Vega/Navi Rumors (Updated)

[Elixer]

The problem is that all video cards have better per/watt if they're not pushed to the limits as well. A 1080 Ti can can be powered down to 200W or even 150W with only modest drops in performance.

If AMD knows that they can't beat the 1080Ti, and it takes pushing the voltages way up to catch up to the 1080, then, they shouldn't compete against these SKUs.

The biggest things going against the Vega RX will be heat & power & middling performance against a stock 1080. The 1080 can still be O/C'ed, the Vega RX realistically, won't O/C that much, if at all, especially on the blower designed cards.

Now, if they don't go after the 1080, then they can drop their voltages, and it won't be hot & power hungry, so that removes 2 of the biggest criticisms they would have had.
Yes, it will go up against the 1070, but, so what? They already lost the performance crown to the 1080ti. They have no answer for it this year.
They then could sell the Vega RX at $450, and it would be a good seller for them (yeah, they would make a few pennies off the card, but that is about it.)
They then can have the O/C versions put out by the OEMs that will have much better cooler designs, and they could get away with charging $500 or so.

Then there will be no need for these lame marketing shenanigans of having 'blind' tests, "big" surprises and the countless other ways they are trying to hype something that just isn't going to materialize this year.

 

[Elixer]

I thought so too but if you are planning to buy a g-sync monitor + geforce 1080, it's actually cheaper to go rx vega (water cooler) + free sync monitor. You get same performance but save 100-200$.

The problem with freesync monitors is, lots of the cheaper units do NOT support LFC and the frequency range is capped to a very short range. The monitors that have a wider range and support LFC are much more expensive. That means, if you go for a cheaper freesync monitor, all of the sudden (when framerate drops too low) you will see tearing & chugging, so, no, it won't be the same performance experience.
G-sync is still more expensive, but, with either of these choices, it will NOT provide a premium gaming experience.

If you want a premium gaming experience, as defined by AMD (https://youtu.be/y4FQbVwirKM?t=91), them we are looking at Freesync-2 vs G-sync HDR.
Looking at the price delta between those monitors, it is much, much lower than freesync vs G-sync.

 

[senseamp]

I would not be surprised if they price it at $700. It's not just about the competition, it's also about opportunity cost. And for AMD, every Vega wafer has an opportunity cost of a Ryzen wafer.

 

[Malogeek]

The problem with freesync monitors is, lots of the cheaper units do NOT support LFC and the frequency range is capped to a very short range. The monitors that have a wider range and support LFC are much more expensive. That means, if you go for a cheaper freesync monitor, all of the sudden (when framerate drops too low) you will see tearing & chugging, so, no, it won't be the same performance experience.
G-sync is still more expensive, but, with either of these choices, it will NOT provide a premium gaming experience.

Since AMD were focusing on the ASUS 100hz, a quick search on ASUS 34" ultrawide IPS indicates the Freesync version has LFC and is no less than $500 less than the apparently equivalent GSync version.

 

[Elixer]

Soon!!!

 

[Malogeek]

Probably just hyping up Enhanced Sync?

 

[caswow]

uhh the driver is already out.

 

[Mopetar]

I thought so too but if you are planning to buy a g-sync monitor + geforce 1080, it's actually cheaper to go rx vega (water cooler) + free sync monitor. You get same performance but save 100-200$.

Yes, but unless AMD gets its act together and makes a compelling high-end card in the future, I only need to buy the G-sync monitor once. If I replace my GPU two or three times over the time period I keep/use that monitor, but can get the same GPU performance for $100-$200 less, I come out ahead in the long run.

I expect that AMD will eventually become competitive again or perhaps even retake the performance crown now that they're in a better financial system, but AMD's logic requires either short-term thinking if done purely from a financial point of view or a leap of faith that they're going to be more competitive in the future.

 

[IntelUser2000]

They are probably pricing it at $699 because they have to. HBM2 and interposers are difficult and pricey.

And don't say just stop selling them altogether. They've already spent the money on research and all those dies. It's not like no one will buy them. Some will just because of fancy marketing.

Btw miners will buy out vega anyway.They buy out everything that is not at 2-3x MSRP.

Not anymore. Not the smart ones anyway. Not only prices are seriously depressed and the difficulty high(on all coins), if you want cheaper cards you can just be a little bit patient.

Vega isn't doing good on mining anyway. 37MH/s for $699? Even $399? Plus at 300W+?? No thanks!

At least Tesla P100 can do something on the performance even though the price is reaching the stratosphere. 70MH/s. Volta generation, Nvidia might beat AMD on everything, gaming and mining.

