vega)

 

[3DVagabond]

I don't want the *80 being a cut down part. It used to denote their flagship model. But that could just be me.

 

[EliteRetard]

Well it does sound like there's a big and small Vega...perhaps the x80 could've been the full fat small Vega. x90 would've then been a cut down big Vega, with the Fury version being the best they got.

 

[GroundZero7]

Yes this would've left the RX580 slot empty, but that shouldn't be any issue...and provides the slot for a weaker Vega to fit in (x80, x90, and a "Fury" for low/med/high Vega)

Even the weaker Vega will wipe the floor with RX580.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

It's strange. I would think that if Vega really were competitive with Volta that AMD, instead of rebranding Polaris, would want to fill out the entire stack with Vega-based designs. The current Polaris 10 designs were in no real need of a refresh.

 

[tential]

It's strange. I would think that if Vega really were competitive with Volta that AMD, instead of rebranding Polaris, would want to fill out the entire stack with Vega-based designs. The current Polaris 10 designs were in no real need of a refresh.

How many times has it been explained that amd releases a half stack of a gpu at a time? How many times do you need to see it as of late before you guys accept it?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Elixer]

I tend to agree, that they should have just cut the price down, flood the market, gain market share.

 

[wanderica]

I too would have liked AMD to release a new maintream x80 product based on Vega and bump the current 480 down a notch to 570 as they've done in the past. I think it would have made AMD look better against the competition as the Vega based 580 would walk all over its direct competition. I have to admit, though, that it makes sense from a pure business perspective. By doing what they've done, they get to put a "new" product to market (at least in the eyes of non enthusiasts). Add Vega when it launches to fill out upper midrange and high end and AMD has a full product stack (finally). The bonus going forward would be that it allows them to refresh Vega for mainstream and low end when Navi is ready (6xx generation). It should allow them to keep the production cost of their bread and butter (mainstream sales) as low as possible. Of course, all of this is assuming Vega isn't junk.

 

[3DVagabond]

It's strange. I would think that if Vega really were competitive with Volta that AMD, instead of rebranding Polaris, would want to fill out the entire stack with Vega-based designs. The current Polaris 10 designs were in no real need of a refresh.

AMD doesn't have the resources to redo the entire stack at one time.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

How many times has it been explained that amd releases a half stack of a gpu at a time? How many times do you need to see it as of late before you guys accept it?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

I have no trouble accepting it, and I'm not contradicting that. My thinking is that there is no reason to rebrand the RX 480. Just let it stay the way it is until there's a Vega replacement for it.

Actually, if you think about it, they are releasing a full stack all at once if you consider the 500 series new. Vega will be here in May, the 500 series in April - thus a full stack launch inside a month-long period.

AMD doesn't have the resources to redo the entire stack at one time.

But they do have the resources to relaunch Polaris when it didn't need to be relaunched. If there's a Vega-based replacement for it on the horizon, why launch the 500 series? It's the same thing they did with the 200 series and we didn't get a replacement for that until Polaris. Obviously, it would make no sense to release a GCN2/3 based Pitcairn replacement; not enough improvement. If we have to wait until Navi for an RX 480 replacement, I do wonder about Vega.

And like I said above, they kind of are doing the entire stack all at once.

 

[mohit9206]

Just when people were used to buying sub $150 470s and sub $180 480s, AMD goes ahead and launches the EXACT same card for $10 less than their original launch msrp.
This sudden increase in price comes as a shock because AMD now wants you to pay 25% more for 5% more performance. AMD does something good then craps all over it.
Maintaining price advantage over 1050Ti and 1060 was the key, but now that we're back to original prices, that's one key advantage gone.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

Just when people were used to buying sub $150 470s and sub $180 480s, AMD goes ahead and launches the EXACT same card for $10 less than their original launch msrp.
This sudden increase in price comes as a shock because AMD now wants you to pay 25% more for 5% more performance. AMD does something good then craps all over it.
Maintaining price advantage over 1050Ti and 1060 was the key, but now that we're back to original prices, that's one key advantage gone.

