# AMD RX Vega Supply Issues to Persist At Least Until October - Digitimes



## Raevenlord (Aug 25, 2017)

DigiTimes is reporting, through "sources from the upstream supply chain", that AMD's current shortage of RX Vega cards to distribute to the retail market will continue at least until October. The tech reporting site says that sources are pointing towards the package integration of HBM2 memory (from SK Hynix or Samsung Electronics) and the Vega GPU (manufactured on Global Foundries' 14 nm FinFet) as being at fault here, due to low yield rates for this packaging effort. However, some other sources point towards the issue being with the packaging process itself, done by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) through use of SiP technology. Whichever one of these cases may be, it seems the problem lies with AMD's choice to use HBM2 on their Vega graphics architecture.

As a footnote to its story, DigiTimes is also reporting that according to industry sources, NVIDIA has, in light of RX Vega's performance, decided to postpone the launch of Volta-based GPUs towards the first quarter of 2018.



 

 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## the54thvoid (Aug 25, 2017)

AMD have kind of deceived their way through this whole release. Disappointed in the consumers friend that they once were.


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## INSTG8R (Aug 25, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> AMD have kind of deceived their way through this whole release. Disappointed in the consumers friend that they once were.


From someone that's been using ATI/AMD exclusively I feel the entire Vega saga was juggling and sleight of hand act from the get go. I'd still buy a 56 if I do upgrade though..


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## the54thvoid (Aug 25, 2017)

INSTG8R said:


> From someone that's been using ATI/AMD exclusively I feel the entire Vega saga was juggling and sleight of hand act from the get go. I'd still buy a 56 if I do upgrade though..



No doubts the 56 is the better option. The 64 seems like a knackered warhorse pushed to its last breath.


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## Kursah (Aug 25, 2017)

As a friendly reminder as some of the BS has already been cleaned up here. 

Everyone has a right to voice their opinions, but not to openly offend, troll or abuse others. If you cannot simply follow the *TPU Forum Guidelines *and be respectful to others, then please do not bother posting. Infractions will be handed out to those that fail to adhere to this. 

Nobody here is entitled to attack anyone else. Period.


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## Norton (Aug 25, 2017)

The shortage may have something to do with *Project 47* also. Wasn't that set up to use 80 Vega cards per unit?


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## TheinsanegamerN (Aug 25, 2017)

Once again AMD let down by their decision to pursue hyper advanced tech. 

They could have had a DDR5 powered polaris chip with 4096 cores last year, with similar perf/watt to VEGA, without wasting all that capital. The worst 480 pulled maybe 180 watt, so double that for a 512 bit 4096 core polaris would still be 50-100 watt less then vega 64 likes to pull. 

When will AMD management learn?


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## IceScreamer (Aug 25, 2017)

Well if you look at it from a different perspective these don't really look like average consumer graphics cards, even in this non Frontier form, so the majority of supply probably went to other, non gaming areas, like @Norton pointed out.


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## Xzibit (Aug 25, 2017)

Norton said:


> The shortage may have something to do with *Project 47* also. Wasn't that set up to use 80 Vega cards per unit?



I'm not sure you can blame one because has there been any shortage on the earlier Vega products Pro & Instinct ?  Just could be they take priority over RX and demand being what it is in the market not enough chips are being deligated to RX since they are being put together at 2 different places SK and TW, Report didn't touch on that.


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## Assimilator (Aug 25, 2017)

I know AMD doesn't have the R&D budgets of Intel or NVIDIA, but damn, sometimes it feels like AMD are purposefully making things even harder for themselves. After all, if AMD had expected interposer yield issues this round again, it would've been prudent of them to opt for a memory controller capable of driving GDDR5/X as well as HBM2, similar to Pascal's. That would have allowed them to sell Vega SKUs with the cheaper, more reliable memory. Considering Polaris does alright with GDDR5, I still don't buy the "AMD high-end GPUs will self-immolate if they're not tied to insanely wide memory busses" - I feel like HBM was little more than a halo/product differentiator with Fiji, and that hasn't changed with Vega.

If it really is the interposer that's the problem, that means good Vega chips are being binned because of its failings, which is essentially the same as AMD burning their money. I'm sure the situation will improve by year end, but man, that's the exact opposite thing they (and especially RTG) need right now.

