AMD VEGA confirmed for 2017 H1

Gregster · 12 Dec 2016 at 06:38

humbug said:
Having a card with as much power as the Fury-X has why would you run 1080P? especially your selection of ancient games there.

Sadly, the Fury X is VRAM limited and like you said, DX12 uses even more, so even more reason to stay away. I view AMD'S best card as the 480 and sadly that isn't aimed at those who want all the trimmings.

Don't misunderstand me though, I am begging Vega to be a right beast and Volta to follow suit. Choice is what us consumers want.

Stanners · 12 Dec 2016 at 08:05

**Despite warnings people still seem to think calling people trolls/fanboys etc. is acceptable, I suggest people refresh themselves with this sticky as if this continues action will be taken.**

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18585963

TNA · 12 Dec 2016 at 08:09

Gregster said:
I am begging Vega to be a right beast and Volta to follow suit. Choice is what us consumers want.

Me too. I am hoping Vega will do very well and Volta will come out not so long after. Then I can get whichever offers best price for performance

Another consideration is waiting to see if either card offer 8K support, which I assume they will as LG will be releasing an 8K monitor according to tftcentral:

8K panel - We already knew about their 31.5" sized IPS panel which showed up on roadmaps back in June. As a re-cap, and with a bit of new information, this will offer a massive 7680 x 4320 ("8K") resolution, delivering 280 PPI. It also provides a 4-side borderless design and the spec boasts a 1300:1 contrast ratio, 400 cd/m2 brightness, 178/178 viewing angles, 10-bit colour depth and 100% Adobe RGB gamut coverage. This panel is expected to go in to production in March 2017.

I will be upgrading my 1080P Plasma TV to 4K in a year or two to an OLED HDR screen. I can enjoy HDR on that and enjoy 8K on my monitor. Happy to play low fps to get awesome graphics. That said will only do that if LG price it right, not paying silly monies for it. I got my current monitor from Dell for like £550 I think it was and that was over two years ago when 4K was relatively new

Gregster · 12 Dec 2016 at 08:19

TNA said:
Me too. I am hoping Vega will do very well and Volta will come out not so long after. Then I can get whichever offers best price for performance

Another consideration is waiting to see if either card offer 8K support, which I assume they will as LG will be releasing an 8K monitor according to tftcentral:

I will be upgrading my 1080P Plasma TV to 4K in a year or two to an OLED HDR screen. I can enjoy HDR on that and enjoy 8K on my monitor. Happy to play low fps to get awesome graphics. That said will only do that if LG price it right, not paying silly monies for it. I got my current monitor from Dell for like £550 I think it was and that was over two years ago when 4K was relatively new

Nice and my Mrs let me buy the LG 55e6v 4k TV, which is superb. Not tried my PC on it but wouldn't mind at some point giving it a blast for curiosity sake. I was torn between that and the Sammy Quantum Dot TV's but after seeing the clarity, I feel I made the right choice

I don't feel 8K is really viable unless you do a lot of work on your PC and certainly playing some of the more modern demanding games will put any current system in a state of shock

TNA · 12 Dec 2016 at 08:47

Gregster said:
Nice and my Mrs let me buy the LG 55e6v 4k TV, which is superb. Not tried my PC on it but wouldn't mind at some point giving it a blast for curiosity sake. I was torn between that and the Sammy Quantum Dot TV's but after seeing the clarity, I feel I made the right choice I don't feel 8K is really viable unless you do a lot of work on your PC and certainly playing some of the more modern demanding games will put any current system in a state of shock

Drool, nice TV choice there. I am going to wait for things to mature a little more and price to comes down. Will be going for 65" one myself, which by 2018 should be under 2K. Currently content is only starting to come out this year so not in a huge rush. You definitely need to hook your pc up to that TV Gregster. I would love to watch a YouTube video if you did one

Yeah, 8K is going to be very hard to run. I just like new tech when I can justify it. There are quite a few games that I play that would benefit from higher resolution and run though. Fifa 17 I could run 8K with a 1070, so would Dota 2 and a bunch of slightly older games. New games of course, no chance. Lol. Chances are I will probably just end up getting another 4K monitor next anyway, but still would consider the 8K if priced well

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:01

It looks like at least one version of Vega has appeared:

http://videocardz.com/64677/amd-ann...erator-radeon-instinct-mi25-for-deep-learning

Its in a compute card called the Radeon INSTINCT MI25 and is used for deep learning.

