AMD VEGA confirmed for 2017 H1

Legend · 14 Jan 2017 at 13:47

TheRealDeal said:
That's not what he said in the video at all. He said the bare minimum performance is likely to be around Titan XP performance. He's a bit out in how doubling up works but i don't think he's to far off in thinking Vega is Titan XP performance. Vega is definitely coming with more theoretical power as that bit has been made public. If it can use the majority of it then there is no reason it can't be as fast as Titan XP. The gaming gpu might even be faster than the 12.5 tflops of the professional version as is usually the case. To much doom and gloom around atm. On paper this card looks fast. One things for sure it won't be slow and Nvidia will have some competition at the high end for the first time in a year.

I was exaggerating, but he is heavily implying it's going to destroy the Titan XP. He's basing this on a lot of rumour and WCCFTech of all places lol! Anyone who expects VEGA to be much beyond 1080 performance is set to be sorely disappointed. Of course many people will be happy with that, which is fine for them, but the fantasies should be curtailed.

TheRealDeal · 14 Jan 2017 at 13:57

Legend said:
I was exaggerating, but he is heavily implying it's going to destroy the Titan XP. He's basing this on a lot of rumour and WCCFTech of all places lol! Anyone who expects VEGA to be much beyond 1080 performance is set to be sorely disappointed. Of course many people will be happy with that, which is fine for them, but the fantasies should be curtailed.

It does not really need to be much faster than the Gtx1080 to be in Titan XP ball park. Titan Xp is not that much faster than the gtx1080 especially at lower resolutions. Looks to be around 18% at 1080p, 26% at 1440p going up to 31% at 4k. Any how i am holding off judgement until i see some proper benchmarks as the hype train for the RX480 got way out of control. These aren't the top Vega chips either as Vega 20 is still to come after so Vega should be enough to see them through to Navi.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/Titan_X_Pascal/24.html

Gregster · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:13

Always best to hold off claims of this and that til we get solid info. It is easy to get sucked into hype or disappointment with rumors but common sense needs to be used here.

akarypid · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:15

akarypid said:
I think it's no coincidence they decided to change up their GCN architecture alongside the arrival of Zen. If the market is flooded with PCs and laptops using Vega-based APUs they'll get a HUGE graphics market share from that alone (remember, Intel are #1 in graphics market share if you count integrated graphics).

benjii said:
That's a reasonable point. They're also going to get increased coverage with VEGA on Intel chips as a result of that surprising deal.

The Intel deal is still rumour and not confirmed.

My point was that if they start filling the market with Vega-based graphics (even if it's low-end APUs) their market share will become significant and trigger all the good stuff that comes with that (as in coding to a Vega-optimised path will be worth it).

TheRealDeal · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:22

Gregster said:
Always best to hold off claims of this and that til we get solid info. It is easy to get sucked into hype or disappointment with rumors but common sense needs to be used here.

Yea after the Fury X launch i won't be sucked in by fake info and hype. Vega will be fast comparing to what we have now but how fast nobody really knows and that's basically it for now. It's going to have 12.5 TFLOP's minimum if it's the same chip as in the professional card which is likely. That's 50% more than the Fury X which struggles to use it's power so it's definitely not going to be slow.

deuse · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:33

I hope that AMD brings out a 1080 killer. We need more competition.

Jono8 · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:38

TheRealDeal said:
Yea after the Fury X launch i won't be sucked in by fake info and hype. Vega will be fast comparing to what we have now but how fast nobody really knows and that's basically it for now. It's going to have 12.5 TFLOP's minimum if it's the same chip as in the professional card which is likely. That's 50% more than the Fury X which struggles to use it's power so it's definitely not going to be slow.

AMD never quite seem to be able to get all their TFlops down in actual performance terms (compared with Nvidia). However if they can improve this with that rated Tflop number then we might well see it being close to Titan XP performance.

akarypid · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:39

TheRealDeal said:
These aren't the top Vega chips either as Vega 20 is still to come after so Vega should be enough to see them through to Navi.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/Titan_X_Pascal/24.html

Vega 20 will be the 7nm die-shrink of Vega 10, not a bigger / higher-end chip.

They're saying 2H 2018 because that's when GloFo are supposed to deliver the process. It's still too early to see if things are on track for this.

TheRealDeal · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:42

akarypid said:
Vega 20 will be the 7nm die-shrink of Vega 10, not a bigger / higher-end chip.

They're saying 2H 2018 because that's when GloFo are supposed to deliver the process. It's still too early to see if things are on track for this.

I can only go on what there roadmap has on it. These things often change though. Looks like Vega 20 might even be the mid range to Navi if it's on the 7nm node.

http://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AMD-GPU-Roadmap-Polaris-Vega-Navi-1920x1080.jpg

http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2016/03/dsc06959-100650270-large.jpg

TheRealDeal · 14 Jan 2017 at 14:48

Jono8 said:
AMD never quite seem to be able to get all their TFlops down in actual performance terms (compared with Nvidia). However if they can improve this with that rated Tflop number then we might well see it being close to Titan XP performance.

Yea this is true and Fury X is a prime example. Vega looks to have much bigger changes to help with throughput so hopefully it's much better in this regard.

akarypid · 14 Jan 2017 at 15:00

Jono8 said:
AMD never quite seem to be able to get all their TFlops down in actual performance terms (compared with Nvidia). However if they can improve this with that rated Tflop number then we might well see it being close to Titan XP performance.

