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

[tential]

I can see now why the amd faithful get very defensive when you call a gtx 1080 a midrange chip. It's hard to defend your highend card when it's defending against a midrange chip. When it's against a "high end" it sounds better.

Trolling is not allowed
Markfw
Anandtech Moderator

 

[Arachnotronic]

AMD need a post GCN architecture. That is painfully obvious. Going back to the drawing board with a clean sheet is the only way out. There are risks but thats the only option for long term survival of RTG.

It's obvious that AMD starved RTG to give its CPU division a fighting chance.

AMD has been, and always will be, a "CPU first" company. Considering the hype around graphics these days, AMD might be smart to just spin RTG off entirely at an inflated price and simply move on from graphics.

 

[SpaceBeer]

https://gaming.radeon.com/en-us/product/vega/radeon-rx-vega-64/

Nothing here about GTX 2060 coming in a few months and being as fast as GTX 1080

I can see now why the amd faithful get very defensive when you call a gtx 1080 a midrange chip. It's hard to defend your highend card when it's defending against a midrange chip. When it's against a "high end" it sounds better.

Especially when your best solution is better than competitors' in certain tasks, e.g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuFGUVg0U9U#t=4247
Or virtualization tasks at the end of the video

 

[Phynaz]

If those are true and it consumes less power then the Fury X and is in my price range then I'll buy one when I'm ready to purchase a new card. I look for the most performance I can get in my price range.

You just described a GTX 1080. I don't understand why you would buy Vega.

 

[Karnak]

You just described a GTX 1080. I don't understand why you would buy Vega.

I'm not kawi6rr but personally for my freesync monitor.

 

[Phynaz]

I'm not kawi6rr but personally for my freesync monitor.

I won't buy a VRR display until the vendor lock-in issue is eliminated.

 

[Karnak]

That's up to nVidia and playing without is not an option for me. Difference is just too big.

 

[Phynaz]

That's up to nVidia and playing without is not an option for me. Difference is just too big.

You don't realize you're locked into AMD with Freesync display?

 

[swilli89]

It's obvious that AMD starved RTG to give its CPU division a fighting chance.

AMD has been, and always will be, a "CPU first" company. Considering the hype around graphics these days, AMD might be smart to just spin RTG off entirely at an inflated price and simply move on from graphics.

I doubt it. Their vision has always been "Fusion".. so I think the next big push for them to get into OEM boxes and laptops will be Raven RIdge.. a Zen core + gpu (NCU cores). This IP will continue to be very valuable for them.

I expect that, very much like Polaris, these GCN (NCU) chips on the GF14 process are actually very efficient at proper voltages/clock speeds.. much like you expect to find in an APU. Given the large die size (equivalent to GP102) I am very much intrigued to get the true technical details of the Vega architecture.

We have seen Vega perform almost exactly in-line with expectations in the GPGPU workloads.. so something is either being miscommunicated by AMD or they intentionally mismanaged expectations when it comes to Vega's gaming performance. I had definitely hoped for a faster chip than this.. but again I will wait for AIB reviews before I judge. Reference 290's were awful and time has revealed AIB 290s to have been an excellent purchase.

 

[raghu78]

It's obvious that AMD starved RTG to give its CPU division a fighting chance.

AMD has been, and always will be, a "CPU first" company. Considering the hype around graphics these days, AMD might be smart to just spin RTG off entirely at an inflated price and simply move on from graphics.

A spin-off is not a wise move. AMD's problems were mainly because the CPU division was bleeding. The CPU division is now starting to come around and has already turned a slender profit and can generate meaningful profits once EPYC starts to ramp over the next few quarters. AMD should be able to allocate more resources to the GPU division which was starved in the past few years. You have to remember that AMD has got to this stage because of the combined x86+ graphics IP and the console deals which kept it alive during the 2012-2016 period. AMD's APUs have a major advantage over Intel in graphics and with Zen CPU cores they will become very attractive. The gaming semi-custom opportunity is significant. AMD's CPU division needs to return the favour to RTG that it got during the difficult 2012-2016 period. If not for AMD's graphics IP and the semi-custom deals AMD would have gone under. Its going to take some bold moves and strong leadership to put a plan and see it through execution to rebuild AMD's GPU division.

 

[crashtech]

I can see now why the amd faithful get very defensive when you call a gtx 1080 a midrange chip. It's hard to defend your highend card when it's defending against a midrange chip. When it's against a "high end" it sounds better.

I think 1080 is the beginning of the high end, just like 7800X is the beginning of high end. No one would accuse either product of being midrange or mainstream, except maybe you, trying to make a point. 1070 is the top of the midrange.

 

[linkgoron]

You don't realize you're locked into AMD with Freesync display?

Laptop Gsync proves that Nvidia can just flip a switch and support Adaptive-Sync. It would essentially ruin any reason to go AMD (when price/perf is essentially equal). However, they haven't yet. It's only Nvidia's fault that this issue even exists.

On topic, Vega is a complete failure, gaming wise. I wonder what went wrong with the architecture. It's amazing that AMD has a die which is larger than the 1080ti, uses HBM2, is on 14nm and appears to regress on both Polaris and Fiji. It looks like a die-shrunk Fury or a larger Polaris would probably beat Vega 10 in gaming.

 

[crashtech]

G-Sync is the proprietary standard, so to the extent anyone is locked into anything, it's Nvidia's fault.

 

[Karnak]

You don't realize you're locked into AMD with Freesync display?

