So just how are AMD going to shoot themselves in the foot with the NAVI launch?

[Beren]

Unlikely but oh we can dream. A Navi pcb was leaked a few days ago, Buildzoid analysis suggested was going to be between 10 and 12tflop with 2 x 8 pin power connectors drawing 200w and 8gb of GDDR6 ram using a 256 bit bus with 440 ish GB/s of bandwidth

I’m guess it’s Vega 64 performance with slightly lower power consumption and half the Vega 64 launch price

Unfortunately flops is not a good comparison for working out where a card might stack up against Nvidia...

I am hoping for it to hit 2070 levels of performance at RX580 pricing + 10%... But I don't know if that is close to likely.

We can be pretty certain it is under Vega VII performance so that rules it out as a 2080 challenger I think.

 

[Brazo]

If the rumoured performance levels are true then it’s launching into a segment of the market that’s already over saturated and already gives you a choice of efficient cool cards from Nvidia or hot hungry cards from AMD.

So I’m not really sure what Navi will bring, if said performance rumours are true of course, it’s a dead duck.

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

I'm going with launching a card that performs out the box on par with a 2060 for 2060 money that in 2 years time performs on par with 2070 as drivers mature. However it sells 3/1 less than the 2060 because well 'it just works'.

 

[Grim5]

If the rumoured performance levels are true then it’s launching into a segment of the market that’s already over saturated and already gives you a choice of efficient cool cards from Nvidia or hot hungry cards from AMD.

So I’m not really sure what Navi will bring, if said performance rumours are true of course, it’s a dead duck.

Price, its likely to be priced under Turing

With the leaks so far, Navi is not about breaking ground, it's about eating into Nvidia market share by offering an affordable upgrade path so gamers on older entry and mid range cards have more options.

As an example, you own a 1060 or 1070 etc you have to fork out more money for an upgrade, but Navi may offer an upgrade without having to cough up more than you did last time

 

[LePhuronn]

If the rumoured performance levels are true then it’s launching into a segment of the market that’s already over saturated and already gives you a choice of efficient cool cards from Nvidia or hot hungry cards from AMD.

So I’m not really sure what Navi will bring, if said performance rumours are true of course, it’s a dead duck.

Except for the fact that Navi is supposed to replace those hot and hungry cards. So you have a choice of efficient cool cards from Nvidia only fill gaps in their own performance segments, rather than offer true value or competition, or efficient cool cards from AMD that are superior and cheaper to their existing products, which already beat out everything Nvidia has in that segment.

And this is potentially where AMD screw the pooch: poor launch drivers don't offer significant performance gains over the outgoing Polaris and Vega kit and bumping stock voltages too high once again, undermining the entire "small, lean, fast" proposition that Navi has been "based on" since the very start (and by based on I mean rumoured and discussed).

 

[Nasher]

We've been seeing mostly poor launch drivers from Nvidia as well though. AMD's drivers are a lot better these days

 

[StarShock]

I think they will launch them with hugely inflated prices and a selling point based on a shiny new technology which no games will support for at least 6 months, and the few games that we do eventually see will be mildly disappointing.

Then I think they will launch lower end cards some months later with a confusing new naming scheme, the least of which will be over priced and underpowered and to get around this they won't give reviewers drivers so that the cards go on sale before anyone knows the performance.

 

[Dontrocktheboat]

Navi 10 = Vega 64 perf with less power for about £299.

Blower fan.

 

[Killer7xx]

Power consumption won't be a problem if the cards have the performance to match. If the RX 3080 or whatever they'll call it, will perform at 2070 level for £250-300 whilst having 200W TDP, I doubt most people would care. Similar enough to the 2070 and isn't that big of a deal to most people buying mid range cards because they're probably not gonna be gaming enough to feel the effects of higher TDP and power draw.

Also reference cards won't be a problem either if non reference cards are released at the same time like with the Nvidia launches recently.

