AMD VEGA confirmed for 2017 H1

[Seanspeed]

When 3 or 4 year old CPUs perform close to the latest ones I would say intel are sitting on their backsides.

Compare a 3 or 4 year GPU to a Pascal Titan for example and it is a total non contest.

A GTX 680 v a Pascal Titan is such a mismatch not even a wrestling promoter could get away with it.

Its not Intel's fault games are GPU-bound 99% of the time.

Find games where CPU limitations matter and which gen CPU you have certainly matters.

Plus, again, Intel are well ahead of everybody here. And with how CPU's work, they can't just keep increasing core counts and whatnot without significant drawbacks. CPU's have hit a very heavy wall of diminishing returns and Intel can't simply magic their way out of that. They certainly do their best, or else they wouldn't need to spend 10% of what they do.

 

[Dave2150]

Just to clarify

For a gaming PC I don't care about TDP on the CPU, I just want performance.

If anyone is going to worry about a few extra watts on a gaming PC CPU it works out as pennies per week.

And you really should not be so rude in your posts either.

I suggest reading my post again, you clearly have difficulty understanding.

Just because YOU don't care about TDP doesn't mean that everyone doesn't. People have different desires and needs.

For example, higher TDP parts = more heat and probably more noise to dissipate that heat. Not everyone likes heating up their office/study/room in the Summer. Some don't mind it. Some are living in their Mother's basement so don't care either. Some have AC so don't care about heat either.

So please start understanding that just because you don't like something, it doesn't mean that others don't like it.

 

[NirK]

Its not Intel's fault games are GPU-bound 99% of the time.

Find games where CPU limitations matter and which gen CPU you have certainly matters.

Plus, again, Intel are well ahead of everybody here. And with how CPU's work, they can't just keep increasing core counts and whatnot without significant drawbacks. CPU's have hit a very heavy wall of diminishing returns and Intel can't simply magic their way out of that. They certainly do their best, or else they wouldn't need to spend 10% of what they do.

None of this really makes sense. But yes most games CPU does not matter, although seems to be more games recently that need more CPU power. The fact is that intel could release 6-8 core CPU's at 6700k MSRP, but they don't.

 

[Seanspeed]

None of this really makes sense. But yes most games CPU does not matter, although seems to be more games recently that need more CPU power. The fact is that intel could release 6-8 core CPU's at 6700k MSRP, but they don't.

And AMD could sell you a 480 for £50, but they wont. What kind of ridiculous argument is that? Intel CPU's are fantastic value all things considered. They'll last you half a decade and unlike GPU pricing, they are still the same price they've been for a long time.

In terms of offering 6-8 core CPU's, they already do that. At a premium, sure. But there's a reason for that. But more importantly - more cores isn't inherently better. It comes at the cost of clock speeds, which are just as important, if not moreso when it comes to gaming.

The 6700k is *the* best gaming CPU you can buy. The only people who should be worrying about buying the enthusiast line CPU's are people with workstation PC's that are running applications that aren't GPU bound like games almost always are.

And no, games are not becoming more CPU bound than before. In fact, DX12 and Vulkan are going to make games more GPU-bound than ever. But as I said - if a game is noticeably CPU-bound, and more than just for the odd instance, than which generation Intel CPU you have *does* make a difference. Skylake has been shown to be considerably better than Sandy Bridge in these situations. Where even an i3 Skylake is comparable with the best Sandy Bridge processors.

I really dont know what people think is potentially being held back from anybody. If a game is GPU-bound, which most all of them are 99% of the time, it doesn't freaking matter how much more powerful your CPU is. Intel could use some alien ****ing nano-graphene magic crazy **** that's 10,000x faster than what they have now and it wouldn't increase your framerate one bit in 99% of situations because the app is being held back by the GPU first and foremost.

Think about WHY an Intel CPU lasts people so long nowadays. Why, unlike a GPU, a good CPU will last you half a decade no problem. Because it's not the bottleneck. Because it's not what is holding back gaming performance. Because they are entirely sufficient, and even without super significant gains each generation, an old CPU will *still* be entirely fine in the vast, vast majority of gaming situations.

 

[David Bisset]

...
Think about WHY an Intel CPU lasts people so long nowadays. Why, unlike a GPU, a good CPU will last you half a decade no problem. Because it's not the bottleneck. Because it's not what is holding back gaming performance. Because they are entirely sufficient, and even without super significant gains each generation, an old CPU will *still* be entirely fine in the vast, vast majority of gaming situations.

