Vega/Navi Rumors (Updated)

[Stuka87]

That Project 47 rack is pretty cool. A petaflop of computing in one rack is quite cool.

 

[happy medium]

When did you upgrade to a GTX 1070....
I've heard similar reports with VERY good reasoning behind it. 4 months isn't that long....

Months ago............when they were cheaper, I think I paid $420 for the extreme edition. You could get a normal 1070 for about $375 before the mining stuff.

I can easily wait even 6 months for volta, the 1070 easily handles my gaming needs. Vega seems like a poor option, I feel sorry for the guys that waited for a year for this card. They could have bought a gtx1080 over a year ago for $600.

 

[Muhammed]

Back at CES I had the chance to sit down over supper with a long-time ex employee of AMD and RTG. When asked about the long, drawn out release of Vega his simple answer was: There’s two ways to break bad news to someone - either all at once or prepare the person little by little so acceptance comes easier.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-reveals-rx-vega-price-performance-specs.html

 

[tential]

Did anyone actually look at the numbers on this chart? The GTX 1080 does better, it's just placed behind the Vega numbers just for the charts sake.
Edit:
Fury X numbers are worse than the 980Ti numbers int his chart too. I mean we expect that, but still it's hard for a marketing person at AMD.....

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-reveals-rx-vega-price-performance-specs.html

I find it strange that people complain about deceptive practices all the time from Nvidia, but now when it comes to AMD promising a chip that could compete with Volta, we aren't hearing any cries for an explanation to this....

 

[Elixer]

That Project 47 rack is pretty cool. A petaflop of computing in one rack is quite cool.

Petaflop... 1 quadrillion operations per sec.

I wonder how much that puppy costs? $20 million? More?
1 petaflop of GPU Hardware virtualization...Nice!

Show is over.

 

[.vodka]

Nvidia managed to get very high clocks with Pascal without blowing up the transistor budget or power consumption.

Sure, which is why in that post I also said GCN is at the end of its life. It never scaled properly to higher clocks and it shows in Vega.

nV on the other hand has been targeting higher clock speeds since Kepler getting rid of the shader hot clock in Tesla/Fermi, getting perf/clk higher every time to make clock speed an advantage instead of a liability and working on their architectures as not to have the power penalty Vega GCN has when clocked high enough. Volta will probably deliver on all these fronts once again.

It's time for a new architecture if RTG wants to be on a somewhat even footing with nV on the coming years at least on gaming. GCN has had a great run since 2011, but it seems to be maxed out for gaming. Time to make a more targeted architecture for a specific market or a better jack of all trades. Vega is clearly targeted for the pro market and its workloads.

At least AMD now has more cash to work with thanks to Ryzen. RTG could certainly benefit from that since it certainly was cash starved the past few years with everything being thrown at Zen, with good reasons behind that decision.

 

[tential]

Months ago............when they were cheaper, I think I paid $420 for the extreme edition. You could get a normal 1070 for about $375 before the mining stuff.

I can easily wait even 6 months for volta, the 1070 easily handles my gaming needs. Vega seems like a poor option, I feel sorry for the guys that waited for a year for this card. They could have bought a gtx1080 over a year ago for $600.

I'm sad this is how it turned out, but Volta will be released by February. Nvidia in typical Nvidia fashion still has 14 days to drop a news release bomb.

Doesn't look like I'll be able to buy the card even if I wanted it anyway since it's going to these insane bundles.

 

[Head1985]

Btw vega dont have new delta color compression.Vega using old polaris one.Thats why its so slow.It is now officially confirmed
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Vega_Microarchitecture_Technical_Overview/2.html

 

[3DVagabond]

That's a great way of framing it if you'd like to make AMD look like the better option.

How do you figure? Comparing the LC Vega price to the cheapest 1080ti designs instead of it's LC designs makes more sense to you.?

And unlike many here I'm not trying to make Vega look like anything. I'm only pointing out what seem to me to be discrepancies and falsehoods.

 

[happy medium]

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-reveals-rx-vega-price-performance-specs.html

I think the closing statement says it all.

"
Closing Thoughts

"I’m going to end this article with a story since I think it is appropriate right now. Back at CES I had the chance to sit down over supper with a long-time ex employee of AMD and RTG. When asked about the long, drawn out release of Vega his simple answer was: There’s two ways to break bad news to someone - either all at once or prepare the person little by little so acceptance comes easier.

In this case the long, meandering trail of breadcrumbs had sown just enough doubt that gamers had put off their purchases in the hope that Vega would offer them something new and different. The saying “wait for Vega” became a meme that could have equaled “Half Life 3 Confirmed”. It turns out there wasn’t much bad news to prepare for but we won't see something new and different either.

