Vega/Navi Rumors (Updated)

[TimAhKin]

I've been waiting for this for so long. I need VEGA and HBM2 in my life!

 

[Bouowmx]

Ryan Smith's tweet is about AnandTech's 20th anniversary

 

[IEC]

So, I'm going to put out a bold prediction Vega reviews tomorrow!

There was that tweet from Ryan Smith posted earlier.

nVidia released a new driver today so any online troll/fanboy/youtuber/viral marketer has the latest performance improvements for popular benchmarks available for them.
http://fudzilla.com/news/graphics/43481-nvidia-releases-geforce-381-89-game-ready-driver

A super moderate posting (probably) a silly question. Almost as if taunting us...

So there. Maybe there's a pattern here or maybe I'm just off my meds...

1. Nope
2. Confirmation bias. Driver updates are in the pipeline for a long time, there's no way they'd time it to coincide with a competitor's anything
3. Mark was genuinely asking the question. There has been almost complete radio silence from AMD regarding Vega outside of heavily controlled press events, leading to almost Apple-esque levels of secrecy and speculation.

 

[Mopetar]

So, I'm going to put out a bold prediction Vega reviews tomorrow!

There was that tweet from Ryan Smith posted earlier.

The tweet is clearly in reference to the site's 20th anniversary.

AMD has at least officially said that Vega will be out this quarter, but we may still be a month away. If reviewers had cards, leaks would be coming out already. I think the most interesting speculation for the Vega release date was May 25, because it somehow coincided with Vega's (the star) position relative to Earth or distance away or something along those lines.

 

[tential]

So, I'm going to put out a bold prediction Vega reviews tomorrow!

There was that tweet from Ryan Smith posted earlier.


nVidia released a new driver today so any online troll/fanboy/youtuber/viral marketer has the latest performance improvements for popular benchmarks available for them.
http://fudzilla.com/news/graphics/43481-nvidia-releases-geforce-381-89-game-ready-driver

A super moderate posting (probably) a silly question. Almost as if taunting us...



So there. Maybe there's a pattern here or maybe I'm just off my meds...

You were never taking medication. Trust me.

Definitely not tomorrow.

I'll go with Vega release date between June 6th and 18th

 

[HurleyBird]

Driver updates are in the pipeline for a long time, there's no way they'd time it to coincide with a competitor's anything

It's happened in the past. The most vivid example was the Radeon 8500 launch. While the 8500 would have been faster than Geforce 3, the driver Nvidia deployed at the last moment drastically improved performance and placed Geforce 3 back in the lead

 

[raghu78]

Vega is likely to launch in June. I am thinking AMD might hold a separate event either before or after Computex and the reviews should be out by mid-June or E3 timeframe. Availability on same day as review embargo goes up.

 

[Valantar]

I'm just confused by the link between Vega and Prey. It makes no sense promoting a yet-to-launch product alongside a single-player game that most of those interested will have finished by the time the product launches (if a June launch is indeed on the books). I guess they could be doing extensive "performance previews" or some such, but that's really quite meaningless when push comes to shove. If they're ready to do that, then retail specs are already decided. As they would have to be by now, even if Vega launches on June 30th, for retail products to arrive in time. I guess the question now is whether they'll do a paper launch soon, a hard launch late, or surprise us all with an early hard launch.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm just confused by the link between Vega and Prey. It makes no sense promoting a yet-to-launch product alongside a single-player game that most of those interested will have finished by the time the product launches (if a June launch is indeed on the books). I guess they could be doing extensive "performance previews" or some such, but that's really quite meaningless when push comes to shove. If they're ready to do that, then retail specs are already decided. As they would have to be by now, even if Vega launches on June 30th, for retail products to arrive in time. I guess the question now is whether they'll do a paper launch soon, a hard launch late, or surprise us all with an early hard launch.

I am reminded of my free half-life 2 coupon that came with my 9600XT, or whatever it was. ....good thing that coupon didn't expire, because it would be another 6 months? before HL2 would be released.

 

[Glo.]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/67lpkb/amd_msi_press_event_x399vega_reveal/

So AMD and MSI are having a joint press event in the coming days, and a whole bunch of tech journalists have been invited, similar to the Ryzen launch reveal. They are saying it is going to be related to Ryzen, but who knows. That could be to throw us off for all we know. This could possibly be a Vega launch reveal, or if it really is related to Ryzen it could be the reveal of their High End Desktop platform with the release of their 12 and 16 core Ryzen chips on the X399 platform. Or it could be something much more boring, but I don't know why they would be flying in tons of tech journalists for anything less. And remember that AMD teased Vega with the Prey preview event, which releases in 10 days.

