AMD Radeon Pro Duo Announcement @ [H]

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Been building Pcs since 95. My last PC upgrade (Monitor and Graphics card) cost me 2k !! And for what ? To play console ported to Pc games. For the first time, I've started to think that for gaming I dont need a PC. That I could live with console gaming if I could ever adapt to the controllers. Now thats saying something when a pure PC gaming dynasaur like me is even considering such a sacrilege. Being at the top end of PC gaming hardware doesn't warrant the huge price premium that it once did anymore.
 
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MN Scout said:
When I looked at what was needed for Adobe Premiere accelerated encoding of 4K footage 4GB of GPU ram was the minimum. As soon as filters, layers and effects got applied the GPU would need to have greater than 4GB. This card barely can accelerate 4K recordings because the data is mirrored to each GPU ram (idiotic 8GB branding). VR rendering I can assume is working with significantly more data than 4K (4k per eye, then all the data for the full 360 sphere), so this card appears completely worthless for the advertised use. Someone enlighten me please.
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Good points. As far as VR development goes, I am guessing it would be DX12/Vulcan centric where the cards would realize 8GB combined RAM.
As for the other Pro driver enabled software the 4GB would hold it back one would think. Although the HBM might help this situation and the driver might be tweaked to swap with system RAM, much like they have been doing with AAA games.
I am very interested in seeing what the Pro drivers bring to a card like this. This isn't what the [H] does, so it would have been a bit pointless to review here. Buy two FuryX's and save cash would have been the conclusion.
If anyone finds some benches on Pro software please post them here.
 
MN Scout said:
When I looked at what was needed for Adobe Premiere accelerated encoding of 4K footage 4GB of GPU ram was the minimum. As soon as filters, layers and effects got applied the GPU would need to have greater than 4GB. This card barely can accelerate 4K recordings because the data is mirrored to each GPU ram (idiotic 8GB branding). VR rendering I can assume is working with significantly more data than 4K (4k per eye, then all the data for the full 360 sphere), so this card appears completely worthless for the advertised use. Someone enlighten me please.
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Don't forget the Fury has a very specific fix or patch for this in the form of some optimised, shared system memory pooling.. not that it's the best solution, it may provide some breathing room for the figures you mention.
 
I will never buy a multi GPU board from any manufacturer. In just about 100% of cases you'd be better off with either a single GPU card or two single GPU cards.
 
I'm generally pretty neutral when it comes to AMD vs nvidia.... but crap like this makes me happy I'm going back to a single card nvidia solution (c'mon pascal, daddy needs youuuuu)

Sounds to me like AMD knows the card isn't going to be at the top of the food chain very long with this card. 1500 dollars my ass, I'm kind of hoping when the 1080 or 1080ti hits, it mops the floor with this overpriced watercooled thing. Xfire has been an overall disappointment for me.
 
Pieter3dnow said:
Shield is spelled wrong ;)

Pretty weak argument again. What is next born in an odd year instead of even ?

Talking about weak arguments :


Could you reverse that saying that: We can not give you a review card because at AMD marketing we do not have qualified individuals ?
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That'a a shame.
 
collegeboy69us said:
I'm generally pretty neutral when it comes to AMD vs nvidia.... but crap like this makes me happy I'm going back to a single card nvidia solution (c'mon pascal, daddy needs youuuuu)
Sounds to me like AMD knows the card isn't going to be at the top of the food chain very long with this card. 1500 dollars my ass, I'm kind of hoping when the 1080 or 1080ti hits, it mops the floor with this overpriced watercooled thing. Xfire has been an overall disappointment for me.
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Well AMD marketing is what it is you can't do anything about it but not buying AMD products based on their poor marketing department is rather silly.
The card however you want to spin it is top of the food chain it has HBM it has performance and the price is not for your average consumer. There is no card which has these features in the marketplace.
Not that this card is not meant for people to buy but they prolly be better of with Polaris (or 2 if you only use DX12 and certain games which supports it) based card then anything else.
 
I see it as a professional card for VR development first since it has FirePro drivers. I also see it as a VR gamer's type of card since $1,500 is nothing to throw down if you've just dropped $830 on a headset. As I said in another thread, since when does the windshield cost more than the engine powering the car? AMD intends to scale VR power with mGPU. That's why they developed LiquidVR.

