Navi Rumours... should i really take these seriously?

LePhuronn · 24 Dec 2018 at 11:10

LeMson said:
Pushed to 20% with some ocing and that would be amazing! Especially if it runs somewhat cool, quiet and power efficient!

Well that is what the RX 3080 leak suggests. Even if the pricing for it is way out of kilter, I personally don't see anything wrong with the actual spec, especially as AMD will be in full-on binning mentality because of how they're building their Zen 2 CPUs. Hopefully we won't get gutter dies feeding into the Navi cards now like we did with Vega so stock power draw won't be horrendous dragging the entire product line into the mud.

nashathedog · 24 Dec 2018 at 11:49

My guess is that the earliest Navi will hit stores will be Q3.

ltron said:
Exactly, just because Nvidia are ripping us off that doesn't mean those prices are fair or justified. AMD would be crazy to follow suit as they are starving for market share. The only reason Nvidia can charge this much is because there is a lack of competition, if AMD released something great then those prices would be slashed before you know it.

I think it's highly likely AMD won't be far behind Nvidia on pricing, Look at Vega before the mining price gouging. Vega released with a very limited number of cards at a lower price and after they sold Vega's were over-priced, On Vega's release day a Vega AIO was around £650, the stock sold within minutes (I remember as I was one of the people who's card never turned up on the next day & when I phoned OCUK they told me there wasn't a card for me as they'd oversold the available stock at that release price) That same day they had new stock but it was only available at £800 & at that point it wasn't the price gouging by traders it was AMD's actual price and it cost more than a lot of aftermarket 1080ti's, Youtube reviewers weren't happy about how AMD had pulled the wool over their eyes when they did the pre-launch reviews & they all did a video pointing out that they'd done their reviews based on the cards selling at the lower price. As I've said on this forum many times before AMD have been watching Nvidia pricing and how well they're selling and they'll want a piece of the pie so yes they might undercut Nvidia's pricing but they'll under cut it by as little as they can get away with.

Look at both the Fiji and Vega releases & how they compared to the competion in performance & price at that time.

LePhuronn · 24 Dec 2018 at 11:54

nash: if AMD charge more than £350 for the RX 3080 as leaked they might as well not bother with gaming cards any more.

"well, the RTX 2070 is only a little bit more expensive and that's got ray tracing because Nvidia are the best!"

It is literally that simple, and literally that depressing.

ANDREW GREEN · 24 Dec 2018 at 15:05

LePhuronn said:
nash: if AMD charge more than £350 for the RX 3080 as leaked they might as well not bother with gaming cards any more.

"well, the RTX 2070 is only a little bit more expensive and that's got ray tracing because Nvidia are the best!"

It is literally that simple, and literally that depressing.

But that would essentially be 25% cheaper for the same powered card. People would snap your hand off for a 1080 for £350 so what's the difference, albeit a year on?

AMD don't dictate pricing either, the manufacturer and retailer do. And I'd imagine that Navi will be in such demand that pricing is elevated initially. Maybe in time it gets down to £300 and £250, when the initial demand drops off.

LePhuronn · 24 Dec 2018 at 15:18

ANDREW GREEN said:
AMD don't dictate pricing either, the manufacturer and retailer do.

Indeed. Even if the leaked prices are accurate, you know that's just AMD's recommended reference board price. By the time AIB have added custom PCBs and custom coolers and everybody in the distribution and retail chain have added their margins, the price will be much different.

And you just know the second these things prove to be popular, retails will start gouging the hell out of it under the pretence of "maintaining sales expectations".

ANDREW GREEN said:
But that would essentially be 25% cheaper for the same powered card. People would snap your hand off for a 1080 for £350 so what's the difference, albeit a year on?

The difference is it shouldn't be £350 for what will be a 3 year old performance benchmark, and consumers would only snap my hand off because mining and RTX have skewed perceptions on what a GPU should cost ,and AMD pricing Navi to undercut RTX but only a little bit isn't going to win them anything. Assuming it is profitable to do so, AMD need to come in hard with Navi prices to force the midrange segment back down to sensible prices and also to foster their own sales. Vega was stupid money when it first came out, AMD need to be aggressive for Navi to be deemed "worth it" but there also has to be a significant price gap between Navi and the equivalent RTX to ensure the promise of ray tracing on RTX is not worth the price gap.

