I'm not in the market at the moment as my current system does everything I want it to but I own neither a FreeSync nor G-Sync monitor and don't plan on getting either in the near future. A compelling Vega may have put me in the market to go team Red again but at 14 months later for the same (relative) performance...
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AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Video Card Review @ [H]
I'm not in the market at the moment as my current system does everything I want it to but I own neither a FreeSync nor G-Sync monitor and don't plan on getting either in the near future. A compelling Vega may have put me in the market to go team Red again but at 14 months later for the same (relative) performance...
Chris_B
Supreme [H]ardness
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The usual price fucking going on, from £638, to £700, to £780, in the space of not even 24 hours. fuck right off.
Boil
[H]ard|Gawd
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I will be choosing the RX Vega 56 for the raw compute power over anything else (but I already have FreeSync monitors); it is more about running DCC programs (Modo, Substance Suite, Unreal Engine, etc.) than gaming...
And FreeSync offers more monitor for the cost of a lesser sized GSync monitor...
GDI Lord
Limp Gawd
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It's been the opposite in my country so far: every time I've checked, G-Sync monitors are cheaper than FreeSync monitors. (I know, what the actual?!?!)
Based on cost, yes, even in Ontario where I live and power costs are just stupid, if you game 10 hours per week year round and peak electricity times you would pay an extra $10/year. Based on that, on the surface, if AMD can price it accordingly based on the usual upgrade cycle, from a cost standpoint it can be a wash (notwithstanding the extra heat in the room in the summer with the AC needing to deal with it). That said, you're also kicking out a massive amount of heat along with that. I don't need a hotter room in the summertime "just cause". It would also necessitate potentially a larger, more expensive PSU. I'm looking to upgrade sometime soon with a monitor/video card combo. It's just a shame G-Sync adds so much to the cost for the class of monitors I've been shopping for.
Nonsense. He says no such thing. That is just you making up a rationale that fits your incorrect world view.
Companies don't delay their products at a whim because their competition shit the bed, or speed them up if their competition does well.
This is not how the world/universe/business works. Product pipelines run on internal timetables, and it will be delivered when it is ready.
He is simply not announcing anything, before he is ready to ship. That is a winning strategy, you can see this from Apple all the time. They almost never pre-announce anything. They have press conference and announce a new product, that you can usually order later that day.
Losers pre-announce and hype way in advance. AMDs hyping of Vega for close to a year has to be the worse case of this I have ever seen.
AMD's GPU marketing really need to shut the fuck up, until they actually have something they can ship, and simply say: "We no longer discuss future products, until they are close to market". Or something along those lines.
If AMD does this early hype BS again with Navi, they are going to look like complete idiots and everyone will assume they are starting early, polishing another Turd.
Syntax_Error
Weaksauce
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- 101
AMD apparently recommends a 1000W PSU for the LC version of the 64.
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As far as paying for the electricity goes, I agree. As far as shedding heat goes, I disagree. One bright side to a card being a power hog is that maybe miners will shy away in favor of something a little more efficient, but I put quite a bit of money and effort into making rigs that are quiet and run cool - I'd rather not lead with my chin on a product that doesn't deliver some big returns. If Vega 64 consumed as much power as it does but stomped a mudhole in a 1080Ti, I'd be all over that and would expend what it takes to make it run cool and quiet. But why go to all that effort over what's basically a 1080?
I'm curious, because it was mentioned in the article: Is it even worth picking up one or two of these for the sole purpose of crypto currency mining? Seems to me it's a little late in the game for such endeavors, but I haven't even tried for years. Or would it be necessary to invest in quite a bit more than a one or two to really make any progress?
Kyle & Brent, does this mean that essentially AMD laptop gaming is dead? I suppose we don't talk much about that any more but I'm sure gaming laptops are still being sold in good numbers.
I'd imagine there is no way any laptop manufacturer could cope with such an overwhelming disadvantage in power draw/battery life unless they'd heavily cut down a Vega for laptops? But still, the architecture doesn't seem to lend it self to this?
What's on the horizon for AMD in regards to CPU+GPU integrated packages? As I can imagine Ryzen+Vega won't be match made in thermal heaven?
Would love to hear your comments.
I'd imagine there is no way any laptop manufacturer could cope with such an overwhelming disadvantage in power draw/battery life unless they'd heavily cut down a Vega for laptops? But still, the architecture doesn't seem to lend it self to this?
What's on the horizon for AMD in regards to CPU+GPU integrated packages? As I can imagine Ryzen+Vega won't be match made in thermal heaven?
Would love to hear your comments.
An extra 100W at 4 hours a day that costs 13 cents a kilowatt hour costs about $20 a year to operate. If you keep that for three years you can straight up add $60 to the cost of the card. If you average more usage you can increase this cost, as that's only 28 hours a week at load.
If you plan on trying to get five years out of a card, which right now means you would own something like a 660Ti, and you want extended warranty coverage that's going to cost you - if you can even get that with AMD from any supplier. I laugh when people say they will get 10 years on their card. I don't think there are too many people still rocking a 8800. EVGA will give you an extra two years for $30, giving you a five year warranty, and while not perfect I have not found anyone better selling these products for return and service.
