AMD Vega (FE and RX) Benchmarks [Updated Aug 10 - RX Vega 64 Unboxing]

[Cloudfire777]

If AMD/RTG are smart - and I believe that they are - they will use the testing and feedback from Vega FE to dial in voltages, frequencies, and cooling in order to make RX Vega more appealing, especially AIB partner cards. In addition, of course, to better BIOS, driver, and software support.

RX Vega has to be a better card than Vega FE, doesn't it?

Its pretty clear now that Vega was originally planned as a very efficient and powerful architecture but didnt turn out that way, so they decided to launch Vega FE first because professional workloads is mostly the only niche where it will sell.

Against Quadro 5000 and even the so much more expensive Quadro 6000 it does really well. Nvidia have most of the professional community in their hand with CUDA. But Vega have its place here

 

[nathanddrews]

I don't disagree that Vega FE has a place to fill. For its niche, it's a great card.

Unfortunately for RX Vega, it shares a common name with Vega FE that has been maligned by poor consumer gaming performance relative to its prosumer cost. AMD's marketing department really botched it, despite their attempts to claim "it's not a gaming card!". I understand where they're coming from, but they lost that narrative the second PCPer got their hands on it.

 

[IEC]

If AMD/RTG are smart - and I believe that they are - they will use the testing and feedback from Vega FE to dial in voltages, frequencies, and cooling in order to make RX Vega more appealing, especially AIB partner cards. In addition, of course, to better BIOS, driver, and software support.

RX Vega has to be a better card than Vega FE, doesn't it?

Yes. It is guaranteed to be at least $400 cheaper.

 

[Rifter]

I really don't get this "well Vega failed, AMD should just completely write it off and not even release it" nonsense. It is so outright stupid that I can't fathom why there's so many people that keep stating it. We've consistently seen that mining means they can probably sell every card they can make even if its not price competitive to Nvidia in games. Heck even if things work in the opposite, where say some new mining development that Nvidia excels at but AMD somehow sucks at, so all the Nvidia cards get bought up and Nvidia's already premium pricing going to new levels, leaving AMD cards the only means for people buying new. It seems very possible that the changes will be like GCN in general, where AMD relies on their sustained software improvement to bring out their full performance (so, no there almost certainly won't be 40% improvement at release or even by the end of the year, but give it time, say 1-2 years, and I bet we could see a consistent 20-33% improvement, with it possibly pushing higher under ideal conditions such as DX12 games that utilize certain features well; I have a hunch that we'll start to see more of the tricks used on console games be utilized in the PC space, and One X 4K could benefit Vega especially well on some titles, and it will take a while before developers wring out what improvements the One X will enable). That won't happen if there aren't cards to work with.

Not to mention, not releasing, especially after they've already done PR for it, would be a disaster, bigger than releasing a subpar card (and it very well could just be that their initial implementation of Vega as a chip is a dud, and that it requires serious tweaking, more than just a respin, to bring out its potential - much like we saw with the evolution from the 2000 to 4000 series; with Navi possibly being a way they realize the gain made from the 4000 to 5000 series, doubling the GPU effectively as well as offering similar gains that we saw Crossfire make around the time by using more). Since they almost certainly wouldn't shelve Vega and publicly state that it is a failure (since then people would say that proves that AMD's architecture itself is a failure, killing its future potential including use in APUs and setting off a firestorm of BS; not to mention it would also effectively give the people that have been claiming that GCN is a total failure for years now, unwarranted validation; plus it could even hurt console sales). People are already calling for AMD to just kill their graphics business, imagine what would happen if they were to scrap a major release entirely. People seem to actively want them to go out of business for some bizarre reason.

This place gets more and more ridiculous. Prior to every single AMD release, this place gets worked up into a frenzy over rampant speculation (both ways, positively and negatively) and hyperbole. Then the release happens and it pretty much goes as expected (which is to say, about splits the rampant speculation; typically offering decent but not spectacular performance at worse than Nvidia power usage; with it over time improving in performance just not fast enough to keep pace with Nvidia's steady execution of releases), and as ever people have to decide on performance for the price (including if mining throws perf/$ way out of whack for gaming). And then we get the extended cesspit of nonsensical arguments (one I particularly like is the person that went around saying that AMD needs to stop making good mining cards, then when nVidia allegedly is working on versions of cards more suitable for mining than their consumer ones says AMD completely failed by not providing miner cards before, but either way they deserve to go out of business because AMD hasn't been releasing the magical unicorn Bitchin Fast 3D 3000 that does 16K 1000Hz VR in infinite colorspace for $200 in quantities such that people can buy 2, one to use for mining 24/7 where it'll pay for itself off after the first minute that you mine on it and the other so they can game). Only instead of people learning from how things have gone, we get people just taking all the rampant speculation and treating it as reality, thus further distorting their expectations and arguments. Seems like this place is due for another meltdown.

Then they should market is as a mining card, full stop. period. done.