The thing is that you can buy a couple of Fury X for less. So I guess this card would be more eye candy than useful for a gamer. So that eliminates it as a gamer's type of purchase unless buying it for bragging rights. Developers have always complained that they didn't develop for mGPU because they only had one professional card in their PC and it was a single core solution. The AMD Pro Duo allows them to have multiple cards in one board with really nice performance. Those complaining that 4GB isn't enough don't remember that AMD dynamically allocates system memory for the GPU. Just look at the last few [H]ardocp reviews to see how this works.

In short this is a great entry level card for VR creators as they get a cheaper professional solution to develop on that supports mGPU out of the box. Content creators have never worried about having the latest and greatest tech at all times, so Polaris being around the corner is irrelevant to them. Also I haven't heard of Polaris having FirePro drivers. Hopefully this kills off game releases that don't support DX12 mGPU at release as even an indie developer can afford this card. What would be an excuse for not implementing mGPU if your development card has it built in from the get go?
 
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Marketing is a powerful tool -- and if they want to move those cards, they gotta have their shit together. If it works great for VR devs - more power to them, I have no skin in that game.


"not buying a card based on their marketing" is exactly the point of marketing itself! And there's always something you can do about it with their marketing being what it is... you can take the route of not buying it :) quite effective I'd say.
 
collegeboy69us said:
Marketing is a powerful tool -- and if they want to move those cards, they gotta have their shit together. If it works great for VR devs - more power to them, I have no skin in that game.
"not buying a card based on their marketing" is exactly the point of marketing itself! And there's always something you can do about it with their marketing being what it is... you can take the route of not buying it :) quite effective I'd say.
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Marketing works only if you have little to no knowledge about the subject. If you do have knowledge then what do you need marketing for?

Buying a sound product that you know will fit your needs outweighs any marketing.
 
Pieter3dnow said:
Marketing works only if you have little to no knowledge about the subject. If you do have knowledge then what do you need marketing for?

Buying a sound product that you know will fit your needs outweighs any marketing.
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How do you discover/gain knowledge about a product if not for marketing? AMD is going to release a card, not tell anyone it exists, and the only way you can buy it is if you call AMD directly and ask for it explicitly. That card won't sell any units.

Marketing isn't limited to press releases, review samples, and advertising. Everything from Newegg listings and price drops to forum threads and word of mouth go into marketing a product.
 
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Yup, marketing starts in the Professional areas and eventually trickles down to consumers.

Completely different approaches in both cases though.
 
collegeboy69us said:
I'm generally pretty neutral when it comes to AMD vs nvidia.... but crap like this makes me happy I'm going back to a single card nvidia solution (c'mon pascal, daddy needs youuuuu)

Sounds to me like AMD knows the card isn't going to be at the top of the food chain very long with this card. 1500 dollars my ass, I'm kind of hoping when the 1080 or 1080ti hits, it mops the floor with this overpriced watercooled thing. Xfire has been an overall disappointment for me.
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I - too - am pretty neutral when it comes to AMD vs Nvidia, I am NOT - however - neutral at all when it comes to single vs multi-gpu.

The purpose of a product like this with multiple GPU's on one video card, seems to be to satisfy those who say "Yes, I would like the inconvenience, performance issues, and bugs of a dual video card setup, but it has to fit in my SFF case" :ROFLMAO:

I can't imagine this is a particularly huge market. (But maybe I am crazy?)

Performance per video card is meaningless. Performance per GPU is the important part.
 
Another card they won't let anyone sample for review without buying one off the shelf?

It's like they want Nvidia to get more customers. I know I'm about to become one again thanks to this. You can't make a claim like that and then try to dodge having that claim put to the test. It just shows lack of confidence and/or knowing that's a damned lie even by marketing standards.

Guess I'll wait to see what the competition brings to the table. I can't support a company that talks big but won't let the review sites confirm or destroy that talk.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
Another card they won't let anyone sample for review without buying one off the shelf?

It's like they want Nvidia to get more customers. I know I'm about to become one again thanks to this. You can't make a claim like that and then try to dodge having that claim put to the test. It just shows lack of confidence and/or knowing that's a damned lie even by marketing standards.

