Radeon 7 is Released, What Would You Buy?

[delshay]

Optional Firmware update released.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/radeonvii-vbios-eula

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

20 series and Radeon VII are a whole lot of 'meh'. Too expensive and not enough performance uplift. I voted for I am disappointed with the current stack of GPUs.

 

[Dbiggs9]

I should have my VII this Friday. Replacing a GTX 770

 

[purecain]

good luck with the silicon lottery. I hope you get a really nice example...
I look forward to seeing the results on here.

 

[John Naylor]

I never buy anything within 3 months of release ... so will be more data available at that point ... but looking with what we know now from TPUs review ....

As of now per TPUs test over 21 games, the 2080 is 14% faster overall, so no ... it's not competing with the 2080. The 2070 is the best comparison being 94% as fast as the Radeon VII

Compared to a 2070 in a new build, it's offering us 6% more performance than a reference 2070 or 2% more than the MSI Gaming Z and they both OC the same 8.2% ... so what might offset that 2% ? My son is planning a May build perhaps with a 2070 at 1440p ... so things to consider.

a) He'll need a PSU 80 - 100 watts larger, my "go t"o would be Seasonic Focus Plus Gold * and moving from a 650 to a 750 is + $20 (* VII may have an issue with these PSUs). With EVGA g3, the difference is + $13 ... Corsair RMx is + $60
b) With the extra heat, will want an extra 140mm fan (we base fan count on one 140mm, 1200 rpm fan per every 75 - 100 watts) , add $15.
c) It uses 80 watts more in gaming and at 30 hours a week gaming, that's $34 a year over 4 years ..... $136 for me... I pay far more than US average so $62 for the average Joe / Josephine
d) It's 30 bBA louder at idle and 13 dbA louder under load (that's 2.5 times louder... a deal killer for me but my son uses headphone and maybe won't care.

Since the OPs question is "what would *** I *** buy" .....

The 2070 Gaming Z is $550.... the Radeon Z is $700 "on paper"... but w/ all costs considered, gotta add $20 for larger PSU+ $15 for extra fan + $136 for extra electric making grand total of $171 bringing my total total investment (here) to $871. The question then ... *** for me ***, from a financial perspective, .... is an average 2% fps performance gain worth $321 ? The truth is I'd never get that far to evaluate it. I recognize that many won't care and pay half the electric rates I do, but the noise thing is a deal killer for me. On top of that, at comparable sound levels, we could:

a) Drop $45 Scythe Fuma (- $45) from his planned build.
b) Buy a 3 x 120 mm Swiftech AIO for CPU (+ $165)
c) Buy a Water Block for the 2070 (+ $140)
d) Buy extra coolant, tubing and fittings for card (+ $35)

I'd expect a Delta T of 7C (water 30 to ambient 23) with fans at max speed under 100% load.... 10C at 1600 rpm is more likely when stress testing. In peak gaming, I expect fans to stay from 38 to 40 dBA. Way to high for my taste but my son might go for it since he wears headphones and may be inclined to the RGB blingie bling. However, I'm not expecting much improvement n water from either of these cards. I'm sure we'll know before the 3 months is up tho. The water cooling I expect will make up some but not all of that 2% but we'd still be $26 ahead of the Radeon VII alternative with quieter 2070 installation.

But no, it's not a purchase I would or have to make today ... would wait the 3 months "lets see what happens" period but it doesn't apply since he's not building till end of May anyway. Will be interesting to see what the MSI version does, particularly whether it has passive 0 dbA cooling at idle speeds and whether driver and / or AIB improvements pick up on the performance. But from what I see now ... they'd have to drop the price to at least $550, pick up performance, vastly improve the noise issue and finally, provide gaming bundles or other incentives to offset the ancilliary costs to make it attractive.

 

[purecain]

the performance is decent (if irratic)@ 2080 lvls… I would support amd if I wasn't already happy. the power draw is high but the performance is good.
I hope as many people as possible choose Radeon7.

 

[GamerGuy]

Heh, how could I have missed this thread? I had gotten a Radeon VII on the day after it was released, a few were physically available in the various shops in the IT mall in my neck of the woods. I love it! AMD fanboy I am! I also have 3x VEGA64 (one's RMA'ed, the replacement card's in my brother's apartment in Toronto), as well as a Leadtek GTX1080 (just to center myself actually when a card is this good and cheap at the price I'd gotten it, it's a no brainer)

 

[cucker tarlson]

Heh, how could I have missed this thread? I had gotten a Radeon VII on the day after it was released, a few were physically available in the various shops in the IT mall in my neck of the woods. I love it! AMD fanboy I am! I also have 3x VEGA64 (one's RMA'ed, the replacement card's in my brother's apartment in Toronto), as well as a Leadtek GTX1080 (just to center myself actually when a card is this good and cheap at the price I'd gotten it, it's a no brainer)

in reality,how does the amd cooling on vii compare to quality aib ones on vega ?

 

[GamerGuy]

in reality,how does the amd cooling on vii compare to quality aib ones on vega ?

