Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

[Seanspeed]

No its not. In real life it's like somebody giving you all the hard facts on paper and showing you a product working yet you can't buy it. Paper Launch.

There's an argument that something isn't actually launched til you can buy it, though. We knew the release date for the 1080, which some might say would be its actual launch date. In which case, you'd really be better off calling it a soft launch, due to not having mass volume ready-to-go.

Either way, it's a really, really boring and tiring semantic discussion.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Paper launch would mean that nvidia released the cards on the 17th. and none were available to buy, they didn't they were released on the 27th = no paper launch.

No the launch was the 17th. The cards were reviewed and every single fact was known even down to overclocking. That's a product launch to me. The only thing missing was the ability to buy. Paper Launch.

Why is this so hard for people to admit. It's no big deal but the facts speak for themselves.

 

[Ian Evey]

There's an argument that something isn't actually launched til you can buy it, though. We knew the release date for the 1080, which some might say would be its actual launch date. In which case, you'd really be better off calling it a soft launch, due to not having mass volume ready-to-go.

Either way, it's a really, really boring and tiring semantic discussion.

Agreed, Lets hope the 480 has plenty of stock for the launch date which i have actually forgotten when that is supposed to be

 

[Kaapstad]

Look Kaap, keep going around in circles, the only person making himself look daft is you. Plenty of people understand the issues with memory capacity for first gen HBM and where the issues are with fiji performance, yet you keep up this little act since you have to be right about it when you are not.

And the same again with GP104, it is all about cost that go beyond the part itself such as sorting out production lines. Which is why their HBM2 efforts are going towards GP100 since it is their first HBM based part alike fiji was AMD's HBM/Interposer pipe cleaner. mainly since Nvidia can charge an arm and a leg for it and recover those production setup costs etc since they have had less time to get this done in comparison to AMD who have had years of R&D time to get it right.

If NVidia have decided not to include it with the GP104 and GP102 cards it has nothing to do with cost. How much did the Fury Xs sell for again ?

I think I will side with AMD and NVidia on this one and back their reasoning for finding better memory solutions for their cards.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I think counting pre-order sales as the several thousand enthusiasts who will pay anything for the fastest card against real sales of a card that people don't want to preorder is pretty much meaningless.

I think Gibbo has relationships with Nvidia themselves and Nvidia partners and publicly saying "stock levels stick, this was a joke launch and Nvidia clearly can't come remotely close to supply demand".... is something that would get him fired.

Not the least, they've presold thousands of cards, questioning stock or Nvidia's ability to supply in the short term will mean a lot of refunds.

Lastly, every salesman everywhere always claims everything is the best selling product.... it's like salesman spiel 101.

I would like to think that whilst there are things that Gibbo obviously wouldn't say or phrase things as, he's pretty upfront and honest and wouldn't actively mislead people. He might conceivably remain silent on some things - nobody is going to say "Don't buy this card!" or "Nvidia are hoarding their limited supply for their FE and starving their partners of chips". But when he does say something, I would like to think it can basically be trusted.

 

[Rroff]

No its not. In real life it's like somebody giving you all the hard facts on paper and showing you a product working yet you can't buy it. Paper Launch.

But people can buy it - ok maybe not so easily for some models they might choose but the argument is about the 1000 series launch as a whole - if you look around over a variety of retailers you can find some cards you can actually buy right now albeit mostly limited stock.

 

[TheRealDeal]

But people can buy it - ok maybe not so easily for some models they might choose but the argument is about the 1000 series launch as a whole - if you look around over a variety of retailers you can find some cards you can actually buy right now albeit mostly limited stock.

They couldn't when it launched on the 17th though. There is no such thing as a paper launch if this is not one.

 

[five8five]

Dat 1607mhz clock doh? Haha that has to be fake

How fast are they going to be by the time the NDA ends?

We should have a poll, fastest fake

 

[harmattan]

Google paper launch. It's the exact definition of a paper launch. Simply it's when the cards have been reviewed and you can't buy the product. The cards were reviewed and all was known about them yet you couldn't buy for 2 weeks. Paper launch.

If this is tthe definition of a paper launch, I have no problem with it. Having two weeks to pour over reviewers' experiences with the card makes me make a better informed decision and helps me avoid an impulse purchase. That said, if a company says they'll have stock, then don't, that's a different story.

