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

[railven]

They also said Vega was faster than Pascal...

https://twitter.com/BitsAndChipsEng/status/863329100492132352

Oh, right, we just have to "wait and see"... Par for the course.

Playing Devils Advocate, they could have meant something like GP106, it's still technically Pascal.

I'm asking you to make an informed guess. I'm not asking for proof or a fact, just your guess as to why Vega is slower now than 6 months ago.

That's just it - I can't think of anything. The logical steps in my head don't line up outside of AMD is just this incompetent, which I'd rather not believe (but they make a damn good argument):

Vega FE is originally promoted for professionals. But day of release they throw in "just want to game, enjoy!" bullet point.
Drivers are either not finished or product itself isn't finished. If either of these is true, why promote that aspect of the product when no one was expecting it? It's easier to deflect gaming performance when the product itself doesn't advertise itself as a gaming product, but AMD made sure people knew it was a gaming product.
If AMD did remove optimizations why are some people associated with AMD doing damage control in the opposite argument, ie "drivers aren't crippled" and the newer "it isn't reverting to Fiji." You'd figure they'd be the first to say something in the vain of "gaming drivers aren't complete, you'll be surprised come July."

It just seems with ever plausible excuse people come up to defend the gaming performance AMD actively shoves its foot in its mouth by saying "that's not true."

 

[maddie]

Nothing hardware specific. I would rather worry about Nvidia doing something that would lock the competitors from optimization, by forcing the industry to optimize for those, specific features .

No there is nothing specific in Vega that requires CUSTOM optimization. Every technique Vega uses is pretty much well known.

Well, not entirely. I think the only thing that "would" require optimization is High Bandwidth cache Controller, however it is supposed to work automatically, without interaction from developers.

This is what Raja is basically saying:

Our Vega architecture, has well known techniques, and you do not have to do anything out of standard code to make it work, and optimize for this architecture.

You guys do not know how game development works, and how GPUs, do you?

You still have to redesign the pipeline, for this GCN version, but it is not different than just optimizing it like for Nvidia GK/GM/GP architectures. With, obviously, knowing the boarders, and boundaries of the architecture.

AFAIK, the primitive shader is new and not implemented previously. Using it will require new code.

 

[96Firebird]

Playing Devils Advocate, they could have meant something like GP106, it's still technically Pascal.

True, but considering the regression in Vega's DOOM performance in just 6 months, it's only a matter of time...

And for those who will inevitably take this post seriously, I feel bad for you.

 

[JDG1980]

I still don't understand why AMD didn't double the shader engine count from 4 to 8 and the ROP count from 64 to 128. That would have effectively fixed the bottlenecks that prevented Fiji from using its shaders to full potential. It's pretty clear that there are still bottlenecks in Vega, at least without special custom programming (which the vast majority of existing games will never get). Raja knew about these bottlenecks when Fury X was released, and told TechReport it was a tradeoff because they were restricted by the 28nm size limit (~600mm^2). For Vega 10, there's absolutely no excuse.

 

[Paratus]

I still don't understand why AMD didn't double the shader engine count from 4 to 8 and the ROP count from 64 to 128. That would have effectively fixed the bottlenecks that prevented Fiji from using its shaders to full potential. It's pretty clear that there are still bottlenecks in Vega, at least without special custom programming (which the vast majority of existing games will never get). Raja knew about these bottlenecks when Fury X was released, and told TechReport it was a tradeoff because they were restricted by the 28nm size limit (~600mm^2). For Vega 10, there's absolutely no excuse.

I'm not sure I agree. The 7970 had 32 ROPs and competed very well against the GTX 680, 770, and these days even does alright against the 780.

Fury X was basically twice an 7970Ghz. So they doubled the ROPs. Vega adds another 550mhz and architectural changes to the mix.

64 ROPs doesn't seem to me to be this obvious design stumble.

 

[JDG1980]

I'm not sure I agree. The 7970 had 32 ROPs and competed very well against the GTX 680, 770, and these days even does alright against the 780.

Fury X was basically twice an 7970Ghz. So they doubled the ROPs. Vega adds another 550mhz and architectural changes to the mix.

64 ROPs doesn't seem to me to be this obvious design stumble.

R9 280X (Tahiti) only did about 29% better at 1080p gaming than R9 270X (Pitcairn), despite having 60% more shaders (2048 vs 1280). That subpar scaling would indicate that Tahiti/Tonga is bottlenecked as well. Both Tahiti/Tonga and Pitcairn have 32 ROPs. It's enough for Pitcairn, but not for the bigger chips.

