Radeon 7 (Vega 2, 7nm, 16GB) - $699 available Feb 7th with 3 games

I'm looking forward to an AIO mod on one of these.

They should have released with one- AIOs are especially conducive to the heat concentration that HBM implementations bring to the table. They don't always enable better performance but they are usually quieter.
 
Maybe a Sapphire / Buildzoid Special Edition with fully populated power phases / VRMs & integrated 240 AIO...?!?
 
I have one incoming for a new build for work, but it's likely going back (to be swapped for a 2080) if I can't live with the noise or the drivers continue to lag. With AMD, I feel at this point like I keep going back to sip from a carton of spoiled milk: it tastes awful, but I continue to do it for some reason :oops:

And for those making excuses for drivers, hypothesizing it should perform better on different CPUs/Mobos, saying "put some headphones on and you won't notice", "drivers will improve!" etc - are you guys serious? Y'all sound like you're making excuses for a horrible person you're dating... "yea, he's a drunk and lazy and treats me like garbage, but he'll change - you'll see!"
 
I have one incoming for a new build for work, but it's likely going back (to be swapped for a 2080) if I can't live with the noise or the drivers continue to lag. With AMD, I feel at this point like I keep going back to sip from a carton of spoiled milk: it tastes awful, but I continue to do it for some reason :oops:

And for those making excuses for drivers, hypothesizing it should perform better on different CPUs/Mobos, saying "put some headphones on and you won't notice", "drivers will improve!" etc - are you guys serious? Y'all sound like you're making excuses for a horrible person you're dating... "yea, he's a drunk and lazy and treats me like garbage, but he'll change - you'll see!"

Not stealing thread or trying get in trouble if i cant get one ordered and you dont want it, would you be interested in nvidia gtx 1080ti FE /w H50+cash?
 
Not stealing thread or trying get in trouble if i cant get one ordered and you dont want it, would you be interested in nvidia gtx 1080ti FE /w H50+cash?

It's going back to the vendor unfortunately as it's billed to my llc (if I do end up returning it). I'm also living in the UK right now so probably not cost efficient to ship.

Keep trying. I have a feeling there are going to be a deluge of order cancellations and returns over the next days. Bunch of open boxes on NewEgg on discount, I'd expect.
 
It's going back to the vendor unfortunately as it's billed to my llc (if I do end up returning it). I'm also living in the UK right now so probably not cost efficient to ship.

Keep trying. I have a feeling there are going to be a deluge of order cancellations and returns over the next days. Bunch of open boxes on NewEgg on discount, I'd expect.

Video cards cannot be returned for a refund on Newegg. I also doubt very much the "deluge" is going to happen at all and in fact, probably all the cards that were ordered have already shipped.
 
Some on these forums would have you believe AMD has achieved driver parity with NVIDIA. These results however show the reality of the difference between the two, especially if you compare Turing's launch vs this.

Hello?? Were you living in an isolation chamber or something for the last 5 months?? Turing launch was pretty poor. 20% returns rate according to Kyle. And all the driver issues they had to solve, BSOD's, Black screens, flickering etc.
 
Some on these forums would have you believe AMD has achieved driver parity with NVIDIA. These results however show the reality of the difference between the two, especially if you compare Turing's launch vs this.

Dude, they have achieved much more than driver parity, they have gone beyond Nvidia, not just equal to them. Yes, these VII launch drivers have issues but hey, it does not negate the facts. *Sigh* Here we go.
 
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Really insane prices especially when Navi is around the corner that supposedly is 10 maybe 15 percent slower.

The rumors I've seen have Navi pegged for 1080 performance which is 20-30% slower than R7/1080ti/2080.
 
So if i understand thread so far.

wait until AMD fixes heat / noise with cooler tweaks ( or Buy aftermarket card )
wait until AMD drops retail price in 6 - 8 months. ( Buy aftermarket at this point )
wait for fine wine drivers ( continual process )
undervolt for that sweet 60w saving.

Seems more like a card with a future potential than a card for right this minuet. The question is that future potential worth it by the time it gets into it's stride ? By then we might be 6 months away from their next big release.. but that could be the same situation.


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Though, not relevant to most here but if you check out the Linux benchmarks on day one release, fully working open source drivers and in great shape matching 2080, 2080Ti performance with more to come for sure (y)

It does seem like a great card for open source gaming.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=radeon-vii-linux&num=1
 
So if i understand thread so far.

wait until AMD fixes heat / noise with cooler tweaks ( or Buy aftermarket card )
wait until AMD drops retail price in 6 - 8 months. ( Buy aftermarket at this point )
wait for fine wine drivers ( continual process )
undervolt for that sweet 60w saving.

