Poll: The Vega Review Thread.

[WeSbO]

Might be some price shifting going on somewhere with Vega 56, they've removed the 56 red pack from the main website https://gaming.radeon.com/en/RXVega/ could be taking a new approach or maybe just redoing the site for launch.

 

[chrcoluk]

I believe that that is why they are only working with 10-20 vendors on trying to make the MSRP possible because they probably have some form of control over the middle man, well that is what it implies to me, that they can control the middle man or even distribute directly to those selected vendors.

But one thing for sure is that it has been somewhat confirmed that Gibbo wasn't lying, and he did get an AMD rebate, and I would tend to believe that what he is saying about not being able to sell at MSRP without the rebate is true, because he doesn't just calculate the initial cost of the card in his purchase price, he includes his operating costs that come with it as well (and rightfully so)

Which I think someone else mentioned elsewhere that nvidia give larger room for RRP to be hit assuming taking into account these operating costs. Indicating that Nvidia RRP is perhaps more viable/realistic.

 

[Hotwired]

It would be funny if it wasn't repeated so many times that people think AMD/retailers are out to make a profit.

Firstly, no **** they are but secondly, it was obvious before launch that AMD was unhappy about how Vega 64 was going to position in the market, hence the messages to reviewers to prioritise Vega 56.

It's not AMD overpricing it, it's AMD knowing it's a dog but they can't sell it at a loss either so they sell it at what they can and try to get some money on the side with bundles.

What will be interesting is whether AMD are able to price the 56 in a competitive way.

Which I think someone else mentioned elsewhere that nvidia give larger room for RRP to be hit assuming taking into account these operating costs. Indicating that Nvidia RRP is perhaps more viable/realistic.

Or you can rephrase that as Nvidia being able to make people pay them a much larger profit margin to start with.

Easy to be flexible in price when the options are in the black no matter what.

 

[harney]

It would be funny if it wasn't repeated so many times that people think AMD/retailers are out to make a profit.

Firstly, no **** they are but secondly, it was obvious before launch that AMD was unhappy about how Vega 64 was going to position in the market, hence the messages to reviewers to prioritise Vega 56.

It's not AMD overpricing it, it's AMD knowing it's a dog but they can't sell it at a loss either so they sell it at what they can and try to get some money on the side with bundles.

What will be interesting is whether AMD are able to price the 56 in a competitive way.



Or you can rephrase that as Nvidia being able to make people pay them a much larger profit margin to start with.

Easy to be flexible in price when the options are in the black no matter what.

Looking at both 64 and 56 pcb i am under the impression that there both the same ref design vrm's components ect so cost wise i would suspect its the same cost to make ....now either the 56 is a cut down 64 either from partial faulty die or just cut down from 64 and locked via bios ect

so either way they cost the same ...that's what i see ...

 

[Brazo]

That's cute, expecting the AMD rep to join the talking smack train about Vega.

Maybe just not posting so obviously weighted (it stands out a mile) comparisons.

Like you said in your post earlier (Vega is a dog) and maybe that's what they have to do to 'look' competitive.

 

[old gamer]

Looking at both 64 and 56 pcb i am under the impression that there both the same ref design vrm's components ect so cost wise i would suspect its the same cost to make ....now either the 56 is a cut down 64 either from partial faulty die or just cut down from 64 and locked via bios ect

so either way they cost the same ...that's what i see ...

I think 56 is cheaper due to better yield so less waste, well that's how I read it

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Hbcc has many advantages, it allows to offload not so quite needed data and then call it fast when its required, also an oddity is when you turn hbcc on even when its not being used it does give a small increase which makes some think that with it being attached to ram that the infinity fabric in vega works the same as ryzen as being dicated in speed via the rams speed. But going forward the key to hbcc is that as games use more than 8gbs of vram that vega has no upper limit on vram. Thats why its pointless selling the same gpu with different vram capacity.

Then if we look at some of the upcoming games, final fantasy looks like its heavy on effects and stuff like that which will eat up vram. then you have games like star citizen where its massive open world like we have never seen before so the more vram you have the better, the more efrfects you can do. And loading data from ultra fast memory like system ram and nvme drives is way way way faster the dragging it from normal storage and its a direct connect between vram and its hbcc connected memory, its got no stops between the data and vram.