What do you guys think?

Maybe this will answer your questions a bit, about Vega and Prey?

 

[Mopetar]

Maybe this will answer your questions a bit, about Vega and Prey?

Seems like a lot of speculation with no clear idea of what will be announced. Then again, its not like AMD marketing has seemed sane or rational as of late anyways so who knows what we'll get. At this point I'd hardly put it passed them to do a game tie-in, but not ship their card until weeks later.

Whatever it is, I hope there's more to it than their Capsaicin events which were about as spicy as a moldy turd is tasty.

 

[IEC]

It's happened in the past. The most vivid example was the Radeon 8500 launch. While the 8500 would have been faster than Geforce 3, the driver Nvidia deployed at the last moment drastically improved performance and placed Geforce 3 back in the lead

You can make anything happen with an "all hands on deck" effort. I know because in a previous life I cranked out custom development critical to a client last minute, in a week from concept to release with QA and support people all in one room.

But it's not typical in the normal course of business.

 

[HumblePie]

Well friend said that the cards are slated for Q2 release, but where they were targeting an end of May release, the release has slipped into June. Only tidbit of info I can sort of release. When in June I wasn't told.

 

[IEC]

Well friend said that the cards are slated for Q2 release, but where they were targeting an end of May release, the release has slipped into June. Only tidbit of info I can sort of release. When in June I wasn't told.

Original rumors said Computex paper launch. But they said the same thing about Polaris. I think E3 (mid-June) is probably realistic for a reveal.

 

[crisium]

RX 480 launched on the second to last business day in H1 (Q2) 2016.

Should we expect similar procrastination for Vega?

It's obvious the marketing tie in with Prey was another example of one hand of AMD not talking to the other, and as a result making a fool of oneself. The advertising literally says "Be prepared", and they are not. Could hardly have been parodied better.

 

[Mopetar]

RX 480 launched on the second to last business day in H1 (Q2) 2016.

Should we expect similar procrastination for Vega?

I think it will probably be launched closer to today than it will be to the end of the quarter, but that's just a hunch and not necessarily based on any solid evidence. If it were closer, they probably would have said "in a month" instead of before the end of the quarter.

[/quote]
It's obvious the marketing tie in with Prey was another example of one hand of AMD not talking to the other, and as a result making a fool of oneself. The advertising literally says "Be prepared", and they are not. Could hardly have been parodied better.[/QUOTE]

Has there been any additional marketing that ties Prey with Vega? I remember the initial stuff that came out (or was it leaked?) a while back that seemed to point to Vega's release date being in early May, but if there hasn't been anything since or that never got officially put out anywhere, it may have been some internal stuff that was being kicked around without any intent to use it officially. If it is a launch tie-in (or a launch window to be more generous) then AMD would have be sending out review cards today or tomorrow to give reviewers time to do sufficient testing.

 

[richaron]

RX 480 launched on the second to last business day in H1 (Q2) 2016.

Should we expect similar procrastination for Vega?

It's obvious the marketing tie in with Prey was another example of one hand of AMD not talking to the other, and as a result making a fool of oneself. The advertising literally says "Be prepared", and they are not. Could hardly have been parodied better.

Yes... I think you're way off the mark. We know the most recent AMD release was a month before the projected quarter ended, which paints a very different picture than those of an AMD hater...

It seems muppets claiming AMD deliver late are the ones with egg on their face.


After all the warnings in this thread about the level of discourse here you post this dreck?

AT Moderator ElFenix

 

[Snarf Snarf]

Has there been any additional marketing that ties Prey with Vega? I remember the initial stuff that came out (or was it leaked?) a while back that seemed to point to Vega's release date being in early May, but if there hasn't been anything since or that never got officially put out anywhere, it may have been some internal stuff that was being kicked around without any intent to use it officially. If it is a launch tie-in (or a launch window to be more generous) then AMD would have be sending out review cards today or tomorrow to give reviewers time to do sufficient testing.

Not recently, there was the initial rumor then there was an event held in Asia somewhere that had systems running Vega playing Prey set up (I can't find the images right now since I'm at work). There were banners that had AMD logos and an "Optimized for Vega" which all looked pretty legit. That has been literally all I've seen though so it could have just been a really early tech demo and we're hyping the correlation a bit too much.