That is true, but I think we'll see similar deals on the 500 series pretty quickly.

 

[mohit9206]

That is true, but I think we'll see similar deals on the 500 series pretty quickly.

Unfortunately these deals you speak of are mostly only limited to American residents, so rest of the world is screwed.
We will have to suck up these higher prices for the rest of the year.
AMD gone goofed up.

 

[ConsoleLover]

Some people here have no clue, sorry, but its true. Why would AMD further on their own volition drop the price? They are already barely having any profits from these products, its small gains, so why would they purposefully want to lower that?

What they did with the refresh is make all these cards a lot better purchase option from the start against the GTX 1060 6 and 3gb versions. The 470 4/8 was already much better buy than the 1060 3gb, but people still chose the 1060 3gb because of small advantage in some DX11 games, with the clock boost the 570 is pretty much as fast as the reference 480 4gb, slightly slower in more demanding games.

So now its a must buy over the 1060 3gb, no one can say in any ways shape or form that the 1060 3gb is the better purchase, that would be ridiculous.

The 480 struggled in DX11 titles, especially older ones like Crysis 3, AC: Unity, Syndicate, Dirt Rally, Shadow of Mordor, dying light, GTA 5, etc... OC'ed AIB partner cards closed the distance, but it wasn't enough, now with the 580 and custom AIB cards coming clocked at 1425Mhz and higher out of the box, it can beat the 1060 6gb in games that it previously tied with and catches up in games like GTA 5, Watch Dogs 2, Crysis 3, etc...

What it also did was raise prices initially, this will improve their bottom line, while they still have the 400 series which can sell for cheaper until stock is out. So its a win win for AMD, the 400 series will sell out for cheaper, the 500 will sell slower because of higher prices, but will slowly come down as the 400 series are sold out and take over in time.

Already no one can at this time recommend the 1060 6gb over the 580 8gb. Even in DX11 titles the 580 is really close, not to mention that it is also winning in few newer DX11 titles as well, even from before. So games that it was losing badly at is now really close like GTA 5, Watch Dogs 2, Syndicate, Crysis 3, etc... games it was tied is slightly winning and games it was winning, it is winning even more.

The only downside is that the new 500 series, especially the 580 is consuming 50W more across compared to the 480's and up to 100W more than the 1060. OC'ed the 1060 6gb can consume up to 145W, though the average consumption even OC'ed up to 2110MHz is around 130W. But I think 90% of gamers would pick more performance over 50W or 100W more power consumption any time.

 

[SpaceBeer]

P10 is 232mm^2 chip, so even at $170, profit is not so large. HD 7850 launched at $250, and it was rebranded as R7 265 only 2 years later at $150, when production cost decreased more significantly

In my opinion, they shouldn't have used RX 500 series, but RX 465/475/485 with these models.

And since Polaris is very efficient at ~1000 mV, if I were AMD CTO, I would have requested introduction of "eco" and "performance" models. So they could have RX 580 E(co) which would be little bit slower than RX 480 (or not), but spend ~30W less (maybe 10-20W more than GTX 1060). The other one would be 580 as it is now. It would be similar with RX 470 rebrand.

It is confirmed there will be RX 560 with and without 6-pin, so users can choose if they want better performanse, or lower power consumption. Why not do the same with P10 cards? But of course with different model names

 

[sandorski]

I suspect that the slowest Vega part is too fast to compete with 1060. So until Volta is released and if a Volta part is made to replace 1060, AMD will use the 580.

 

[krumme]

Unfortunately these deals you speak of are mostly only limited to American residents, so rest of the world is screwed.
We will have to suck up these higher prices for the rest of the year.
AMD gone goofed up.