Guess I'll wait to see what the competition brings to the table. I can't support a company that talks big but won't let the review sites confirm or destroy that talk.
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You just started the conversation over again to push a narrative, maybe go back and read through why they have not released for preview. This is the first and only time I will say, Sh$ll? Is that how it's supposed to be done?
 
Yakk said:
Yup, marketing starts in the Professional areas and eventually trickles down to consumers.
Completely different approaches in both cases though.
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Not buying products because you don't like the marketing team AMD has is silly ..

BigJayDogg3 said:
How do you discover/gain knowledge about a product if not for marketing? AMD is going to release a card, not tell anyone it exists, and the only way you can buy it is if you call AMD directly and ask for it explicitly. That card won't sell any units.
Marketing isn't limited to press releases, review samples, and advertising. Everything from Newegg listings and price drops to forum threads and word of mouth go into marketing a product.
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In this case I would say that this card is will not sell many units even if they had the best marketing team ever it is a product which is catered to a niche segment.

How do I discover things , not from AMD marketing I promise you that :) .
 
And I really wanted to call it a paper launch yesterday, but I held my tongue.

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Armenius said:
Well, technically, wasn't the paper launch back in March?
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That was a solid mutter that they gave us back then. :) The PC Gamer event was an exuberant guffaw as Lisa Su showed off the card. So today is the actual proper paper launch.
 
Hmm...?

I just checked for kicks and I see 2 brands of Radeon Pro Duo cards in stock at Newegg...
 
pendragon1 said:
they are $2000 Canadian and "out of stock" everywhere....
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I see $1,900 CAD and IN Stock.

Which is interesting since a single Fury X is running about $900 CAD (give it take a few bucks).
 
i mean actually in Canada. memex has them listed at $2000(out of stock), ncix @ $2049(pre-order). where did you see them?

edit: I see them on newegg.ca now @ $1901 supposedly in stock.
 
Alternate.nl got 1 But it will take them a day to get it from their supplier 1799 Euro
 
It's been a while since I've seen a company so intent on shooting itself in the foot


The reason AMD is not sampling the "World's Fastest Graphics Card" to video card reviewers, is told to us as such. Basically this video card is not for consumers according to AMD but rather only for "VR content developers."

but...

"AMD's next step in advancing VR is with the new AMD Radeon Pro Duo, an incredibly advanced and powerful dual-GPU board that delivers the horsepower needed by VR designers, content creators, and for VR content consumers."

Way to contradict yourself, AMD
 
Now this is a totally different case. If card supports FirePro drivers that does indeed open up good support for a number of professional applications. I think this would be the first Fiji that does that. I would be very interested in a professional application environment testing review. For $1500 that would be more on the cheap side considering many professional applications are $3000 plus.

This is how much more you'll pay for Autodesk software

Also getting the developers using dual gpu cards I rather like - that will most likely ensure multiple GPU programs in the future.
 
noko said:
Now this is a totally different case. If card supports FirePro drivers that does indeed open up good support for a number of professional applications. I think this would be the first Fiji that does that. I would be very interested in a professional application environment testing review. For $1500 that would be more on the cheap side considering many professional applications are $3000 plus.

This is how much more you'll pay for Autodesk software

Also getting the developers using dual gpu cards I rather like - that will most likely ensure multiple GPU programs in the future.
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I'm actually struggling to find applications that use GPU acceleration outside of Photoshop, Xnormal claims to have CUDA support, but I can't really get it to render anything other than a blank image.

Also, This is likely the ONLY professional Fiji card we'll see, as Fiji is inherently LOCKED to a 4GB framebuffer. Professional cards tend to have oodles of RAM, with Nvidia shipping 24GB quatros, and AMD having 16GB FirePros. 8GBs across two GPUs is not enough for the HUGE parallel projects, but it is spot-on minimum for game development.
 
Not all Professional applications need an extremely large VRam buffer, but for those that do there is also the W9100 with 32GB on a 512-Bit bus to move all that.

Plus access to system RAM as needed.
 
cageymaru said:
This thing sounds like a limited edition card. Well mGPU seems like the way they are going to handle VR. And this is the perfect testing platform for a developer to see if their title scales across multiple GPUs.
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They've had an MGPU advantage for a while now. So much that nVidia has lessened the importance of it. I think this is their way of getting devs to concentrate on it more. More shaping of the ecosystem. Quite clever actually.
 