I mostly agree - but for the sake of discussion I'm gonna put a different perspective on the same situation. Why do GPUs increasingly have to handle particle physics, hair physics etc when clearly they're already overloaded as they're normally what is holding back game performance? If CPUs were not stagnant generation to generation they could be picking up this workload...

OK, bit of a silly argument, but hopefully conveyed the idea that CPUs not progressing and CPUs remaining viable are linked not just by "not needing better" but by not having better available this means there isn't a shift in required performance forcing us to upgrade.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

AMD could have just made a bigger version of Polaris to replace their Fury-X

No they couldn't, as it would need way too much power.

 

[billyturbo]

For me its still up the the air, but when questions are asked those are the answers
One glimmer is that AMD have been working on this for 5 years, they have had to deal with an architecture that is very inefficient and try to build some efficiency into it.

They have actually had a lot of success with that, Excavator, which is the last irritation of Bulldozer on 28nm is not far off the same efficiency as Intel on 14nm, what's more the Integer performance is actually slightly higher than Haswell, 'Integer' not floating point, altho that is also up significantly on Bulldozer.

AMD have had a lot of experience making a bad architecture reasonably good, they will have learnt a lot from that.

Freudian slip?

 

[humbug]

No they couldn't, as it would need way too much power.

A more power efficient GPU than Fiji replacing Fiji not possible because its not as efficient?

Do you even read your own comments?

Freudian slip?

A-haha.... subconsciously no doubt

 

[Kaapstad]

Its not Intel's fault games are GPU-bound 99% of the time.

Find games where CPU limitations matter and which gen CPU you have certainly matters.

Plus, again, Intel are well ahead of everybody here. And with how CPU's work, they can't just keep increasing core counts and whatnot without significant drawbacks. CPU's have hit a very heavy wall of diminishing returns and Intel can't simply magic their way out of that. They certainly do their best, or else they wouldn't need to spend 10% of what they do.

There are more uses for CPUs than just gaming and these do need as much performance as possible. Sorry but intel have been guilty of sitting on their backsides. Maybe intel should be split in half to generate competition !!!

I suggest reading my post again, you clearly have difficulty understanding.

Just because YOU don't care about TDP doesn't mean that everyone doesn't. People have different desires and needs.

For example, higher TDP parts = more heat and probably more noise to dissipate that heat. Not everyone likes heating up their office/study/room in the Summer. Some don't mind it. Some are living in their Mother's basement so don't care either. Some have AC so don't care about heat either.

So please start understanding that just because you don't like something, it doesn't mean that others don't like it.

You are having a laugh

140 watts, that's barely more than the output from an old fashioned lightbulb.

Do you sit in the dark at home ?

 

[Seanspeed]

There are more uses for CPUs than just gaming and these do need as much performance as possible. Sorry but intel have been guilty of sitting on their backsides. Maybe intel should be split in half to generate competition !!!

So you think all that Intel R&D budget is going into........what exactly? New coffee machines?

Intel are doing anything but sitting on their backsides.

And yes, CPU's have more uses than just gaming, but we were *clearly* specifically talking about gaming. As you even said yourself, talking about "I dont care about TDP, just gaming performance". Please dont try and switch this to make this about workstation PC's, cuz that's not what we were talking about.

 

[Telecaster]

There are more uses for CPUs than just gaming and these do need as much performance as possible.

And what CPU doesn't cover these people currently?

A) You're not a gamer but need desktop compute power, why would you waste money on a X99 enthusiast chip when a Xeon will spank it for VFM?

B) You're a regular gamer, in which case the enthusiast chips are a waste of money, the 6700k will be all you'll need.

Intel may not have pushed things as hard as they possibly could, but then what is the point, just to please you? There is no need for the sort of progress in the CPU market as there is in the GPU market, the bottleneck isn't with the CPU side of things and hasn't been for ages.

Why would Intel pour millions into uber desktop CPU R&D when there's simply no market for it? Who needs it?

I guess in your little PC bubble it all makes perfect sense for them to make you something nobody else wants, maybe give them a ring and see if they'll make you a one-off just for you

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Considering the 480 uses more power than the much faster 1080, as its only around the 2yr old 970s performance, i can only imagine how much a much bigger one at around the 1080s performance would need.

The Furys used HBM for a reason, and thats what they need for bigger chips, but its not ready yet.