And then there's Volta, which now has an extra half a year to be tested and tweaked to ensure that it pushes out its full performance and impresses everyone maximally on launch day. If Vega had been competitive we would've seen Volta launched with GDDR5/X, but now NVIDIA has time to go back and ensure it works perfectly with GDDR6, and the memory manufacturers have time to get production of the new memory to decent levels.  Of course, should GDDR6 flop, NVIDIA already has the finalised GDDR5/X designs for Volta taped out, so they have all their bases covered.

Navi's launch in a year's time is looking both very optimistic and very far away for AMD...


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## diatribe (Aug 25, 2017)

I hope that this blunder doesn't destroy AMD's future in the GPU market.


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## mcraygsx (Aug 26, 2017)

For an occasional gamer like myself, I was really excited to switch from 1070 to RX 64 SILVER but prices are outrageous atm. $699 for a regular black version is too much. I could easily buy a 1080 Ti for similar price.

Thanks to AMD, NVidia is in no rush to release VOLTA.


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## Fluffmeister (Aug 26, 2017)

mcraygsx said:


> For an occasional gamer like myself, I was really excited to switch from 1070 to RX 64 SILVER but prices are outrageous atm. $699 for a regular black version is too much. I could easily buy a 1080 Ti for similar price.
> 
> Thanks to AMD, NVidia is in no rush to release VOLTA.



Pretty brutal isn't it? If people think they will be able to buy themselves a Vega 56 for a bargain price too then they need to go join Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in La La Land.


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## Xzibit (Aug 26, 2017)

Fluffmeister said:


> Pretty brutal isn't it? If people think they will be able to buy themselves a Vega 56 for a bargain price too then they need to go join Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in La La Land.



So with winners? 212 wins and 247 nominations


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## Hood (Aug 26, 2017)

Every day they release new lies designed to mitigate the fallout from the previous pack of lies.  All the lies were designed to call attention away from the main original lie - that Vega's performance was between a 1080 and a 1080 Ti, for $500.  All subsequent lies only made it worse, until even die-hard fanboys gave up in disgust.  AMD is going from being the much-loved underdog to being the much-hated liar, that caused thousands of people to wait for a pipe dream that never happened.  There's a thin line between love and hate, and many former AMD fans are crossing that line now.  I'm glad that I prefer Nvidia, I may have to pay high prices, but at least they deliver what they promise, without all this drama and BS.


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## ViperXTR (Aug 26, 2017)

mcraygsx said:


> For an occasional gamer like myself, I was really excited to switch from 1070 to RX 64 SILVER but prices are outrageous atm. $699 for a regular black version is too much. I could easily buy a 1080 Ti for similar price.
> 
> Thanks to AMD, NVidia is in no rush to release VOLTA.


Then again, Volta is just right on track like reported long ago, 2017 for their HPC tesla chip and 2018 for general consumer chip


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## Fluffmeister (Aug 26, 2017)

Xzibit said:


> So with winners? 212 wins and 247 nominations



And after all the hype.... it was basically a song and dance about nothing.

I guess people are easily pleased.


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## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Hood said:


> Every day they release new lies designed to mitigate the fallout from the previous pack of lies.  All the lies were designed to call attention away from the main original lie - that Vega's performance was between a 1080 and a 1080 Ti, for $500.  All subsequent lies only made it worse, until even die-hard fanboys gave up in disgust.  AMD is going from being the much-loved underdog to being the much-hated liar, that caused thousands of people to wait for a pipe dream that never happened.  There's a thin line between love and hate, and many former AMD fans are crossing that line now.  I'm glad that I prefer Nvidia, I may have to pay high prices, but at least they deliver what they promise, without all this drama and BS.



That's all well and good but I have yet to actually see anything beyond speculation that AMD has in fact lied about anything. Lots of crying and moaning from the *PC Gamers* and very little proof.


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## Xzibit (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> That's all well and good but I have yet to actually see anything beyond speculation that AMD has in fact lied about anything. Lots of crying and moaning from the *PC Gamers* and very little proof.



Pretty much even their own sources are telling speculating on 2 different theories.



			
				DigiTimes said:
			
		

> Some sources pointed... *and hence resulted in low yield rates*
> 
> However, some other sources claimed that the issue *may be*



Usually you want your sources corroborating the story not complicating it by speculating.


