Wednesday, July 19th 2017
AMD's RX Vega Low Key Budapest Event: Vega Pitted Against GTX 1080
On the first stop in AMD's two-continent spanning RX Vega tour (which really only counts with three locations), the company pitted their upcoming RX Vega graphics card (we expect this to be their flagship offering) against NVIDIA's GTX 1080 graphics card. The event itself was pretty subdued, and there was not much to see when it comes to the RX Vega graphics card - literally. Both it and the GTX 1080 were enclosed inside PC towers, with the event-goers not being allowed to even catch a glimpse of the piece of AMD hardware that has most approximated a unicorn in recent times.
The Vega-powered system also made use of a Ryzen 7 processor, and the cards were running Battlefield 1 (or Sniper Elite 4; there's lots of discussion going on about that, but the first image below does show a first-person view) with non-descript monitors, one supporting FreeSync, the other G-Sync. The monitor's models were covered by cloth so that users weren't able to tell which system was running which graphics card, though due to ASUS' partnership in the event, both were (probably) of ASUS make. The resolution used was 3440 x 1440, which should mean over 60 FPS on the GTX 1080 on Ultra. It has been reported by users that attended the event that one of the systems lagged slightly in one portion of the demo, though we can't confirm which one (and I'd say that was AMD's intention.)
All in all, I have to say, this tour doesn't inspire me confidence. This isn't the kind of "in your face" comparison we're used to seeing from companies who know they have a winning product; should the comparison be largely in favor of AMD, I posit the company would be taking every advantage of that by showcasing their performance leadership. There did seem to be an inordinate amount of smoke and mirrors here, though, with AMD going out of its way to prevent attendees from being able to discern between their and their competitors' offering.
AMD reportedly told attendees that the AMD and NVIDIA systems had a $300 difference in AMD's favor. All other hardware being equal, and accounting for AMD's stance that a FreeSync monitor tends to cost around $200 less than a comparable NVIDIA G-Sync enabled one, that leaves around $100 savings solely towards the RX Vega part of the equation. This means the RX Vega could sell around the $459-$500 bracket, if current pricing of the GTX 1080 is what AMD considered.
Sources:
Reddit User @ Szunyogg, RX Vega Budapest Google Photos, WCCFTech
The Vega-powered system also made use of a Ryzen 7 processor, and the cards were running Battlefield 1 (or Sniper Elite 4; there's lots of discussion going on about that, but the first image below does show a first-person view) with non-descript monitors, one supporting FreeSync, the other G-Sync. The monitor's models were covered by cloth so that users weren't able to tell which system was running which graphics card, though due to ASUS' partnership in the event, both were (probably) of ASUS make. The resolution used was 3440 x 1440, which should mean over 60 FPS on the GTX 1080 on Ultra. It has been reported by users that attended the event that one of the systems lagged slightly in one portion of the demo, though we can't confirm which one (and I'd say that was AMD's intention.)
175 Comments on AMD's RX Vega Low Key Budapest Event: Vega Pitted Against GTX 1080
Performance isn't what will sell the card, price is.
Offering similar levels of performance for Nvidia levels of money will accomplish nothing and will only sell to the AMD die-hards, which is a tiny percentage of the GPU market.
Price is the only trick card they can play, being so late to market, and if they don't play it, well....go home AMD, you're done.
A major dissapointment, also why wait with the release so much if this card is really only 1080 material only for 100 USD less. It is nice but not the kind of game changer like Ryzen or TR. I'm really hoping this was the XT version only and the XTX with better drivers will be 1080Ti level still for a 600 USD pricetag.
AFAIK the HBM2 is fairly expensive, like 150USD-ish so if the MSRP is really 450 on the high end card AMD won't make any money on these....
Still, announcement end of July, reviews after that?
I did win an asus rx 570 though :)
:D
The old days of companies giving review sites products to review before launch is over.
Its going to be hard for AMD and Vega, Im sure Nvidia is sitting on new cards, ready for an answer to vega launch. I hope AMD planned ahead.
Remember, AMD doesn't have infinite resource (neither does anyone else) and they covered a lot of ground with their CPUs in the past year. GPU division not keeping up isn't totally unexpected.
be it HBM or GDDR5(X) as long as GPU fed with sufficient bandwidth, graphic card performance ceiling always on GPU core capability
with GDDR5X's bandwidth rivaling or even exceeding HBM2, its not wise option to put HBM on consumer card at all
furthermore HBM2 is recently developed (with questionable yield) and costly to make
now, if only AMD use GDDR5 (GDDR5X at least) AMD might be able to save its BOM which translate to lower cost per card
AMD trying to force them self into luxury space, note that even Nvidia dont release HBM-based graphic card at all.
card equiped with HBM2 memory and still on par with GTX 1080 its not funny at all
its GPU part is very concerning,,,,
the monitors are apparently mx34vq (msrp $799) and pc348q (msrp $1299).
wait...
Any news about what tdp rx vega comes with?
I mean if tdp is like the fe vega or water cooled version with tdp of 300 and 375 watts and still only has performence levels of gtx 1080 i am not impressed at all. Gtx 1080 tdp is 180 watt for the reference card by the way.