Ugh, I'm replaying Metro Exodus on my CF VEGA64 rig (finished it on my Radeon VII rig, got a bad ending so playing it again, but less Rambo style) so I haven't used my other rig. I'll play Strange Brigade and let you know what sorta temps I get. It is a tad loud and I have set a custom fan curve, but kinda recall not exceeding 72C if memory serves.

 

[las]

Waiting for Nvidia 3000 series @ 7nm+

Maybe AMD surprises with Navi

 

[RealNeil]

Navi is what I'll be buying next and it will be a pair of them. Then I'll sell the two Vega-64s.

 

[zenlaserman]

As much as I admire powerhouses like the easy max-IQ gameability of the 2080Ti and the Radeon VII, flagship king of (usually) underutilized GCN, I am by nature a modest fellow. I used to be a die-hard PC enthusiast, spending more money I should have on PC hardware I didn't really need....then many years passed and I realized nothing got better but attempts to glue your face to a monitor.

Like many members of this forum, I'm one of those kinda people with an encyclopedic knowledge of PCs that makes normal people do a Bill the Cat face. But maybe, a time's gonna come when you realize that real life has better graphics than any game you will ever play while you are alive, and if you think that is a lie, you're a noob at life. I know men sick of real-life war, and I was sick of shooters when Q3 was already old. Hardcore gamers are some of the most selfish people around, I know from experience.

All that said, when I game, I game with an RX460 2GB I found for $90 on Amazon about 2 years ago. I love it.
I have a 1080p monitor and run most games 1080 or 720 on Medium. Undervolted and no power connector.

 

[the54thvoid]

I am by nature a modest fellow.

I'm one of those kinda people with an encyclopedic knowledge of PCs that makes normal people do a Bill the Cat face.

Modest you say? As for the remarks about 'noobs at life', many people can appreciate both highly immersive gaming experiences and the real world around us.

You can be both into realistic graphics and real life.

 

[Vayra86]

As much as I admire powerhouses like the easy max-IQ gameability of the 2080Ti and the Radeon VII, flagship king of (usually) underutilized GCN, I am by nature a modest fellow. I used to be a die-hard PC enthusiast, spending more money I should have on PC hardware I didn't really need....then many years passed and I realized nothing got better but attempts to glue your face to a monitor.

Like many members of this forum, I'm one of those kinda people with an encyclopedic knowledge of PCs that makes normal people do a Bill the Cat face. But maybe, a time's gonna come when you realize that real life has better graphics than any game you will ever play while you are alive, and if you think that is a lie, you're a noob at life. I know men sick of real-life war, and I was sick of shooters when Q3 was already old. Hardcore gamers are some of the most selfish people around, I know from experience.

All that said, when I game, I game with an RX460 2GB I found for $90 on Amazon about 2 years ago. I love it.
I have a 1080p monitor and run most games 1080 or 720 on Medium. Undervolted and no power connector.

To me this reads more as 'gaming is old to you' and you're tired of being in that upgrade/rat race. Though its a nice refreshing bit of input, can appreciate that for sure. Some perspective as well in our relentless chase to realistic graphics, indeed.

 

[zenlaserman]

Normally, I don't have much to say in here. It'll get drowned out by those who can out-piss and moan myself. I have a lil bit of time.

Modest you say?

I like to think of myself that way, I drive a 35 y/o German car, that I maintain myself, with 300K miles and still manages 30MPG when I can be a fast asshole and draft fast assholes at 85MPH. A 56 y/o truck that I've owned for 25 years, never had a credit card or smartphone and live in a portable tiny house I built. The 2-stoplight town I live in has nothing but 25MPH speed limits and rolling hills all around so I just use my bicycle to go grocery shopping. I'm not snooty, a hipster, or looking down my nose at anyone. I try to stay humble and be actually useful. It took me a long time, but I learned that I always felt happiest when I'm helping other people.

I'm just lamenting the greed of people today and contributing a lil bit to the whine.

As for the remarks about 'noobs at life', many people can appreciate both highly immersive gaming experiences and the real world around us.

Sure, I remember throwing coins at arcade machines and getting immersed. I learned to drive manual like a boss on Hard Drivin'. I 'member when it took a $3k PC to run Quake III Arena over 60fps @ 1600x1200 and the giggles I had when I ran it over 700 with an OC'd E4300 on friggin software mode. I still remember the first time I played through Resident Evil on Playstation. A video game had never scared me before. FEAR quickly did it again. There's many great games, and there's a helluva lotta worse and more expensive things one can do than play video games. I started playing them in 1980.

You can be both into realistic graphics and real life.

You need to get out more. Your thinking appears to be binary and therefore based on mutual exclusivity. Seriously, I've left and come back from this forum so many times over the years to see your ass still posting and steadily turning into some kind of borg; it's like you forget there are things beyond 0 and 1. I've enjoyed many of your posts over the years, dude. But anyway, my point is that graphics are irrelevant when it comes to a good game. Cmon, Pong? Too many games rehash the same old shit over and over but just polish it up more and get people buy more of a waste of computing power to do it all. Doesn't matter how power efficient the architecture is when you get down to looking how many transistors ticking over a billion times a second it takes to make a shadow look pretty. Just for scale, 1 billion seconds is nearly 32 years.

