Is Vega going to be DOA!?

[flash-gordon]

Look, AMD gets a lot of money from their semi custom solution, and they got those contracts with GCN, a super foward thinking architeture for its time.

I don't expect less from Vega arch, it maybe won't beat TitanXP or 1080Ti from day one, but this don't make it DOA as it didn't for first GCN cards. I bet they are also looking for what will drive next gen consoles contracts and next gen APIs.

 

[OatisCampbell]

Yeah, the 1080 Ti being priced at $700 is probably the best evidence for Vega being a good competitor to NVidia. If NVidia thought AMD wasn't going to flounder again as with Fury, they probably would have sold it at $800 or $900.

I suspect that even if AMD could beat the 1080 Ti by 10% (optimistic estimate) they probably wouldn't price it above $700. If they're closely trading blows with the 1080 Ti or fall just short of it, they probably come in at $600.

Not necessarily, the $700 price tag is a $50 price hike over the 980Ti launch price.

It would be nice if AMD would launch Vega, custom 1080Tis are out and NV is multiple batches into 1080Ti sales. If Vega does compete with 1080Ti, it's losing potential customers by the day. (at least the Freesync-less and those who don't care about brand)

If AMD has working parts that compete with 1080Ti, I would paper launch now and try to claim some of that market. (if they're waiting on production and/or drivers)

 

[ddogg]

I'm sort of with the OP on this one. For me at least, Vega missed the boat. It may be everything we've been hoping for and more, but the 1080 Ti came out first at $600, so Nvidia got my money this round . . . again. I suppose there's the off chance Vega ends up beating the 1080 Ti by 20% or so, however unlikely that scenario may be, in which case I'll gladly upgrade again. Who doesn't love new toys? In the end, I just want AMD to be competitive again. As a consumer, I love having a choice. Right now, I have only one option.

700, actually 750 after taxes

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Paratus]

Wow, it has almost been two years since Fury X launched.

It be interesting to see where AMD goes with Vega, but I certainly hope it isn't a race for price / performance. Since that always seems to hurt them more than help in my opinion.

As someone who considers himself still neutral (while I own a G-Sync monitor, I have the means to easily buy a FreeSync if I choose to) I don't see myself vendor lock. But I also haven't seen AMD do much to win me back as a buyer. I personally doubt Vega will be what I want, but I can be wrong.

I don't feel Vega is DOA, but I do feel it will face the same hardships Fury did. ignored by its targeted audience and herald as the price / performance king when AMD eventually has to price cut it to move units. None of which, in my opinion, benefits AMD.

There's worse things than price/performance. I'm sure you remember the 4870/4850 generation. ATI was still recovering from the disastrous 2900XT debacle.

While the 3870 had slowed the bleeding, the rumors were that the new chips would have 50% more shaders. That wouldn't be enough to challenge the GTX 280/260 and instead were targeting the previous gen 9800GTX. What ATI actually did was increase the shaders by 2.5 times. With the reasonable sized die and new memory (GDDR5) they gave us 90% of he performance of the NV cards at 50% the price.

There is some of that going on currently. AMD with the new, (for the gaming space), HBM2 memory and rumors of targeting the previous highend 1080 are similar to the 4870. However the rumors also say the die size would be about as big or bigger than GP102. Plus HBM2 isn't going to be as cheap as the old GDDR5 on a 256bit bus vs GDDR3 on a 512bit bus.


It will be interesting to see how VEGA performs and how they price it.

I suppose if the performance is there they could also be ok if it takes after the GTX480 vs 5870. The hot loud 480 still sold well being the fastest card even though the 5870 had been undisputed king for 9 months.

Of course VEGA doesn't have the NV marketing muscle behind it that helped the 480 be successful.

I'll be in the market this Christmas, so hopefully he market will have resolved itself by then.

 

[wanderica]

700, actually 750 after taxes

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Whoops. Nice typo there. If they were that cheap we'd all have one.

 

[Mopetar]

Not necessarily, the $700 price tag is a $50 price hike over the 980Ti launch price.