The only game where AMD's TFLOPs seem to translate to higher FPS is Doom. The reference 480 is >15% faster than the 1060FE in Doom, with 30% higher stated TFLOPs (they are 5.8/4.4 respectively, though supposedly the 1060 usually goes 10% higher than it's boost clock with GPU boost 3.0, so maybe it's closer 4.8 in reality?).

People were disappointed with the Vega Doom demo, saying it is a best case scenario for AMD, but is it? What if all these architectural changes don't do much for Doom (because it is already able to max out GCN) but work wonders for DX11/DX12 games?

Gregster · 14 Jan 2017 at 15:02

TheRealDeal said:
Yea after the Fury X launch i won't be sucked in by fake info and hype. Vega will be fast comparing to what we have now but how fast nobody really knows and that's basically it for now. It's going to have 12.5 TFLOP's minimum if it's the same chip as in the professional card which is likely. That's 50% more than the Fury X which struggles to use it's power so it's definitely not going to be slow.

The Fury X actually got a bit of a raw deal but also didn't help itself. The Card was good, very good in fact at 4K plus resolutions but that stupid 4GB was a limiting factor. Had they put 8GB on, it would have been the perfect 4K card. I was sold on the AIO coolers after using it as well. The let down was 1080P/1440P really and that was why it got a bit of a ribbing.

harney · 14 Jan 2017 at 15:46

Gregster said:
Always best to hold off claims of this and that til we get solid info. It is easy to get sucked into hype or disappointment with rumors but common sense needs to be used here.

Agree with you

But i would like to add this and place more coal in the hype train furnace ...

I think AMD have something really special with Ryzen Cpus ..but i am not too sure about Vega ..

But what if ...AMD have some magic sauce with some kind of AMD tech a magic link with special instructions by combining both ryzen and vega together ...

Intel or nvidia would not be able to achieve this .. with them being separate company's

This is where i think AMD could be stronger in the long run...

just a thought

We will just have to wait and see but either way its exciting to watch how this will all unfold

Griffildur · 14 Jan 2017 at 15:50

They already do, as long as you're using Vulkan, that is. Problem is they need to convince everyone else to use that API to develop games so people can play more than just Doom.

N19h7m4r3 · 14 Jan 2017 at 15:57

Gregster said:
The Fury X actually got a bit of a raw deal but also didn't help itself. The Card was good, very good in fact at 4K plus resolutions but that stupid 4GB was a limiting factor. Had they put 8GB on, it would have been the perfect 4K card. I was sold on the AIO coolers after using it as well. The let down was 1080P/1440P really and that was why it got a bit of a ribbing.

In the last digital foundry videos, the FX was matching the Maxwell Titan X in 4K really well.
Then after upping more things, that VRAM limit hit.

It's also an issue even in 1440p in newer games. Deus Ex being one. I had to scale back on the shadows and saw nearly a 20fps increase on that alone, along with more from lowering textures from the highest setting.

I'll hopefully be picking up the top most Vega card this year, and I hope they give it at least 16GB for VRAM.

harney · 14 Jan 2017 at 16:00

Griffildur said:
They already do, as long as you're using Vulkan, that is. Problem is they need to convince everyone else to use that API to develop games so people can play more than just Doom.

Yes agree with you on the vulkan API but i am meaning more so on a hardware level with special instructions with in the cpu & even Vega maybe even the mother board chipset too..

Something that neither Intel or nvidia have ...

I am no technical expert but its just a thought really as i am trying to fill up the train furnace and get a nice bit of pressure built up...

Gregster · 14 Jan 2017 at 16:05

N19h7m4r3 said:
In the last digital foundry videos, the FX was matching the Maxwell Titan X in 4K really well.
Then after upping more things, that VRAM limit hit.

It's also an issue even in 1440p in newer games. Deus Ex being one. I had to scale back on the shadows and saw nearly a 20fps increase on that alone, along with more from lowering textures from the highest setting.

I'll hopefully be picking up the top most Vega card this year, and I hope they give it at least 16GB for VRAM.

I compared my Titan X Maxwell to my Fury X at 1440P and it was a bit one sided at that res and when overclocking the 2, the gap was even more but had the FX had 8GB, it would have been a fantastic card for 4K resolutions and giving the Maxwell Titan some what for in many games.

Rroff · 14 Jan 2017 at 16:05

Griffildur said:
They already do, as long as you're using Vulkan, that is. Problem is they need to convince everyone else to use that API to develop games so people can play more than just Doom.

As an aside - Doom Vulkan probably has a bit more to give for nVidia - I was talking to one of the devs and basically AMD GPUs gave better gains without much optimisation, etc. of the code while they hadn't at the time paid much attention to getting more performance out of the nVidia cards - partly due to them running well on Open GL. On games written on Vulkan from the ground up and optimised for both there might be less of a difference than there is with Doom.

humbug · 14 Jan 2017 at 16:33

Rroff said:
As an aside - Doom Vulkan probably has a bit more to give for nVidia - I was talking to one of the devs and basically AMD GPUs gave better gains without much optimisation, etc. of the code while they hadn't at the time paid much attention to getting more performance out of the nVidia cards - partly due to them running well on Open GL. On games written on Vulkan from the ground up and optimised for both there might be less of a difference than there is with Doom.

They are optimised for both, its simply that nVidia are lacking some A-Sync features.

nVidia have had 6 months to get all they can out of Doom Vulkan, it is what it is....

nashathedog · 14 Jan 2017 at 16:45

Legend said:
No need to be sad, watch the video above. VEGA now guaranteed to have twice Titan XP performance for half the price! All aboard the hype train, next stop Performanceville, TOOOOOT-TOOOOOOT!!

What a legend, Now I'm happy