Poll: The Vega Review Thread.

[Nemesis.ie]

I think it's more like:

We'll design this really great compute/general architecture using HBM. It's expensive to make but will be forward looking and do well in the AI/HPC area and then we can trickle it down to those that want a "balanced" card.

We will concentrate on compute first as that is where the real money is and work on Gaming drivers later.

Then bring in APU and hope HBM is at a more reasonable price/integrate it directly in the APU (they could maybe do that as they were one of the developers perhaps?).

As they only have the R&D budget for one "do it all" design, like Ryzen, this would seem to make sense.

It is no doubt a very powerful card, the real question is can that power be unlocked further for the gaming use case.

 

[JediFragger]

I don't even really think they are milking for profits, they just backed themselves up into a corner with how poor Vega turned out.

Not only that man, but Vega is costing them a TON of money to produce. So much so that I think they're barely breaking even at £450 and just can't do it.

Really looking forward to see how Vega does with FarCry 5 and Wolfenstein 2 Two games built with GPUOpen and using Vega features.

Those games should definitely show the potential of Vega. I'm expecting Ti performance give or take? Esp with AiB cards.

 

[Hotwired]

I wonder how the whole process of bringing a card to market works. You'd think Amd would develop their card and test it on rigs against Nvidia parts. Then if you get to a point when you need to release it you look at your performance figures and price accordingly.

OK we can't get much beyond Nvidias year old card so we need to price it below that to please our customers.

Oh.. Nah we will just price it above their card and see what we can milk from our loyal fanboys lol.

It's cute that you think like that.

They've been trying a much more expensive design to try and compete. It didn't work out like they wanted and they had to bump the power just to be decent.

But the card is still expensive to make so the option of selling at bargain prices is right next to the button marked **** it and start again. Financially unattractive.

I'm sure they'd love to hear your ideas to make it all better.

 

[pagepack]

I'm sure they'd love to hear your ideas to make it all better.

Maybe very early in the development someone should have spoke up after looking at the initial performance figures in relation manufacturering costs. Looked how it would stack against the competition and thought better of plowing ahead.

Unless vega turns into a miners wet dream, prices will drop just to shift stock and recoup some outlay. I mean seriously £580 currently for reference air?

 

[Hedge]

It's cute that you think like that.

They've been trying a much more expensive design to try and compete. It didn't work out like they wanted and they had to bump the power just to be decent.

But the card is still expensive to make so the option of selling at bargain prices is right next to the button marked **** it and start again. Financially unattractive.

I'm sure they'd love to hear your ideas to make it all better.

Oh I realise my post was all dreamy and unrealistic but I actually think the fact that 99% of posts about Vega are now negative about over priced and underperformed I'd almost be inclined to think they would be better with a small loss or barely breaking even just to improve market opinion. Ive had lots of Amd cards and I've always defended them. But this time round is too little too late.

 

[Martini1991]

When it's currently in stock, I'm not sure a "shortage" stacks as a reason anymore

 

[Hotwired]

Maybe very early in the development someone should have spoke up after looking at the initial performance figures in relation manufacturering costs. Looked how it would stack against the competition and thought better of plowing ahead.

Unless vega turns into a miners wet dream, prices will drop just to shift stock and recoup some outlay. I mean seriously £580 currently for reference air?

That's a massive assumption that such a prediction was possible before doing heavy investment and substantial work on the project or even before making the cards.

If they could have made that prediction "very early" why would they bother going to all the effort and time and expense to carry through just to look bad at the end of it.

It was something new and it didn't work out like they wanted.

 

[pagepack]

That's a massive assumption that such a prediction was possible before doing heavy investment and substantial work on the project or even before making the cards.

If they could have made that prediction "very early" why would they bother going to all the effort and time and expense to carry through just to look bad at the end of it.

It was something new and it didn't work out like they wanted.

Companies in any sector don't invest millions without knowing exactly what they will get at the end of the investment programme, unless they want to go broke that is. Sometimes it's cheaper to cut your losses if any return drops below a set threshold. That's how companies operate. Of course AMD would have had early engineering samples, through that performance and production costs would be extrapolated. Maybe they thought it would look worse and harm their company more putting out nothing, rather than something. I don't know.