(The reason P100 does FAR better than Vega despite using HBM2 is likely because P100 has much better memory controllers. Traditionally AMD's memory controllers fell behind Nvidia and Intel's. The difficulty reaching high clocks isn't new for AMD either)

 

[Eymar]

Yes, but unless AMD gets its act together and makes a compelling high-end card in the future, I only need to buy the G-sync monitor once. If I replace my GPU two or three times over the time period I keep/use that monitor, but can get the same GPU performance for $100-$200 less, I come out ahead in the long run.

I expect that AMD will eventually become competitive again or perhaps even retake the performance crown now that they're in a better financial system, but AMD's logic requires either short-term thinking if done purely from a financial point of view or a leap of faith that they're going to be more competitive in the future.

The counter to this is you really don't need to upgrade GPU once you buy a GPU that matches your VRR monitor. Then the only reason to upgrade your GPU is that you upgraded your monitor. I tend to think this is why Nvidia sells G-Sync as a premium solution since premium buyers will upgrade no matter what. For the cost conscious who buys VRR monitor and notices smoother framerates without needing high framerates then the upgrade cycle is longer for that buyer. Which obviously is not a good thing business wise for Nvidia. AMD has to go this route of marketing Freesync to everyone since they are fighting for market share first, rather than repeat buyers.

 

[Malogeek]

The counter to this is you really don't need to upgrade GPU once you buy a GPU that matches your VRR monitor. Then the only reason to upgrade your GPU is that you upgraded your monitor. I tend to think this is why Nvidia sells G-Sync as a premium solution since premium buyers will upgrade no matter what. For the cost conscious who buys VRR monitor and notices smoother framerates without needing high framerates then the upgrade cycle is longer for that buyer. Which obviously is not a good thing business wise for Nvidia. AMD has to go this route of marketing Freesync to everyone since they are fighting for market share first, rather than repeat buyers.

You still need to upgrade as you need to maintain decent minimum/average frames, especially with freesync which generally has less range.

 

[railven]

The counter to this is you really don't need to upgrade GPU once you buy a GPU that matches your VRR monitor. Then the only reason to upgrade your GPU is that you upgraded your monitor. I tend to think this is why Nvidia sells G-Sync as a premium solution since premium buyers will upgrade no matter what. For the cost conscious who buys VRR monitor and notices smoother framerates without needing high framerates then the upgrade cycle is longer for that buyer. Which obviously is not a good thing business wise for Nvidia. AMD has to go this route of marketing Freesync to everyone since they are fighting for market share first, rather than repeat buyers.

This is sort of where I see myself going with my wife. She doesn't tweak/crank up settings like I do and doesn't seem to mind tearing/sluggish performance as much as I do.

I'm going to be buying her a G-Sync monitor (she currently has a FreeSync) and since she will most likely get my handy me down GPUs (I upgrade my GPU at least once a year), she will probably be more than set in regards to a monitor and GPU.

I'm sold on adaptive sync the few times she's played ArcheAge on my PC she's noticed it smoother. AA being severely CPU bottlenecked, ~40FPS on my screen feels smoother for her than 60 FPS on her screen.

 

[Eymar]

I'm sold on adaptive sync the few times she's played ArcheAge on my PC she's noticed it smoother. AA being severely CPU bottlenecked, ~40FPS on my screen feels smoother for her than 60 FPS on her screen.

This is what happened to me. I use to upgrade every year because I want that arcade 60FPS smoothness in the games I played. Newer games that pushed graphics like Witcher 3, BF, etc. kind of required a GPU upgrade to maintain high FPS smoothness for 1440p. Once I got Titan-X maxwell with Asus PG278Q (so early 2015), I haven't seen a game warrant a need for a GPU upgrade because of VRR. The only reason I'm upgrading to Vega is I now have a 3440x1440p 75hz FS monitor ($300-400 less than G-Sync version which doesn't seem worth it for 100hz\Gsync). If money was no object then definitely would of gotten 1080ti and Acer X34 or Asus version. As long as Vega maintains reasonable minimums don't see upgrading GPU unless I go 4k.

 

[DooKey]

They are probably pricing it at $699 because they have to. HBM2 and interposers are difficult and pricey.

And don't say just stop selling them altogether. They've already spent the money on research and all those dies. It's not like no one will buy them. Some will just because of fancy marketing.



Not anymore. Not the smart ones anyway. Not only prices are seriously depressed and the difficulty high(on all coins), if you want cheaper cards you can just be a little bit patient.

Vega isn't doing good on mining anyway. 37MH/s for $699? Even $399? Plus at 300W+?? No thanks!

At least Tesla P100 can do something on the performance even though the price is reaching the stratosphere. 70MH/s. Volta generation, Nvidia might beat AMD on everything, gaming and mining.