Seems more like a card with a future potential than a card for right this minuet. The question is that future potential worth it by the time it gets into it's stride ? By then we might be 6 months away from their next big release.. but that could be the same situation.


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Though, not relevant to most here but if you check out the Linux benchmarks on day one release, fully working open source drivers and in great shape matching 2080, 2080Ti performance with more to come for sure (y)

It does seem like a great card for open source gaming.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=radeon-vii-linux&num=1

TBH if someone needs a GPU I don't see a compelling reason not to just... buy a RTX 2080. I really want to be back on AMD/ATI for my next card but I won't give money for an inferior product at the same price.
 
I would only buy one if I could get it at MSRP. So if you were looking for one and didn't snap one up at €699, wait until March when stock levels should be better. It will also give AMD a chance to get Wattman working and sort out the issues with the fan speed. Should have a clearer idea of what the cards are capable of then.
 
Dude, they have achieved much more than driver parity, they have gone beyond Nvidia, not just equal to them. Yes, these VII launch drivers have issues but hey, it does not negate the facts. *Sigh* Here we go.
No.

I’ve used Fury X, Vega 56 and 64, and now a 1080ti over the last couple years.

Emphatic No.

Mature drivers are “nearly as good” as Nvidia in my experience, but I’ve not seen surpassing by any stretch.
 
Nobody remembers how botched the RTX drivers were at launch. But at least they weren't show stoppers like the VII
 
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I'm looking forward to an AIO mod on one of these. If they can tackle the heat (density?) problem it seems like there should be some OC headroom.

This statement is going off Optimum Tech's OCing Vega VII to 1950mhz after undervolting it.

The stock VRM being as efficient as it is reported to be lends credence to the feasibility of an AIO mod being adequate when coupled with a bit of directed airflow and aftermarket VRM heatsinks.

Where would you get a water block from?
 
I don't understand why AMD continues to push the voltage so high on these things. Over and over again users are showing that the cards can handle less voltage and still run fine, with the added bonus of seeing sometimes significant power/heat/noise reduction.

So why is this still a thing with Radeon VII? Is there some technical reason behind it? Like, it is needed to guarantee stability at speed? Or is it just a theme with them.

Is it possible to do a BIOS mod to lower the voltage without having to depend on driver settings? I seem to recall hearing about this sort of thing during the mining bubble?

I'm still interested in R7 but these launch issues kept me from buying one. As it is I'll wait to see what the AIBs cook up, but I might be waiting for more mature 7nm parts instead of diving right in,

Also, somewhere recently I read (either in a review or in this thread) an opinion that GCN just needs to be retired at this point, and I think I agree. No matter how many revisions they go through it seems like they're just going to keep pushing out power-hungry cards that can "keep up" but it feels more like a necessity than any attempt to compete at the high end. They need to do for their graphics division what Ryzen did for the CPU side.
 
Voltages are high because that's what is required for the aggregate to be stable at rated specs. If AMD could get away with all cards being stable at lower voltages I guarantee you they would volt them accordingly.
 
One thing I noticed about this launch was this:
NVIDIA could put in at lot of non-CUDA compute hardware in their GPU's at 12 nm and AMD still could not beat them even using a 7 nm node.
 
One thing I noticed about this launch was this:
NVIDIA could put in at lot of non-CUDA compute hardware in their GPU's at 12 nm and AMD still could not beat them even using a 7 nm node.

You expect that a die shrink of a 14nm product on 7nm magically overcomes the short coming of the original design by definition?
 
I don't understand why AMD continues to push the voltage so high on these things. Over and over again users are showing that the cards can handle less voltage and still run fine, with the added bonus of seeing sometimes significant power/heat/noise reduction.

So why is this still a thing with Radeon VII? Is there some technical reason behind it? Like, it is needed to guarantee stability at speed? Or is it just a theme with them.

Is it possible to do a BIOS mod to lower the voltage without having to depend on driver settings? I seem to recall hearing about this sort of thing during the mining bubble?

I'm still interested in R7 but these launch issues kept me from buying one. As it is I'll wait to see what the AIBs cook up, but I might be waiting for more mature 7nm parts instead of diving right in,

Also, somewhere recently I read (either in a review or in this thread) an opinion that GCN just needs to be retired at this point, and I think I agree. No matter how many revisions they go through it seems like they're just going to keep pushing out power-hungry cards that can "keep up" but it feels more like a necessity than any attempt to compete at the high end. They need to do for their graphics division what Ryzen did for the CPU side.