 

[Kelt]

I don't have any faith that AMD can currently (and maybe ever) compete with Nvidia.

So I have no expectations that Navi will be anything other than mediocre.

Would welcome being wrong.

And yeh, fully expecting a naff blower fan design.

 

[GloriousMess]

Blower fans aren't necessarily a problem I reckon, what with third party cooling solutions being inevitable. I'm concerned about the markup for those third party cards, and whether it'll bump them into a poor price/performance bracket.

Another idea: AMD will reveal Navi as a ground-breaking revolution in graphics technology, tripling the performance of a 2080 Ti. But you can only get one as part of a Sony Playstation 5 Plus for the first two years.

 

[D.P.]

I'm going with launching a card that performs out the box on par with a 2060 for 2060 money that in 2 years time performs on par with 2070 as drivers mature. However it sells 3/1 less than the 2060 because well 'it just works'.

But it will also consume 100w more power, have less AIB choices and lack RTX or DLSS. You may not care about such features but nvidia can market all that to consumers, which will explain the sales difference. Not least the 2060 will have been out a year almost before there is volume Navi. really, this is the same sitaution as the Radeon 7, delivered with the same performance as a 1080 several years later but draws way more power and has restricted availability. Hard to get excited about such products.

The 'fine wine' ability will largely be determined on how long AMD sticks with GCN and can afford to provide legacy driver support. If as rumours AMD switch to a whole new architecture end of next year then expect driver improvements for GCN cards to decline from next spring

 

[D.P.]

I think they will launch them with hugely inflated prices and a selling point based on a shiny new technology which no games will support for at least 6 months, and the few games that we do eventually see will be mildly disappointing.

Then I think they will launch lower end cards some months later with a confusing new naming scheme, the least of which will be over priced and underpowered and to get around this they won't give reviewers drivers so that the cards go on sale before anyone knows the performance.

I actually think they might try and sell the software emulated ray tracing as a big selling feature, except it will fall a long way short of even Nvidia's RTX cards which admittedly only just become viable with a lot of optimization and tweaking settings.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

lol

 

[Chrisc]

Navi 10 = Vega 64 perf with less power for about £299.

Blower fan.

Id like to hope, blower fans from both Nvidia and AMD are a thing of the past.

 

[bru]

I think they will launch them with hugely inflated prices and a selling point based on a shiny new technology which no games will support for at least 6 months, and the few games that we do eventually see will be mildly disappointing.

Hmmm that feeling of deja vu, it just works.

 

[Scania]

I’d like to see 1080ti performance for £250 - £300 I think they’d have a tiny margin on such a card but the exodus from Nvidia would be massive, perhaps balancing out their low margin by high sales.

Cue big price cuts from the Green gestapo.

We can dream!

Alas I doubt they’d have the production capacity never mind the fiscal ability to do this.

 

[Brazo]

I’d like to see 1080ti performance for £250 - £300 I think they’d have a tiny margin on such a card but the exodus from Nvidia would be massive, perhaps balancing out their low margin by high sales.

Cue big price cuts from the Green gestapo.

We can dream!

Alas I doubt they’d have the production capacity never mind the fiscal ability to do this.

I think we all would!

RIP Radeon vii

 

[LePhuronn]

RIP Radeon vii

It was never a long-term proposition anyway. The second AMD can replace it with something actually viable they will.

Like strapping something a supposed 250-300W Navi PCB with 8 GGDR6 mounts that could support 16GB RAM if Samsung's 2GB modules are used

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I see yields being a potential issue. The Zen 2 chiplets are only 70MM2~80MM2 and have 70% yield and if Navi is around 200MM2~250MM2,it will be worse than this. Even Vega VII is not fully enabled,and is low volume. So I could see a problem where the Navi chips are not fully enabled which could lead to performance not quite hitting what they want,and AMD will compensate by whacking up the voltage and clockspeeds.

OFC,they might surprise us and make it chiplet based too,but I would be surprised if that was the case.