And then we have to think of the future, crossfire can use mismatched cards. This means that the 7nm vega or even navi comes out, you get that, you move vega down a spot, hbcc on both those cards can use the vram on vega even if the games dont use crossfire.

If HBCC is that good and Vega has no upper limit, why did AMD put 8GB of HBM2 on the card? They could've reduced power draw and cost by putting 4GB, 2GB or 1GB on the card. Doesn't matter as Vega has no upper limit!
Surely there will be a performance hit to using system RAM?
Remember the ****storm when 0.5GB of the VRAM on a 970 ran slower? Are we saying that's an issue but running in system RAM is fine?

When Nvidia has 2GB and AMD has 3GB VRAM, 2GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 3GB and AMD has 4GB VRAM, 3GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 4GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 4GB HBM VRAM, HBM is magic and you can never fill it up.
When Nvidia has 8GB and AMD hasn't released any high-end graphics card, Vega is going to embarrass Pascal.
When Nvidia has 11GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 8GB is enough, because you can use unlimited system RAM (Vega has no upper limit, even if you have 16GB system RAM?).
It's amazing how AMD always exactly the right amount of RAM and Nvidia is always wrong.

 

[eddyr]

This is absurd. Since when did people's relationship with AMD/NVIDIA develop so deeply as to start arguing points such as 'anything I do is never good enough" and "somehow you can never do wrong".

 

[WeSbO]

I think 56 is cheaper due to better yield so less waste, well that's how I read it

It's the case that the 56 is able to recoup the cost on the wafer, example if they couldn't cut down the 64 and only be able to use the 64 chips on the wafter and the vega 56 didn't exist, the Vega 64 would be even more expensive than it is now.
It's not really the same as saying that the 56 is cheaper to make, but the 56 and 64 cost the same price to make, the 64 just generates a bit more profit.

 

[V F]

This is absurd. Since when did people's relationship with AMD/NVIDIA develop so deeply as to start arguing points such as 'anything I do is never good enough" and "somehow you can never do wrong".

Same way as politics?

 

[Gregster]

This is absurd. Since when did people's relationship with AMD/NVIDIA develop so deeply as to start arguing points such as 'anything I do is never good enough" and "somehow you can never do wrong".

It has always been this way and as far back as the Spectrum V the C64 and Megadrive V the SNES. The difference here is it is grown men who have an affection to a particular brand and mention anything bad with such affection and you are the devil incarnate

 

[WeSbO]

It has always been this way and as far back as the Spectrum V the C64 and Megadrive V the SNES. The difference here is it is grown men who have an affection to a particular brand and mention anything bad with such affection and you are the devil incarnate

Potentially the same grown men who were in the "console/pc" wars back in the day when they were kids lol...

EDIT : I was one of em, big Atari ST fan, ah the good old days when the arguments were less toxic and we had to refer to magazines for reviews

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

If HBCC is that good and Vega has no upper limit, why did AMD put 8GB of HBM2 on the card? They could've reduced power draw and cost by putting 4GB, 2GB or 1GB on the card. Doesn't matter as Vega has no upper limit!
Surely there will be a performance hit to using system RAM?
Remember the ****storm when 0.5GB of the VRAM on a 970 ran slower? Are we saying that's an issue but running in system RAM is fine?

When Nvidia has 2GB and AMD has 3GB VRAM, 2GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 3GB and AMD has 4GB VRAM, 3GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 4GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 4GB HBM VRAM, HBM is magic and you can never fill it up.
When Nvidia has 8GB and AMD hasn't released any high-end graphics card, Vega is going to embarrass Pascal.
When Nvidia has 11GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 8GB is enough, because you can use unlimited system RAM (Vega has no upper limit, even if you have 16GB system RAM?).
It's amazing how AMD always exactly the right amount of RAM and Nvidia is always wrong.

The answer to your question as to why they didn't put 4GB is probably that they found 8GB to be good a buffer, between feeding the gpu and moving data across and power. The issue with the 970 was that Nvidia hid this information and didn't mention it. Also I'm pretty certain that everyone i've seen when talking about the fury say that it should have had more memory so stop trying to twist history to make a point. Your penultimate point has nothing to do with this.

It's not AMD overpricing it, it's AMD knowing it's a dog but they can't sell it at a loss either so they sell it at what they can and try to get some money on the side with bundles.
.