To me this reads more as 'gaming is old to you' and you're tired of being in that upgrade/rat race. Though its a nice refreshing bit of input, can appreciate that for sure. Some perspective as well in our relentless chase to realistic graphics, indeed.

Thanks, I know there's old timers here who 'member this whole hardware rat race 10-15 years ago - much has changed, but then, much has NOT. 10 years ago, a 10 y/o PC was a 1GHz single core. Now, a 10 y/o PC can still be relevant most the time. Sure we have some amazingly pretty graphics and OMG cores now, but the GPU power required to run all that eye candy at high res seems to be such a waste. Realistic hair and particle storms, bleh. I mean, when we first saw 1 billion transistor GPUs, that was something special. the original Far Cry, Crysis..even GTA IV blew my mind visually, not to mention Skyrim with mods. Everything beyond that seems to be superfluous, gameplay is largely the same as it ever was.

....and most of the deskchair CEO kids and elitist hardware snobs spouting "nVidia should have done this" and "AMD should have done that" don't realize that most of this shit is planned out 1½ - 2 years in advance. As a result, ego-driven ultracrepidarian spam spam spam all over the place in today's forum. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I saw someone on my lawn! *shuffles off grumbling

 

[cucker tarlson]

As much as I admire powerhouses like the easy max-IQ gameability of the 2080Ti and the Radeon VII, flagship king of (usually) underutilized GCN, I am by nature a modest fellow. I used to be a die-hard PC enthusiast, spending more money I should have on PC hardware I didn't really need....then many years passed and I realized nothing got better but attempts to glue your face to a monitor.

Like many members of this forum, I'm one of those kinda people with an encyclopedic knowledge of PCs that makes normal people do a Bill the Cat face. But maybe, a time's gonna come when you realize that real life has better graphics than any game you will ever play while you are alive, and if you think that is a lie, you're a noob at life. I know men sick of real-life war, and I was sick of shooters when Q3 was already old. Hardcore gamers are some of the most selfish people around, I know from experience.

All that said, when I game, I game with an RX460 2GB I found for $90 on Amazon about 2 years ago. I love it.
I have a 1080p monitor and run most games 1080 or 720 on Medium. Undervolted and no power connector.

I haven't had enough of the chase for the best iq and framerate but at some point there'll have to come a time when all I care about in a game is writing and mechanics and I'll enjoy that with a low budget rig too.
I had a long period of time in my life when I stopped buying enthusiast hardware but I lost interest in gaming completely for that time too. It's tough to stand on your own feet here in PL,when you're young in my country you are pretty much f****ed for years before you can really get comfortable enough to get at least some of your life passions back.

 

[Super XP]

As much as I admire powerhouses like the easy max-IQ gameability of the 2080Ti and the Radeon VII, flagship king of (usually) underutilized GCN, I am by nature a modest fellow. I used to be a die-hard PC enthusiast, spending more money I should have on PC hardware I didn't really need....then many years passed and I realized nothing got better but attempts to glue your face to a monitor.

Like many members of this forum, I'm one of those kinda people with an encyclopedic knowledge of PCs that makes normal people do a Bill the Cat face. But maybe, a time's gonna come when you realize that real life has better graphics than any game you will ever play while you are alive, and if you think that is a lie, you're a noob at life. I know men sick of real-life war, and I was sick of shooters when Q3 was already old. Hardcore gamers are some of the most selfish people around, I know from experience.

All that said, when I game, I game with an RX460 2GB I found for $90 on Amazon about 2 years ago. I love it.
I have a 1080p monitor and run most games 1080 or 720 on Medium. Undervolted and no power connector.

Fair enough, for me the Picture Quality in 1440p PC Gaming is the utmost highest of priorities for me. That is why I'm using a RX 580 8GB GPU. Even my previous Radeon GPU ensured the best PQ for gaming.

My next upgrade will be a NAVI GPU (RX500 series replacement GPU), though I'll check reviews, including TPU for a final decision. All I am looking for is a performance boost over my RX580, though I am sure we will see 2080 like performance for about $250 to $300 if rumours & speculation end up being right.

 

[overvolted]

I used to feel compelled to buy the best card out there all the time and once the novelty wore off that all I would be getting out of it is a better 3d mark score in practice, I decided to go with what actually does the job I need it to do.

Honestly, I see no point in spending 700 dollars on a video card either. That's just ridiculous.
This time around, I went with an ASUS Strix RTX 2060. Open box even...for 320 bucks.

Extremely happy and no buyers remorse. It's an awesome performer.
For 1440 gaming, that's all you need. By the time it struggles with anything you'll probably have a completely new machine anyway.

 

[moproblems99]

That is why I'm using a RX 580 8GB GPU

1440, with a 580? Picture Quality? I could see 1080 but I am having a hard time seeing success there. I wouldn't do anything less than my Vega 56 at 1440. Can't imagine a 580.

I am sure we will see 2080 like performance for about $250 to $300 if rumours & speculation end up being right.

I dunno about that. 2070ti performance costs $699 from AMD. I have some concerns about Navi now.