AMD rumored to release Radeon RX 500X series in Q3 2018

[Mockingbird]

This year will be a much quieter one for new graphics card releases, with NVIDIA leading the charge and continuing to dominate with the GTX 11 series that will usher in GDDR6, but what about AMD?

According to industry sources of mine, AMD will be releasing a new Radeon RX 500X series family, which should be around 5-6% faster than the RX 500 series. A new 'X' series makes more sense than a full push into the RX 600 series, as the RX 500X series won't be offering anything new.

AMD will reportedly be releasing the Radeon RX 500X series sometime in June-July, which should be able to counter the lower/mid-range graphics card market once NVIDIA stamps down again on the higher-end GTX 1170/1180 markets.

There's not much news here as the name of the card and 5-6% additional performance was the only thing I could squeeze out of my source.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/61392/amd-rumored-release-radeon-rx-500x-series-q3-2018/index.html

 

[ao_ika_red]

If it's true, their consistency is unbelievable.

 

[PhonakV30]

Ok , AMD wants to suicide? What the actual hell ?

 

[Shmee]

So this would be a 2nd Polaris refresh, if true? It might make sense as a more mid range alternative to Vega or Vega+.

 

[misuspita]

So who should be responsible for this epic f***-up? They have brand new architecture, which was miles better than Polaris, but still release a Polaris update? Maybe Raja wasn't so bright after all...

 

[daveybrat]

So why don't they just release a new Vega card with cheaper 8GB GDDR5 memory (instead of HBM2) as a mid range card? Can't understand why they'd still want to keep pushing Polaris at this point.

 

[jpiniero]

So why don't they just release a new Vega card with cheaper 8GB GDDR5 memory (instead of HBM2) as a mid range card? Can't understand why they'd still want to keep pushing Polaris at this point.

Perhaps they were originally going to use the Vega Mobile die but the cost is too much for how competitive they think it'd be. So you are only getting the 550/560 replacement (in the stack, not in price) which is this.

 

[sandorski]

So why don't they just release a new Vega card with cheaper 8GB GDDR5 memory (instead of HBM2) as a mid range card? Can't understand why they'd still want to keep pushing Polaris at this point.

Perhaps the Vega architecture just doesn't work well without HBM2.

 

[Tup3x]

So who should be responsible for this epic f***-up? They have brand new architecture, which was miles better than Polaris, but still release a Polaris update? Maybe Raja wasn't so bright after all...

I think he was frustrated and left because the situation was/is what it is there.

 

[daveybrat]

Perhaps the Vega architecture just doesn't work well without HBM2.

Well it works with much slower DDR4 on the APU's so i would assume it would be far better on GDDR5.

 

[richaron]

So why don't they just release a new Vega card with cheaper 8GB GDDR5 memory (instead of HBM2) as a mid range card? Can't understand why they'd still want to keep pushing Polaris at this point.

...Because Polaris still performs in that segment? Not that I'm defending another rebadge, but it's not as if Polaris is performing worse because it's getting long in the tooth.

And I don't think the few dollars saved by releasing Vega 10 with GDDR5 (if possible) would significantly change the end price. I think most people were hoping for a smaller/cheaper Vega derivative, possibly with GDDR5 or 6, but we haven't seen any realistic indication of this.

 

[IRobot23]

VEGA has same front end as Polaris... Make new chip with new front end.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm just waiting for the day when AMD announces they will only be making APU's to compete with Intel for integrated graphics, and that's it. No more video cards from AMD. At this point that makes more sense than whatever they are doing with these crappy Polaris and Vega failures.
I think AMD needs to do the following this year. Release a Vega refresh with DDR6 and high clocks with normal heat and power characteristics. Maybe if they do that they can compete for the mid range. God they are so terrible its insane. They improved their CPU's and now their GPU's are all sucky. Sigh.

 

[SimianR]

I'm not necessarily against the idea of them releasing Polaris again in some form, but I don't think bumping the clocks 5% is going to cut it. If they released Polaris on a smaller process (12nm? *I know it's mostly just marketing) with GDDR6? Not even sure how bandwidth starved Polaris was. Anyway, anything to keep it relevant/competitive because again - not sure that a small clockspeed bump on the same node is going to keep it competitive and it's going to send already high power usage through the roof on these cards. Unfortunately, a new name and a small clockspeed bump is what we'll probably get.