Overpriced for game. Yes I agree, but for compute its right where it should be.

 

[harney]

Potentially the same grown men who were in the "console/pc" wars back in the day when they were kids lol...

EDIT : I was one of em, big Atari ST fan, ah the good old days when the arguments were less toxic and we had to refer to magazines for reviews

I still use an ST for old skool sequencing

 

[WeSbO]

I still use an ST for old skool sequencing

Still own mine, haven't turned it on for at least a decade but still have it lol and all the games (100s of em !)

 

[melmac]

If HBCC is that good and Vega has no upper limit, why did AMD put 8GB of HBM2 on the card? They could've reduced power draw and cost by putting 4GB, 2GB or 1GB on the card. Doesn't matter as Vega has no upper limit!
Surely there will be a performance hit to using system RAM?
Remember the ****storm when 0.5GB of the VRAM on a 970 ran slower? Are we saying that's an issue but running in system RAM is fine?

When Nvidia has 2GB and AMD has 3GB VRAM, 2GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 3GB and AMD has 4GB VRAM, 3GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 4GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 4GB HBM VRAM, HBM is magic and you can never fill it up.
When Nvidia has 8GB and AMD hasn't released any high-end graphics card, Vega is going to embarrass Pascal.
When Nvidia has 11GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 8GB is enough, because you can use unlimited system RAM (Vega has no upper limit, even if you have 16GB system RAM?).
It's amazing how AMD always exactly the right amount of RAM and Nvidia is always wrong.

What a silly post.

 

[Gregster]

Potentially the same grown men who were in the "console/pc" wars back in the day when they were kids lol...

EDIT : I was one of em, big Atari ST fan, ah the good old days when the arguments were less toxic and we had to refer to magazines for reviews

True that and the Amiga was far better

 

[shankly1985]

If HBCC is that good and Vega has no upper limit, why did AMD put 8GB of HBM2 on the card? They could've reduced power draw and cost by putting 4GB, 2GB or 1GB on the card. Doesn't matter as Vega has no upper limit!
Surely there will be a performance hit to using system RAM?
Remember the ****storm when 0.5GB of the VRAM on a 970 ran slower? Are we saying that's an issue but running in system RAM is fine?

When Nvidia has 2GB and AMD has 3GB VRAM, 2GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 3GB and AMD has 4GB VRAM, 3GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 4GB isn't enough.
When Nvidia has 4/6GB and AMD has 4GB HBM VRAM, HBM is magic and you can never fill it up.
When Nvidia has 8GB and AMD hasn't released any high-end graphics card, Vega is going to embarrass Pascal.
When Nvidia has 11GB and AMD has 8GB VRAM, 8GB is enough, because you can use unlimited system RAM (Vega has no upper limit, even if you have 16GB system RAM?).
It's amazing how AMD always exactly the right amount of RAM and Nvidia is always wrong.

They is a massive difference between running from system ram/HDD vs the High Bandwidth "Cache Controller"

The key difference between then and now is how the cache controller handles the data.

Just like how HDD with SSD cache work to speed up transfer speeds.

 

[Kaapstad]

My crappy old video card I use for gaming was 1 year old this month.

Time for a bit of gaming I think.

 

[Rroff]

Vega has no upper limit, even if you have 16GB system RAM?

It uses a large address space and can map a wide range of system storage HDD, SSD, etc. as well as RAM and VRAM.

As Shankly says the main difference with HBCC over older paging techniques (though on Pascal nVidia has some implementation of similar functionality) is that the controller can better optimise it for best results - but just like hybrid SSD caching there are limits to how effective that is and when you start to hit high levels of transaction bulk you pretty much hit the same limitations as traditional techniques due to the PCI-e bus limitations and to be frank at lower levels it isn't really that much of an advantage over regular system paging. It is much better to encourage application developers to implement streaming resource systems like with RAGE where they can work around the speed of slower storage mediums internally and avoid unnecessarily maxing out VRAM in the first place.

In a lot of cases today actual VRAM utilisation is lower than the numbers typically seen on screen as games tend to pre-cache a lot of unused data in case it is needed and lazy about garbage collection just in case it is needed later - a lot of this is actually flagged as being available to free up if needed.