 

[Elixer]

Rys (AMD RTG) said:

The "Fiji fallback driver" or "Fiji drivers" meme needs to stop. That's not how it works or should be described. Otherwise you should start calling Volta drivers Pascal drivers Maxwell drivers. There is obviously commonality -- that's just how software engineering needs to work for a GPU -- but calling it a Fiji driver or Fiji fallback is wrong.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...rs-and-discussion.59649/page-138#post-1990723

Right.
The way they normally do this is, they write the routines made for Vega, and they code it generically.
It could be O(n) code, or O(n^2) or log(N) or... (that just means how fast that code segment is).
Then, they fire up a profiler, and some test game/demo, and see what is hogging up all the time.
Then they look at that routine, and try to find ways to make it faster, without breaking other things.

While they can used parts of code from past architectures, all those optimizations that have been done most likely won't map 1:1, they would need tweaking.
Depending on how much of a change Vega is over past architectures, that could range from simple to difficult.

AMD's driver team has been working on these drivers for YEARS, not months. They had to have working code since the simulation stage. Yes, it takes a heck of a long time to get solid, working drivers.
You can speed this up by hiring more people, and, as long as there is good management, things should traverse smoothly.

 

[tviceman]

Right.
The way they normally do this is, they write the routines made for Vega, and they code it generically.
It could be O(n) code, or O(n^2) or log(N) or... (that just means how fast that code segment is).
Then, they fire up a profiler, and some test game/demo, and see what is hogging up all the time.
Then they look at that routine, and try to find ways to make it faster, without breaking other things.

While they can used parts of code from past architectures, all those optimizations that have been done most likely won't map 1:1, they would need tweaking.
Depending on how much of a change Vega is over past architectures, that could range from simple to difficult.

AMD's driver team has been working on these drivers for YEARS, not months. They had to have working code since the simulation stage. Yes, it takes a heck of a long time to get solid, working drivers.
You can speed this up by hiring more people, and, as long as there is good management, things should traverse smoothly.

That quote you linked, which was dated YESTERDAY, is more ominous proof that RX Vega isn't going to offer anything substantially different than Vega FE. It's going to end up ~5% faster than GTX 1080 at ~280-300 watts power consumption. The big question is will AMD be able to price it at $500 and still make money off it? It's a 50% larger chip with memory that probably costs 3x as much as G5X, needing a PCB and power delivery system more complex to drive the 300 watts.... It's going to be a hard sell unless they price it aggressively and undercut their own ability to make money.

 

[Paratus]

R9 280X (Tahiti) only did about 29% better at 1080p gaming than R9 270X (Pitcairn), despite having 60% more shaders (2048 vs 1280). That subpar scaling would indicate that Tahiti/Tonga is bottlenecked as well. Both Tahiti/Tonga and Pitcairn have 32 ROPs. It's enough for Pitcairn, but not for the bigger chips.

You maybe right. However Fury X competed well against the 980Ti despite the difference in ROPs.


I'm not even sure what bottlenecks the ROPS. My old 9600XT could do a theoretical 2+ gigapixels per second which is 70% more than 4K @ 144hz requires but even a 1080Ti struggles at that rez.

 

[Elixer]

That quote you linked, which was dated YESTERDAY, is more ominous proof that RX Vega isn't going to offer anything substantially different than Vega FE. It's going to end up ~5% faster than GTX 1080 at ~280-300 watts power consumption. The big question is will AMD be able to price it at $500 and still make money off it? It's a 50% larger chip with memory that probably costs 3x as much as G5X, needing a PCB and power delivery system more complex to drive the 300 watts.... It's going to be a hard sell unless they price it aggressively and undercut their own ability to make money.

If they can get the clocks up much higher, without going higher than the TDP of Vega FE, they could trade blows,

AMD can't afford a loss leader, and they need profit to be able to pour more resources into this & future products. So, yeah, I can't see them going much lower than $500.
I also can't see anything other than a tri-fan cooler on these things, and that should help over the crappy blowers.
Even if AMD can go lower to $450 or so, board partners are gonna push that up to $500 anyway.

Something isn't scaling right since the die is so huge.

 

[swilli89]

I still don't understand why AMD didn't double the shader engine count from 4 to 8 and the ROP count from 64 to 128. That would have effectively fixed the bottlenecks that prevented Fiji from using its shaders to full potential. It's pretty clear that there are still bottlenecks in Vega, at least without special custom programming (which the vast majority of existing games will never get). Raja knew about these bottlenecks when Fury X was released, and told TechReport it was a tradeoff because they were restricted by the 28nm size limit (~600mm^2). For Vega 10, there's absolutely no excuse.

