Monday, July 9th 2018
ASRock Product Roadmap Detailed; No New AMD Cards Until February 2019?
At the XFastest Network event in Japan, ASRock shared some slides detailing its overall graphics card strategy up to February 2019. There are some interesting bits of information that can be gleaned/extrapolated from it. One bit of information that seems to be set in stone is the introduction, come August, of revised versions of some graphics cards (namely, the RX 570 and RX 580 models) under the MK2 marketing - likely revised in their cooling apparatus. That the RX Vega versions of ASRock graphics cards won't be receiving such a revision seems clear as well: there's no reason for the company to withhold information on that. The others, however, are more prone to speculation.
First of, the fact that ASRock still only lists AMD graphics cards likely means the company will remain an exclusively AMD-aligned AIB. Secondly, the absence of any new AMD graphics cards in the ASRock lineup, while noteworthy and prone to speculation, doesn't really say much. AMD certainly wouldn't look lovingly towards ASRock should they out information on a new RX600 series or other AMD products ahead of time. Likewise, ASRock wouldn't want publicity on a new deal with NVIDIA to hit the roads ahead of time. As such, let's just stay with the MK2 graphics cards and ASRock's lineup - and codification for its products, which they kindly shared during the event.
Sources:
XFastest, via Videocardz
First of, the fact that ASRock still only lists AMD graphics cards likely means the company will remain an exclusively AMD-aligned AIB. Secondly, the absence of any new AMD graphics cards in the ASRock lineup, while noteworthy and prone to speculation, doesn't really say much. AMD certainly wouldn't look lovingly towards ASRock should they out information on a new RX600 series or other AMD products ahead of time. Likewise, ASRock wouldn't want publicity on a new deal with NVIDIA to hit the roads ahead of time. As such, let's just stay with the MK2 graphics cards and ASRock's lineup - and codification for its products, which they kindly shared during the event.
26 Comments on ASRock Product Roadmap Detailed; No New AMD Cards Until February 2019?
Talk about dropping the ball. Is AMD really going to let nvidia command the high end uncontested for a third generation in a row? That woudl suck, I dont want to have to pay $1k for a 1180 just to have modern performance.
AMD was the worst thing that ever happened to ATiHey, they kept pitcarn around for 4 generations, AMD is just trying to break records here.
So if they manage to release a card that is 25% faster then Vega 64 and if it uses about 25% less power then Vega 64, it's a good release.
Keep in mind that AMD will release this card below 1080TI prices.
Keeping up with Nvidia is very hard. Keep in mind that Nvidia has more revenu from GPU's then AMD from GPU's and CPU's combined. The research budget is much much lower. And Nvidia spends a lot of money on partnerships with big developpers.
Nvidia buys them like a hooker.
Navi most likely a year a way at least which means the silly hype will begin in...
5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
Keep in mind that not enough website test GPU's 6-12 months after they get released. Then you see the real performance over time.
Nvidia is very good at providing the best performance when a card gets released, but their drivers can't keep up months or years after the hardware gets released.
One of the most thrustworty websites in the Benelux benchmarked the Vega 64 vs the 1080 and 1080ti back in august 2017.
At that time, the 1080 was about 5% faster on 1080P and about 1% faster on 1440p.
They retested the same hardware with updated drivers in june 2018:
The 1080 was now only 0.3% faster on 1080p and 0.8% faster on 1440p.
The same results are available for hardware from older generations. While the GTX 980 was about 4.7% faster on 1080p compared tot the R9 390x in 2015, the R9 390x is now about 1% faster then the GTX 980 in modern games. The 980ti was 17% faster then the Fury X in 2015 on 1080p, but in modern games, it's only 0.7% anymore.
AMD hardware performs better over time, even with all the shady deals and agreements Nvidia makes with developpers. Not to mention FreeSync vs Gsync.
But do you think most gamers know this? NO. They are still buying the GTX 1080, supporting Nvidia. They still base their opinion on Vega and previous generations, based on the first reviews that came out, and not on recent benchmarks.
AMD does care about gamers, but they simply don't have the research budget and capacity to keep up with Nvidia.
It's something that TPU should do aswell. They should test hardware from 2016, two years later, and show how the performance difference evolved over time.
You're right about AMD needing consoles and miners to live though. As much as I think they've fallen behind in enthusiast pc gaming segment, I can't imagine if they went down. I'm just worried cause they seem to push enthusiast pc gaming down to the absolute bottom of their priorities.
The prices are what they are because game cards are being bought for other purposes then gaming. AMD can't do more then provide the cards. They don't decide who buys them and why. Higher demand = higher prices.
You think that Nvidia is making the most money from 1080Ti's? They sell at least 10-20 times more 1060's and 1050 TI's. And with the research budget and shady deals Nvidia has compared to AMD, do you really think they can earn the money back from profits if they ever released a card faster then Nvidia? Only a few days or weeks would pass by and Nvidia will have a counter offer ready.
AMD's Vega 64 is on par with the 1080. There is only one card faster and that's the 1080TI. And they did that with only 25% of the research budget Nvidia has!
btw I'd like to see those results of Fury X now matching 980Ti. You didn't provide the link, you didn't even provide the name of the site.You very vaguely specified the geographical location. Here, this is how you do this
take a few latests games and compare 980ti vs fury x at 1440p, resolution they're mostly used for
www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Crew-2-Spiel-60966/Specials/Benchmark-Test-Review-1259989/
www.pcgameshardware.de/Wreckfest-Next-Car-Game-Spiel-54915/Specials/Benchmark-Test-Review-1259053/
www.pcgameshardware.de/Jurassic-World-Evolution-Spiel-61244/Specials/Benchmark-Test-Review-Bewertung-1258464/
Fury X loses in all of them,980Ti is 49% faster on average. How does Fury X compare to 980Ti in 2018 ? Twice as bad than it did in 2015.
Even if that was true that Fury X matches 980Ti and not something you made up or a site cherry picked, no one cares about it three years after the release. 980Ti has been faster all its life.
You're fake news, Sir.
be.hardware.info/reviews/8327/15/gpu-update-30-3d-chips-hertest-hardwareinfo-gpu-prestatiescoreEeuhm, AMD HD 7000 series, 200 series, 300 series, all based on same technology with only minor differences. Take in to account two years of research before the HD 7xxx got released, that's 5 years for just one architecture. If you look at the 400/500 series, it's also just an improved design on 14nm instead of 28nm. That's why the performance difference on each "generation" is that small. The Vega 64 release was the first release in years that actually had 20% performance increase. And if they could do better, they would have done better. But if you look at the power consumption on Vega, they simply couldn't do better at that time.
And if I'm not mistaking, Nvidia hasn't done much either in the last year becides releasing the 1070TI ( because of Vega 56 ) and they have a research budget that is 4 times higher for GPU's. And for some reason you are mad at David but not at Goliath? :D