Prices will come down. These cards are made to be cheap.
But Its idiotic amd sets initial price so high they will have to lower it witin a few months.
They gladly trade tons of brand value for a slim margin advantage first 2 months to see margins colapse even after 6 months. Its so shortsighted its mindblowing.
Pissing in their pants to keep it warm.
We see the same for ryzen but to a far lesser degree. So you can do it even for excellent new and innovative products. I forecast that months ago. So predictable. Way to hurt your brand lesson 1. There should be laws against such business stupidity. Its not like the current management lack intelligence, energy and it have tons of technical competence but man its hard to see them act so shortsighted especially because they dont need cash. They are financially sound and safe now. There is no excuse.
I am sure their cfo knows nothing about marketing, brand and driving a business brand. Send him to scool and retail for a few weeks.
Its what happens in a company with solid engineering management coupled with narrowminded bean counters.
Zero business flair compared to eg Nvidia.

One have to wonder if the idea of quarterly earning reports is not hurting this world economy. Shortsighted economic decisions and meaningless bonus flourish in this environment. Get rid of that junk.

 

[sandorski]

P10 is 232mm^2 chip, so even at $170, profit is not so large. HD 7850 launched at $250, and it was rebranded as R7 265 only 2 years later at $150, when production cost decreased more significantly

In my opinion, they shouldn't have used RX 500 series, but RX 465/475/485 with these models.

And since Polaris is very efficient at ~1000 mV, if I were AMD CTO, I would have requested introduction of "eco" and "performance" models. So they could have RX 580 E(co) which would be little bit slower than RX 480 (or not), but spend ~30W less (maybe 10-20W more than GTX 1060). The other one would be 580 as it is now. It would be similar with RX 470 rebrand.

It is confirmed there will be RX 560 with and without 6-pin, so users can choose if they want better performanse, or lower power consumption. Why not do the same with P10 cards? But of course with different model names

AdoredTV showed that Power Consumption on the 580 can be cut in half using new AMD Power saving technology. The downside to it is that it requires Profiles per game which are very limited right now.

 

[SpaceBeer]

So imagine if they have released UVed/UCed card AND used Radeon Chill. Such card would use less power then GTX 1060 in some games If I cared about power consumption, I would buy RX and undervolted/underclock it, but 90% of users dont want/know how to do that. Though I don't care about 5% performance increase/decrease either

 

[Dave2150]

I suspect that the slowest Vega part is too fast to compete with 1060. So until Volta is released and if a Volta part is made to replace 1060, AMD will use the 580.

Most likely, though even if the slowest Vega is faster than the 1060, it's a moot point since Vega is so damn late. The 1060 replacement (1160 or whatever, volta) will be here in a few months, and will presumably wipe the floor with whatever nonsense Vega spits out.

 

[sandorski]

Most likely, though even if the slowest Vega is faster than the 1060, it's a moot point since Vega is so damn late. The 1060 replacement (1160 or whatever, volta) will be here in a few months, and will presumably wipe the floor with whatever nonsense Vega spits out.

Maybe. The presumption is that Vega is "late" and meant to compete with 1080/1080ti. What if it's not late and is meant to compete with Volta?

 

[Dave2150]

Maybe. The presumption is that Vega is "late" and meant to compete with 1080/1080ti. What if it's not late and is meant to compete with Volta?

AMD haven't been able to outdo NVIDIA for many, many years. It's a massive stretch of the imagination to believe Vega will not only outperform the TitanXP but also compete with NVIDIA's next gen volta architecture.

 

[sandorski]

AMD haven't been able to outdo NVIDIA for many, many years. It's a massive stretch of the imagination to believe Vega will not only outperform the TitanXP but also compete with NVIDIA's next gen volta architecture.

What makes it a stretch?

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I tend to agree, that they should have just cut the price down, flood the market, gain market share.

The 1060 is probably cheaper to make, in which case a price war wouldn't be a very good idea for amd.

 

[ConsoleLover]

Again why would AMD purposefully lower prices? The reference 580 is about 8-10% faster than the 480, AIB partners come up to 12-15% faster, its faster than 1060 6gb in most games now. Why would they price it lower on purpose? Its idiotic and random user forums that would come up with such absurdity.

AMD can sell the 400 series at the lower prices until stock is out, by which time the 500 series will come down in price and take over. I don't expect sales to be any bigger with slightly lower prices, when the 400 series are already much cheaper. This move makes AMD gain profits, rather than continue losing profits due to the falling prices of the 400 series!