 

[crisium]

Yes... I think you're way off the mark. We know the most recent AMD release was a month before the projected quarter ended, which paints a very different picture than those of an AMD hater...

It seems muppets claiming AMD deliver late are the ones with egg on their face.

Who is off the mark? You mean the AMD marketers? Prey comes out in 8 days.

To be fair, I think marketing got the memo after this made the usual rounds on the tech sites because we never saw this again. The hands actually talked to each other, so to speak. But it was a mistake. Just 2 weeks later, at GDC in San Francisco, they touted Bethesda and AMD working together to optimize for Prey, but rightly dropped the "be prepared" Vega poster:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-talks-some-vega-and-a-lot-of-vr-at-gdc-2017.html


And, what did you call me? I don't mean the muppet thing, the other bolded remark? Good one.

 

[swilli89]

Who is off the mark? You mean the AMD marketers? Prey comes out in 8 days.

To be fair, I think marketing got the memo after this made the usual rounds on the tech sites because we never saw this again. The hands actually talked to each other, so to speak. But it was a mistake. Just 2 weeks later, at GDC in San Francisco, they touted Bethesda and AMD working together to optimize for Prey, but rightly dropped the "be prepared" Vega poster:
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-talks-some-vega-and-a-lot-of-vr-at-gdc-2017.html


And, what did you call me? I don't mean the muppet thing, the other bolded remark? Good one.

To be fair them saying Vega is coming.. Be prepared is different than them saying Prey is coming.. be prepared.

 

[crisium]

So you think it the message was "Vega is coming.. be prepared... for something, and btw unrelated but Prey is a great game coming soon"?

Sometimes the simplest solution...

WCCFTech wasn't the only site to bite the hook. We had posters here drawing the conclusion of early May release, even as recently as a few days ago. Miscommunication of their intent is a marketing failure never-the-less.

I'm disappointed by their missteps. Like a father and his son. Or does the father hate his son for wanting the best? ^_^

 

[Malogeek]

It was likely specific verbiage on purpose in case Vega slipped to cover their behinds, but there is still a marketing contract with Bethesda to fulfill.

Here's Prey! And Vega is coming! That's all.

 

[swilli89]

So you think it the message was "Vega is coming.. be prepared... for something, and btw unrelated but Prey is a great game coming soon"?

Sometimes the simplest solution...

WCCFTech wasn't the only site to bite the hook. We had posters here drawing the conclusion of early May release, even as recently as a few days ago. Miscommunication of their intent is a marketing failure never-the-less.

I'm disappointed by their missteps. Like a father and his son. Or does the father hate his son for wanting the best? ^_^

No.. who says you have to buy a video card before a game? Why not the game before the video card? You have to have both to play right?

 

[Valantar]

To be fair them saying Vega is coming.. Be prepared is different than them saying Prey is coming.. be prepared.

While that is true, it makes absolutely no sense. "Vega is coming, so prepare yourself by finishing Prey ahead of time!" I guess the message must be that Vega is so awe-inspiring that you would either want to be staring into your case or at just a blank desktop, as playing a game might ruin the feeling of awe? Yeah, I'm not quite buying that.

 

[zinfamous]

So you think it the message was "Vega is coming.. be prepared... for something, and btw unrelated but Prey is a great game coming soon"?

Sometimes the simplest solution...

WCCFTech wasn't the only site to bite the hook. We had posters here drawing the conclusion of early May release, even as recently as a few days ago. Miscommunication of their intent is a marketing failure never-the-less.

I'm disappointed by their missteps. Like a father and his son. Or does the father hate his son for wanting the best? ^_^

I wouldn't be surprised if AMD actually has a public sit down/stand-up event on Prey release day and, at the very least, goes over Vega tech slides, actual numbers, and performance--at least as it relates to Prey. It seems like a standard dual-marketing opportunity to use a real piece of software that is specifically designed for optimal performance on the new and mysterious hardware within Vega.

It seems to me like a press opportunity, so likely a paper launch, with highly optimized benchmarks to show what Vega can do and how it works when developers take advantage.

So, basically, I wouldn't be surprised if we get a big paper launch next week, or whenever Prey is out, followed by a real release date. Even for an end of May/early June release (which seems most likely), paper launching next week seems proper.