Friday, November 24th 2017
Vega 8 Mobile GPU Seemingly Ditches HBM2 Memory, Makes Use of System DDR4 Pool
Update: Industry sources are saying that the 256 MB dedicated system memory to graphics card tasks is currently a firmware limitation, and should be expanded in future firmware revisions to 512 MB and even 1 GB of fully-addressable system DDR4 memory.
AMD's mobile APUs are expected to come with a range of graphics solutions, one of which is the titular Vega 8. Vega 8 isn't supposed to be a high-performance, desktop-class GPU implementation. Instead, it's AMD's counter to NVIDIA's recently announced MX 110 and MX 130 discrete GPUs, which usually deliver relatively low gains (as much as manufacturers want to tout them as extraordinary) when compared to Intel integrated solutions, by far the most widespread IGP. It's expected that Vega 8 performance will slot somewhere around MX110-MX130 levels; and being the low-performance, low cost solution that it's aiming to be, Vega 8 has been made almost unrecognizable from the Vegas we know.Vega 8 might signify that the graphics chip has 8 NGCUs at its disposal (Vega 64 has 64, and Vega 56 should be pretty self explanatory), which amounts to just 512 shader units. Via HP's recently outed Envy x360 laptops and a carefully taken photo of the Radeon Settings Hardware panel, we can see that this solution eschews the HBM2 memory (which is only natural, considering the pricing and performance of this solution), and instead, seems to make do with just 256 MB of dedicated system memory - out of a possible 8 GB of DDR4 RAM available in the machine.
The lack of actual dedicated GDDR or HBM memory means that costs are shaved down as much as they can possibly be, but also equates to a performance murder. In terms of shaders, the Vega 8 likely counts 512 (8x64), which is equivalent in number, if not in performance (due to Vega's architecture improvements) to the RX 540. However, the lack of high-speed dedicated memory cuts this graphics solution's available bandwidth down to 12 GB/s - and the core runs at a much cooler and power-sipping 300 MHz base, with up to 1.1 GHz boost clocks.
AMD's mobile APUs are expected to come with a range of graphics solutions, one of which is the titular Vega 8. Vega 8 isn't supposed to be a high-performance, desktop-class GPU implementation. Instead, it's AMD's counter to NVIDIA's recently announced MX 110 and MX 130 discrete GPUs, which usually deliver relatively low gains (as much as manufacturers want to tout them as extraordinary) when compared to Intel integrated solutions, by far the most widespread IGP. It's expected that Vega 8 performance will slot somewhere around MX110-MX130 levels; and being the low-performance, low cost solution that it's aiming to be, Vega 8 has been made almost unrecognizable from the Vegas we know.Vega 8 might signify that the graphics chip has 8 NGCUs at its disposal (Vega 64 has 64, and Vega 56 should be pretty self explanatory), which amounts to just 512 shader units. Via HP's recently outed Envy x360 laptops and a carefully taken photo of the Radeon Settings Hardware panel, we can see that this solution eschews the HBM2 memory (which is only natural, considering the pricing and performance of this solution), and instead, seems to make do with just 256 MB of dedicated system memory - out of a possible 8 GB of DDR4 RAM available in the machine.
The lack of actual dedicated GDDR or HBM memory means that costs are shaved down as much as they can possibly be, but also equates to a performance murder. In terms of shaders, the Vega 8 likely counts 512 (8x64), which is equivalent in number, if not in performance (due to Vega's architecture improvements) to the RX 540. However, the lack of high-speed dedicated memory cuts this graphics solution's available bandwidth down to 12 GB/s - and the core runs at a much cooler and power-sipping 300 MHz base, with up to 1.1 GHz boost clocks.