We go through this polemic every round of new high-demand cards. The thing to understand is even if nV was producing twice the chips, there would still be availability issues. The high demand surge, exasterbated by OEM needs and Ebay hawkers is always going to make availabilty of high-demand cards an issue for the first month or two after release. We'll no doubt see the same thing with rx 480 (especially with the 8gb version which I expect will be extraordinarily hard to get your hands on initially).

 

[Ian Evey]

No the launch was the 17th. The cards were reviewed and every single fact was known even down to overclocking. That's a product launch to me. The only thing missing was the ability to buy. Paper Launch.

Why is this so hard for people to admit. It's no big deal but the facts speak for themselves.

Geez

Quoted

Spoiler

Let's start with the firm details. Nvidia will be releasing the first GTX 1080s on May 27, followed by the less powerful GTX 1070 stablemate on June 10. There'll be two version of the card launching that day: a "Founder's Edition" featuring Nvidia's own cooler and available only direct from the manufacturer for a higher price (see below) and the OEM versions from the likes of Asus, Zotac, MSI et al which cost the stated £450/$599. So the ones people are actually going to buy, then. It's expected that there'll be stocks of both cards on that day, so it's an actual release date rather than just a business announcement.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia-pascal-graphics-cards-release-date

That's it black and white.

Note the Release date.

 

[Mauller]

I still believe 1400 on reference will be achievable and 1500+ easy on AIB models.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I am more inclined to go with what AMD and NVidia have done and not used HBM1 as there are better solutions available to them.

One disadvantage to using HBM anywhere near a gaming Pascal core could be heat build up. Although the 1080 does not use much power there is still a lot of heat in a very small area and the last thing the core needs is memory chips stacked right next to it which could negatively effect performance.

Try thinking outside the box for a change DM instead of defending stuff that even AMD has dropped.

The next card that I buy in the very near future will be an AMD one so please don't even think about calling me biased either.

Buying an AMD card doesn't make you not biased, it provides you with a platform to say you're not biased and think you're serious.

Pascal is hot with a very small area and a lot of heat... really.... literally only a few months ago you were saying Fiji ran hotter than Hawaii because you both didn't understand the concept of power output compared to die area and you actually attempted to refute the concept and deny basic physics by insisting that when pointed out that Fury X had a significantly lower w/mm^2 output than Hawaii I was wrong and didn't know what I was talking about.

It's hilarious that back then you were arguing against an incredibly basic physics principal but now you're using it to defend a 1080.

One, HBM would drop actual power usage coming from the memory controller by 30-35W at that bandwidth level and two the HBM dies are separate so it wouldn't result in extra heat build up but in fact lead to a cooler running 1080 core, lead to lower power usage and higher sustained clockspeeds in the same power usage.


AMD didn't drop HBM, they used it on a product that is still sold, their next product uses HBM2. In the same way Nvidia is using gddr5 on a 1070 AMD is using GDDR5 on lower end cards also. There was never any intention to have HBM in every segment instantly due to cost and there was never any intention for Nvidia to use GDDR5x in every card due to cost. AMD have specifically stated the intention to use HBM2 and so have Nvidia, neither have dropped the technology but both will use the latest version of it.

But when Nvidia launches a GDDR5x card using 12Gbps chips, I'll be sure to spout the ridiculous idea that Nvidia has dropped using GDDR5x 10Gbps chips because they are a failed technology and no good.... because that is the incredibly ridiculous argument you're making as a claim that neither AMD or Nvidia will use HBM1 any more.

 

[Rroff]

They couldn't when it launched on the 17th though. There is no such thing as a paper launch if this is not one.

nVidia gave a launch date, reviews were released to coincide with the launch date - its fairly reasonable to have reviews a few days here or there when it comes to a product launch.

A paper launch would be where actual supply was considerably offset to the publication of metrics that could be used to compare to a competing product.

 

[TheRealDeal]

Geez

Quoted

Spoiler

Let's start with the firm details. Nvidia will be releasing the first GTX 1080s on May 27, followed by the less powerful GTX 1070 stablemate on June 10. There'll be two version of the card launching that day: a "Founder's Edition" featuring Nvidia's own cooler and available only direct from the manufacturer for a higher price (see below) and the OEM versions from the likes of Asus, Zotac, MSI et al which cost the stated £450/$599. So the ones people are actually going to buy, then. It's expected that there'll be stocks of both cards on that day, so it's an actual release date rather than just a business announcement.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia-pascal-graphics-cards-release-date

That's it black and white.

