AMD VEGA confirmed for 2017 H1

TheRealDeal · 18 Feb 2017 at 15:52

Kaapstad said:
It would be unfair to blame just NVidia for that then as both AMD and NVidia jumped on that bandwagon with the HD7970 and GTX 680 which were both sold as high end cards.

The 7970 was a pretty big die for AMD up to that point. It was almost the same size as the 6970 which i believe was AMD's second biggest die up to that point just behind the 2900xt. I don't think AMD wanted to go any bigger than the 290x which was only around 80mm2 bigger. Fury seems all wrong tbh and i don't think AMD wanted that gpu on 28nm.

Kaapstad · 18 Feb 2017 at 15:54

TheRealDeal said:
The 7970 was a pretty big die for AMD up to that point. It was almost the same size as the 6970 which i believe was AMD's second biggest die up to that point just behind the 2900xt. I don't think AMD wanted to go any bigger than the 290x which was only around 80mm2 bigger.

Die area for the HD 7970 was 352mm2 which is not that big.

TheRealDeal · 18 Feb 2017 at 15:55

Kaapstad said:
Die area for the HD 7970 was 352mm2 which is not that big.

For Nvidia yea but for AMD at that point it was pretty big.

Kaapstad · 18 Feb 2017 at 15:58

TheRealDeal said:
For Nvidia yea but for AMD at that point it was pretty big.

You have to treat both vendors the same, the point is AMD are just as guilty of charging high end prices for mid range cards.

TheRealDeal · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:01

Amd's last top end chips were 4890 282mm2, 5870 334mm2, 6970 389mm2, 7970 365mm2, 290x 438mm2

Nvidia 285 470mm2, gtx480 529nm, gtx580 520nm, gtx680 294 mm2, Titan 561mm2

You notice the big difference.

Kaapstad · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:06

TheRealDeal said:
Amd's last top end chips were 4890 282mm2, 5870 334mm2, 6970 389mm2, 7970 365mm2

Nvidia 285 470mm2, gtx480 529nm, gtx580 520nm, gtx680 294 mm2.

The point is the HD 7970 was not AMDs top GPU as shown in the chart above yet they still charged full price for it.

It would be unfair to use the Fiji cards as a comparison on 28nm as they come from an entirely different family of chips.

TheRealDeal · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:09

Kaapstad said:
The point is the HD 7970 was not AMDs top GPU as shown in the chart above yet they still charged full price for it.

It would be unfair to use the Fiji cards as a comparison on 28nm as they come from an entirely different family of chips.

It was AMD's top chip. They never released a Titan chip. In fact they never released another chip until the 290x nearly 2 years later. Amd gave us what they had while Nvidia milked with Titan. Nvidia took advantage and i can't fault them for that but they always had a big chip there. The 7970 is still a pretty powerful chip to this day often matching or getting close to Titan in today's games. It was a chip ahead of it's time.

Kaapstad · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:14

TheRealDeal said:
It was AMD's top chip. They never released a Titan chip. In fact they never released another chip until the 290x nearly 2 years later. Amd gave us what they had while Nvidia milked with Titan. Nvidia took advantage and i can't fault them for that but they always had a big chip there. The 7970 is still a pretty powerful chip to this day often matching or getting close to Titan in today's games. It was a chip ahead of it's time.

The bottom line though is AMD are just as guilty of charging high end prices for mid range cards. As to the 290X that would have been in development long before the first Titan hit the shelves.

TheRealDeal · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:21

Kaapstad said:
The bottom line though is AMD are just as guilty of charging high end prices for mid range cards. As to the 290X that would have been in development long before the first Titan hit the shelves.

I don't think you understand or can see both strategies tbh. Nvidia always came with a huge chip and usually much bigger than Amd's for the extra performance it offered. Was the 5870 a mid end chip compared to the massive gtx480. The same with the 4890 compared to the gtx285. They were way smaller but offered up decent performance. Personally i think Kepler caught AMD napping as for a new chip on a new node as can be seen the 7970 is among AMD's biggest chips. Nvidia's gtx680 on the other hand is almost half the size. It's not really about right or wrong but i firmly believe AMD thought they had a winner in the 7970 and as time has proved they did.

TheRealDeal · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:25

Ignore

Rroff · 18 Feb 2017 at 16:28

TheRealDeal said:
I don't think you understand or can see both strategies tbh. Nvidia always came with a huge chip and usually much bigger than Amd's for the extra performance it offered. Was the 5870 a mid end chip compared to the massive gtx480. The same with the 4890 compared to the gtx285. They were way smaller but offered up decent performance. Personally i think Kepler caught AMD napping as for a new chip on a new node as can be seen the 7970 is among AMD's biggest chips. Nvidia's gtx680 on the other hand is almost half the size. It's not really about right or wrong but i firmly believe AMD thought they had a winner in the 7970 and as time has proved they did.