They however ARE NOT doing this, they are advertising it as a gaming card, and if its going to be a gaming card its going to need to do one of two things:

1. Beat a 1080 in most games and cost the same(as its power usage is way more than 1080, so even if it beats it by 5-10% it still cant cost more due to power usage, or no one will buy for gaming)

2. Not beat a 1080 in most games and be significantly cheaper by a large enough margin to match its lower performance, plus way higher power usage.

Those are the only two ways this card will be a successful gaming card.

I agree that they will sell to miners anyways, but AMD marketing this as a gaming card NOT as a mining card

I still believe there may be disabled features in current drivers, and they may pick up some performance and drop some power usage in final RX version, so RX may be more of a success than some think right now, but either way they need to price it right or it will be a failure.

And i agree with the people saying if they cant beat a 1080 and are not going to sell it at $400 or less then they should not bother releasing it, just make a mining version and sell that, dont try and sell a failure of a gaming card it will just hurt there GPU image even more. They are good at mining, focus on that, sell it as a mining card, and then come back to the gaming table when you have a product that can compete with current oppositions gaming cards in both performance and power usage.

 

[Tup3x]

I'm not sure that's true. No amount of internal lab testing compares to samples taken from real world application. I'll agree that AMD/RTG knows much more than Vega FE customers/reviewers, they built the damn thing, but having feedback from hundreds or thousands of individuals devoted to tweaking and benchmarking is going to influence how they prioritize updates, marketing, and pricing.

If it's not true then that makes them incompetent and I don't quite think that is the case. They have their reasons for sure.

 

[Elixer]

Where are all these claims, that miners will buy vega coming from? Vega FE hashrate is atrocious for the TDP, which is 30-35 MH/s. An 1070GTX is 25 MH/s stock and can easily reach 28-30 with memory OC as Ehereum is very much memory bandwidth bound (which yet again won't OC well on Vega).

Miners aren't even buying similar hashrate but lower TDP cards like 1080 or 1080ti, yet they will suddenly buy vega?

And TDP matters, even when you disregard the power bill. Miners run rigs with as much cards possible. You can run 6 150w 1070gtx's with a 1200w power supply in a single rig. Good luck doing it with vega

IMO the sudden rage here: "no worries, miners will still buy them!" is wishful thinking

There are other cryptomining out there, Monero is the one where Vega wipes the floor with against all other cards.

A bit more than a week left...

 

[Glo.]

Another film from AdoredTV. I suggest watching it...

 

[EXCellR8]

will do, thx

 

[Magic Hate Ball]

What's with these guys?

Man, I just want to go on a vacation away from all of the internet until RX Vega lands....

https://twitter.com/BitsAndChipsEng/status/887736810625019910

 

[Azix]

i read some posts tha apparently think they already know everything. "its pretty clear now" etc. How did they arrive at this clarity with no rx vega in sight?

 

[Tee9000]

What's with these guys?

Man, I just want to go on a vacation away from all of the internet until RX Vega lands....

https://twitter.com/BitsAndChipsEng/status/887736810625019910

Have you seen the amount of nonsense that idiot spreads all over the internet? Something like this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? LOL? Sure? Wow. hmm... mkeeey. Ok. And let's not forget this.

And a moment of rare honesty.

Stop evangelizing people that tell you what you want to hear.

We'll get right on that as soon as you stop creating alt accounts, Tiberiu.
-- stahlhart

 

[Snarf Snarf]

Yeah, Bits and Chips seems to be very pro-AMD. They are hype masters and I'd take what they say with a grain of salt because a lot of what they say are guesses and ideas but come across as fact because English isn't their first language.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Have you seen the amount of nonsense that idiot spreads all over the internet? Something like this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? LOL? Sure?

And a moment of rare honesty.

They actually used to be reliable back in the days, but just wow how they have fallen

 

[Cloudfire777]

Another film from AdoredTV. I suggest watching it...

Yay let us watch a guy speculating and act like he knows more than anyone else. Thats all he does in every single video he makes and people repost his videos like he is some sort of messiah.

That guy knows nothing.

 

[Snarf Snarf]

Yay let us watch a guy speculating and act like he knows more than anyone else. Thats all he does in every single video he makes and people repost his videos like he is some sort of messiah.

That guy knows nothing.

To be fair to Adored his speculation is usually founded in empirical evidence. He's been saying since before FE that RX Vega wouldn't catch 1080ti so I'd hardly call him an AMD fanboy. He's one of the few reviewers that questions results and goes after outliers in data to find out the causes, and for that alone I respect him, but nothing anyone says outside of Raja Koduri should be taken as 100% accurate when it comes to Vega.

 

[Elixer]

What's with these guys?

Man, I just want to go on a vacation away from all of the internet until RX Vega lands....

https://twitter.com/BitsAndChipsEng/status/887736810625019910

AMD is sandbagging.

Not a chance, it would be the worst marketing campaign of all time.