Mostly likely to ensure all chips works correctly, not every chip is a golden sample where you can lower the voltage. This is the same story for Fury and Vega and at this point, should be no surprise.
 
You been paying attetion to the forums lately?
Hell it's not even a week ago I was told that "7nm will kill NVIDA's RT crap!"
But I glad we agree that AMD's current arch has design flaws.

This is btw interesting...and spot on:
https://www.techspot.com/news/78202-nvidia-boss-jensen-huang-calls-radeon-vii-underwhelming.html

No no one was expecting it to beat a 2080ti, your obvious bias was clouding your vision there. In fact no one was expecting anything more then what Lisa Su said and that was it would win and lose to a 2080 and it does that. Now people have more options then they used to and that is a good thing.
 
You been paying attetion to the forums lately?
Hell it's not even a week ago I was told that "7nm will kill NVIDA's RT crap!"
But I glad we agree that AMD's current arch has design flaws.

This is btw interesting...and spot on:
https://www.techspot.com/news/78202-nvidia-boss-jensen-huang-calls-radeon-vii-underwhelming.html

Due to an Achilles injury, I've been on these forums non stop for the last couple of weeks. I have not come across a statement even close to this.

This is a weak attempt at "haha, told ya AMD fanboys!!"
 
To me the biggest disappointment is the temperature and fan noise. The performance is in line with what I expected but the noise is simply unacceptable considering they moved to a non blower cooler. This thing is loud as hell.
probably takes 2 seconds to adjust fan speed in watman so its very quiet......but no!!!! its to loud!!!
 
No no one was expecting it to beat a 2080ti, your obvious bias was clouding your vision there. In fact no one was expecting anything more then what Lisa Su said and that was it would win and lose to a 2080 and it does that. Now people have more options then they used to and that is a good thing.

My expectations with gaming performance were more or less in line with the initial marketing material.

Unfortunately my assumption of compute performance, noise profile, and driver maturation were incorrect. My reasons for my expectations being high in these categories may have been flawed but it still lead to some disappointing reviews for me.
 
Looks like AMD.com has more in stock if anyone still wants one. I was able to add to cart at least, I didn't go through the full checkout process though.
 
Looks like AMD.com has more in stock if anyone still wants one. I was able to add to cart at least, I didn't go through the full checkout process though.
AMD Radeon™ VII is currently out of stock and cannot be added to your shopping cart. Additional inventory will be available soon. We apologize for any inconvenience.
 
AMD Radeon™ VII is currently out of stock and cannot be added to your shopping cart. Additional inventory will be available soon. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Still works for me, guess the Canadian site has different stock.
 
Managed to snag one off AMD's website within minutes of it being available to purchase (stayed up all night playing the F5 game). Newegg sold out very fast (approx 5 mins after being listed in stock). I'm glad AMD decided to sell the Radeon VII directly with a limit of 1 per person. Gave the average guy a (better) chance to get one before the Ebay scalpers, cryptocurrency miners, and business quantity orders dented an already limited stock. My only complaint with purchasing directly from AMD was learning (after the fact) their cards only carry a 1 year warranty (with ZERO tolerance for removing the heatsink & fan). This is made worse by the fact this critical detail is buried within their website and not plainly stated on the product page like virtually every GPU card manufacture does. This is nonsense, and AMD needs to be called out for this and pressured for better transparency and to increase it's directly sold GPU's warranty to a Industry standard minimum of two years.

I've seen a lot of people question and ridicule the Radeon VII (especially in the context of buying one over a 2080). I cant speak for everyone, but here are my reasons for choosing a Raedon VII over a RTX 2080.

* Nvidia's L..O..N..G history of atrocious anti consumer / anti competitive behavior (this has and always will matter GREATLY to me)

* Widespread card failure on the RTX 2070 / 2080

* Questionable support / value of Ray Tracing and DLSS over the typical 3 years I keep a card

* Nvidia's "price gouging" on the Turing (vs Pascal)

* AMD's open source practices

* We collectively "need" AMD (elaborated below)

I'm a longtime fan and supporter of AMD (starting with the humble 386 DX 33 forward). With the exception of my previous system build (I7-7700k), I have used AMD cpu's exclusively since 1991 (approx 28 years) in my personal rig. I really detest Intel as a company as they too have a L..O..N..G history of atrocious anti consumer / anti competitive behavior (worse than Nvidia's). Even so, the gap between Piledriver and Kaby Lake was too great to ignore and Ryzen was too far off to wait. Similarly, I've used ATI/AMD gpu's as long as they were "competitive" against Nvidia's offerings. I believe twice I've opted team green instead (8800 GTX, 1070). Put another way, a fan and supporter of AMD but not a narrow minded "fanBoi".