 

[theforce]

An imaginary Polaris based 490 with 3200shaders, 48 ROPs, along with 8GB of higher speed GDRR5X to retain the 256-bit memory interface. It's basically strapping a 460 on a 480 until Vega is ready.

 

[Dave2150]

140 watts, that's barely more than the output from an old fashioned lightbulb.

Do you sit in the dark at home ?

You still use incandescent bulbs? Showing your age again Kaap!

Exact details of TDP have yet to be released for Zen. It may be 200, 250W+ when overclocked to match Broadwell-E's clock speeds.

 

[Kaapstad]

So you think all that Intel R&D budget is going into........what exactly? New coffee machines?

Intel are doing anything but sitting on their backsides.

And yes, CPU's have more uses than just gaming, but we were *clearly* specifically talking about gaming. As you even said yourself, talking about "I dont care about TDP, just gaming performance". Please dont try and switch this to make this about workstation PC's, cuz that's not what we were talking about.

I don't care about TDP but it is also nice to have a PC that can do other things apart from gaming.

You do realize that there are games that not even a 6950X is anywhere quick enough to run.

Civ 5 is getting on a bit now but some of my games on huge maps just won't load on my 6950X system as the CPU/RAM is not up to the job.

The new reworked Master of Orion is another game that makes my 6950X grind to a halt.

Sorry but the latest intel CPUs are garbage and have not kept pace with the times.

If CPU performance increases had kept pace with GPU performance increases things would be a lot more interesting but they have not. Also remember the core of a GPU has many times more transistors than an intel CPU.

 

[Kaapstad]

And what CPU doesn't cover these people currently?

A) You're not a gamer but need desktop compute power, why would you waste money on a X99 enthusiast chip when a Xeon will spank it for VFM?

B) You're a regular gamer, in which case the enthusiast chips are a waste of money, the 6700k will be all you'll need.

Intel may not have pushed things as hard as they possibly could, but then what is the point, just to please you? There is no need for the sort of progress in the CPU market as there is in the GPU market, the bottleneck isn't with the CPU side of things and hasn't been for ages.

Why would Intel pour millions into uber desktop CPU R&D when there's simply no market for it? Who needs it?

I guess in your little PC bubble it all makes perfect sense for them to make you something nobody else wants, maybe give them a ring and see if they'll make you a one-off just for you

Not bad you seem to have got nearly everything wrong.

You are obviously not aware of Xeon prices.

You don't seen to know that there are games that do use more than 4/8 cores/threads.

If intel made faster more powerful CPUs for the same price then yes people would want them. I don't enjoy waiting 5 mins between turns on a 6950X based PC as the CPU is nowhere near fast enough. I don't like the fact that intels best desktop CPU can not even load some of my old games.

I guess in your little PC bubble it all makes perfect sense for them to make you something nobody else wants, maybe give them a ring and see if they'll make you a one-off just for you

Perhaps on this last point I should take your advice and give them a ring. Maybe I can use my real name as it may get a result.

Robert Noyce

Google it lol.

 

[Dicehunter]

Hard to believe that it will have been 2 years since AMD released a high end card, Fury X, When Vega comes out.

Can't really count the Pro Duo as it's just 2 Nanos on the same PCB.

I hope Vega kicks ass in the most epic way possible

 

[David Bisset]

...
Perhaps on this last point I should take your advice and give them a ring. Maybe I can use my real name as it may get a result.

Robert Noyce

Google it lol.

Eeek! Talking to a ghost! Creepy.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

Hard to believe that it will have been 2 years since AMD released a high end card, Fury X, When Vega comes out.

Can't really count the Pro Duo as it's just 2 Nanos on the same PCB.

I hope Vega kicks ass in the most epic way possible

Yup! It's a damn shame, but does show their financial issues. I just hope with the latest sales and investor backing that they can get some cash into R&D for the future.

A strong AMD means we all reap the benefits.

 

[Panos]

Hard to believe that it will have been 2 years since AMD released a high end card, Fury X, When Vega comes out.

Can't really count the Pro Duo as it's just 2 Nanos on the same PCB.

I hope Vega kicks ass in the most epic way possible

Pro Duo are 2 FURY (no X) on same PCB.
Nano is FURYX in small PCB.

And having seen the overclocks the majority has obtained with their normal FuryX, Nano overclockes at same speeds, with half the power supply provided when watercooled like the normal one.......

Which resembles the reference GTX1080 with the 6+1 phases, and the Zotac with the 16+3 phases. Both clock at around 2100.....