AMD VEGA confirmed for 2017 H1

humbug · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:14

N19h7m4r3 said:
I never once stated the Quadro cards used different cores?

The way I read that he's saying just the gaming cards have gimped compute, when in fact also the Quadro cards do.
The Tesla 100 is the first NVIDIA card since Kepler to feature full Compute performance and FP64, as even the Quadro's don't have it.

Where as the original thread of ours was about AMD's older cards from Hawaii and prior never had that issue; the top gaming cards had the same compute as top FirePro.

So I surmised that it could be the reason Vega is so darn big considering it's core count; which could mean that they went back to that design of huge chip ( 500-540mm2 ), and using it for top consumer as well.

Instead of like NVIDIA which has separated those lines now, DP and FP64 only available on G/P100 610mm2, and everything in the Consumer and Workstation line "gimped"

All of AMD cards are also compute cards, the 7970, the 290X, the Fury-X the RX 480, so the reason Vega is so big on 14nm compared with Fury-X... or any other AMD card you may cite is not because Vega may also be a workstation card and [Insert name of AMD card here] was/is not.... is flawed. THEY ALL ARE!

LoadsaMoney · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:15

VEGA isn't for gaming, its a pro card, for deep learning, the film industry etc...

N19h7m4r3 · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:18

humbug said:
All of AMD cards are also compute cards, the 7970, the 290X, the Fury-X the RX 480, so the reason Vega is so big on 14nm compared with Fury-X... or any other AMD card you may cite is not because Vega may also be a workstation card and [Insert name of AMD card here] was/is not.... is flawed. THEY ALL ARE!

Fiji and Polaris have significantly reduced compute capabilities compared to Hawaii and prior cards.

Look at how great Hawaii does compared to everything else in DP. AMD is still great in single precision and OpenCL, but since Hawaii they've been cutting FP64 performance.

As Anandtech state, even the 7970 is beating the Fury X in those kinds of workloads.

humbug · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:20

N19h7m4r3 said:
Fiji and Polaris have significantly reduced compute capabilities compared to Hawaii and prior cards.

Look at how great Hawaii does compared to everything else in DP. AMD is still great in single precision and OpenCL, but since Hawaii they've been cutting FP64 performance.

As Anandtech state, even the 7970 is beating the Fury X in those kinds of workloads.

They are still the same silicon tho, they have just had the compute performance arterially gimped.

mrsteve1982 · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:29

Would it be a fair bet to say that Computex is looking like a paper launch and availability sometime in June? or could it be a H1 paper launch and H2 before consumers can get their hands on Vega.

N19h7m4r3 · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:30

humbug said:
They are still the same silicon tho, they have just had the compute performance arterially gimped.

Aye, which is my point. Unlike NVIDIA AMD doesn't have the resources to have so many different cores to use in Consumer, Workstation, and Server.

With Fiji and Polaris though, we've not seen any professional cards that have all the compute functionality enabled.

Even AMD's RadeonPro's and Instinct cards based on those cores don't have the features.
Only Single and Half Precision, as the MI8 is based on the Nano, and MI6 is based on Polaris.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10905/amd-announces-radeon-instinct-deep-learning-2017/2

So Top end Vega which is a darn big core should have all the goodies for enterprise hence, the size. Then they'll either just also sell it to consumers like with Hawaii and Prior, or they'll "cut" Double Precision and everything.
Although that'll still leave the die with some unused space, that's just big.
So either VEGA is a monster in gaming, or it's primarily a Deep Learning and Enterprise card that'll have section cut off and then sold for top and gaming as well.

What we do know though is that Instinct MI25 is based on Vega is apparently beating the 2016 Titan X rather well in current Deep Learning benchmarks.

LoadsaMoney · 18 Apr 2017 at 16:57

Tech of Tomorrow, Vega coming Qtr 1 - 2018 (about 12-15 secs in) :eek:

N19h7m4r3 · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:06

LoadsaMoney said:
Tech of Tomorrow, Vega coming Qtr 1 - 2018 (about 12-15 secs in)

Q1 2018?! Isn't 2018 when AMD stated NAVI is showing up.

akarypid · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:10

LoadsaMoney said:
Tech of Tomorrow, Vega coming Qtr 1 - 2018 (about 12-15 secs in)

That's too soon! I'm not ready yet!

nashathedog · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:18

He's a bit of numpty if you ask me, It wouldn't suprise me if he said that simply to generate clicks from people quoting him elsewhere, as I said a bit of a numpty.

silversurfer · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:21

The other 580 vid I saw said ~June release for Vega is the most likely fit

D.P. · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:27

humbug said:
All of AMD cards are also compute cards, the 7970, the 290X, the Fury-X the RX 480, so the reason Vega is so big on 14nm compared with Fury-X... or any other AMD card you may cite is not because Vega may also be a workstation card and [Insert name of AMD card here] was/is not.... is flawed. THEY ALL ARE!

