AMD Asks Reviewers to Prioritize Vega 56 over Vega 64

[Raevenlord]

It seems that AMD's RX Vega lineup won't be too far away from the norm, it seems. Street knowledge almost always says that it's the runner-up to the highest performing graphics card that is the more interesting in a price-performance ratio, and it seems that AMD knows this as well. Steve Burke from Gamer's Nexus has reported on AMD's NDA dates and the company's indications to reviewers on changing up the game leading up to reviews: they're asking that publications focus on the Vega 56 ahead of the halo Vega 64.

This might be somewhat bad news for those who wanted to see the Vega 64 compete in favorable terms with the GTX 1080; this decision by AMD is obviously geared towards making the best impact on the company's product line and image. The fact that AMD can offer a more compelling argument over the Vega 64 means that Vega 56 will probably have an easier battle in the $400 camp (if you can find it at those prices on launch, that is.)





Gamer's Nexus have offered a schedule of sorts for AMD's Vega NDA dates, which are:

• Unboxing embargo lift on Saturday, August 12, 11AM EDT: AMD permits unboxing photos or videos only.
• Performance embargo lift for Vega 56 on August 14, 9AM EDT.
• RX Vega 64 already in hands of some reviewers, with unboxing embargo lift on Saturday, August 12, 11AM EDT.
• RX Vega 64 performance embargo lift on August 14, 9AM EDT.
• Update: Vega 56 launches on 8/28.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Vega 56 IS the more attractive gpu. If the dies aren't rubbish, you could get great overclocks with an AIB card, so you get most of a 1080's performance for 1070 money.

Can't wait for the reviews!

 

[ratirt]

Vega 56 IS the more attractive gpu. If the dies aren't rubbish, you could get great overclocks with an AIB card, so you get most of a 1080's performance for 1070 money.

Can't wait for the reviews!

I think that might be true. I want to get vega 64 but i'm curious about the reviews. Then i will be able to decide which card has better perf/$. If 56 turns out to be a great Overclocker maybe that's the way to go especially if it matches 1080's performance. Since some benchmarks showed that it might be better than 1070 but a noticeable margin straight from the box.

 

[Xazax]

So wait Vega 56 isnt releasing till end of August rather than August 14?

 

[Ubersonic]

That clashes with the info coming from retailers, one posted a picture of a pile of Vega standard/limited/AIO boxes yesterday saying they were going on sale Monday :S

 

[bogami]

It looks like they have a stock of poorly cut chips that accumulate for a while.
Think carefully before buying. How is this fallout, beautiful, wrapped and sold is horrible!

 

[Parn]

Wait till those miners come and ruin AMD's dreams. $400 for a Vega56? You'd be lucky to find one below $500.

 

[_Flare]

GCNs problem is NOT the core-count itself, it is a lot of stuff around that.
If AMD whould solve that problems it should be possible to outperform a GTX1080 with 3072 CUs at a somewhat equal powerdraw and not with 100W more.

 

[EarthDog]

The request from AMD was if you dont have time to get both done for the 14th, prioritize the 56.

Everything else was speculation. This news bit missed that subtlety..

along with a request that reviewers specifically “prioritize coverage” of RX Vega 56 over RX Vega 64 under time-constrained conditions.

 

[Basard]

So, unboxing and performance review dates are the same for both cards then?

 

[EarthDog]

Yes.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

So wait Vega 56 isnt releasing till end of August rather than August 14?

Always Massive Delays strikes again.

Remember when they said that vega would launch at the end of Q2?

GCNs problem is NOT the core-count itself, it is a lot of stuff around that.
If AMD whould solve that problems it should be possible to outperform a GTX1080 with 3072 CUs at a somewhat equal powerdraw and not with 100W more.

But that is just it, isnt it? The thing that makes GCN so strong, its powerful cores, are its very weakness. GCN isnt as modular and nvidias arch, and cutting it up would require a massive redesign, which AMD seems unwilling to do.

 

[dyonoctis]

Always Massive Delays strikes again.

Remember when they said that vega would launch at the end of Q2?



But that is just it, isnt it? The thing that makes GCN so strong, its powerful cores, are its very weakness. GCN isnt as modular and nvidias arch, and cutting it up would require a massive redesign, which AMD seems unwilling to do.

They are delaying VEGA because they fear that ETH miners buy all of them, and therefore make VEGA a fail in the gaming market at launch because of lack of stock and price making them uncompetitive with Nvidia offers. They are just trying to mkae as much gpu as they can, so gamers can get a chance to get them.

If VEGA is really a mining god, AMD coul aswell rebrand themselve as Advanced Mining Device.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

They are delaying VEGA because they fear that ETH miners buy all of them, and therefore making VEGA a fail in the gaming market at launch because of lack of stock and price making them uncompetitive with Nvidia offers. They are just trying to mkae as much gpu as they can, so gamers can get a chance to get them.

suuure they are. They are delaying vega for the gamerz, not because they are incompetent at launches, which was been shown pretty consistently for the past 10 years or so. Got a source for that rather exceptional idea?

i mean seriously, they are making more GPUs so miners dont buy all of them. Do you even capitalism. The miners buy every single GPU they can get their hands on, causing a shortage of the much easier to make polaris, and they are salivating at VEGA. AMD making even more of them for a huge launch is a miner's wet dream, and delaying the launch gives miners more time to stock up funds and sell off weaker cards in preparation of VEGA's eventual launch.