Let me put it this way:

If the RX 3080 as rumoured was £50 less than an RTX 2070, which would you go for?
If the RX 3080 as rumoured was £150 less than an RTX 2070, which would you go for?

stuartharrison · 24 Dec 2018 at 15:52

Navi is obviously coming, and it will be 7nm.
The RX590 is clearly a stop gap card - it's exactly the same as the 580, just 12nm vs 14nm for the 580 which allows them to pump higher clock speeds through it. Board partners can take a 580 pcb and drop in a 590 chip and they'll have an RX590 card. It's obviously not a long term product. OCUK have been clearing Vega 64's and 56's at close to cost price

Lisa Su has said that they need to clear inventory, so I wouldn't expect Navi till at least March.

As for performance, it's expected to have 40 compute units (vs 64 for the Vega) - with the smaller die size and move to 7nm they'll be able to pump more clock cycles through it.
They'd have to do over 2,000 mhz to match or better the 2070 I've heard - they've managed to push the 590 to around 1600mhz vs 1300-ish mhz for the 580 on a die shrink of 14 to 12nm, so that doesn't seem unreasonable with a new (or newish) architecture and a die shrink to 7nm.

The move the 7nm is significant as it will have a lower tdp and allow for higher clock speeds.
All they're aiming for is vega 64 (which they've already managed)/1080/2070 speeds.
As for cost - figure around 590 price plus extra for the more expensive Gddr6 memory.

Al Nvidia have achieved with the 20xx series cards is to match the price/performance of the 10xx series cards.
If they matched the gains the 10xx made over the 9xx series, then the 2070 should be the 2060, the 2080 the 2070, and they should be priced accordingly, at 10xx prices.
The 2070 is really a mid range card, being sold at high end prices - all amd are trying to do with the first Navi cards is match what should now be mid range performance, with a massive die shrink and new architecture.
It's Nvidia's prices that are unrealistic, not amd's - they're not trying to beat a genuine £500 card, because the 2070 shouldn't cost anywhere near that.

AMD are widely rumoured to be developing Navi for the PS5 and the new Xbox, which will give them development money.
Those consoles are expected to achieve 4k @ 60fps - so that is where amd will ultimately be aiming with Navi (but unlikely with the first versions).

Gerard · 24 Dec 2018 at 15:55

More rumblings from wccftech that a consumer 7nm radeon is on the cards for ces.

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/12/24/amd_rumored_to_launched_new_consumer_gpu_apus_at_ces

LePhuronn · 24 Dec 2018 at 16:13

stuartharrison said:
18 month old news.

Thanks for the summary.

LePhuronn · 24 Dec 2018 at 16:15

Gerard said:
More rumblings from wccftech that a consumer 7nm radeon is on the cards for ces.

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/12/24/amd_rumored_to_launched_new_consumer_gpu_apus_at_ces

Well that will certainly mix things up. A 7nm Vega for consumers after all? Do I have any salt left after pinching it all for Ryzen 3000 and Navi?

Gerard · 24 Dec 2018 at 16:19

LePhuronn said:
Well that will certainly mix things up. A 7nm Vega for consumers after all? Do I have any salt left after pinching it all for Ryzen 3000 and Navi?

Given the source i'd invest in a new container of salt

rallyslag · 24 Dec 2018 at 16:47

Whoever the source,i think that CES is eagerly awaited by all.

alex crossland · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:08

I’m certainly going to be waiting till after Ces to upgrade. It’s not worth spending £400 on a vega card now if they’re going to be obseye in less than a year and replaced by something better and cheaper! Might look for a 144hz 1440p monitor though I’m the meantime though.

bru · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:29

Gerard said:
More rumblings from wccftech that a consumer 7nm radeon is on the cards for ces.