This is before we talk about a better power supply and heat, if either of those things are a concern, and obviously for some people they are. You don't want to cool more than you have to, again, it adds to the cost. It's not that Vega is really bad, it's that there are better options for the same money.
As far as OEM's go, well, Apple is going to use Vega, and I think they're doing well with consoles. I can't imagine this being attractive on the low end for the likes of HP, Dell, Lenovo, and so on.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerful-mac-arrives-december/
If you plan on trying to get five years out of a card, which right now means you would own something like a 660Ti, and you want extended warranty coverage that's going to cost you - if you can even get that with AMD from any supplier. I laugh when people say they will get 10 years on their card. I don't think there are too many people still rocking a 8800. EVGA will give you an extra two years for $30, giving you a five year warranty, and while not perfect I have not found anyone better selling these products for return and service.
This is before we talk about a better power supply and heat, if either of those things are a concern, and obviously for some people they are. You don't want to cool more than you have to, again, it adds to the cost. It's not that Vega is really bad, it's that there are better options for the same money.
As far as OEM's go, well, Apple is going to use Vega, and I think they're doing well with consoles. I can't imagine this being attractive on the low end for the likes of HP, Dell, Lenovo, and so on.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerful-mac-arrives-december/
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No clue. Don't keep up with that portion of the market.
Well, can’t say that AMD has surprised me with these cards. Although I truly wish it had!
I really would love to know what the silicon is doing with all that electricity. It uses so much more than what nVidia use and manages to deliver less performance.
I really hope that there is some kind of bug in the drivers that are throwing away 25% performance or eating 25% more power, but that’s looking unlikely as AMD have been working on these drivers since forever. Also what IS the benefit of HBM2? It costs so much to implement, and seems to offer no additional performance, at least in AMDs use case. Is this why MSAA is so bad on these cards? Does AMDs implementation have huge latency or something? Or is 8GB not enough memory when using modern games at a high resolution and MSAA?
Personally I think Raja should be held responsible and dismissed from AMD. He is too busy pumping AMDs precious money in to obscure Indian projects. He has lost his way, and in my opinion, he is probably behind the terrible marketing on these cards.
AMD need to throw away this GCN core, or salvage what it can from it. It’s had it’s time and has now stopped AMD in its tracks. They are obviously unable to do anymore with this architecture, apart from bolt on more bits and pieces. They need a new architecture that frees them from whatever shackles GCN seems to tie them down with.
I really would love to know what the silicon is doing with all that electricity. It uses so much more than what nVidia use and manages to deliver less performance.
I really hope that there is some kind of bug in the drivers that are throwing away 25% performance or eating 25% more power, but that’s looking unlikely as AMD have been working on these drivers since forever. Also what IS the benefit of HBM2? It costs so much to implement, and seems to offer no additional performance, at least in AMDs use case. Is this why MSAA is so bad on these cards? Does AMDs implementation have huge latency or something? Or is 8GB not enough memory when using modern games at a high resolution and MSAA?
Personally I think Raja should be held responsible and dismissed from AMD. He is too busy pumping AMDs precious money in to obscure Indian projects. He has lost his way, and in my opinion, he is probably behind the terrible marketing on these cards.
AMD need to throw away this GCN core, or salvage what it can from it. It’s had it’s time and has now stopped AMD in its tracks. They are obviously unable to do anymore with this architecture, apart from bolt on more bits and pieces. They need a new architecture that frees them from whatever shackles GCN seems to tie them down with.
GDI Lord
Limp Gawd
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Huh? Like what?
![Zarathustra[H]](https://cdn.hardforum.com/data/avatars/m/9/9298.jpg?1707758471){kind=avatar}
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
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That thing was LOUD.....
Don't forget the GTX 480
Yeah, thesed things go in cycles.
Right now AMD is the one being made fun of for hot and loud systems. A few years back, the tables were turned.
Anyone remember this?
A certain Indian movie.
Oh yes! Lol
But AMD seems to be going through a difficult 2 or 3 years in a row now. And I don’t think it’s going to end anytime soon. We are stuck with Vega for the next 12 to 24 months now. And we are now at the mercy of nVidia, which is not a pleasant place to be. So don’t count on any ground breaking hardware or lower prices anytime soon.
However, maybe nVidia may adjust down the price of the 1070, maybe.
Hardware will come when it is ready regardless of how the competition is doing. You don't stop work because your competitor shot himself in the foot.
Price adjustments and marketing messages are the only thing that really changes in any kind of reaction based time scale.
Though with mining price cuts are pointless. 1070 already has an official price of $349...
I'm sorry, but what? You are impressed that they are shipping a product that they don't have non-beta drivers for?
People have really low expectations of computer hardware companies these days. Or maybe just AMD.
Presbytier
[H]ard|Gawd
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Just AMD. If NVIDIA did not have solid day one drivers people would be foaming at the mouth, but since we grade AMD on a curve, a really fucking huge curve, it is not a big deal and it will be great in a few months to 5 years. When I got my day one GTX 1080 it worked great out of the gate; the only performance boost came with the DX12 and Vulkan driver bump earlier this year.