Another perplexing thought is if, given known 14nm scaling, had they simply shrunk Fiji down to 14nm they would have wound up with something like a 300mm2 chip that would be both faster and use less than 200 watts. Vega being so huge yet with the same amount of shader engines and ROPs.. sure something tangible must have changed?

 

[SPBHM]

I'm not sure I agree. The 7970 had 32 ROPs and competed very well against the GTX 680, 770, and these days even does alright against the 780.

Fury X was basically twice an 7970Ghz. So they doubled the ROPs. Vega adds another 550mhz and architectural changes to the mix.

64 ROPs doesn't seem to me to be this obvious design stumble.

but Fury X had 64ROPs like the 290x and 4096SPs vs 2816SPs

 

[tviceman]

If they can get the clocks up much higher, without going higher than the TDP of Vega FE, they could trade blows,

AMD can't afford a loss leader, and they need profit to be able to pour more resources into this & future products. So, yeah, I can't see them going much lower than $500.
I also can't see anything other than a tri-fan cooler on these things, and that should help over the crappy blowers.
Even if AMD can go lower to $450 or so, board partners are gonna push that up to $500 anyway.

Something isn't scaling right since the die is so huge.

It happened with Nvidia. GTX 480 was only ~45% faster than GTX 285 and was significantly less efficient than GTX 285.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_Fermi/32.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_480_Fermi/33.html

Even GTX 580, fixed up, was 65% faster than GTX 285 despite sporting a larger die on a more advanced node and new architecture AND was basically only as efficient as the GTX 285. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580/28.html.

So it's not like it hasn't happened before with the poor scaling thing. Vega looks like it has beefed up compute performance which is probably eating up die space (in relation to Polaris) and being what many are saying is a 5 year old architecture tweaked and tweaked, may indicate it's at the wall with bottlenecks and scaling. It's much more conceivable we're seeing out of Vega FE most of what RX Vega will do in gaming than it is to think there is 20+% of untapped performance left to be had.

 

[tviceman]

Another perplexing thought is if, given known 14nm scaling, had they simply shrunk Fiji down to 14nm they would have wound up with something like a 300mm2 chip that would be both faster and use less than 200 watts. Vega being so huge yet with the same amount of shader engines and ROPs.. sure something tangible must have changed?

That's not remotely true. 1:1 shrinking doesn't occur as different parts of the chip have different densities and architectures are typically designed around a node so they wouldn't have been able to just shrink Fiji and realize all the perf/w benefits of a new node.

 

[swilli89]

That's not remotely true. 1:1 shrinking doesn't occur as different parts of the chip have different densities and architectures are typically designed around a node so they wouldn't have been able to just shrink Fiji and realize all the perf/w benefits of a new node.

According to Samsung's own literature 14nmLPE offered up to 50% area scaling and 40% performance increase at the same time over 28nm. Polaris was able to cram 2306 shaders and 144 TMU all in 232mm2 vs Tahiti 352mm2 with 2048 shaders and 128 TMU. Not an exact just goes to show that Fiji would be Max 350mm2 on 14nm and with 1080 level performance.

 

[beginner99]

Like I said, there are a lot of comments from Raja regarding Vega that were about pushing the industry to somewhere rather than delivering performance to current applications.

Which would be repeating previous mistakes. They tried that with Bulldozer, then with GCN/Async compute and now with HBM2 / HBCC. In the same time NV just did what worked good now and possibly fell of a cliff couple years later. And look which company made tons of profit? All that matters is to bench high on release. Gamers will be happy. If the card sucks after 2-3 years they will buy another card from you. People aren't rational. [deleted] NV is ingenious. Built in obsolescence.

AMD looked in the future. Which resulted in the their cards "sucking" at release and not selling well and then holding up much better than competition preventing AMD owners from actually buying something new.

but Fury X had 64ROPs like the 290x and 4096SPs vs 2816SPs

But does pixel fill rate matter? Fury for example actually performs better at 4k relative to 1080. And tile-bases rasterizer should in fact lower the need for high pixel fill rate unless I'm completely wrong here.

The next time I see you put that kind of immature filth in a post here you're getting time off.
-- stahlhart

 

[Cloudfire777]

Not sure if serious...

Who am I kidding, I know you're serious, but I have to ask if you actually listen to yourself? I know this isn't the first time I've had to point out how blatantly obvious the statement you post completely abolishes the point you're trying to infer.