VEGA will be a failure in the gaming market not just because of miners, but because it is still at the efficiency level of a 2014 GPU....in 2017. It isnt competitive against pascaal on perf/watt, and therefor absolute performance still favors nvidia.

If AMD cared about preventing miners from sucking up all the cards, they would have gimped mining performance ages ago, instead of making it BETTER with a newer driver. https://www.techpowerup.com/235813/...rmance-reportedly-doubled-with-driver-updates

 

[springs113]

Couldn't releasing reviews then delaying the sale of one version of the cards be more detrimental? I mean think about it, if they release(for sale)the 64 the reviews go out and once ppl get their hands on 'em (miners included). If the numbers are good for mining then that drives the demand up for the 56 version and we all know that its going to be in limited supply. I don't think i have to explain what happens next.

 

[dyonoctis]

suuure they are. They are delaying vega for the gamerz, not because they are incompetent at launches, which was been shown pretty consistently for the past 10 years or so. Got a source for that rather exceptional idea?

i mean seriously, they are making more GPUs so miners dont buy all of them. Do you even capitalism. The miners buy every single GPU they can get their hands on, causing a shortage of the much easier to make polaris, and they are salivating at VEGA. AMD making even more of them for a huge launch is a miner's wet dream, and delaying the launch gives miners more time to stock up funds and sell off weaker cards in preparation of VEGA's eventual launch.

VEGA will be a failure in the gaming market not just because of miners, but because it is still at the efficiency level of a 2014 GPU....in 2017. It isnt competitive against pascaal on perf/watt, and therefor absolute performance still favors nvidia.

If AMD cared about preventing miners from sucking up all the cards, they would have gimped mining performance ages ago, instead of making it BETTER with a newer driver. https://www.techpowerup.com/235813/...rmance-reportedly-doubled-with-driver-updates

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-vega-cryptocurrency-mining

And the boost of mining perfomance wasn't intentional, it was just a correlation of amd improving the general perfomance of the cards. Mining is just plain computing power. Gimping mining performance means gimping every task that make use of open cl or direct compute. Wich wouldn't be good.

And miners buying every single GPU isn't that good on the long run, because as the price increase they are getting less and less interesting for both gamers and miners. I don't think that there is a lot of ppl buying RX570-580 at the moment in Europe because they are both hard to find and really expensive. for 70-100 more € you can get a GTX 1070 now.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-vega-cryptocurrency-mining

And the boost of mining perfomance wasn't intentional, it was just a correlation of amd improving the general perfomance of the cards. Mining is just plain computing power. Gimping mining performance means gimping every task that make use of open cl or direct compute. Wich wouldn't be good.

And miners buying every single GPU isn't that good on the long run, because as the price increase they are getting less and less interesting for both gamers and miners. I don't think that there is a lot of ppl buying RX570-580 at the moment in Europe because they are both hard to find and really expensive. for 70-100 more € you can get a GTX 1070 now.

Well how about that. Thanks for the link. Never thought AMD was this mor0nic.

Ah well. theyll make decent money from the miners buying everything.

As for the drivers, mining is a bit more then just raw computing power, otherwise nvidia cards would be a LOT better then they currently are at mining. It takes specific compute power (and favors higher FP performance) and varied depending on currency. It is entirely possible to isolate when a certain process is doing mining and purposefully slow down the card so it doesnt mine well. Whether or not AMD is capable of doing that is up for speculation.

Or they just could have used GDDR5X last year and not had to deal with this issue, as GDDR5X is terrible for ETH mining.

 

[Keullo-e]

I truly hope that those toy money miners won't grab all of those.

 

[efikkan]

It looks like they have a stock of poorly cut chips that accumulate for a while.
Think carefully before buying. How is this fallout, beautiful, wrapped and sold is horrible!

Well, stockpiling doesn't increase the total amount of cards, so if they still have too few to launch 3 months overdue, then the supply is really bad.

 

[BackSlash]

I want the RX Vega 56 + Water block, from EKWB or any other.
If it worth the money...

 

[yotano211]

I truly hope that those toy money miners won't grab all of those.

I'll sure to pick up 24+ of Vega in the honor of your name and keep the money for myself.

 

[dyonoctis]

I'll sure to pick up 24+ of Vega in the honor of your name and keep the money for myself.

Claps hands. Yhea, right, let's feed the shitwar that's bound to happen because having currently gaming and mining sharing the same hardware, is disrupting the GPU market, and make Nvidia the only viable gpu maker for gamers and freelance/hobbyist content creator, let's turn TPU into a troll playing field were "useless people that play video games" and "serious, more entitled people that makes money" will throw shit at each other.

 

[yotano211]

Claps hands. Yhea, right, let's feed the shitwar that's bound to happen because having currently gaming and mining sharing the same hardware, is disrupting the GPU market, and make Nvidia the only viable gpu maker for gamers and freelance/hobbyist content creator, let's turn TPU into a troll playing field were "useless people that play video games" and "serious, more entitled people that makes money" will throw shit at each other.

I already found a local supplier that can supply me with 8 on launch day or pre-order day.

 

[dyonoctis]

I already found a local supplier that can supply me with 8 on launch day or pre-order day.

cool.

 

[efikkan]

I'm surprised we haven't heard more about Vega11 at this point. There is a huge gap between GTX 1060 and GTX 1070, and AMD should be rushing to fill that hole.