Vega Rumors

[_mockingbird]

ASUS Republic of Gamers Announces Strix RX Vega64

-- VR-ready gaming graphics card with leveled-up cooling performance and ASUS Aura Sync lighting --
Fremont, CA (June 30, 2017) — AMD Radeon™ RX Vega64 has arrived and along with it the VEGA architecture. Get ready to experience smooth, brilliant graphics performance that brings the latest VR and extreme resolution games to life. ASUS is announcing the ASUS RX Vega64 Water Cooled Edition and ASUS RX Vega64 Air Cooled Edition, both reference card designs featuring our exclusive GPU Tweak II technology with XSplit Gamecaster. In early September we will bring to market a pair of custom designed Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix RX Vega64 graphics cards.

ROG Strix RX Vega64 will feature our exclusive MaxContact GPU cooling technology together with FanConnect II that provides hybrid-controlled fan headers and a comprehensive set of tuning options with GPU Tweak II to optimize system cooling and performance even further. Industry-exclusive Auto-Extreme technology features a 100%-automated production process that incorporates premium materials for a new standard of quality, performance and longevity.

ROG Strix RX Vega64 also features ASUS Aura Sync, our RGB LED technology that can synchronize colors and effects across a complete system, from the motherboard and graphics card to peripherals and other components in an ever expanding eco-system. A VR-friendly design with two HDMI ports lets gamers keep a VR headset connected to their system for immersive, virtual-reality gaming without swapping cables.

AVAILABILITY & PRICING

ROG Strix RX Vega64 will be available worldwide from early September. ASUS RX Vega64 Water Cooled Edition and ASUS RX Vega64 Air Cooled Edition will be available worldwide from August 14th with pricing to be announced shortly. Please contact your local ASUS representative for further information. If you want to see more of what ASUS has to offer for RX Vega64, please visit ASUS North America.

http://promos.asus.com/US/PR_2017/ROG_AMD_RX_Vega/index.html

 

[Sodapopjones]

I mean, I picked up Ryzen to have something to play around with, but I don't see the point of Vega. There's nothing fun to be had with it regardless of what you're going to be using it for, mining/gaming etc there have been better options available for some time... Also why would anyone lock themselves into a FreeSync panel at this time? That $200 savings isn't going to be a savings when you have nothing to power it once your Vega 64 dies, I don't see much light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Anarchist4000]

Where is your magic driver Anarchist4000 ? performance is the same as Vega FE basically.

Well if you read the news you would know that it hasn't released yet. Release planned for when the cards ship in August according to AMD. Although I have a feeling they will be doing driver work for a while being a new architecture and all. I'm not sure why you're surprised the performance of the card WITHOUT the drivers performs like the card WITHOUT the drivers. RX and FE were always expected to perform similarly(excluding some clock differences) and just needing improvement on the software side.

My original prediction is still looking rather good. Official confirmation on parts of it as well, although testing of FE bore out most of that already. Only difference is AMD being aggressive with prices. Making what will likely turn into a $500 Titan. So a card with more features, DX12 support, higher minimum framerates, and a huge potential for increased performance already outperforming 1080. Pretty much makes Pascal obsolete at this point.

Still a bunch of details that haven't been announced. Like Vega32, the Nano sized card, more technical details, etc. Also the new shader models that haven't landed yet.

 

[NKD]

Well if you read the news you would know that it hasn't released yet. Release planned for when the cards ship in August according to AMD. Although I have a feeling they will be doing driver work for a while being a new architecture and all. I'm not sure why you're surprised the performance of the card WITHOUT the drivers performs like the card WITHOUT the drivers. RX and FE were always expected to perform similarly(excluding some clock differences) and just needing improvement on the software side.

My original prediction is still looking rather good. Official confirmation on parts of it as well, although testing of FE bore out most of that already. Only difference is AMD being aggressive with prices. Making what will likely turn into a $500 Titan. So a card with more features, DX12 support, higher minimum framerates, and a huge potential for increased performance already outperforming 1080. Pretty much makes Pascal obsolete at this point.

Still a bunch of details that haven't been announced. Like Vega32, the Nano sized card, more technical details, etc. Also the new shader models that haven't landed yet.

I know its good to have hope. and amd will likely squeeze more performance out of it. But thats a whole lot of hoping and blind assumptions on your end.