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/12/24/amd_rumored_to_launched_new_consumer_gpu_apus_at_ces

All aboard.

rallyslag · 24 Dec 2018 at 19:29

Ces is all about Ryzen2 i would imagine,with hints of gpu's i might be wrong but i am expecting and hoping new cpu's to come first.. Hell i just bought a saphire 64 and a 1440 144htz monitor. The vega card is suprissing when undervolting. I am playing wolfestein 2 on uber with motion blur off and it holds 144 fps ( target set riva) never droping out of the 120's, holding 1632mhz consistantly and never exeeding 60 deg .. Does for Me

Edit to say this is all with my old [email protected] . Obviously not a cpu intensive game ...

ANDREW GREEN · 25 Dec 2018 at 09:23

LePhuronn said:
Indeed. Even if the leaked prices are accurate, you know that's just AMD's recommended reference board price. By the time AIB have added custom PCBs and custom coolers and everybody in the distribution and retail chain have added their margins, the price will be much different.

And you just know the second these things prove to be popular, retails will start gouging the hell out of it under the pretence of "maintaining sales expectations".

The difference is it shouldn't be £350 for what will be a 3 year old performance benchmark, and consumers would only snap my hand off because mining and RTX have skewed perceptions on what a GPU should cost ,and AMD pricing Navi to undercut RTX but only a little bit isn't going to win them anything. Assuming it is profitable to do so, AMD need to come in hard with Navi prices to force the midrange segment back down to sensible prices and also to foster their own sales. Vega was stupid money when it first came out, AMD need to be aggressive for Navi to be deemed "worth it" but there also has to be a significant price gap between Navi and the equivalent RTX to ensure the promise of ray tracing on RTX is not worth the price gap.

Let me put it this way:

If the RX 3080 as rumoured was £50 less than an RTX 2070, which would you go for?
If the RX 3080 as rumoured was £150 less than an RTX 2070, which would you go for?

Providing the 3080 is on par or quicker I'd go with the cheaper card. But yes I'm sure plenty will go for 2070 because it's Nvidia and 'new tech'. Personally I'll wait for a good deal anyway whatever that may be.

Gerard said:
More rumblings from wccftech that a consumer 7nm radeon is on the cards for ces.

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/12/24/amd_rumored_to_launched_new_consumer_gpu_apus_at_ces

I'm pretty sure Ryzen 3000 is 7nm isn't it? Which would make this unreliable at best

LePhuronn · 25 Dec 2018 at 10:34

ANDREW GREEN said:
Providing the 3080 is on par or quicker I'd go with the cheaper card.

So let's say for argument the raster performance of the RTX 2070 and the RX 3080 are identical, you wouldn't drop an extra £50 for the RTX technologies and the potential it brings? Let's say RT and DLSS is actually a thing and implemented in games, would you still get the RX 3080 to save £50? I'm not sure I would.

This is why AMD can't price the RX 3000 series only a little bit under the equivalent RTX. Give me identical raster performance at £150 less then Nvidia can jog on, give me identical raster performance at only £50 less then I'll probably grab the RTX instead because of the additional technology.

Chrisc · 27 Dec 2018 at 11:11

LePhuronn said:
How is it optimistic? GPU prices are grotesquely inflated and AMD have a golden opportunity to claim some major marketshare.

At this point in time, AMD are not Intel and Nvidia. They cannot afford to have the same mindset of low sales with huge margins, relying on fanbois and the ill-informed to gobble up stock. AMD can still make a significant profit through high sales and low margins, and pitching a Vega 64/GTX 1080 performing card at £250 will do just that.

I really hope it happens but I just cant imagine it. Especially if they stick with HBM.

Chrisc · 27 Dec 2018 at 11:13

Phixsator said:
You better be ready to show some skin then

I best start moisturising it.

LePhuronn · 27 Dec 2018 at 11:20

Chrisc said:
I really hope it happens but I just cant imagine it. Especially if they stick with HBM.

Navi should be GDDR6. Unless there's been some huge manufacturing breakthrough to make it cheap as chips (no pun), I can't see AMD shooting themselves in the foot again by strapping HBM to Navi.

Chrisc · 27 Dec 2018 at 12:43

LePhuronn said:
Navi should be GDDR6. Unless there's been some huge manufacturing breakthrough to make it cheap as chips (no pun), I can't see AMD shooting themselves in the foot again by strapping HBM to Navi.

Aye, im hoping they use GDDR6, that'll be a great start.