News AMD Announces Radeon VII

[Hitman928]

More info to come. . .

 

[Feld]

Important to keep in mind for the other upcoming 7nm GPUs & CPUs. Is this a characteristic of the new node? A steeper Power/Temp curve?

Nope, it's always been the case on every node. The hotter a chip is, the more power is required to properly push electrons through it. It's a characteristic of physical reality.

 

[coercitiv]

It's the fans and the LCD lighting.

It's not the fans. One 120 mm Noctua fan @ 3000 RPM is rated for a maximum input power of 3.6W. The fans on Radeon VII are smaller than that and together consume well under 10W when running at 3000 RPM.

Important to keep in mind for the other upcoming 7nm GPUs & CPUs. Is this a characteristic of the new node? A steeper Power/Temp curve?

I doubt it's that steep, there's probably more to that 80W difference than just static leakage delta.

 

[guskline]

I stand corrected that the nearly 80W delta between a stock Rad VII and a Watercooled Rad VII is due solely to the lack of 3 fans and a LED.

I suspect the lesser amount of heat due to watercooling amounts for the bulk of the delta.

 

[Topweasel]

It was how you could tell the original Vega and now this are clocked within an inch of its life. The dramatic drops in power usage at lower clocks and corresponding lowered voltage really show how much past their efficiency curve these guys are clocked.

 

[Mopetar]

It was how you could tell the original Vega and now this are clocked within an inch of its life. The dramatic drops in power usage at lower clocks and corresponding lowered voltage really show how much past their efficiency curve these guys are clocked.

It's not quite that simple. Most Vega buyers were able to undervolt their cards and get even better clock speeds at the same time. The issue is that AMD picks voltage values to maximize the number of chips that can hit a particular clock speed, which gives them the most silicon to sell. The unfortunate side effect is that most of their cards are being fed more power than they realistically needs which makes them inefficient even beyond architectural considerations.

 

[Topweasel]

It's not quite that simple. Most Vega buyers were able to undervolt their cards and get even better clock speeds at the same time. The issue is that AMD picks voltage values to maximize the number of chips that can hit a particular clock speed, which gives them the most silicon to sell. The unfortunate side effect is that most of their cards are being fed more power than they realistically needs which makes them inefficient even beyond architectural considerations.

That was kind of my point. Yeah I get that AMD is overvolting on top of just being miles over the prime spot on the efficiency curve. Just saying (and not really well now that I re-read it) that people testing the Vega 10 cards saw dramatic drops in power usage when they lowered the power and clocks just a little bit, or just by adding better cooling. GN I think got almost a 570's worth of power savings by playing around with different cooling options.

 

[maddie]

Well let's hope that the CPU & APU teams share their power control tech with the graphics teams. Night & day difference between divisions.

 

[guskline]

I will be interested in the results of other watercooled Radeon VIIs to see if this drop in power is consistent.

 

[railven]

According to AMD's benchmarks it's around 10% slower than the 2080 and around 1080ti perf. You're making it look like they can either price it at $700 or $400. They don't. They could've priced it at $600 and it would've been much better. At $700, for gaming, it competes against a faster and more efficient 2080 with the usual Nvidia PR feature (stereoscopic 3D, physx, gameworks, rtx or whatever). Unless benchmarks show otherwise, the only thing going for it is "future proof" 16GB ram - which might (or might not) pan out.

AMD is going to price it where they feel it would make the most impact. I have NO issue with this. Are people missing my comments about "why would AMD sell a GPU that competes in $1,000+ markets for $700" part? If AMD charges $400 for a card that goes toe-to-toe with a $800 card, that's the same issue. They are leaving money on the table. Money they can use, and I'm sure would want! Hell, this product might even have supply issues, they can even charge more! But, that's me thinking more of "how can AMD make as much as possible" versus "how can AMD cater to me more."

Of course this is pending reviews. If the card is faster than a 2080 from day 1 - then at least it'll be give people other options and maybe some mindshare, but I don't see that happening. Also, that's obviously for gaming. If you need something for compute, then that's something else eniterly.

I completely agree! If you swung by r/AMD, before people learned of the FP cap, it was a "Titan killer" now its been revealed it won't have FP and its more like "well, at least now it's an alternative." I don't get this. You want AMD to be healthy but you expect them to do so by underselling their products by huge amounts. This is solely on the initial expected FP performance. Gaming performance was ignored. Because it didn't move price / perf much, but "DAT COMPUTE MOSTER!" And now it's just "meh."