Clearly they expected more and got way less out of Vega! All these features they talk about if implemented correct should have given a big boost! If they implemented binning rasterizer right they would have gotten much better results. I don't think any of that went as they planned and we ended up with faster clocked fury at the end.

 

[kcthebrewer]

Only difference is AMD being aggressive with prices. Making what will likely turn into a $500 Titan. So a card with more features, DX12 support, higher minimum framerates, and a huge potential for increased performance already outperforming 1080. Pretty much makes Pascal obsolete at this point.

Uh... you are basing higher minimum framerates from what information? AMD?

They didn't even specify which 64 model they tested with.

Wait for the reviews...

Also Pascal is at the end of it's life cycle, Volta is coming anytime now. So saying it is obsolete is true but it has nothing to do with Vega. NVIDIA could lower the 1080ti to $600 and it wouldn't hurt them at all.

 

[Hameeeedo]

My original prediction is still looking rather good. Official confirmation on parts of it as well, although testing of FE bore out most of that already. Only difference is AMD being aggressive with prices. Making what will likely turn into a $500 Titan. So a card with more features, DX12 support, higher minimum framerates, and a huge potential for increased performance already outperforming 1080. Pretty much makes Pascal obsolete at this point.

My god man, AMD told every one their card trades blow with the 1080, it's not superior with it, it's just barely matching it. And this AMD's own words, they know their card better than you.

Let’s start with the bad news for some of you guys. The RX Vega series isn’t meant to compete against NVIDIA’s high end Pascal lineup like the Titan XP and GTX 1080 Ti. Rather, AMD is targeting the space between the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 along with a segment slightly above the 1080 for the Vega 64 Liquid Cooler Edition.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-reveals-rx-vega-price-performance-specs.html

And no, Vega doesn't have better min fps, it's still behind 1080 in several titles, according to AMD:

And no, there are no more magical features for Vega in the drivers:

As an interesting side-note, it sounds like the pixel engine’s Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer, which we introduced back in January, is currently disabled on Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards. However, AMD says it’ll be turned on for Radeon Vega RX’s impending launch. Don’t expect any miracles from the feature’s activation. After all, AMD is assuredly projecting performance with DSBR enabled. A slide of presumably best-case scenarios shows bandwidth savings as high as 30%.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-specs-availability,35112.html

 

[Elios]

No I expect AIO to actually be faster then 1080. It should sustain those boost clocks rather well!

stock 1080 FE it wont touch AIB 1080s...

 

[_mockingbird]

So is Radeon RX Vega 64 the most power-hungry GPU ever? (Dual GPUs don't count)

 

[GreenOrbs]

Guys, by now it should be clear that he's not being serious just making things up to get a rise out of people. As others have mentioned, if AMD themselves say that the RX Vega is going to be around a 1080 and Anarchist says its actually a Titan-- I think AMD is a just little bit more credible here.

 

[Elios]

Is there life beyond GCN?

Clearly, GCN is not the future.

been saying that since they tried to prop it up with Mantle i knew the whole point of Mantle was GCN was a turd

 

[NKD]

been saying that since they tried to prop it up with Mantle i knew the whole point of Mantle was GCN was a turd

GCN is not a turd. GCN was a beast when it was launched. It's just that AMD has been pulling every last single leg or GCN it should have been retired 2 years ago. I think VEGA is the end of GCN. And NAVI should break that tradition. Hopefully.

 

[Presbytier]

GCN is not a turd. GCN was a beast when it was launched. It's just that AMD has been pulling every last single leg or GCN it should have been retired 2 years ago. I think VEGA is the end of GCN. And NAVI should break that tradition. Hopefully.

I think it is clear they need a new architecture. GCN was great the first couple of years but NVIDIA has clearly surpassed them in architecture by now. What bothers me is the power needs of this card considering it is still a lower clocked card then a 1080.

 

[Presbytier]

rumor is RX Vega 64 can't be bought seperatly without a bundle at launch, pretty much have to buy a ryzen chip, motherboard with the card! LOL Wow.

How else do you expect them to sell these GPU but to bundle them with a better product?

 

[_mockingbird]

 

[Dan]

LOL

 

[_mockingbird]

AMD Announces the Radeon RX Vega Nano
by VSG Sunday, July 30th 2017 20:29 Discuss (11 Comments)
AMD had two press days over the weekend to cover a whole bunch of announcements- Ryzen Threadripper, RX Vega, Vega Pro and more. They provided details galore on the Vega microarchitecture, and the two RX Vega versions. Well, make that three now. AMD at Capcaicin SIGGRAPH 2017 also announced and showed off the RX Vega Nano.

