Vega in the Mac

[ScottAD]

Steve Jobs only wanted the best on the projects Apple worked on. Given that Apple is going all in with AMD on both Macbooks and the iMac line up Vega must have impressed them something amazing.

Disclaimer: I have a love/hate relationship with Apple so no fanboy here but I am impressed with their new hardware strides.

 

[Elixer]

Could explain a few things...Apple is gonna be soaking up lots of inventory.

 

[ScottAD]

It definitely does explain that, I am sure AMD was stoked about that PO.

 

[Yakk]

Indeed, Apple demands guaranteed inventory & delivery for obvious reasons. Could've set AMD back a ways to product launch.

Plus drivers need to be top notch for Apple, though AMD drivers as a whole have been top notch for a good while now.

 

[Udgnim]

the important # is up to 22 Tflops half precision

wouldn't be surprised if the 22 Tflop half precision GPU is only for Apple though, so high end retail Vega could end up being beefier

Apple going AMD has a lot to do with either Apple not wanting to work with Nvidia or Nvidia being too expensive although Apple is using Intel for CPU so who knows

 

[Bacon1]

https://twitter.com/GFXChipTweeter/status/871788766137995264/photo/1

 

[Malogeek]

the important # is up to 22 Tflops half precision

wouldn't be surprised if the 22 Tflop half precision GPU is only for Apple though, so high end retail Vega could end up being beefier

The thermals in Mac Pro is very different than enthusiast PC so it's actually quite impressive given the constrained environment.

 

[raghu78]

The thermals in Mac Pro is very different than enthusiast PC so it's actually quite impressive given the constrained environment.

Here are a few facts
Radeon Instinct MI25 is clocked at 1525 Mhz.
The Radeon Vega Frontier edition is clocked at 1600 Mhz.

Raja Koduri has stated that flagship RX Vega will be clocked higher than the Frontier Edition. So I am guessing 1650-1675 Mhz. If you take the Vega in Mac Pro at 11 TFLOPS the clocks work out to 1350 Mhz. These are clocks typical of a notebook derivative of a high end desktop GPU. At these lower clocks the power consumption could be cut by 40-50%. One thing is for sure - AMD has caught up with Nvidia in terms of clock speeds with their latest GPU architecture. The question which remains to be answered is what is the real world theoretical performance/FLOP in games. If AMD match Nvida in real world perf/FLOP Vega will be a huge success and should be able to hold its own against Volta with a refresh in 2018 on 14nm+ .

 

[Krteq]

How much power can consume GPU fitted in this AiO form factor with air cooling?

 

[Face2Face]

The new iMac Pro is very impressive looking. Crazy to see that kind of compute in an AIO desktop.

 

[Glo.]

How much power can consume GPU fitted in this AiO form factor with air cooling?

IMO its at best 175W TDP.

The GPU in 64 CU version has 1350 MHz core clock.

 

[Glo.]

Performance takes power, and power makes heat. To deal with it, we completely redesigned the thermal architecture of iMac Pro with innovative dual-blowers, a massive heatsink, and extra venting. The result? Almost 75 percent more airflow and an 80 percent increase in system thermal capacity. Which lets iMac Pro handle 500 watts — 67 percent more power than the previous iMac — and stay chill.

We have to wait and see the actual power consumption. Previous gen iMac consumed 288W under heavy load, and had 400W PSU.

 

[swilli89]

IMO its at best 175W TDP.

The GPU in 64 CU version has 1350 MHz core clock.

Sounds like a good guess.. I am so super curious as to what the performance is like at that level of power draw.

We have to wait and see the actual power consumption. Previous gen iMac consumed 288W under heavy load, and had 400W PSU.

Also remember this thing has to be specced to allow for Intel's 18-core CPU which is probably near 200W depending on frequency.

 

[Elixer]

The other AMD shoe to drop was in addition to Vega, Apple will be soaking up Polaris 5xx lines.
This could mean huge shortages of parts from AMD that won't end until Fall... if that.
I said this before, but I'll say it again, there is no way GloFlo can handle all these orders in a timely fashion.
Will AMD use Samsung fabs now?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Good to see Apple use a nice, high-performance GPU in a Mac product line. Vega + SKX Xeon should be quite nice.

 

[ElFenix]

december?

 

[Glo.]

Release date influenced by release of Skylake Xeon CPUs.