 

[ICDP]

It's funny reading from nobody but gamers how much of a fail Vega is. Vega is a great compute card, better than most existing Nvidia ones but is just about OK for gaming. I have a feeling that it met most of AMDs needs right now in GPU terms.

It's also ironic hearing people state the new features and technologies in Vega mean nothing because games developers won't bother catering to such a small market. Why should AMD invest time and effort into pleasing the people in a market segment, when those very same people have never truly given them an even break. When AMD did have better or equal gaming GPUs compared to Nvidia they still had serious problems winning mindshare among gamers.

1. HD6970 only ~12% slower than GTX580, consumed less power and was considerably cheaper. It was performance that mattered, not price or power consumption. So GTX580 was seen as king.
   
2. On release HD7970 was ~25% faster than stock GTX580 and overclocked like a champ. Yet 7970 was a failure and or overpriced because AIB heavily OC edition GTX580s were only 15% slower. Then GTX680 is released with less VRAM and similar speed somehow becomes the new king.
   
3. R9 290/X in AIB form very much the equal or better than GTX780 and 780Ti and with more VRAM. Yet all we heard about was how poor the stock cooler was, ignoring the AIB versions. An ironic contradiction of point 2 above.
4. GTX980 was not much faster than existing GPUs, yet the power consumption was improved. Power consumption became the big factor. An almost direct contradiction of point 1.
5. The only time recently were AMD GPUs were clearly beaten in almost all metrics (not DX12/Vulkan) was with Fury X vs 980Ti.

We hear people moan that AMD never get anything right with their releases, yet when they did there was always an excuse found why they were inferior to Nvidia. Is it any wonder AMD with limited budget due to this mindshare problem began to see the gaming space as increasingly secondary.

 

[AmateurExpert]

When it's currently in stock, I'm not sure a "shortage" stacks as a reason anymore

I'm not privy to how much stock retailers actually have, nor how quickly they are able to shift units at higher prices; but if they still able to sell at higher prices, then they are going to do so.

 

[Brazo]

Snip

I completely agree with what you've said but I think your post shows that it's Nvidia who call the shots. When Nv want performance to matter then it does. When Nv want power in watts to matter then that's when we care!

I'm sure in terms of compute and (to come) mining Vega is an awesome card and yes there are probably compute forums out there who completely favour Vega over a ti and the ti is a fail in terms of price/performance. I get that.

But we are discussing gaming performance and gaming reviews and when even the most die hard AMD gaming fans can only muster up 'it's not that bad' or 'it's just ok' or 'free sync makes up for it' that you can see just how short of the mark Vega is for gaming.

 

[JediFragger]

We hear people moan that AMD never get anything right with their releases, yet when they did there was always an excuse found why they were inferior to Nvidia. Is it any wonder AMD with limited budget due to this mindshare problem began to see the gaming space as increasingly secondary.

The main problem for AMD, is that if they're no longer the price/performance king then how many fans are they gonna have left after the next upgrade cycle?? Not many I'd like to bet!!

I actually like Vega and think it has potential to be great, but developing HBM has really really damaged them (maybe fatally in the upper GPU space). Hopefully they can turn it around, and HBM3 will be a lot cheaper to produce and provide the gains too.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

It's funny reading from nobody but gamers how much of a fail Vega is. Vega is a great compute card, better than most existing Nvidia ones but is just about OK for gaming. I have a feeling that it met most of AMDs needs right now in GPU terms.

It's also ironic hearing people state the new features and technologies in Vega mean nothing because games developers won't bother catering to such a small market. Why should AMD invest time and effort into pleasing the people in a market segment, when those very same people have never truly given them an even break. When AMD did have better or equal gaming GPUs compared to Nvidia they still had serious problems winning mindshare among gamers.

1. HD6970 only ~12% slower than GTX580, consumed less power and was considerably cheaper. It was performance that mattered, not price or power consumption. So GTX580 was seen as king.
   
2. On release HD7970 was ~25% faster than stock GTX580 and overclocked like a champ. Yet 7970 was a failure and or overpriced because AIB heavily OC edition GTX580s were only 15% slower. Then GTX680 is released with less VRAM and similar speed somehow becomes the new king.
   