Many of us who opt for AMD do not require that they beat Intel and Nvidia's offerings, simply that they compete at their respective price point. AMD's R&D budget is VASTLY lower (in most cases) than what Intel and Nvidia have to work with. Frequently what AMD manages to produce relative to their budget vs Intel / Nvidia's offerings is impressive. Can you imagine how underwhelming and expensive our CPU's and GPU's would be without AMD?

In closing, a collective average of 4% slower FPS across most relevant modern day games at 1440p vs the RTX 2080 is quite competitive. Power consumption is much improved over VEGA and it "seems" Radeon VII can be undervolted (just like VEGA) without a performance hit to bring it's consumption on par with a 2080. Undervolting also appears to aide greatly in temps and bring fan speed noise down to reasonable. I'm aware a bit of a silicone lottery is involved with undervolting, but most report being able to reduce voltage 15-25%. The current drivers and bios no doubt have their faults / problems (just like RTX on release) but will be ironed out over the next few months.

This is longer than I thought it would be. Hope you found this insightful (particularly those who struggle to rationalize the Radeon VII over the RTX 2080).

/My .02
 
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Sigh, yet another AMD launch with broken drivers,broken overclock, weird performance issues, and high noise.

and yet there are people who are actually complaining that they can't buy one, lmao

what a world we live in
 
Managed to snag one off AMD's website within minutes of it being available to purchase (stayed up all night playing the F5 game). Newegg sold out very fast (approx 5 mins after being listed in stock). I'm glad AMD decided to sell the Radeon VII directly with a limit of 1 per person. Gave the average guy a (better) chance to get one before the Ebay scalpers, cryptocurrency miners, and business quantity orders dented an already limited stock. My only complaint with purchasing directly from AMD was learning (after the fact) their cards only carry a 1 year warranty (with ZERO tolerance for removing the heatsink & fan). This is made worse by the fact this critical detail is buried within their website and not plainly stated on the product page like virtually every GPU card manufacture does. This is nonsense, and AMD needs to be called out for this and pressured for better transparency and to increase it's directly sold GPU's warranty to a Industry standard minimum of two years.

I've seen a lot of people question and ridicule the Radeon VII (especially in the context of buying one over a 2080). I cant speak for everyone, but here are my reasons for choosing a Raedon VII over a RTX 2080.

* Nvidia's L..O..N..G history of atrocious anti consumer / anti competitive behavior (this has and always will matter GREATLY to me)

* Widespread card failure on the RTX 2070 / 2080

* Questionable support / value of Ray Tracing and DLSS over the typical 3 years I keep a card

* Nvidia's "price gouging" on the Turing (vs Pascal)

* AMD's open source practices

* We collectively "need" AMD (elaborated below)

I'm a longtime fan and supporter of AMD (starting with the humble 386 DX 33 forward). With the exception of my previous system build (I7-7700k), I have used AMD cpu's exclusively since 1991 (approx 28 years) in my personal rig. I really detest Intel as a company as they too have a L..O..N..G history of atrocious anti consumer / anti competitive behavior (worse than Nvidia's). Even so, the gap between Piledriver and Kaby Lake was too great to ignore and Ryzen was too far off to wait. Similarly, I've used ATI/AMD gpu's as long as they were "competitive" against Nvidia's offerings. I believe twice I've opted team green instead (8800 GTX, 1070). Put another way, a fan and supporter of AMD but not a narrow minded "fanBoi".

Many of us who opt for AMD do not require that they beat Intel and Nvidia's offerings, simply that they compete at their respective price point. AMD's R&D budget is VASTLY lower (in most cases) than what Intel and Nvidia have to work with. Frequently what AMD manages to produce relative to their budget vs Intel / Nvidia's offerings is impressive. Can you imagine how underwhelming and expensive our CPU's and GPU's would be without AMD?

In closing, a collective average of 4% slower FPS across most relevant modern day games at 1440p vs the RTX 2080 is quite competitive. Power consumption is much improved over VEGA and it "seems" Radeon VII can be undervolted (just like VEGA) without a performance hit to bring it's consumption on par with a 2080. Undervolting also appears to aide greatly in temps and bring fan speed noise down to reasonable. I'm aware a bit of a silicone lottery is involved with undervolting, but most report being able to reduce voltage 15-25%. The current drivers and bios no doubt have their faults / problems (just like RTX on release) but will be ironed out over the next few months.