Modred189 said:
Bad timing. Bad price. Bad amount of RAM/$. Bad PR tactics, and if it's really a professional card, maybe they should have used the Fire Pro nomenclature, or a separate branding. Like "Radeon VR Pro" or something to tell the market what the hell this thing is. It's a sexy card, of course, but so much is just wrong that it kind of makes no sense.
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You mean something like Pro Duo? ;)

Yakk said:
Probably the best engineered and looking card I've seen yet. But this "enthusiast" half-pro branding ,weather it be Titan or this new Pro branding is just silly IMO. Either release it as a consumer card, or professional content creation card.

That being said, with AMD giving access to both Crimson and, more importantly IMO, FirePro drivers for $1,500 is basically giving it away on the professional side for this amount of performance.

Just label and market this card as a FirePro card at a never before seen Professional Price/Performance ratio with positive marketing and avoid this type of situation.

I swear their marketing people are complete imbeciles.
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Seems like they missed a chance to make it look like a supreme value and instead look like they are justifying the price. It really is an awesome card if looked at from the pro angle. I'd love to have one in a graphics work station.
 
Titan - $1000, single GPU, air cooled, gaming drivers, 4.5 TFlops FP32, 1.3 TFlops FP64
Titan X - $1000, single GPU, air cooled, gaming drivers, 7 TFlops FP32, 0.2 TFlops FP64
Fury Pro Duo - $1500, dual GPU, liquid, Pro/gaming drivers, 16 TFlops FP32, 0.9 TFlops FP64

Pricing doesn't seem terrible when compared to Nvidia. It simply should have been released earlier.
 
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RazorWind said:
Why do they want to avoid sites like HardOCP reviewing this? Are they just worried that the verdict is going to be "Meh, buy two 980Tis and a keg of beer instead?" Or is just they're not on amicable terms with [H] in particular for some reason?

Given that the sort of person who buys this product will almost certainly run some benchmarks and post the results on the internet, that doesn't seem like a very smart attitude. People are eventually going to figure out how it performs, and either crow than spending $1500 was worth it, or kvetch that it was overpriced.
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I believe this is the whole point. Will Hardocp bench content creation suites or just games? Based on the conclusion of the article, you just have gaming in mind and they aren't targeting the card for gaming. Yes, it can play games but that's probably not where it shines, which is why they specifically state the target market are for vr content creation and as a side note, it can play games too.

So unless all phases of the target market are benched, it's senseless to send an expensive card to a site that will only be testing to see how it games.
 
Drep said:
I believe this is the whole point. Will Hardocp bench content creation suites or just games? Based on the conclusion of the article, you just have gaming in mind and they aren't targeting the card for gaming. Yes, it can play games but that's probably not where it shines, which is why they specifically state the target market are for vr content creation and as a side note, it can play games too.

So unless all phases of the target market are benched, it's senseless to send an expensive card to a site that will only be testing to see how it games.
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So who reviews it then? From what I've read it seems like no tech websites are being given samples, regardless of their specialty. A search for reviews results in the top example being a VR tech website and even they aren't being given one. So this doesn't seem to be a case of AMD wanting the card to be reviewed by a certain niche of websites, it just doesn't want it to be reviewed at all.
 
Stryke1983 said:
So who reviews it then? From what I've read it seems like no tech websites are being given samples, regardless of their specialty. A search for reviews results in the top example being a VR tech website and even they aren't being given one. So this doesn't seem to be a case of AMD wanting the card to be reviewed by a certain niche of websites, it just doesn't want it to be reviewed at all.
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Apparently it is all up to Elmy now! I have the Radeon Pro Duo in hand
 
Mugato said:
You just started the conversation over again to push a narrative, maybe go back and read through why they have not released for preview. This is the first and only time I will say, Sh$ll? Is that how it's supposed to be done?
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No, i just posted my two cents because I've been waiting on AMD to do something besides give me reasons to go back to Nvidia. Call me what you want, it doesn't matter to me. I've always rooted for AMD since my first Acer powered by a K6. I was there when T-birds were the thing to have in your rig if you were serious about what you put under the hood.

Get to know me before you start name calling.
 
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