Gideon
2[H]4U
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These kind of statements are such bullshit. Go to any game forum and you got people crying about Nvidia issues and AMD issues, the idea one side has cards that work flawlessly is complete bullshit. Civ VI worked great with my 290x but hates my 1080 card and I found I was not alone. I have had owned both companies cards and they always have a issue with one game or another and that is a fact of life. Also Nvidia drivers were crap with DX12 for quite some time while AMD shined there but yet AMD has had issues with DX11. I mean hell Nvidia had a driver that literally fried cards so lets cut the hyperbole back a notch or two.
I agree, however my original point was that it's absurd to buy a product today on the hope that drivers are going to be better in the future. I've been gaming on PCs for a long time, I've been burned on that front more than once and by more than one company.
AMD's drivers - in my opinion, and I do have an AMD Card in one of my boxes - have been perfectly fine for single GPU use for the last 3-4 years. But the people holding out for Vega to catch up to the 1080Ti on drivers alone are delusional.
Gideon
2[H]4U
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I agree buying a card right now and hoping it gets amazingly better is a fools cause. Drivers will improve but I dont buy a card hoping I will get a huge gain, I get it for the performance I can get now. What is more likely to happen is some new games might make use of FP16 or other features of Vega and allow Vega to do much better, but that is a big if. I will say AMD has done a good job at continuing support for older cards which has led to some gains over time but it's not the reason why I bought my 290x when I did, I bought cause it was fast at the time.
shad0w4life
Gawd
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Memory OC seems pretty low, Guru3d got it to 1090 and Crypto Buddy running his FE Liquid at 1090 got 41Mh/s
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I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars years ago in order to properly review and evaluate the retail system and laptop market. I was totally shut out of its advertising revenue for being "too critical" and too in-depth of the entire experience. So I do not spend my resources there any more.Fair enough, this is [H].
You can see one of our old reviews here.
https://hardocp.com/article/2007/07/03/dell_dimension_e521
Never had any issues with my Nvidia cards on launch day or later. That's why I've always bought Nvidia for the last decade+. Seen plenty of horrific AMD launch day blunders, and yet again AMD shows they really have a crap driver department.
Don't worry, overclocking will save it, especially on water.
A whole 0,9% overclock on water!
Maybe the problem is not at RGT, maybe the problem is that resources are being moved to the CPU division.
Is there even a consumer power supply available that could push that much power?
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That might actually be a challenge for a normal household setup, but I think you could do it.
https://hardocp.com/article/2012/06/11/lepa_g_series_1600w_power_supply_review/9
Activate: AMD
[H]ard|Gawd
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Yup, but current cycle has been going since 2011 (7970 vs 680)... pretty much an eternity in GPU time. AMD has been trailing on power efficiency ever since then.
Well Maxwell, this is when nV introduced the enthusiast line (titan and ti), and took the power consumption advantage. The thing is designing these chips takes 3-5 years, the same time as a CPU time line, but the release schedule is only 1.5 years, which is much faster gen to gen than the CPU timelines. So if plans aren't in the pipelines, things aren't going to shift much till the next generation comes out. Back with the FX series, the 68xx series were already in the works that why nV was able to recover. With AMD's cut down on RTG budget, there isn't much they can do in the short term. nV has a new gen ever 1.5 years. AMD has been sticking to 5 years and in the interim just tweaking current designs all of this because of the budget cuts.
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Its a shame it was not faster. I knew it would not best the Titan XP or the Ti but I still wanted it to be faster than my OCed 1080 so that I could swap it out and enjoy my free sync monitor even more. Looks like im looking into to getting a 1080Ti and OCing the hell out of that. I am in no rush for the upgrade though.
In my opinion, the FX series was the worst release that Nvidia ever made. And this was almost 15 years ago !!
It was the only time (if we don't include nv1) that put the company on brink of bankruptcy. Bad or disappointing products we can throw Fermi in there and the 28x line but they were still competitive and for Fermi outright leader in performance.
AMD/ATi on the other hand had multiple bad products. 8500pro (this wasn't due to the product but drivers), r600, Fiji, the entire 3xx line, and now Vega.
AMD/ATi on the other hand had multiple bad products. 8500pro (this wasn't due to the product but drivers), r600, Fiji, the entire 3xx line, and now Vega.
Geoffrey Rene Moiens
n00b
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Vega 56/64 = Vega FE.
erek
[H]F Junkie
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Randall Stephens
[H]ard|Gawd
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Makes me wish Jim Keller knew how to design GPU architectures...
Presbytier
[H]ard|Gawd
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If that is the case sell off RTG as it is dragging your entire bottom line down. No business is going to hang on to an unprofitable division indefinitely. Of course we don't actually know if this is the case. AMD may not be moving resources out, but it is beginning to look like that either the people in charge of RTG are making bad decisions based on misguided market analysis or they don't have the resources needed to compete head to head with NVIDIA in the top of the line sector.