This is longer than I thought it would be. Hope you found this insightful (particularly those who struggle to rationalize the Radeon VII over the RTX 2080).

/My .02

If you are in the US AMD can not legally deny your warranty for removing the heatsink. That little "warranty void if removed" sticker on the card is actually illegal according to the FTC. As long as you don't damage the card in the process of removing the card they have no legal ground to stand on.
 
If you are in the US AMD can not legally deny your warranty for removing the heatsink. That little "warranty void if removed" sticker on the card is actually illegal according to the FTC. As long as you don't damage the card in the process of removing the card they have no legal ground to stand on.

True, but as with most things in life it's not that simple. FAR more often than not, it is a major PITA / time consuming ordeal to argue with a vendor the "legality" of their Corporate written warranty rules. Companies still frequently get away with denying a warranty because they know a critical simple truth. Enforcement of the law will require you to file a complaint with the FTC, write your states Attorney General for Consumer Protection, or take them to court. Few people have the time, patience, and or money to hold them accountable so Vendors as a policy deny warranties (saving a ton of money in the process) and bank on the odds your not the 1 in 100 who will fight them and "eventually" win. The occasional guy who knows his rights and fights back is simply "the cost of doing business" and little more.

Regarding the FTC. You "could" make a complaint with the FTC and they have the power to investigate / fine companies for violations of the law. However, in reality the majority of high ranking people at the FTC are appointed Wall Street cronies who enforce / investigate very little. You have better odds winning the lotto vs getting the FTC to put the smack-down on big Corporations screwing over consumers.

A letter / claim to your States Attorney General for Consumer protection (U.S. agency) is a little known and woefully underused "free" resource (much better option than small claims court / FTC). The Attorney General has profound power and influence to change a company's willingness to serve you. A slow process (1-2 months typically) and a lot of time making your case but the three times I've asked for their help it ended in me getting exactly what I was looking for.

Far better to use a vendor with friendly written modification warranty clauses than to fight a time consuming, frustrating, uphill battle with an rigid uncooperative vendor who seldom cant be reasoned with without involving "authorities".
 
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True, but as with most things in life it's not that simple. FAR more often than not, it is a major PITA / time consuming ordeal to argue with a vendor the "legality" of their Corporate written warranty rules. Companies still frequently get away with denying a warranty because they know a critical simple truth. Enforcement of the law will require you to file a complaint with the FTC, write your states Attorney General for Consumer Protection, or take them to court. Few people have the time, patience, and or money to hold them accountable so Vendors as a policy deny warranties (saving a ton of money in the process) and bank on the odds your not the 1 in 100 who will fight them and "eventually" win. The occasional guy who knows his rights and fights back is simply "the cost of doing business" and little more.

Regarding the FTC. You "could" make a complaint with the FTC and they have the power to investigate / fine companies for violations of the law. However, in reality the majority of high ranking people at the FTC are appointed Wall Street cronies who enforce / investigate very little. You have better odds winning the lotto vs getting the FTC to put the smack-down on big Corporations screwing over consumers.

A letter / claim to your States Attorney General for Consumer protection (U.S. agency) is a little known and woefully underused "free" resource (much better option than small claims court / FTC). The Attorney General has profound power and influence to change a company's willingness to serve you. A slow process (1-2 months typically) and a lot of time making your case but the three times I've asked for their help it ended in me getting exactly what I was looking for.

Far better to use a vendor with friendly written modification warranty clauses than to fight a time consuming, frustrating, uphill battle with an rigid uncooperative vendor who seldom cant be reasoned with without involving "authorities".
To be honest about some of the legality around wording and ignoring it on products is sometimes cause of me shrugging and it tends to be a waste of energy.
My example is receipts when I go to the store and purchase items it still tends to state that returns have to be within 7 days while legally it is 14 days.
My guess is why it is on current hardware is because of the processing of these batches of video cards not really worth to have a separate batch without the stickers being applied something practical rather then devious even, your point is valid.
 
Still in stock this morning from AMD Canada Shop. $1068 Shipped. Already have one coming in from Newegg Canada shipped from California.

Still in stock, please fellow Canadians, buy it up so they go out of stock and the temptation to purchase ends!
 
Shades of gray. I know people who have done things like scam walmart or best buy out of money by paying cash and returning some old trash GPU in a the box and keeping their money AND the new GPU. People who blew up a motor in a car and wanted to "take it back to stock" so they can get a free long block. Some people legit get screwed by the sticker issue because they didn't damage the GPU. Others, will know they did damage and insist on getting a free replacement.
 
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