But the 1080 itself launched at $700, which was a $150 hike over the 980, and the Titan X was $1200, which was a $200 hike over the Maxwell Titan. So relatively speaking, most people were assuming that the 1080 Ti would itself be $100 - $200 more expensive than previously as well.

 

[Despoiler]

Vega will do fine overall. Maybe not so much in gaming given the time gap since Fury. It's going to come down to clockspeed. They built a card with new professional workload and consumer features. To me it looks shifted more towards the professional side than gaming. Clearly they intend to go for those big dollar revenue streams to augment their consumer revenue. They just did the same thing with Ryzen. It's a chip aimed squarely at data centers, but we are getting consumer versions of it. AMD's tight financials constrains them from making a chip for each segment. Every product is a hybrid.

 

[railven]

Amd faces the same problem it always faces of being second to market. Nothing new.

So the only new data point left is the performance. Without that, we have no real idea what to say.

But even if it was fury x level of performance, there will be buyers. I will buy no matter what. I need working freesync and the fastest amd gpu possible to make that work for 4k gaming.

There is a market that isn't going to jump to Nvidia gsync, because the price is just too much for SOME people. So there will be a market for Vega.

This is really more of a fan boy style discussion of will Vega best the 1080ti or titan xp and that really doesn't matter to me as someone who wants Vega. It's whether the price and performance and of reasonable measure, and if Vega fits my needs. Then it's just I don't have a cheaper alternative and adaptive sync is adaptive sync.... I'm not paying 1k+ more for the Nvidia version of it.

Oh there is definitely a market for Vega at launch. However, something I've noticed a lot lately, especially here, is that AMD sort of lost that enthusiast buyer. What I mean is the amount of day 1 top spenders on the AMD side are dwindling. Perhaps it's AMD's knee-jerk reaction to price cut their products is conditioning buyers to just wait. I'm seeing it even more in other forums.

This all hurts AMD. They need to sell their top cards for as much as possible. But they can't seem to. And then the price cuts come in and the cards get recommended hand over fist at this point.

I'm sort of with the OP on this one. For me at least, Vega missed the boat. It may be everything we've been hoping for and more, but the 1080 Ti came out first at $700, so Nvidia got my money this round . . . again. I suppose there's the off chance Vega ends up beating the 1080 Ti by 20% or so, however unlikely that scenario may be, in which case I'll gladly upgrade again. Who doesn't love new toys? In the end, I just want AMD to be competitive again. As a consumer, I love having a choice. Right now, I have only one option.

This is where I found myself. Waited for Fury X, was not blown away (I bought into the forum hype, last time I'll ever do that) and then the inventory issue + reported issues turned me away. After almost a decade of buying exclusively AMD cards for my main rig, I got a 980 Ti. And it worked fine. And, welps, in those two years of no response from AMD I got a GTX 1080 and now a GTX 1080 Ti.

 

[Qwertilot]

That sort of 'instant' enthusiast buyer they've lost due to, essentially, being so late vs NV in recent years. It'd be interesting to know what %age of the net market the 'instant' sales are, but I suspect more than you'd think. Especially so for the top end cards.

 

[sm625]

Just a reminder of how AMD has in fact destroyed the competition in the past:

When you have a card like that at the top end, you know the cut down version is going to be a really great value, as the HD 5850 was.

 

[bigboxes]

The GTX 285 was not 'significantly' faster than the HD 4870, considering its price. 10-20% is not significant, especially when the HD 4870 was costing half as much during the launch of the GTX 285 and the debacle that was the GTX 280.

Want a fair comparison? Compare the HD 4890. The HD 4890 and the GTX 275 offered 95% of the GTX 285 performance for 100$ less. The HD 4890 even beat the GTX 285 at lower resolutions in some cases.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2745

The HD 4000/5000 series were hands down the better lineup than the GTX 200/400 series. Oh and good job equating Crossfire issues with general bad driver support from AMD. I don't deny that the gap between NVIDIA and AMD drivers were wider at the time than they are today, but the way you worded it had a more negative connotation than the reality.

That's why I got the 4890. That thing put off some heat though.