"Guys, I know, let's nerf the cards, so we can spring a giant surprise on everyone!"--AMD GPU lead marketing
"Um, wouldn't we lose a ton of sales since everyone thinks the cards are lacking in performance?"--AMD janitor
"Doesn't matter, they will sell their cards once they find out this secret!"--AMD GPU lead marketing
"Sir, please stop making messes, I can only clean up so much!"--AMD janitor

 

[Snarf Snarf]

Yeah intentional sandbagging is actually the most ridiculous notion going on around. If Vega FE isn't performing to its maximum potential, it definitely isn't intentional to "throw a curveball" at Nvidia. It's because they didn't give the team enough time to finish the project correctly, and are frantically trying to fix it by RX Vega launch.

 

[Muhammed]

What's with these guys?

Man, I just want to go on a vacation away from all of the internet until RX Vega lands....

https://twitter.com/BitsAndChipsEng/status/887736810625019910

They are just expressing their opinion, this is their editor stating this:

This is my opinion, after Ryzen and TR launch. Do you remember when people on Reddit and other socials said that B&C was ************ because I wrote that Zen was a high frequency & high IPC uArch? XD
AMD is becoming very smart, and VEGA FE drivers have a lot of things disabled.

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=293116&postcount=2783

So yeah they are clueless. They don't know a thing. And again repeating the same crap about gimped FE drivers, despite people who work for AMD stating otherwise.

 

[USER8000]

Or this?

You do realise he might be accurate about the die size,since AMD actually released a picture of the bare RR chip next to a Epyc/Threadripper chip??

Someone actually superimposed a picture of the chip without the heatspreader on top:

http://i.imgur.com/fb4kFYB.png

You do also need to stop getting so worked up about rumours - all the websites are doing it nowadays as they re-publish rumours to gain page hits and some like WCCFTech despite being inaccurate a lot of times,now actually gets invited to more events by companies and they get hardware to review.

If anything by continuously talking about them you give them more exposure which means they make more out of it.

In the end nothing is final until the product is launched and that is how it has been for decades,and rumours are just that,rumours.

 

[Jackie60]

I think it's entirely plausible that AMD won't reveal what Vega RX can do in games until they launch. Nvidia haven't revealed anything about their GPU performance pre launch for a long time so it would make sense for AMD to give nothing away. I will buy another 1080ti or Volta if RX Vega is crap as I need new toys but we can't judge it until it launches or we have benchmarks. Well ok, I can't judge it. Seems most people already have.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Have you seen the amount of nonsense that idiot spreads all over the internet? Something like this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? LOL? Sure? Wow. hmm... mkeeey. Ok. And let's not forget this.

And a moment of rare honesty.

Stop evangelizing people that tell you what you want to hear.

This guy is a crafty one. He doesn't STATE things, he just "hints" them and uses vague language, so if his guess/wish is correct he can say "BITS N CHIPS ISNT CLICKBAIT" and when he's wrong, he will just start posting more of his "guesses" based on his "sources."

Since he tells a certain group of people what they want to hear, they will overlook his numerous fails because they want to believe in him and his credibility.

 

[USER8000]

This guy is a crafty one. He doesn't STATE things, he just "hints" them and uses vague language, so if his guess/wish is correct he can say "BITS N CHIPS ISNT CLICKBAIT" and when he's wrong, he will slither away.

Yeah,but it really comes across as silly though when we have had so many rumour sites(his is not the only one),and people get so worked up about it. How many have we had over the last 10 to 15 years?? All these little forum vendettas won't account for much as by continuously moaning about them,you give them more exposure. They are making money out of this,getting sent hardware by companies and get invited by said companies to events.

They are the ones having the last laugh,not you.

If you don't like them its simple - don't link to them or even talk about them.

 

[Rifter]

This guy is a crafty one. He doesn't STATE things, he just "hints" them and uses vague language, so if his guess/wish is correct he can say "BITS N CHIPS ISNT CLICKBAIT" and when he's wrong, he will just start posting more of his "guesses" based on his "sources."

Since he tells a certain group of people what they want to hear, they will overlook his numerous fails because they want to believe in him and his credibility.

except he has 0 credibility....

 

[USER8000]

except he has 0 credibility....

Its a rumour site - if it was 100% correct it wouldn't be a rumour site,so I am not sure why so many are throwing a hissy fit if rumour does not turn to fact!!

The only facts are when the product is launched,and everything else beforehand has a 50/50 chance of being right.

 

[linkgoron]

I think it's entirely plausible that AMD won't reveal what Vega RX can do in games until they launch. Nvidia haven't revealed anything about their GPU performance pre launch for a long time so it would make sense for AMD to give nothing away. I will buy another 1080ti or Volta if RX Vega is crap as I need new toys but we can't judge it until it launches or we have benchmarks. Well ok, I can't judge it. Seems most people already have.

Why would Nvidia show pre-launch benchmarks? They are (by a very large margin) the market leader, and showing pre-launch benchmarks essentially only hurts their own sales. AMD, on the other hand, have nothing to lose if they've got a winner. Sadly, It appears that they do not.