(The reason P100 does FAR better than Vega despite using HBM2 is likely because P100 has much better memory controllers. Traditionally AMD's memory controllers fell behind Nvidia and Intel's. The difficulty reaching high clocks isn't new for AMD either)

$699 will kill them as a gpu company. I expect them to sell them at break even or a little below. I'm not sure they will recover from this debacle.

 

[Stuka87]

$699 will kill them as a gpu company. I expect them to sell them at break even or a little below. I'm not sure they will recover from this debacle.

Really? It will kill them? Please, inform us of this knowledge that you have that nobody else here has.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Really? I will kill them? Please, inform us of this knowledge that you have that nobody else here has.

I've read that its quite rampant nowadays that research papers commonly use words and phrases that can be called excessive to describe what's happening. Phrases like "breakthroughs", "once in a decade", "revolutionary". When everything is a revolution, then its called normal.

People, and society as a general has done far stupider things than price Vega @ $699. Such decisions are usually made because the things have gone out of control.

 

[SickBeast]

They are probably pricing it at $699 because they have to. HBM2 and interposers are difficult and pricey.

And don't say just stop selling them altogether. They've already spent the money on research and all those dies. It's not like no one will buy them. Some will just because of fancy marketing.



Not anymore. Not the smart ones anyway. Not only prices are seriously depressed and the difficulty high(on all coins), if you want cheaper cards you can just be a little bit patient.

Vega isn't doing good on mining anyway. 37MH/s for $699? Even $399? Plus at 300W+?? No thanks!

At least Tesla P100 can do something on the performance even though the price is reaching the stratosphere. 70MH/s. Volta generation, Nvidia might beat AMD on everything, gaming and mining.

(The reason P100 does FAR better than Vega despite using HBM2 is likely because P100 has much better memory controllers. Traditionally AMD's memory controllers fell behind Nvidia and Intel's. The difficulty reaching high clocks isn't new for AMD either)

First of all, there are some extremely profitable coins right now. You shouldn't downplay the mining. It is making these cards effectively free in a lot of cases. You are correct for a different reason though. Vega sucks for mining. It is about as fast as a GTX 1070 with over triple the power consumption. Vega consumes 440w even with just a mild overclock (!). And before the fanboys talk about unicorn drivers let me just say that we are talking about the compute version of Vega here. There aren't going to be any miracles. Tile based rendering will not help the mining speed.

Vega is turning out to be a total disaster for AMD. They are trying to deflect the damage by talking about Freesync. Maybe we should talk about some features that nVidia has and AMD doesn't. Like Cuda. Or PhysX. Plus there is also the fact that the next version of HDMI will support a universal type of Freesync that will eventually be built into all 4k televisions.

 

[JDG1980]

They are probably pricing it at $699 because they have to. HBM2 and interposers are difficult and pricey.

And don't say just stop selling them altogether. They've already spent the money on research and all those dies. It's not like no one will buy them. Some will just because of fancy marketing.

You really think anyone will buy RX Vega at $699 if it's no faster at gaming than GTX 1080 and uses twice the power? Seriously? Who is going to do that?

Also, do you expect AMD to sell the cards directly from their website? AIBs aren't going to want to develop cards for this turkey, and retailers aren't going to want to stock it. No one wants to be left holding the bag.

The sunk cost argument only goes so far. No one is arguing that AMD should cancel the WX 9100 and Instinct MI25 cards - those can find a niche at the right price, and there's a lot more room to work with pricing on those while still making a profit. But every wafer used on Vega is one that can't be used for Ryzen (or even Polaris, which is at least reasonably competitive and is currently in high demand). If Vega is really going to be no better for gaming than a GTX 1080, and if AMD can't profitably sell it at a price cheaper than GTX 1080, then the sensible solution would be to cancel RX Vega and cut back Vega wafer production to only as many as are needed for the professional cards and the Apple contract.

 

[SickBeast]

You really think anyone will buy RX Vega at $699 if it's no faster at gaming than GTX 1080 and uses twice the power? Seriously? Who is going to do that?

Also, do you expect AMD to sell the cards directly from their website? AIBs aren't going to want to develop cards for this turkey, and retailers aren't going to want to stock it. No one wants to be left holding the bag.

The sunk cost argument only goes so far. No one is arguing that AMD should cancel the WX 9100 and Instinct MI25 cards - those can find a niche at the right price, and there's a lot more room to work with pricing on those while still making a profit. But every wafer used on Vega is one that can't be used for Ryzen (or even Polaris, which is at least reasonably competitive and is currently in high demand). If Vega is really going to be no better for gaming than a GTX 1080, and if AMD can't profitably sell it at a price cheaper than GTX 1080, then the sensible solution would be to cancel RX Vega and cut back Vega wafer production to only as many as are needed for the professional cards and the Apple contract.