3. R9 290/X in AIB form very much the equal or better than GTX780 and 780Ti and with more VRAM. Yet all we heard about was how poor the stock cooler was, ignoring the AIB versions. An ironic contradiction of point 2 above.
4. GTX980 was not much faster than existing GPUs, yet the power consumption was improved. Power consumption became the big factor. An almost direct contradiction of point 1.
5. The only time recently were AMD GPUs were clearly beaten in almost all metrics (not DX12/Vulkan) was with Fury X vs 980Ti.

We hear people moan that AMD never get anything right with their releases, yet when they did there was always an excuse found why they were inferior to Nvidia. Is it any wonder AMD with limited budget due to this mindshare problem began to see the gaming space as increasingly secondary.

For point 2 I think that's unfair. What we've learnt from the Vega release is you don't compare the 7970 and 580 because they were the top cards, you have to compare the 580 to the card that it was most similar in performance to. Also we've learnt from Vega that you can ignore power usage, heat and price because they don't matter. So comparing the 580 to the AMD card that was closest in performance and ignoring the negatives, mean the 580 was a "not terrible" card...

I agree that the R9 290/X was judged harshly, but AMD chose to release it with that cooler and a fan profile that meant it would hit 95ºC by design. Remember the RX 480 from Nvidia was also judged similarly.

As for the 980, it didn't improve performance much over the 780Ti, but it wasn't a replacement for the 780Ti, it was a replacement for the 780. I think there was more of a performance boost there as well as the efficiency gains. When the RX 480 came out it was worse than the Fury X, but it seemed to be quickly pointed out that the RX 480 wasn't the top card in the 400 series. Which of course it turns out it was. Which I guess makes the 500 series and Vega the next gen of cards, so maybe it's unfair to compare RX 500 and Vega against the 1000 series from Nvidia as that was the 400 series equivalent.

Remember when Nvidia added HDMI 2.0 on the 900 series cards and AMD responded with HDMI 1.4 on the 300 series and Fury cards. There was obviously no need for HDMI 2.0. Until there was, which was coincidentally just when AMD/Club3D had a DisplayPort-to-HDMI 2.0 adaptor out for a bargain price of £30...

 

[Perfect_Chaos]

But we are discussing gaming performance and gaming reviews and when even the most die hard AMD gaming fans can only muster up 'it's not that bad' or 'it's just ok' or 'free sync makes up for it' that you can see just how short of the mark Vega is for gaming.

Higher fps is always going to be better than lower fps and having to rely on freesync or gsync.

 

[Hotwired]

What we've learnt from the Vega release is you don't compare the 7970 and 580 because they were the top cards, you have to compare the 580 to the card that it was most similar in performance to. Also we've learnt from Vega that you can ignore power usage, heat and price because they don't matter.

Sounds like the most farcical construction I'll quote today.

That's all.

 

[Dave2150]

When it's currently in stock, I'm not sure a "shortage" stacks as a reason anymore

The reference blower is terrible though, not many willing to put up with a 50db card. The liquid AIO's are the ones people are after, plus the aftermarket ones imo.

 

[Lokken86]

It's funny reading from nobody but gamers how much of a fail Vega is. Vega is a great compute card, better than most existing Nvidia ones but is just about OK for gaming. I have a feeling that it met most of AMDs needs right now in GPU terms.

It's also ironic hearing people state the new features and technologies in Vega mean nothing because games developers won't bother catering to such a small market. Why should AMD invest time and effort into pleasing the people in a market segment, when those very same people have never truly given them an even break. When AMD did have better or equal gaming GPUs compared to Nvidia they still had serious problems winning mindshare among gamers.

1. HD6970 only ~12% slower than GTX580, consumed less power and was considerably cheaper. It was performance that mattered, not price or power consumption. So GTX580 was seen as king.
   
2. On release HD7970 was ~25% faster than stock GTX580 and overclocked like a champ. Yet 7970 was a failure and or overpriced because AIB heavily OC edition GTX580s were only 15% slower. Then GTX680 is released with less VRAM and similar speed somehow becomes the new king.
   