AMD stripped the FP64 hardware right out of the Fiji and Polaris cards, form 1:2 down to 1:16.

opethdisciple · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:29

Hmm so what evidence do we have that Vega is actually due before July then?

D.P. · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:31

humbug said:
They are still the same silicon tho, they have just had the compute performance arterially gimped.

I don't know how many times I have had to correct you about this over the years , but no, AMD took out the hardware that enabled GP64 at the same performance as Hawaii. Those transistors are now gone There is no driver hack or anything else, the hardware has been removed. AMD has stated that publicly time and time again, which is why the Radeon pro Fiji still only offer 1:16 DP performance even for professional computer.

Both Nvidia and AMD have reduced FP64 in order to save transistors in the consumer card. That is a hard fact.

D.P. · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:31

opethdisciple said:
Hmm so what evidence do we have that Vega is actually due before July then?

At this stage, none.

Doom112 · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:34

It can be Q1- 2018 for gaming purpose ,however, they can launch VEGA card for Pro market in June 2017.

D.P. · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:39

N19h7m4r3 said:
Aye, which is my point. Unlike NVIDIA AMD doesn't have the resources to have so many different cores to use in Consumer, Workstation, and Server.

With Fiji and Polaris though, we've not seen any professional cards that have all the compute functionality enabled.

Even AMD's RadeonPro's and Instinct cards based on those cores don't have the features.
Only Single and Half Precision, as the MI8 is based on the Nano, and MI6 is based on Polaris.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10905/amd-announces-radeon-instinct-deep-learning-2017/2

So Top end Vega which is a darn big core should have all the goodies for enterprise hence, the size. Then they'll either just also sell it to consumers like with Hawaii and Prior, or they'll "cut" Double Precision and everything.
Although that'll still leave the die with some unused space, that's just big.
So either VEGA is a monster in gaming, or it's primarily a Deep Learning and Enterprise card that'll have section cut off and then sold for top and gaming as well.

What we do know though is that Instinct MI25 is based on Vega is apparently beating the 2016 Titan X rather well in current Deep Learning benchmarks.

Ironically Deep learning is largely constrained by half-precision FP16 performance (and in some cases even Int8), FP64 would never be used for deep learning. that is why a big performance gain for Vega is enabling double speed half-precision FP performance. Double precision is important in many other applications of GP-GPU/HPC.

I have a feeling that in the future Nvidia will actually separate out a new ASIC for deep-learning that focuses on FP16, int8 and FP32 performance without the FP64 hardware. Strip away more of the graphics functionality, and concentrate on pure efficiency. Google's deep-learning accelerator and Intel's new FPGA offerings are a big threat to nvidia.

opethdisciple · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:40

Hmmm not good. I'm waiting for a new card so I can upgrade my monitor.

This is not good news.

LoadsaMoney · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:48

Could it be why they've released their 400s again, as it does seem odd, putting them back out again, when Vega is supposedly only a couple of weeks away.

Could be why they just upped the number to a 5, to tide them over, and as everyone says, these are the cards where the sales are, and the market is.

humbug · 18 Apr 2017 at 17:48

D.P. said:
I don't know how many times I have had to correct you about this over the years , but no, AMD took out the hardware that enabled GP64 at the same performance as Hawaii. Those transistors are now gone There is no driver hack or anything else, the hardware has been removed. AMD has stated that publicly time and time again, which is why the Radeon pro Fiji still only offer 1:16 DP performance even for professional computer.

Both Nvidia and AMD have reduced FP64 in order to save transistors in the consumer card. That is a hard fact.

Because you're always wrong, have you ever thought about that?
They are still there, just disabled, as i said they are the same silicone, they don't have two separate production lines for gaming and workstation cards, the gaming cards just have some feature disabled or gimped.