Seanspeed · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:29

passifid said:
Well because they were released before the 780ti, so a gen before, of COURSE the 970 should be faster. But it isnt..

The 970 is not a top line card, again. It was the cut down *mid range* Maxwell.

And it is faster than the 780Ti. Wasn't on Day 1(maybe 5% short), but after 6 months, it was besting the 780Ti almost everywhere. When you compare what the 780Ti cost, when it came out, and then what the 970 cost, and when *it* came out, the 970 was a price/performance monster.

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The R9 290 undercut the GTX780 pricing at launch(there was a set of GTX780 price cuts,which meant RRP went from $650 to $500 to undercut the R9 290X,but the R9 290 debuted at $400) and you could get custom cooled R9 290 series cards for just over £300 nearly one year before the GTX970 was launched.

People who bought some of those cheaper aftermarket R9 290 cards a few months after launch,have had the better part of three years decent use out of them. The R9 290 series cards are still reasonably fine in DX12 and Vulkan too. Plus plenty of people mined on them and essentially got free cards. The R9 390 is basically an aftermarket R9 290 with 8GB of VRAM.

The R9 290 is probably the biggest bargain of the two,as it still holds up in newer API.

Plus in the month before the R9 390 series was launched you could get decent R9 290 cards for like £170 to £180 and R9 290X cards for just over £200 if you shopped around.

However,it shows you how disastrous the negative PR from the reference cooler was,when a rebranded range of cards actually ended up selling at a higher price.

Its why I really hope AMD has a decent cooler on the next cards they launch.

I'm not saying the 290 wasn't a good purchase if you found one cheap and got a custom cooled one. I'm just saying the 970 is still a great card and anybody who bought one Day 1 made a fantastic purchase. Do people not remember you could get a *quality* 970 for £260-270 at launch? Those weren't uncommon deals you had to search around for, either. That was the normal going rate.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:33

Seanspeed said:
The 970 is not a top line card, again. It was the cut down *mid range* Maxwell.

And it is faster than the 780Ti. Wasn't on Day 1, but after 6 months, it was besting the 780Ti almost everywhere. When you compare what the 780Ti cost, when it came out, and then what the 970 cost, and when *it* came out, the 970 was a price/performance monster.

I'm not saying the 290 wasn't a good purchase if you found one cheap and got a custom cooled one. I'm just saying the 970 is still a great card and anybody who bought one Day 1 made a fantastic purchase. Do people not remember you could get a *quality* 970 for £260-270 at launch? Those weren't uncommon deals you had to search around for, either. That was the normal going rate.

The £300 to £320 one wasn't that uncommon and had a decent cooler IIRC.

The R9 290 also still has generally better DX12 and Vulkan performance,so not only did it come out one year before the GTX970,it won't surprise me if actually outlives it a bit more too.

Plus those £170 R9 290 Tri-X cards last year were great value. Remember,the R9 390 has special drivers which did not work on the R9 290 cards at launch.

Then the people who mined on them got free cards and there were multiple threads on the large tech forums regarding this.

Also,considering that the chip is only 10% larger than a GM204,had a 512 bit memory controller and was a compute monster for non-gaming usage,I am still surprised that such a smallish chip for its time could do so much. Its in fact made some of the later chips look a bit meh in consideration,and was truly a jack of all trades chip.

If only AMD had made a better reference cooler.

The R9 390 is essentially the R9 290 launched without a meh reference cooler.

Rroff · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:42

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
If only AMD had made a better reference cooler.

Wasn't just the reference cooler that impacted on launch - was the whole random blackscreen thing as well - there was one guy on here who went through a few trying to get a crossfire setup working and only managed to find 1 card out of ~5 that was free of it and gave up and went 980 SLI IIRC.

That probably chucked a few people nVidia way that could have been avoided.

Seanspeed · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:45

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The £300 to £320 one wasn't that uncommon and had a decent cooler IIRC.

The R9 290 also still has generally better DX12 and Vulkan performance,so not only did it come out one year before the GTX970,it won't surprise me if actually outlives it a bit more too.

Plus those £170 R9 290 Tri-X cards last year were great value. Remember,the R9 390 has special drivers which did not work on the R9 290 cards at launch.

Then the people who mined on them got free cards and there were multiple threads on the large tech forums regarding this.

Also,considering that the chip is only 10% larger than a GM204,had a 512 bit memory controller and was a compute monster for non-gaming usage,I am still surprise that such a smallish chip for its time could do so much. Its in fact made some of the later chips look a bit meh in consideration,and was truly a jack of all trades chip.