 

[tential]

Oh there is definitely a market for Vega at launch. However, something I've noticed a lot lately, especially here, is that AMD sort of lost that enthusiast buyer. What I mean is the amount of day 1 top spenders on the AMD side are dwindling. Perhaps it's AMD's knee-jerk reaction to price cut their products is conditioning buyers to just wait. I'm seeing it even more in other forums.

This all hurts AMD. They need to sell their top cards for as much as possible. But they can't seem to. And then the price cuts come in and the cards get recommended hand over fist at this point.



This is where I found myself. Waited for Fury X, was not blown away (I bought into the forum hype, last time I'll ever do that) and then the inventory issue + reported issues turned me away. After almost a decade of buying exclusively AMD cards for my main rig, I got a 980 Ti. And it worked fine. And, welps, in those two years of no response from AMD I got a GTX 1080 and now a GTX 1080 Ti.

Nope the number of day 1 top end buyers has been weak for a long time now. Nothing new....

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Just a reminder of how AMD has in fact destroyed the competition in the past:

When you have a card like that at the top end, you know the cut down version is going to be a really great value, as the HD 5850 was.

Not to argue against your point, but that's a peculiar chart to pick to support your argument. Perf/watt was never really a concern during the 8800gtx-4xx series timeframes. That's more of a recent thing with a greater push on mobile and datacenter GPU computing.

 

[crisium]

That's why I got the 4890. That thing put off some heat though.

Better PPW than 275/285, so it's all relative.

Not to argue against your point, but that's a peculiar chart to pick to support your argument. Perf/watt was never really a concern during the 8800gtx-4xx series timeframes. That's more of a recent thing with a greater push on mobile and datacenter GPU computing.

Perf/watt was definitely a concern, especially with that GTX 400 series you just mentioned! GTX 480 high wattage lives in infamy only matched by 290X.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Better PPW than 275/285, so it's all relative.



Perf/watt was definitely a concern, especially with that GTX 400 series you just mentioned!

Let me rephrase: the target market for GPUs wasn't overly concerned with perf/watt, since this was the golden age of 1KW PSUs and nobody giving a flip about how much electricity their monster desktop used. Now the market is 1cm thick tablets and thousand-GPU arrays doing research/AI calculations, so power usage is a greater concern.

 

[OatisCampbell]

Oh there is definitely a market for Vega at launch. However, something I've noticed a lot lately, especially here, is that AMD sort of lost that enthusiast buyer. What I mean is the amount of day 1 top spenders on the AMD side are dwindling. Perhaps it's AMD's knee-jerk reaction to price cut their products is conditioning buyers to just wait. I'm seeing it even more in other forums.

This all hurts AMD. They need to sell their top cards for as much as possible. But they can't seem to. And then the price cuts come in and the cards get recommended hand over fist at this point.



This is where I found myself. Waited for Fury X, was not blown away (I bought into the forum hype, last time I'll ever do that) and then the inventory issue + reported issues turned me away. After almost a decade of buying exclusively AMD cards for my main rig, I got a 980 Ti. And it worked fine. And, welps, in those two years of no response from AMD I got a GTX 1080 and now a GTX 1080 Ti.

This is AMDs problem in a nutshell.

With Fury X launching slower/less RAM than 980Ti, and nothing in high end for two years for the high margin parts. Selling Polaris for $150 isn't going to build a fat R&D stack.

We're probably lucky Vega is launching in 2 years, look at the Ryzen wait. I still think AMD do some good with the fan/freesync/try something else market, but if this pattern continues I don't see any good coming of it.

$999 Volta mid range anyone?

 

[mohit9206]

Let me rephrase: the target market for GPUs wasn't overly concerned with perf/watt, since this was the golden age of 1KW PSUs and nobody giving a flip about how much electricity their monster desktop used. Now the market is 1cm thick tablets and thousand-GPU arrays doing research/AI calculations, so power usage is a greater concern.