 

[raghu78]

IMO its at best 175W TDP.

The GPU in 64 CU version has 1350 MHz core clock.

Since we know that flagship RX Vega clocks are higher than Vega FE i am guessing clocks around 1650-1675 Mhz. Vega in iMac Pro is clocked at 1350 Mhz. I am quite sure that power drawn will be down by 40-50% compared to RX Vega. My guess is 125w is the rated power of Vega in iMac Pro.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[Cookie Monster]

Steve Jobs only wanted the best on the projects Apple worked on. Given that Apple is going all in with AMD on both Macbooks and the iMac line up Vega must have impressed them something amazing.

Disclaimer: I have a love/hate relationship with Apple so no fanboy here but I am impressed with their new hardware strides.

Im more inclined to believe that its mainly due to cost (nVIDIA parts tend to be more expensive and the egos of both companies would make negotiation so much difficult haha) and the software ecosystem (OpenCL) that they've created around the AMD parts over the past couple of generations.

I think the recently announced "metal2" API is AMD only which basically means AMD GPUs only for a very long time.

It'd be nice to see Ryzen based CPUs in MACs but that won't happen til they incoporate thunderbolt3. Would be interesting to see them go full AMD only in the future especially with Ryzen basd APUs..

 

[Glo.]

Im more inclined to believe that its mainly due to cost (nVIDIA parts tend to be more expensive and the egos of both companies would make negotiation so much difficult haha) and the software ecosystem (OpenCL) that they've created around the AMD parts over the past couple of generations.

I think the recently announced "metal2" API is AMD only which basically means AMD GPUs only for a very long time.

First, Nvidia was forced out of Apple hardware because of IP lawsuit threat they made over Apple, which Apple politely laughed at, and slammed the door for them.

Secondly. Im trying to find information about Metal 2 being AMD only, but cannot find. Can you lend me something?

 

[jpiniero]

Apple won't use nVidia because of the lawsuits (see what is going on between them and Qualcomm)

RTG would really have to screw it up to lose Apple at this point.

 

[JDG1980]

It makes sense that Apple would go with Vega. Apple doesn't care about legacy DX11 performance (one of AMD's biggest weaknesses and a potential question mark for Vega). Instead they are very concerned with GPGPU performance. 11 TFlops FP32 beats out all of the Pascal offerings except for Titan Xp. And the GP102 chips are not only more expensive, but only support FP16 at a 1/64 "test/demo" rate (whereas Vega supports it at 2x FP32 rate). Titan Xp needs ~265W to do 12 TFlops, so it's likely that Vega will provide better perf/watt at GPGPU, even if that isn't the case in DX11 gaming. Note that even Polaris 11 can provide excellent compute perf/watt if not factory-overclocked and overvolted out the ass, as the Radeon Pro WX 5100 demonstrates.

 

[Bacon1]

Graphics
Vega GPU

• Radeon Pro Vega 56 graphics processor with 8GB of HBM2 memory
• Configurable to Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics processor with 16GB of HBM2 memory

https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/specs/

 

[tential]

The other AMD shoe to drop was in addition to Vega, Apple will be soaking up Polaris 5xx lines.
This could mean huge shortages of parts from AMD that won't end until Fall... if that.
I said this before, but I'll say it again, there is no way GloFlo can handle all these orders in a timely fashion.
Will AMD use Samsung fabs now?

I don't expect to be able to get an AMD GPU without preorder. If I don't get a preorder in for Vega... I don't even know. That's a terrible spot to be in. I need Vega, and I'm competing with a ton of other people including miners. After this long of a wait, and an even longer wait for the gaming chip, it may be impossible to actually get the chip.

 

[Yakk]

The other AMD shoe to drop was in addition to Vega, Apple will be soaking up Polaris 5xx lines.
This could mean huge shortages of parts from AMD that won't end until Fall... if that.
I said this before, but I'll say it again, there is no way GloFlo can handle all these orders in a timely fashion.
Will AMD use Samsung fabs now?

I agree AMD has probably already maxed out Glofo production capacity and IMHO AMD are probably already exercising their option to use Samsung fabs to get these contracts from Apple and other design wins from major oem wins.

AMD really need to bring out big production numbers to get GPUs back in stock, enough Ryzen processors to satisfy datacenter requirements and supply they are chasing after. Then there are Ryzen APUs for laptop vendors to consider starting to stock up on also.