Raja Koduri, Senior Vice-president of AMD's Radeon Technology Group, came up on stage minutes ago and handed over one of the very few working samples of this new card to Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games and Unreal Engine. The RX Vega Nano is an update to the R9 Nano from 2015 which was based off AMD's "Fiji" microarchitecture and was the then king of efficiency and small form factor support. We were only just talking about how RX Vega missed an opportunity with HBM2 to provide another mITX GPU and looks like AMD agreed.

This RX Vega Nano appears to share a common base with the RX Vega 64 Limited Edition in that it sports a silver aluminum shroud, but has a single large axial fan vs the blower fan in the latter. It also appears to have the same single row of I/O- 3x fullsize DisplayPort and 1x HDMI- and the entire card is estimated at ~5-6" in length based on a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. We are also not sure if the packaging for the card will include what appears to be a sealed hard case with foam inserts, and we will share any new information as and when we get them.

https://www.techpowerup.com/235660/amd-announces-the-radeon-rx-vega-nano

 

[Axils]

Good AMD marketing, I can't be a Ferrari but I will tell people that since you could only drive at 100, it doesn't make a difference. And look, I got a nice seat warmer too.

 

[GreenOrbs]

I'm a bit puzzled about why the power requirements are so high. The 1080 Ti has a maximum power draw of 250W but the water-cooled RX 64 has a draw of 350W. That said, the 1080 Ti has a recommended power supply of 600W-650W. Why is Gigabyte recommending an additional 250W on the PSU--going off the 350W vs 250W wouldn't you expect the requirement to be 750W?

 

[harmattan]

They're likely accounting for those who'll want to OC an extra 50Mhz. I'm guessing like we saw with FE, the power curve goes to the roof at speeds over the max boost.

But yeah, a 1000w requirement for a single card, much less a single-gpu card, is bonkers.

 

[_mockingbird]

I'm a bit puzzled about why the power requirements are so high. The 1080 Ti has a maximum power draw of 250W but the water-cooled RX 64 has a draw of 350W. That said, the 1080 Ti has a recommended power supply of 600W-650W. Why is Gigabyte recommending an additional 250W on the PSU--going off the 350W vs 250W wouldn't you expect the requirement to be 750W?

That's probably because AMD has found a creative way to measure maximum power draw and the real maximum power draw is higher than that.

 

[GreenOrbs]

They're likely accounting for those who'll want to OC an extra 50Mhz. I'm guessing like we saw with FE, the power curve goes to the roof at speeds over the max boost.

But yeah, a 1000w requirement for a single card, much less a single-gpu card, is bonkers.

Ahhh yes, I completely forgot about the power curve with the power going up really fast with overclocking. This was the case for the Fury cards as well.

 

[NKD]

I'm a bit puzzled about why the power requirements are so high. The 1080 Ti has a maximum power draw of 250W but the water-cooled RX 64 has a draw of 350W. That said, the 1080 Ti has a recommended power supply of 600W-650W. Why is Gigabyte recommending an additional 250W on the PSU--going off the 350W vs 250W wouldn't you expect the requirement to be 750W?

Actually power requirements are close to AMDs previous gen cards. So to AMD it's an improvement. They simply can't match nvidia due to R&D budget and Navi is probably slowly being progressed due to that as well. I think GCN has been pushed long enough and Navi will be a departure that is long overdue. We might see another refresh of Vega before Navi comes out. But I truly believe that is when we see new architecture from amd!

 

[razor1]

Well if you read the news you would know that it hasn't released yet. Release planned for when the cards ship in August according to AMD. Although I have a feeling they will be doing driver work for a while being a new architecture and all. I'm not sure why you're surprised the performance of the card WITHOUT the drivers performs like the card WITHOUT the drivers. RX and FE were always expected to perform similarly(excluding some clock differences) and just needing improvement on the software side.

My original prediction is still looking rather good. Official confirmation on parts of it as well, although testing of FE bore out most of that already. Only difference is AMD being aggressive with prices. Making what will likely turn into a $500 Titan. So a card with more features, DX12 support, higher minimum framerates, and a huge potential for increased performance already outperforming 1080. Pretty much makes Pascal obsolete at this point.

Still a bunch of details that haven't been announced. Like Vega32, the Nano sized card, more technical details, etc. Also the new shader models that haven't landed yet.