That may well be what AMD will do, in a roundabout way. I have been hearing from credible sources for a long time now that Vega will be delayed. They called it a long time ago, before Vega was supposed to come out a month ago. My suspicion is that we are about to see a paper launch. AMD may try to get the costs down before they create widespread availability of the Vega cards in the market.

Vega is really a product of AMD's limited R&D budget. They designed Vega for the Xbox Scorpio, and went with HBM2 as a result. Now they are stuck with a product that is too expensive to manufacture, with no tangible benefit from the faster memory technology.

I think we are going to see more affordable Vega cards in some time, at least three months from now IMO. As of now it's going to be paper launched, then released in an extremely limited capacity.

 

[Elixer]

300 TFLOPS of Vega brilliance!

https://mobile.twitter.com/GFXChipTweeter/status/890413853279780864/photo/1

 

[EXCellR8]

$700? that's about two or three hundred dollars beyond my caring threshold... also you can get a 1080ti for that which is superior by a large margin

still not gonna crucify Vega until I see some real post-launch benches. AMD, if I sign up for this Vanguard thing can you just ship me a RX Vega to 'test' out? i swear I'll send it back once I'm done hammering on it

 

[railven]

https://mobile.twitter.com/GFXChipTweeter/status/890413853279780864/photo/1

I recall the days of the GTX 480 Foreman Grill memes. If they use Vega FE cards, it's be a Sun! huehuehue.



On the rumor of $699 price tag. Doesn't this sort of defeat the whole "save money with a Freesync monitor" thing? Not assuming everyone is going to buy the most expensive G-Sync monitor, I've heard multiple times the G-Sync tax is roughly $300. For a $100 difference (assuming RX Vega is $700, + $300 cheaper Freesync monitor), I'd personally go for the GTX 1080 + Gsync setup (assuming ~$500 price tag and $300 more expensive Gsync monitor).

At least then I'd know I'd have an upgrade path in the following year if I needed it.

Welps, kudos to to AMD for every unit they can sell at $700. I'm going to assume they sold all their FE stock and realize there is a thirst for a new Radeon. Once initial interest dies down, AMD will do as AMD does and price cut it. Get as much as you can while you can!

 

[Paratus]

I recall the days of the GTX 480 Foreman Grill memes. If they use Vega FE cards, it's be a Sun! huehuehue.



On the rumor of $699 price tag. Doesn't this sort of defeat the whole "save money with a Freesync monitor" thing? Not assuming everyone is going to buy the most expensive G-Sync monitor, I've heard multiple times the G-Sync tax is roughly $300. For a $100 difference (assuming RX Vega is $700, + $300 cheaper Freesync monitor), I'd personally go for the GTX 1080 + Gsync setup (assuming ~$500 price tag and $300 more expensive Gsync monitor).

At least then I'd know I'd have an upgrade path in the following year if I needed it.

Welps, kudos to to AMD for every unit they can sell at $700. I'm going to assume they sold all their FE stock and realize there is a thirst for a new Radeon. Once initial interest dies down, AMD will do as AMD does and price cut it. Get as much as you can while you can!

I'm not buying until Christmas so I expect the pricing landscape will have shifted, (hopefully down), by then.

Drivers should be more mature as well. Somehow I don't think I'll be keeping my next GPU nearly as long as my current one, regardless of what I buy.

 

[railven]

I'm not buying until Christmas so I expect the pricing landscape will have shifted, (hopefully down), by then.

Drivers should be more mature as well. Somehow I don't think I'll be keeping my next GPU nearly as long as my current one, regardless of what I buy.

This seems to be the best approach for AMD GPUs for a while. Give it a few months, the price will drop and the performance will increase, and sometimes even a free game (or many).

 

[french toast]

That may well be what AMD will do, in a roundabout way. I have been hearing from credible sources for a long time now that Vega will be delayed. They called it a long time ago, before Vega was supposed to come out a month ago. My suspicion is that we are about to see a paper launch. AMD may try to get the costs down before they create widespread availability of the Vega cards in the market.

Vega is really a product of AMD's limited R&D budget. They designed Vega for the Xbox Scorpio, and went with HBM2 as a result. Now they are stuck with a product that is too expensive to manufacture, with no tangible benefit from the faster memory technology.

I think we are going to see more affordable Vega cards in some time, at least three months from now IMO. As of now it's going to be paper launched, then released in an extremely limited capacity.

Scorpio is custom Polaris with gddr5 and no hbcc or hbm.
It is a product of AMDs near bankrupt/low r&d era, where tough decisions and streamlining had to be taken, in this case to follow gpgpu compute market instead of gaming.

It surely didn't help that hbm has been a bit of a flop and maybe game engines have not accelerated as much as they envisioned 2 years ago.
Could also be some kind of bug in the hbcc or memory controller limiting bandwidth and/or increasing power?.