You're literally scoffing that it is par for the course for us to wait and see what the performance of an unreleased product is until the product actually releases?

I'm not sure how the 2 statements contradict each other?

Since you both seems to have missed it:
He is saying BitsandChips is as reliable as wccftech. They dont know jack.

 

[SPBHM]

But does pixel fill rate matter? Fury for example actually performs better at 4k relative to 1080. And tile-bases rasterizer should in fact lower the need for high pixel fill rate unless I'm completely wrong here.

well, fillrate keeps going up on the NV side, and their GPUs are the efficient and balanced ones these days, so I guess so? it's a potential bottleneck when you have less than half the performance at something, and it's not just fillrate.

http://techreport.com/review/31562/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-ti-graphics-card-reviewed/3

 

[Glo.]

AFAIK, the primitive shader is new and not implemented previously. Using it will require new code.

What I meant is that there is nothing specific in hardware that would require absolutely custom rewriting of your code.

All you have to do is rewrite rendering path for 1002 DeviceID Vendor, so that it is compatible with Vega features, but the rendering path resembles Nvidia rendering path.

To everybody. I have a question. How much more performance do you think you are able to extract from Vega, when you will rewrite your code for this architecture?

 

[Oddzz]

Why aren't you using the actual Power numbers?

GN tested the power consumption "from the wall" so it's useless to determine actual power usage differences in percentages. And PCPer didn't mentioned averages so I had to refer to the TDP in the graphic, which, according to PCPer, is at least in line this time.

"In general, the power draw of the Vega FE is under the 300-watt level, which is good. After the issues that haunted the Radeon RX 480 at its launch (drawing well over the 150 watts rated TDP), AMD has learned its lesson it appears."

 

[swilli89]

GN tested the power consumption "from the wall" so it's useless to determine actual power usage differences in percentages. And PCPer didn't mentioned averages so I had to refer to the TDP in the graphic, which, according to PCPer, is at least in line this time.

"In general, the power draw of the Vega FE is under the 300-watt level, which is good. After the issues that haunted the Radeon RX 480 at its launch (drawing well over the 150 watts rated TDP), AMD has learned its lesson it appears."

I am very interested to see how the voltage is controlled on RX Vega reference boards. to AMD's credit, they have been building very stout power delivery into their cards lately. Just sold my 290X on ebay for $350 so I may be looking at a very cost effective upgrade to Vega if an upgrade there makes sense.. Can't wait for RX benchmarks!

 

[EXCellR8]

how'd you swindle someone into paying that much for a 290X? i bought mine for less 2 years ago and could only manage $150.00 sale out of it... AND it had a full cover swift water block!

opps nvm... forgot about these mining yahoos

 

[Despoiler]

how'd you swindle someone into paying that much for a 290X? i bought mine for less 2 years ago and could only manage $150.00 sale out of it... AND it had a full cover swift water block!

The crypto currency mining craze is extreme right now. GPUs that are good for mining are sold out everywhere. Consequently you can sell used cards approaching prices as if they were new.

 

[swilli89]

how'd you swindle someone into paying that much for a 290X? i bought mine for less 2 years ago and could only manage $150.00 sale out of it... AND it had a full cover swift water block!

opps nvm... forgot about these mining yahoos

Swindle? It was an open bid auction on Ebay. Swindling.. is that like swashbuckling? Am I a video card swashbuckler?

Sold that and a Radeon 580 4gb I got on a watchlist on Newegg for $219 for about $400 too. I was planning on mining but I realized its probably too late to even try that and ETH looks to be a bit unstable anyways.. that and the rumored difficulty increase coming in the next few months.. Give me the cash!

Anyways sorry for the off topic!

 

[Cloudfire777]

The crypto currency mining craze is extreme right now. GPUs that are good for mining are sold out everywhere. Consequently you can sell used cards approaching prices as if they were new.

GPUs arent good for mining at all.
You need a gazillion of them to even get a decent profit. In addition to that you cant buy GPUs for mining now and think that in 6-10 months you can break even when difficulty is skyrocketing.

The people that mine are either big players. Or you have the same people that think they buy stocks that also mine. Running 1 GPU 24/7 and making like $50 a month. Wohooo you are awesome lol

Mining is too damn painful unless you rent a room in a warehouse. Running a leafblower or like 10 of these loud GPUs 24/7 in your house, with 1000s of watt spewing in to your house and maybe you break even in like a half year or even a year. Yeah no thank you