, Vega looks soooooo much worse than Polaris, its soooooo much worse than Fiji..... The extra features Vega has won't be used, sorry that is the way it is when AMD can't make a competitive product and only has 30% of the market. That is reality. No driver is going to save Vega. DSBR will not save Vega. Its a per title optimization via driver. It will not turn on in all applications and the savings when it works well only MATCH the 1080 in performance. Told you there seemed to be something AMD wasn't telling us 6 months about it. And now we know. It can't fully function like nV's intermediate tiling.

Min frames nope no where near what you stated, only games that are already in favor of AMD architecture is when min frames are higher, nV has their favorite titles too.

AMD has no damn choice but price Vega where it is, tell you what though they should have priced it 100 bucks less because of the crazy ass power consumption. But they can't.

 

[pandora's box]

Can't believe you will not be able to buy the liquid cooled variant without buying a Freesync monitor or Mobo + CPU. Though at $699, not sure why you wouldn't go with a 1080 Ti.

Vega is a failure in my eyes. Doesn't compete in price, doesn't compete in performance.

AMD once again is clinging to new memory architecture. It's preventing them from competing in price as I imagine HBM2 is not cheap.

HD2900XTX anyone?

 

[ChosenUno]

So now you need to spend at least $1000 just to buy Vega with AIO. What the hell?

 

[razor1]

So now you need to spend at least $1000 just to buy Vega with AIO. What the hell?

Also all LE's too, ya need to get them with bundles.

Well no one else will ever buy these cards outside of people that love AMD, might as well sell them the whole package, its a good marketing strategy, unfortunately very few people will be stupid enough to this for a mediocre card, there is no pressure on nV's product stack.

 

[Relayer]

Perhaps you haven't seen the current lack of Crossfire support in games. Crossfire and SLI are both dying. nVidia has come out and said that they can no longer support SLI the way they once did. Less than 1% of gamers use SLI. I'm sure the same can be said of Crossfire. You say AMD will release a dual Vega card. My question is, what happened to Polaris? Why no dual Polaris card?

If AMD wants to release a dual Vega card with any type of moderately reasonable power consumption and heat output, they will have to underclock it to the point that it will struggle to beat a single GTX 1080 Ti. Which would largely defeat the purpose.

I have never been a fan of the dual cards, and I don't think it's fair to call them the world's most powerful GPU if and when they can beat the fastest single card.

Who said anything about Crossfire? He's talking about having 2 dies in a single SOC. They would be seen as one large chip.

 

[razor1]

Who said anything about Crossfire? He's talking about having 2 dies in a single SOC. They would be seen as one large chip.

That will never happen, it has to use Xfire, full transparency with current architectures just not possible. Explained in later posts after that one.

 

[GreenOrbs]

Can't believe you will not be able to buy the liquid cooled variant without buying a Freesync monitor or Mobo + CPU. Though at $699, not sure why you wouldn't go with a 1080 Ti.

Vega is a failure in my eyes. Doesn't compete in price, doesn't compete in performance.

AMD once again is clinging to new memory architecture. It's preventing them from competing in price as I imagine HBM2 is not cheap.

HD2900XTX anyone?

Well, you don't have to buy the monitors or CPUS. The bundle includes coupons that have to be used immediately as part of the same purchase. You get a coupon for $100 off Ryzen+mobo and a $200 coupon on a FreeSync monitor. You can throw away the coupons and not buy the monitors and CPU+MOBOs if you want. It's possible to get the watercooled edition and 2 games for the $700.

EDIT: Not that its that much better at $700 since you might as well get a 1080 Ti at that price (managed to buy mine at ~$685 for example). I was on a RX 480 before mining made it worth my while to sell it off.

 

[pandora's box]

Also all LE's too, ya need to get them with bundles.

Well no one else will ever buy these cards outside of people that love AMD, might as well sell them the whole package, its a good marketing strategy, unfortunately very few people will be stupid enough to this for a mediocre card, there is no pressure on nV's product stack.

Waiting for Nvidia to go "Lol, introducing the 2080 GTX"

 

[pandora's box]

Well, you don't have to buy the monitors or CPUS. The bundle includes coupons that have to be used immediately as part of the same purchase. You get a coupon for $100 off Ryzen+mobo and a $200 coupon on a FreeSync monitor. You can throw away the coupons and not buy the monitors and CPU+MOBOs if you want. It's possible to get the watercooled edition and 2 games for the $700.