So here we are with yet another drip in the bucket of information but this time around with a good amount of meaty details too. AMD has revealed they are competing against an NVIDIA card that is 16 months old with something that runs hotter and consumes more power. Some may laugh at that but I’ll take a slightly different approach. While Vega 64 has obviously been pushed beyond its limits in an effort to simply compete against the GTX 1080, it does so at a very reasonable price. The same can be said about Vega 56.

There is certainly something you can infer about this situation though; somewhere NVIDIA’s designs skipped a full generation (or more) ahead of AMD. Like the Fiji architecture was obviously meant to compete against Maxwell GPUs only to be released a year later, Vega’s target was Pascal. The only problem is that Pascal has been gracing the GeForce lineup for a long while whereas Radeon users are only getting their first taste of that performance level now. Regardless of how you look at things, AMD is playing catch up and their launch cadence is dropping further behind.

While efficiency is very much a concern here, Vega may be a great solution for those who want an upgrade with an eye towards a certain price to performance ratio. NVIDIA could also throw a huge wrench into the works by dropping the GTX 1080’s price a bit. Regardless of what happens, one thing is certain: the next few weeks are going to be interesting ones."

 

[Bouowmx]

somewhere NVIDIA’s designs skipped a full generation (or more) ahead of AMD

I kind of disagree with the author: NVIDIA didn't skip a generation, rather AMD didn't make a generational jump (for gaming that is).

 

[IntelUser2000]

Pascal refresh? No such thing.
I heard Volta gtx 2080/2070 in December and the rest of the gtx lineup in first quarter 2018. Should be 50%+ faster per tier.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ries-wont-be-volta-but-pascal-refresh.234644/

If you follow the link and translate it says(partially quoted):

However, the following GeForce series will not be based on this. According to recent reports, it concerns a further development of Pascal.

...The current chips are baked according to the 16 nm FinFET procedure of TSMC, which would be reduced to 12 nm. However, this is more an optimization of the current process rather than something new, which in this case we should not expect any miracles.

So a refresh might mean just that, high clocked/optimized version of the existing one. Or according to Hardware.info we may see one on a "12nm" process which is really an optimized version of a 16nm one rather than the next node. The naming would justify Volta, but it certainly doesn't sound like anything significant - probably because getting big gains on new chips died few years ago.

 

[richierich1212]

"ROG Strix RX Vega64 will be available worldwide from early September. ASUS RX Vega64 Water Cooled Edition and ASUS RX Vega64 Air Cooled Edition will be available worldwide from August 14th with pricing to be announced shortly."

 

[tential]

I like how the packs are being framed as a way to ensure that "gamers" get the cards rather than just as a way to ensure that AMD gets a sale of not only a Vega GPU but Ryzen CPU as well.

Also, if the cards are good for mining, what stops people from simply selling their Ryzen CPU and monitor away since they just got a "Great deal" on it?

Truth is, this isn't getting a critical look. People are just happy to accept AMD's words are truth at this point which isn't good for us as a community.

These packs are what they are. A way for AMD to move the 1700x/1800x CPUs.
The bundle will happen at a time when the 1700x isn't heavily discounted to ensure you don't get a deal similar to the ones the 1700 has been running at this whole time. Currently, if the deal was run, it would give you a similar price to what the 1700 has been at deal wise. Not that amazing....

 

[piesquared]

AMD keeps falling further behind Nvidia all the time. GCN 1.1 beat Kepler; GCN 1.2 fell somewhat short of the top Maxwell; now it looks like GCN 1.4 is going to fall way, way short of the best Pascal cards.

The Volta GTX 1160 (or 2060 or whatever it gets called) will be as powerful as the GTX 1080, with a TDP of 120W, and a price of probably $299-$349. When Volta drops, AMD's entire GPU lineup is pretty much obsolete as far as gaming is concerned. They would have to set prices so low that it would be below manufacturing cost.

For me NV is irrelevant. I prefer the AMD ecosystem, and Vega looks great. May even go full out on the bundle, thats a killer deal.

 

[HurleyBird]

Only competing with the 1080 is obviously a major fail given the wattage, lateness, transistor budget, and expensive memory.

The only question is how much of that is down to software versus hardware. The fact that major architectural features had to be disabled for the FE launch hints that the RX launch drivers aren't likely to be very mature.

While I hope that most of the disappointing performance is down to the drivers, and I expect Vega to creep closer to the 1080 Ti level over time as things mature, it will hardly matter from a business perspective. You can only make one first impression, and even in the highly unlikely event that newer drivers push Vega past the 1080 Ti it will already be far too late.

 

[Elixer]

I find it strange that people complain about deceptive practices all the time from Nvidia, but now when it comes to AMD promising a chip that could compete with Volta, we aren't hearing any cries for an explanation to this....

Yes indeed, the whole "Poor Volta" *never* should have happened for gaming.
Heck, I would say a large part of the AMD marketing campaign was a metric ton of crap for gaming.
Yeah, there are those here who wish to gloss over this to sweep it under the rug, but overall, the majority of the people will see it for what it was.