I'm not locked anywhere since it's still possible to use nVidia GPUs with a FreeSync Monitor (and AMD GPUs with a G-Sync one).

But you're right that nVidia is trying to maintain their "locked G-Sync eco system" as a proprietary standard while FreeSync is based on Adaptive Sync as an open standard.

 

[PeterScott]

I'm not locked anywhere since it's still possible to use nVidia GPUs with a FreeSync Monitor (and AMD GPUs with a G-Sync one).

But you're right that nVidia is trying to maintain their "locked G-Sync eco system" as a proprietary standard while FreeSync is based on Adaptive Sync as an open standard.

It is really annoying that we have dueling standards here..

I wonder if NVidia is going to support VRR mode that is party of the new HDMI 2.1 spec:

HDMI 2.1 Game Mode VRR Reduces Lag, Stutter & Tearing
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/hdmi-vrr-201702104427.htm

If so this might finally be a way to get VRR that both camps support.

 

[thehoj]

I can see now why the amd faithful get very defensive when you call a gtx 1080 a midrange chip. It's hard to defend your highend card when it's defending against a midrange chip. When it's against a "high end" it sounds better.

I would call a 1080 high-end personally though.. If the 1080 is midrange, then you're basically saying that there are only 3 high end cards.. 1080ti, Titan Xp & Titan X pascal?..
I'd call midrange more like 1060, 1070, rx580 type cards.
I'm just saying the scale of low-mid-high doesn't make sense if 1080 is considered mid-tier..

 

[Phynaz]

I'm not locked anywhere since it's still possible to use nVidia GPUs with a FreeSync Monitor (and AMD GPUs with a G-Sync one).

But you're right that nVidia is trying to maintain their "locked G-Sync eco system" as a proprietary standard while FreeSync is based on Adaptive Sync as an open standard.

But you just said you the reason to buy a Vega GPU is because you already have a Freesync display. That's the definition of locked in.

 

[Head1985]

I would call a 1080 high-end personally though.. If the 1080 is midrange, then you're basically saying that there are only 3 high end cards.. 1080ti, Titan Xp & Titan X pascal?..
I'd call midrange more like 1060, 1070, rx580 type cards.
I'm just saying the scale of low-mid-high doesn't make sense if 1080 is considered mid-tier..

GTX1080 is performance tier.High end is only GP102 SKU-1080TI and TITAN
GP102-471mm2
GP104-314mm2
GP106-200mm2
Sad thing about vega gaming performance is that 1080TI is only cutdown SKU.FULL GP102/TITANXP is 10%faster than 1080TI.So vega is larger than GP102 and also GP102 is 40-50% faster.

 

[Malogeek]

You don't realize you're locked into AMD with Freesync display?

That's just stupid. You're basing vendor lock-in due to that fact that AMD is the only other vendor? It's not vendor lock-in with AMD, it's vendor lockout with Nvidia. Big difference.

 

[tential]

I would call a 1080 high-end personally though.. If the 1080 is midrange, then you're basically saying that there are only 3 high end cards.. 1080ti, Titan Xp & Titan X pascal?..
I'd call midrange more like 1060, 1070, rx580 type cards.
I'm just saying the scale of low-mid-high doesn't make sense if 1080 is considered mid-tier..

Call the 1080ti titan xp and titan x pascal the Uber highend then.
1080/1070 high end
1060 midrange

Either way you slice it you have a whole product segment that amd can't touch right now.

The whole top tier chip that the titan and 1080ti is based off of is uncontested.
Amd only competes with Nvidia's 2nd tier underlying chip option. That's gross. Nvidia is way further ahead as they'll push all these product tiers down next year. It's really worrisome as to whether Vega won't be on a fire sale by the end of the year.

 

[tential]

So let me get this straight.

Amd made a poor gpu.
Then they bundled this gpu with their cpus that are selling the worst, and combined this with selling with their partner's( Samsung who is manufacturing the chips) monitor by Samsung.

I mean this bundle is what it is. A way for amd and Samsung who partnered on this to sell their products.

 

[Phynaz]

That's just stupid. You're basing vendor lock-in due to that fact that AMD is the only other vendor? It's not vendor lock-in with AMD, it's vendor lockout with Nvidia. Big difference.

You seem to be forgetting the 800lb gorilla in the room. Intel doesn't do Freesync either.

We have multiple examples of AMD users in this very thread saying they stuck with Vega because they have a Freesync monitor. As I said earlier, that's the definition of vendor lockin.

 

[FFFF]

GTX1080 is performance tier.High end is only GP102 SKU-1080TI and TITAN
GP102-471mm2
GP104-314mm2
GP106-200mm2
Sad thing about vega gaming performance is that 1080TI is only cutdown SKU.FULL GP102/TITANXP is 10%faster than 1080TI.So vega is larger than GP102 and also GP102 is 40-50% faster.

I don't know why you people complicate matters with Nvidia's lineup so much. There are basically 4 tiers:

I. Low-end

GT 1030
GTX 1050

II. Mid-range

GTX 1050 Ti
GTX 1060

III. High-end

GTX 1070
GTX 1080

IV. Enthusiast

GTX 1080 Ti
Titan Xp

 

[crashtech]

You seem to be forgetting the 800lb gorilla in the room. Intel doesn't do Freesync either...

As if we'd want our monitors refreshing at 20Hz, lol.

 

[coercitiv]

You seem to be forgetting the 800lb gorilla in the room. Intel doesn't do Freesync either.

Would people be less locked in if Intel were to do Freesync?