Not according to Techpowerup. From what I read you have to buy the CPU + MOBO or Monitor at the same time you buy the GPU, not a coupon.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_Preview/3.html

 

[NKD]

Also all LE's too, ya need to get them with bundles.

Well no one else will ever buy these cards outside of people that love AMD, might as well sell them the whole package, its a good marketing strategy, unfortunately very few people will be stupid enough to this for a mediocre card, there is no pressure on nV's product stack.

its only mediocre to us. People who are building systems and buying ryzen already are in it for AMD. It won't be so hard for them to save 200 and grab this card. I don't think they are making too many at the moment so they have limited it to bundles. They probably see a significant uptick in ryzen sales and with threadripper coming up that will only go up. So why not give these buyers are reason to buy vega. I think its a great strategy and will probably sell all vegas they make.

But I think this may be misinformation as well. I am reading conflicted things, and one seems to stick out is only watercooled version is limited to combo sales. and all combo sales must be purchased at the same time the card is bought.

 

[razor1]

Well, you don't have to buy the monitors or CPUS. The bundle includes coupons that have to be used immediately as part of the same purchase. You get a coupon for $100 off Ryzen+mobo and a $200 coupon on a FreeSync monitor. You can throw away the coupons and not buy the monitors and CPU+MOBOs if you want. It's possible to get the watercooled edition and 2 games for the $700.

no no, ya need to get it all at once.

 

[razor1]

its only mediocre to us. People who are building systems and buying ryzen already are in it for AMD. It won't be so hard for them to save 200 and grab this card. I don't think they are making too many at the moment so they have limited it to bundles. They probably see a significant uptick in ryzen sales and with threadripper coming up that will only go up. So why not give these buyers are reason to buy vega. I think its a great strategy and will probably sell all vegas they make.

dude its mediocre, I mean 1000 watt power supply that right there is 250 bucks? the savings they just got from the monitor, they just lost more than half of that on the power supply lol.

If they go to thread ripper. 1000 watts, probably playing on the rough side, thread ripper uses 180 watts, so 1200 watt power supply probably better, that is a bit more expensive.

They will end up with not much savings just because of the power usage.

 

[GreenOrbs]

no no, ya need to get it all at once.

Yes, you are correct if you want to use the coupons. However, you can just let them expire if you want. From anandtech:

As for the contents of the bundle, the bundled games are rather straightforward: the bundle simply comes with the games (presumably in voucher form). For the hardware however, the discounts come in the form of an instant rebate on the hardware, not a voucher or other “bankable” form. This means that if you buy a Radeon Pack SKU, you must buy the discounted hardware at the same time to get the discount. You are not required to buy the hardware – instead paying the $100 premium just for the card selection and included games – but the discounts cannot be saved until later. It’s now or never.

 

[razor1]

Yes, you are correct if you want to use the coupons. However, you can just let them expire if you want. From anandtech:

ah ok cool. Not to bad then, won't stop the miners, but then again, miners aren't really interested in these cards, or shouldn't be.

 

[pandora's box]

I think the real dissapointing part to me is I was looking forward to AMD being competitive again. Was looking forward to an old school GPU war. Guess those days are long gone. How long until the AMD fanboys say "wait for Navi"

 

[Tup3x]

Waiting for Nvidia to go "Lol, introducing the 2080 GTX"

If they pull "announcing G-Sync lite - adaptive sync support", now that would hit hard...

 

[_mockingbird]

Can't believe you will not be able to buy the liquid cooled variant without buying a Freesync monitor or Mobo + CPU. Though at $699, not sure why you wouldn't go with a 1080 Ti.

Vega is a failure in my eyes. Doesn't compete in price, doesn't compete in performance.

AMD once again is clinging to new memory architecture. It's preventing them from competing in price as I imagine HBM2 is not cheap.

HD2900XTX anyone?

This is insanely stupid.

The people who would even consider buying Radeon RX Vega 64 liquid cooled are probably people who already have FreeSync monitors that they like.

 

[GreenOrbs]

This is insanely stupid.

The people who would even consider buying Radeon RX Vega 64 liquid cooled are probably people who already have FreeSync monitors that they like.

Yes, the way the bundles are set up is that it penalizes the people who have already jumped on Freesync or Ryzen by $100... Not sure this makes sense for inspiring brand loyalty. If you are a loyal customer/early adopter the coupons are useless to you.