AMD was either blindsided by the 1080Ti performance, or they misjudged what Vega could bring to the high end gaming table.

However, the non-gaming results for Vega seems to shine.
I mean, really, really shine. Those demos they were doing were just killing it.
This could even be at or above Volta's performance. (In this light, "Poor Volta" might make sense.)

So, AMD made one heck of a non-gaming, pro workload card, and a middling gaming card judging by all the info coming out.

Does it suck for the high-end gamer? Sure. There is no competition there at all. 1080ti will still be king until Volta does arrive.

Does it suck for the non-gamer, pro workload person? Nope, they are salivating.

Does it suck for the average gamer? Well, we will have to wait for actual reviews, but, the bang for the buck doesn't appear to be there, unless you do those bundles.

 

[Paratus]

Did anyone actually look at the numbers on this chart? The GTX 1080 does better, it's just placed behind the Vega numbers just for the charts sake.
Edit:
Fury X numbers are worse than the 980Ti numbers int his chart too. I mean we expect that, but still it's hard for a marketing person at AMD.....

I find it strange that people complain about deceptive practices all the time from Nvidia, but now when it comes to AMD promising a chip that could compete with Volta, we aren't hearing any cries for an explanation to this....

Well if copying is the highest form of flattery I think it's time to admit Nvidia won, (at least for high end gaming). AMD is now directly copying their pricing structure, (with an assist from the miners).

Back in 2008 ATI/AMD had our backs on price. NV had pushed the price up to $650 with the GTX 280. The 4870 was priced at $300. It took NV 5 years before they hit $650 again with the 780. AMD didn't hit it until FuryX.

• 2008 280 - $650 / 4870 - $300
• 2009/10 480 - $500 / 5870 - $379
• 2012. 680 - $500 / 7970ghz $500
• 2013. 780 - $650 / 290x - $550
• 2015. 980Ti-$650 / FuryX $650
• 2016. 1080-$699
• 2017. 1080Ti-$699 / Vega $699

They've copied the Titan / FE high priced card idea and they are matching NV price for price.

Unfortunately for us we won't be seeing a top of the line card for $379 again.

(Although just think where prices would be if they hadn't reset in 2008 - shudder)

 

[tential]

That whole GTX 1080 frametime thing comes from this slide....

Seems really deceptive to an objective person.

 

[tential]

How do you figure? Comparing the LC Vega price to the cheapest 1080ti designs instead of it's LC designs makes more sense to you.?

And unlike many here I'm not trying to make Vega look like anything. I'm only pointing out what seem to me to be discrepancies and falsehoods.

"As for AMD’s fancier Vega 64 Limited Edition and Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition card, these will not be available on a stand-alone basis at all. If you want these cards, they will only be available as part of a bundle."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11680...-vega-64-399-rx-vega-56-launching-in-august/2

Neglected to mention all of that when talking about the LC card from AMD.

 

[3DVagabond]

"As for AMD’s fancier Vega 64 Limited Edition and Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition card, these will not be available on a stand-alone basis at all. If you want these cards, they will only be available as part of a bundle."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11680...-vega-64-399-rx-vega-56-launching-in-august/2

Neglected to mention all of that when talking about the LC card from AMD.

Ok. That's another topic all together. I guess we'll forget about what I said.

 

[Crumpet]

Wow so torn.

Whens the expected realistic release date for Navi?

Still tempted by a Vega, but... only really because I already have the freesync monitor

 

[railven]

Already seeing some posts on Reddit and other forums about how tweaks to buying a Ryzen R5 or the R7 1700, with a cheaper motherboard already offsets most of the bundle's savings. Could do better picking a different FreeSync monitor and not even have to buy one of the packs. But you're screwed if you want the LCE (Liquid Cooled Edition).

Some people are even tossing in GTX 1070's/GTX 1080's and G-Sync monitors into the mix.

+14 more days for more info. This roller coaster got one more loop to go!

 

[beginner99]

So according to Anandtech's article, all three Vegas are Vega 10. So what happened to Vega 11?

Yeah that is puzzing especially since in contrat to polaris 11 vega 11 is the bigger chip. Probably cancelled due to power use?

So, AMD made one heck of a non-gaming, pro workload card, and a middling gaming card judging by all the info coming out.

Makes sense from AMDs view, sucks for us gamers. Pro = higher margin, lower volume. AMD doesn't need high volume due to Ryzen.

Funniest thing about the bundled display is, that a vega isn't really enough to power it. You need a 1080ti for that.

 

[Crumpet]

Just been offered £320 for my 34" Freesync ultrawide.

After this disappointment, i'm not far off taking it and grabbing a 1080ti and a regular high refresh rate monitor.