If only AMD had made a better reference cooler.

I have no idea why you're arguing with me so hard here. I just said that I wasn't denying the 290 wasn't a good purchase. Just that the 970 wasn't either, despite humbug trying to revise history and act like it was.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:47

Rroff said:
Wasn't just the reference cooler that impacted on launch - was the whole random blackscreen thing as well - there was one guy on here who went through a few trying to get a crossfire setup working and only managed to find 1 card out of ~5 that was free of it and gave up and went 980 SLI IIRC.

Which was probably overblown,since apparently the HD5850 and HD5870 had it too at launch,and none of my mates(about 5 of us) ever had that problem. My HD5850 sold for more than what I paid for it,so for me its my best card I ever owned since I got paid for gaming!!

Rroff · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:50

Wouldn't say overblown if you remember the thread on here about it a fair few went through 2-3 cards before they got one that wasn't affected by it - IIRC was a whole batch of VRAM that caused problems with it or something.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Dec 2016 at 11:53

Seanspeed said:
I have no idea why you're arguing with me so hard here. I just said that I wasn't denying the 290 wasn't a good purchase. Just that the 970 wasn't either, despite humbug trying to revise history and act like it was.

And lastly, I still think people are overplaying the importance of DX12/Vulkan. Most games still dont use it, and of those that do, only a percent actually gain anything meaningful from it. By the time it ever becomes any kind of standard, both the 290 and 970 will be quite outdated in raw horsepower terms.

Because people overblow how good a purchase th GTX970 was. You forget due to the R9 290 and R9 290X,GTX780 pricing cratered from $650 to $500,and then to below that. In the UK,£550 GTX780 cards went down to £350 with a free game,and it was for a short period generally really great value even compared to a £300 to £320 R9 290 card with no games.

R9 290 and R9 290X card pricing went down but,not to the level of the GTX970 and the R9 290 is still nearly a year older,and whatever said and done the R9 290 is still better overall in those APIs.

It will still outlive the GTX970,and for a card which launched 12 MONTHS before the GTX970 I don't know why people are trying to argue about its longevity.

You need to get this into your mind - the GTX970 is TWO YEARS OLD. The R9 290 is THREE YEARS OLD.

One is 50% older than the other which is an eternity in graphics cards. FFS,even 4GB of VRAM was uncommon at the time.

Plenty of people mined on them and got free cards too. Even my old HD5850 went up in value and essentially I got a free GTX660 as a result with a nice free performance bump too.

Rroff said:
Wouldn't say overblown if you remember the thread on here about it a fair few went through 2-3 cards before they got one that wasn't affected by it - IIRC was a whole batch of VRAM that caused problems with it or something.

It was since the HD5850/HD5870 apparently had the same issue due to GDDR5 downclocking issues but in reality 5 of us had HD5850 cards and a few knew mates with HD5870 cards and they were not affected.

My HD5850 was an early reference card.

Edit!!

I still remember the thread on this forum saying the GTX970 was the finest card ever created.

Which made me LOL,since some of us have been enthusiasts for yonks and remember the 9500/9700 PRO and 6600GT,unlockable 6800LE cards,etc.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:00

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It looks like at least one version of Vega has appeared:

http://videocardz.com/64677/amd-ann...erator-radeon-instinct-mi25-for-deep-learning

Its in a compute card called the Radeon INSTINCT MI25 and is used for deep learning.

Anyway enough talk of the GTX970/R9 290 cards.

Vega is here,but not exactly as we envisioned it.

Seanspeed · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:02

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Because people overblow how good a purchase th GTX970 was.

I really dont think so.

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
You forget due to the R9 290 and R9 290X,GTX780 pricing cratered from $650 to $500,and then to below that. In the UK,£550 GTX780 cards went down to £350 with a free game

That makes the 970 a bad purchase how?

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
R9 290 and R9 290X card pricing went down but,not to the level of the GTX970 and the R9 290 is still nearly a year older,and whatever said and done you the R9 290 is still better overall in those APIs.

Yep, you're still not explaining what makes the 970 a bad purchase.

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It will still outlive the GTX970,and for a card which launched 12 MONTHS before the GTX970 I don't know why people are trying to argue about its longevity.

Considering the 970 is still faster than the 290 overall before we even take overclocking into account, I wouldn't be sure of this at all.

I dont get your whole argument anyways. Because the 290 was a good purchase, it means the 970 cant also be a good purchase?