If we'd ended up stuck on those early 28nm offerings it would have turned out a bit interesting for nVidia heh - fortunately for them there was a lot more to come from 28nm despite being stuck on it for so long.

I think this is one aspect people are underestimating a bit with Vega - AMD traditionally didn't scale as well as they could with larger die sizes as a lot of functionality (especially setup engines, etc.) of their GPU are implemented with discrete blocks so while they aren't the entire story performance wise the performance of those areas in say the 5850 to 5870 a lot comes down directly to clock speed while on nVidia those features have long been moved to the shaders - so for nVidia you have both clock speed and number of shaders scaling performance in those areas as you move up to bigger GPUs - now with Vega AMD has moved many of those things to being able to run them on the shader hardware.

humbug · 18 Feb 2017 at 17:41

Kaapstad said:
You have to treat both vendors the same, the point is AMD are just as guilty of charging high end prices for mid range cards.

Not near a thousand pound tho...

Kaapstad · 18 Feb 2017 at 22:27

humbug said:
Not near a thousand pound tho...

This is true^

drunkenmaster · 18 Feb 2017 at 23:25

7970 was out as almost the first 28nm chip, it was expensive, there was a screw up by TSMC that dropped an entire production line for 2-3 months reducing capacity massively and yields were down. So the process was significantly more expensive, without new cards being launched yet(maybe the Ghz edition by then, that might have been later) prices came down fairly significantly both in Spring and July as production increased and costs came down.

Later on the 290x, despite being larger had the same pricing as the smaller 7970 because again process prices had reduced. Then Fury was genuinely expensive to make, with an AIO and obviously cost more than a 980ti, was significantly bigger than a 290x but came in at a price that was incredibly fair based on that size.

Comparing AMD to Nvidia in this sense is basically laughable. AMD brought prices on the 7970 down what $150 in total on a core that was larger than the competition and launched in a worse situation(at TSMC, not their own situation).

Conversely 16nm at TSMC was built upon 20nm which was out for ages, 16nm finfet had been out for a fairly long time and 16ff+ was out for what 6 months before Nvidia launched. The process was no where near, literally on where near the yields of 28nm at launch, it was a smaller core and it was priced significantly higher than a 7970 with absolutely no reason to be. 14/16nm prices are higher per mm^2 than 28nm, but not to that degree.

Boomstick777 · 19 Feb 2017 at 00:40

Just seen the GTX 1080's going for na on ~ £700. This pricing seems crazy to me.. That's the X80 card not even a Ti..

I doubt AMD's cards are going to be cheap either. This gives further credence to my used GPU's is the way forward xD. I will enjoy a VEGA card about 3 years after launch for 10% of the price xD

orbitalwalsh · 19 Feb 2017 at 07:02

Profit margins are lower for Vendors with AMD GPUs then it is for NVidia, can't blame to much on AMD for milking prices as they have just been expensive to produce .
RX series was all about volume to high then profit per card .
Have a since Vega will be the same

Geck0 · 19 Feb 2017 at 09:10

Boomstick777 said:
Just seen the GTX 1080's going for na on ~ £700. This pricing seems crazy to me.. That's the X80 card not even a Ti..

I doubt AMD's cards are going to be cheap either. This gives further credence to my used GPU's is the way forward xD. I will enjoy a VEGA card about 3 years after launch for 10% of the price xD

If Ryzen pricing is on point expect the same with Vega. AMD is on a mission to get market & mindshare.

Mind you they will still make a tidy profit, take note all you green team how badly you've been fleeced.

AlamoX · 19 Feb 2017 at 09:11

Boomstick777 said:
Just seen the GTX 1080's going for na on ~ £700. This pricing seems crazy to me.. That's the X80 card not even a Ti..

I doubt AMD's cards are going to be cheap either. This gives further credence to my used GPU's is the way forward xD. I will enjoy a VEGA card about 3 years after launch for 10% of the price xD

raja have been talking a lot about a thousand dollar 4k PC, hope he walks the same way he talks, otherwise that would be weird, and for the GPU side market share > margins, specifically for AMD if you ask me.

Chipper500 · 20 Feb 2017 at 08:39

Sorry guys ive been out of the loop for a while now

can anyone give me a quick lowdown on the current state of vega, what is known and what is expected?

Im due an upgrade and as ive a Freesync screen im committed to AMD

Thanks

elrasho · 20 Feb 2017 at 09:03

Chipper500 said:
Sorry guys ive been out of the loop for a while now

can anyone give me a quick lowdown on the current state of vega, what is known and what is expected?

Im due an upgrade and as ive a Freesync screen im committed to AMD

Thanks

Everyone is getting their hopes up that it will be awesome but deep down inside know it will be pants because it's AMD

Not much is know just yet, a few leaks here and there. Think there's a first show on the 28th this month.