 

[Harry_Wild]

They need to lower the wattage on these graphics cards since the trend is going to ITX and IFX size PCs. I think they can do that because the size of the wafer is now 7nm thick. That means at least half in terms of power needed for the graphics CPU. I just want a graphic card that is the same power as last years but just requires less wattage and no fan to cool to run in SFF case.

 

[radieroslaw]

Not even sure how bandwidth starved Polaris was.

Lack of bandwidth is their main flaw. Pairing Polaris with GDDR6 (too expensive for midrange) or high speed GDDR5 should give them nice boost that was needed already with RX500 release.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I think it is because of how hard Raja screwed AMD. Why do you think they officially delayed the Vega refresh to 2019? It was supposed to come in 2018.

It could be that they can't justify the investment required to make a Vega refresh market ready for 2018. Perhaps this is aimed at the lower end of the market only?

 

[lifeblood]

Given AMD’s past history, they may just move Polaris unmodified to 12nm and call it new. Totally lame, totally AMD.

Let’s pretend they decide to not be lame; that the upcoming NVIDIA refresh has inspired them to do something. What gives the biggest bang for the least cost? Going from 14nm to 12nm will give some bang, but not much, and I’m not sure it would be worth the cost. If memory bandwidth is a big problem, either improving compression or upgrading to GDDR5X can help that. GDDR6 will (at least initially) be too expensive and probably take more work than GDDR5X would. Other tweaks can be made elsewhere in the architecture but probably not enough to have a noticeable performance increase outside of specific games.

I want to say the X in 500X means GDDR5X, but I doubt AMD marketing is that sophisticated.

They might go for GDDR6 simply out of marketing considerations. Wouldn’t be the first time they did something meaningless and let marketing try to spin it into something marvelous. Plus it would give them experience with GDDR6. But given the amount of work it would require I think this unlikely.

Adding CU’s is out. It would eat into the savings enabled by going to a smaller process. Also, if they added CU’s they would call it the 600 series, not 500X. The X denotes a mod, not a major change like adding CU’s (or GDDR6) would entail.

Honestly, in order of most to least likely my prediction is:

1. Shrink to 12nm, make a few tweaks to improve memory compression, and call it a day.
2. Shrink to 12nm, switch to GDDR5X, make a few small tweaks
3. Shrink to 12nm, switch to GDDR6, make a few small tweaks

I think option 2 is the best bang for the buck (assuming memory bandwidth is truly the problem).

 

[EXCellR8]

Doesn't really make much sense to refresh Polaris again if there's no change to the memory, even with a shrink imo. Demand for VEGA is also decreasing, so maybe they're seeing that they should invest far less resources into dGPU's, at least for the time being.

I only have one Polaris card remaining... and I only use it for 1080p video rendering. Doesn't even have it's own active cooling so it's pretty efficient enough as it is, well at least for my needs.

 

[jpiniero]

Videocardz is now claiming that this is just OEM rebrands.Which does make sense, the 570 and 580 were released in April last year.

https://videocardz.com/75817/amd-reading-radeon-rx-500x-series

 

[Batmeat]

Who’s to say this isn’t a minor tweak for the crypto market miners? Makes more sense then a second refresh of Polaris which they know isn’t great.

 

[misuspita]

Thinking a bit on it, I believe the departure of Raja left them in a bit of a void. Probably his strategy was considered "not optimal" (sucky?) and they probably had to flush some ideas that were already in the works. That left them struggling for a short-term solution and that was old Polaris tweaked a bit.

I hope we see some strategy change, because what Raja did was clearly missing it's target. Probably they will need to split dies, one for performance computing, another for gaming.

 

[Despoiler]

According to Powercolor these are OEM chips.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8aolbc/radeon_rx_500x_series_appear_on_amds_website/dx27too/

 

[AtenRa]

I'm just waiting for the day when AMD announces they will only be making APU's to compete with Intel for integrated graphics, and that's it. No more video cards from AMD. At this point that makes more sense than whatever they are doing with these crappy Polaris and Vega failures.
I think AMD needs to do the following this year. Release a Vega refresh with DDR6 and high clocks with normal heat and power characteristics. Maybe if they do that they can compete for the mid range. God they are so terrible its insane. They improved their CPU's and now their GPU's are all sucky. Sigh.

RX580 8GB (Polaris) is neck and neck vs GTX1060 6GB, where did you see they are so terrible ??

 

[IRobot23]

RX580 8GB (Polaris) is neck and neck vs GTX1060 6GB, where did you see they are so terrible ??

Will we see any review from you? off topic (APU war RR vs rest)