Is it so hard for some people here to say something good about an Nvidia card? Satan isn't gonna pop up and give you a high-five, dont worry. You're not doing anything morally or ethically wrong.

Rroff · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:03

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It was since the HD5850/HD5870 apparently had the same issue due to GDDR5 downclocking issues but in reality 5 of us had HD5850 cards and a few knew mates with HD5870 cards and they were not affected.

My HD5850 was an early reference card.

Totally different story to the 5000 series cards - there wasn't even 1/10th the number of people with the 5000 series who complained of it on these forums compared to the 290 series.

Davedree · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:09

Rroff said:
Wouldn't say overblown if you remember the thread on here about it a fair few went through 2-3 cards before they got one that wasn't affected by it - IIRC was a whole batch of VRAM that caused problems with it or something.

It still happens to 390's it's to do with the memory p-state voltage values in 2d idle and 2d half load. When using desktop apps or hardware acceleration in edge for video it can cause blackscreens as there isn't enough voltage during the ramp up from 150-1500mhz.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:13

Rroff said:
Totally different story to the 5000 series cards - there wasn't even 1/10th the number of people with the 5000 series who complained of it on these forums compared to the 290 series.

Loads of threads about the HD5000 series having it.

Seanspeed said:
I really dont think so.

That makes the R9 290 a bad purchase how?

Yep, you're still not explaining what makes the R9 290 a bad purchase.

Considering the 290/390 -is still faster than the GTX970 overall especially with newer and newer games, I wouldn't be sure of this at all.

I dont get your whole argument anyways. Because the GTX970 was a good purchase, it means the R9 290 cant also be a good purchase?

Is it so hard for some people here to say something good about an AMD card? Satan isn't gonna pop up and give you a high-five, dont worry. You're not doing anything morally or ethically wrong.

You mean like this thread:

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18629984

The GTX970 and GTX980 cards are the best ever made. So much hype and a rebadged R9 290 series cards apparently are not doing too bad.

:eek:

So basically you are saying in an AMD thread the GTX970 was the best pruchase in the world,despite the fact all your deflection does not change the fact the R9 290 cards came out one year earlier and it will last longer.

Seanspeed said:
Is it so hard for some people here to say something good about an AMD card in an AMD thread? Satan isn't gonna pop up and give you a high-five, dont worry. You're not doing anything morally or ethically wrong.

You are getting angry since Humbug thought the R9 290/390 series is better,and so far in this thread you and your mates have tried everything in your power in an AMD thread to make sure any good thing about the R9 290/R9 390 series is buried.

First it was the GTX780>>>>R9 290 and now its the GTX970>>>>R9 290.

I have had a couple of years of Nvidia cards,and you seem to be trying to push the two year GTX970 as being better at every chance in this thread. You can deflect all you want,the older R9 290 will outlive the GTX970.

Just like the R9 290 will outlive the GTX780. Some of you can't get that.

I am yet to see anybody looking at things carefully say in this thread a Fury X will outlive a GTX980TI,and with only 4GB of VRAM I doubt it. But,but we surely can't say one AMD card will last long,otherwise the cats will become dogs and the dogs will become cats.

The problem is any mention of the R9 290 cards longevity is met by as much counter PR as possible. It was the same with the HD7950/HD7970 derivatives too.

humbug · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:16

Seanspeed said:
I really dont think so.

That makes the 970 a bad purchase how?

Yep, you're still not explaining what makes the 970 a bad purchase.

Considering the 970 is still faster than the 290 overall before we even take overclocking into account, I wouldn't be sure of this at all.

I dont get your whole argument anyways. Because the 290 was a good purchase, it means the 970 cant also be a good purchase?

Is it so hard for some people here to say something good about an Nvidia card? Satan isn't gonna pop up and give you a high-five, dont worry. You're not doing anything morally or ethically wrong.

Like the 290 the 970 is a good card but i never felt it was faster overclocked or not, according to this the 390, which is the same card, is 8% faster.

That doesn't mean the 970 is / was any less good.

Ingamacek · 12 Dec 2016 at 12:26

To be realistic, Fury is out and always was out because of VRAM. They are not futureproof gpus with their performance, but today in vulcan single R9 290 will crush also GTX780sli. We are leaving DX11 ages. Also gtx970 will be crushed in the same way. Maxwell either Kepler will be crying instead of Hawaii. 16GB HBM Vega can be and I think will be good buy. The market is moving to this way.