3. R9 290/X in AIB form very much the equal or better than GTX780 and 780Ti and with more VRAM. Yet all we heard about was how poor the stock cooler was, ignoring the AIB versions. An ironic contradiction of point 2 above.
4. GTX980 was not much faster than existing GPUs, yet the power consumption was improved. Power consumption became the big factor. An almost direct contradiction of point 1.
5. The only time recently were AMD GPUs were clearly beaten in almost all metrics (not DX12/Vulkan) was with Fury X vs 980Ti.

We hear people moan that AMD never get anything right with their releases, yet when they did there was always an excuse found why they were inferior to Nvidia. Is it any wonder AMD with limited budget due to this mindshare problem began to see the gaming space as increasingly secondary.

Don't forget the 4870. Less than half the price of the 280 at launch and only 10% slower. When the 1gb version came out it was the same. I got one for £190 from ocuk.

 

[TNA]

The main problem for AMD, is that if they're no longer the price/performance king then how many fans are they gonna have left after the next upgrade cycle?? Not many I'd like to bet!!

I actually like Vega and think it has potential to be great, but developing HBM has really really damaged them (maybe fatally in the upper GPU space). Hopefully they can turn it around, and HBM3 will be a lot cheaper to produce and provide the gains too.

Yeah, I nearly always went AMD as they were the price/performance king. But now they are not even that, so sad

Never had an issue with drivers or it using a little bit extra power or whatever mud Nvidia guys would sling. Most others would bang on about those as they just wanted Nvidia, was an excuse.

End of the day Nvidia are a lot more popular. This was easy to see when people got shafted with the 970, returned them and paid Nvidia even more money for a 980. lol.

AMD made a very bad move with Vega pricing. They have lost sympathy from many, including myself. I still wish to see them succeed. But I won't be going out of my way to support them anymore.

Don't forget the 4870. Less than half the price of the 280 at launch and only 10% slower. When the 1gb version came out it was the same. I got one for £190 from ocuk.

The 4870 and 9700 are two of my favourite cards. Great bang for buck those were.

 

[Panos]

Regardless of everything, AMD failed with Vega even their biggest supporters.
There were many of us here who wanted the Vega 64 regardless it's performance, and especially myself have been the advocate of wait and see, arguing with many in this very forum, who jumped on the Vega FE benchmarks spreading doom and gloom.

However here we have a card that doesn't deliver what promised.
Where is the rumoured Infinity Fabric from CES and Computex?
Where are the benefits of the Ryzen + Vega ecosystem? Just the packaged deals, which were terrible and with no discount in UK?

Also have a look at here, the AMD posted the image bellow months ago.
Vega 64 is on avg 45% faster than the Polaris on DX11 @ 2560x1440, and roughly 64% on DX12, but at 100% (double) more power consumption. Which should place it roughly next to the 28nm GPU.

Yeah many blame Nvidia and Intel, but they manage to pull through what they do, because there is no competition.
Nvidia could have released the Volta by now. The full chip is "launched" since May 10th. It usually takes 2 months of R&D to start "carving" it as it happened with Kepler, Maxwel and Pascal.
But there is no point. They longer hold it, the less the stock will be of Pascal cards, which in light of the expected Vega, had stalled the sales.
And regarding the last bit, see how many bought a GTX1080Ti in here just this week, after Monday. Even myself, after having placed unsuccessfully, and with big messing by the bank and phone browser, order for Vega 64 liquid and finding ludicrous the new pricing, by whom ever wants to grab quick money.

Given also the 1080Ti performance at 3440x1440 and 2560x1440, expect in few months Gsync monitor sales go up, because actually regardless the price, is a good card for more than a single year, like the Vega 64 is. Assuming Navi is good and doesn't tank also.

 

[JediFragger]

End of the day Nvidia are a lot more popular. This was easy to see when people got shafted with the 970, returned them and paid Nvidia even more money for a 980. lol.

I went from 970 SLi to 295x2 then when Crossfire really started to get rubbish I switched to 980 SLi and it was awesome. At least for a while

If AMD can see sense and release the 56 at around the £350 mark then it'll be fair, but again I think costs are going to be prohibitive of this