Note the Release date.

The history is the card was reviewed on the 17th of may. All the paper facts were known then. You could not buy one hence me calling it a paper launch. For this threads sake I will agree to disagree and go with the soft launch option.

 

[five8five]

No the launch was the 17th. The cards were reviewed and every single fact was known even down to overclocking. That's a product launch to me. The only thing missing was the ability to buy. Paper Launch.

Why is this so hard for people to admit. It's no big deal but the facts speak for themselves.

I thought a paper launch was when a product wasn't available to buy on the scheduled release day due to being delayed for whatever reason, delivery issue, manufacturing problem etc.

 

[Rroff]

The history is the card was reviewed on the 17th of may. All the paper facts were known then. You could not buy one hence me calling it a paper launch. For this threads sake I will agree to disagree and go with the soft launch option.

I get where you are coming from but its stretching a point when you are talking about a couple of weeks versus say a couple of months and is really stretching it thin when you (in general) are talking in the context of a desperate paper launch like some are.

 

[TheRealDeal]

I thought a paper launch was when a product wasn't available to buy on the scheduled release day due to being delayed for whatever reason, delivery issue, manufacturing problem etc.

Top link of Google on the definition of a paper launch. Not from me.

A paper launch is the situation in which a product is compared or tested against other products of the same kind, despite the fact that it is not available to the public at the time. Generally, the term is applied to the computer and gaming industry, but is not limited to that.[1]

 

[Kaapstad]

Buying an AMD card doesn't make you not biased, it provides you with a platform to say you're not biased and think you're serious.

Pascal is hot with a very small area and a lot of heat... really.... literally only a few months ago you were saying Fiji ran hotter than Hawaii because you both didn't understand the concept of power output compared to die area and you actually attempted to refute the concept and deny basic physics by insisting that when pointed out that Fury X had a significantly lower w/mm^2 output than Hawaii I was wrong and didn't know what I was talking about.

It's hilarious that back then you were arguing against an incredibly basic physics principal but now you're using it to defend a 1080.

One, HBM would drop actual power usage coming from the memory controller by 30-35W at that bandwidth level and two the HBM dies are separate so it wouldn't result in extra heat build up but in fact lead to a cooler running 1080 core, lead to lower power usage and higher sustained clockspeeds in the same power usage.


AMD didn't drop HBM, they used it on a product that is still sold, their next product uses HBM2. In the same way Nvidia is using gddr5 on a 1070 AMD is using GDDR5 on lower end cards also. There was never any intention to have HBM in every segment instantly due to cost and there was never any intention for Nvidia to use GDDR5x in every card due to cost. AMD have specifically stated the intention to use HBM2 and so have Nvidia, neither have dropped the technology but both will use the latest version of it.

But when Nvidia launches a GDDR5x card using 12Gbps chips, I'll be sure to spout the ridiculous idea that Nvidia has dropped using GDDR5x 10Gbps chips because they are a failed technology and no good.... because that is the incredibly ridiculous argument you're making as a claim that neither AMD or Nvidia will use HBM1 any more.

So are AMD manufacturing any new cards that use HBM1, no.

Your defence of HBM1 reminds me of a very famous parrot in a video

The HBM1 Parrot

And just to remind you I got into this debate today because you made an outrageous performance claim for Small Vega based on absolutely no facts whatsoever !!!

 

[Mauller]

And just to remind you I got into this debate today because you made an outrageous performance claim for Small Vega based on absolutely no facts whatsoever !!!

Pot calling the kettle black, you crack me up Kaap, keep it up.

 

[Seanspeed]

I thought a paper launch was when a product wasn't available to buy on the scheduled release day due to being delayed for whatever reason, delivery issue, manufacturing problem etc.

This was typically how it had been referred to before, where the term was used in a negative connotation.

Apparently now just having reviews out means something is 'launched', even if it has a later specific release date.....not how I'd use the term, but it's not up to me to define something which has no strict definition in the first place.

It doesn't really matter, either way. I'm not sure what arguing about it achieves in the end. There is no overarching point to be made if there's an concensus agreement. The way 'paper launch' is being defined here is not a disparaging term by any means.