I don't see why power usage should be a concern today either for the desktop market? We still have 1000W PSUs, just like we did back then. What has laptop matket to do with it? Both are separate. If power usage wasn't an issue back then, it shouldn't be an issue today either. The reason it is however, is because its amd who have higher power consumption these days. If the switch was flipped and amd would be more power efficient than nvdia again, i bet power consumption concerns would again no longer be an issue.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I don't see why power usage should be a concern today either for the desktop market? We still have 1000W PSUs, just like we did back then. What has laptop matket to do with it? Both are separate. If power usage wasn't an issue back then, it shouldn't be an issue today either. The reason it is however, is because its amd who have higher power consumption these days. If the switch was flipped and amd would be more power efficient than nvdia again, i bet power consumption concerns would again no longer be an issue.

For the desktop market it isn't, but the architecture as a whole is driven by the largest market segment. In the early 00's, that market segment was primarily desktop gamers, so raw power was pushed over efficiency. Lately though the market has shifted to mobile gaming and GPU computing, and so the architecture has been shifting to a more efficient design.

 

[caswow]

Better PPW than 275/285, so it's all relative.



Perf/watt was definitely a concern, especially with that GTX 400 series you just mentioned! GTX 480 high wattage lives in infamy only matched by 290X.

Seems like people forgot that kepler was indeed a powerhog too. the 780ti consumes just 20watt less than a 290x...

 

[Bouowmx]

Seems like people forgot that kepler was indeed a powerhog too. the 780ti consumes just 20watt less than a 290x...

Does that mean any > 250-W graphics card is a power hog?

 

[IEC]

Given that AMD's hardware changes to Vega look to be similar to the ones implemented by nVidia in Kepler --> Maxwell, it's safe to say that Vega will be AMD's most efficient architecture by a long shot.

The question is, how will it be positioned in terms of absolute and relative performance versus current market offerings.

 

[ElFenix]

i remember performance per watt being a big deal when the 3870 launched. everybody was amazed at the scrappy little chip (RV670?).


although i think you could get away with more of a pass back then. after all we still had incandescent bulbs on the shelves. also, it didn't have both the efficiency crown and the performance crown, which is what nvidia has pretty much had for the past couple-few years.


that 5870 chart upthread reminds me how much i wanted one (well, 5850 anyway). but mining happened and prices climbed and availability plummeted. i think that really hurt amd in the gaming market because no one who wasn't profiting could afford one, so nvidia made big inroads, despite the 5870 besting not just the 285 but also the 480 which came out 6 months later.

 

[caswow]

Does that mean any > 250-W graphics card is a power hog?

Seems like it is.

 

[unseenmorbidity]

This is AMDs problem in a nutshell.

With Fury X launching slower/less RAM than 980Ti, and nothing in high end for two years for the high margin parts. Selling Polaris for $150 isn't going to build a fat R&D stack.

We're probably lucky Vega is launching in 2 years, look at the Ryzen wait. I still think AMD do some good with the fan/freesync/try something else market, but if this pattern continues I don't see any good coming of it.

$999 Volta mid range anyone?

If vega doesn't pan out as a real threat, then I could easily see another repeat of pascal, but even worse.

1190FE $850
Titan Vista $1400
1 year later
1190Ti $850
Titan Vista xp $1400

Edit: How did nvidia fans not riot in the streets about the founder's edition? An extra $100 for a worse card!? It was a blatant and appalling ripoff, yet people were buying them as if they were collectibles.

 

[JDG1980]

Perf/watt was definitely a concern, especially with that GTX 400 series you just mentioned! GTX 480 high wattage lives in infamy only matched by 290X.

The problem with 290X was poor reference cooling - and this was exacerbated because there were no AIB cards available at launch time, and by the time they did come out, cryptominers were snapping all of them up and driving up the price to close to $1000. Perf/watt was reasonably competitive, and to the extent it was an issue, it was because the chips were being pushed above their optimal clock speed to match GK110 in performance.

In retrospect, when Tonga was released in September 2014, AMD should have originally branded it as the R9 380 instead of the R9 285, and simultaneously released the Hawaii rebrands as R9 390/390X. This would have kicked the bad (throttled/overheated) 290/290X results off the charts of review sites a bit sooner, and doing 1 new chip and 1 rebranded chip for the 300 series would have looked a lot less like a cynical cash grab than the full-stack rebranding that the 300 series the following year actually was.