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## RejZoR (Aug 26, 2017)

Interesting enough, RX Vega 64 with reference cooler is still available on many European shops from what I can see. It's just AiO versions that are gone. Price wise, they are roughly 60-70€ more expensive than aftermarket GTX 1080. Which sucks quite a bit considering they are loud and crappy reference cooled compared to beefy AORUS and GamingX GTX cards...


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## Hood (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> That's all well and good but I have yet to actually see anything beyond speculation that AMD has in fact lied about anything. Lots of crying and moaning from the *PC Gamers* and very little proof.


First they said they were delaying launch to make sure there are no issues with supply, and the delay was almost A YEAR.  This is after there were several press releases about HBM-caused delays. Then, when supplies ran out on day one, their eventual answer was "we SHIPPED tens of thousands of cards, and 'logistical problems' kept them from reaching distributors (logistical problems involves physically being unable to get to their destination - were the damn trucks hijacked?  I don't recall any blizzards, floods, or hurricanes that week).  Then all the crap with prices started - bundles, "launch" prices, rebates to retailers for launch only, SEP double-talk vs MSRP.   Strange, isn't it, that all these bundles are trying to sell Ryzen CPUs and boards - is there a problem with Ryzen sales?  Normally hardware sold in bundles is over-stocked last generation stuff, trying to get rid of them before they're stuck with a loss.  So another lie was, "the bundle strategy is designed to thwart miners".  Funny how these dozens of bundles all have Vega cards available, but there's no cards available alone. Then, just yesterday, "we've worked out the "logistics issues", and all stores will be fully stocked THIS WEEK".  Now today they say supplies won't normalize until October.  So which is the real story?  It doesn't even matter, because only one story can be the real story, and by definition, the other contradictory stories HAVE to be lies.  Take your pick, but I am fairly sure that NONE are the real story, and ALL are lies.  It's a high-stakes game they're playing, and people who believe them do so because they desperately refuse to hear anything negative about AMD.  I think it will explode in their face very soon.


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## the54thvoid (Aug 26, 2017)

Hood said:


> First they said they were delaying launch to make sure there are no issues with supply, and the delay was almost A YEAR.  This is after there were several press releases about HBM-caused delays. Then, when supplies ran out on day one, their eventual answer was "we SHIPPED tens of thousands of cards, and 'logistical problems' kept them from reaching distributors (logistical problems involves physically being unable to get to their destination - were the damn trucks hijacked?  I don't recall any blizzards, floods, or hurricanes that week).  Then all the crap with prices started - bundles, "launch" prices, rebates to retailers for launch only, SEP double-talk vs MSRP.   Strange, isn't it, that all these bundles are trying to sell Ryzen CPUs and boards - is there a problem with Ryzen sales?  Normally hardware sold in bundles is over-stocked last generation stuff, trying to get rid of them before they're stuck with a loss.  So another lie was, "the bundle strategy is designed to thwart miners".  Funny how these dozens of bundles all have Vega cards available, but there's no cards available alone. Then, just yesterday, "we've worked out the "logistics issues", and all stores will be fully stocked THIS WEEK".  Now today they say supplies won't normalize until October.  So which is the real story?  It doesn't even matter, because only one story can be the real story, and by definition, the other contradictory stories HAVE to be lies.  Take your pick, but I am fairly sure that NONE are the real story, and ALL are lies.  It's a high-stakes game they're playing, and people who believe them do so because they desperately refuse to hear anything negative about AMD.  I think it will explode in their face very soon.



It doesn't matter how logically you try to put it, your argument is always ignored and a sly, troll comment is put in to attack you.
Let people believe what they want and see what happens. I'm damn happy I didn't wait.


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## Vayra86 (Aug 26, 2017)

Hood said:


> First they said they were delaying launch to make sure there are no issues with supply, and the delay was almost A YEAR.  This is after there were several press releases about HBM-caused delays. Then, when supplies ran out on day one, their eventual answer was "we SHIPPED tens of thousands of cards, and 'logistical problems' kept them from reaching distributors (logistical problems involves physically being unable to get to their destination - were the damn trucks hijacked?  I don't recall any blizzards, floods, or hurricanes that week).  Then all the crap with prices started - bundles, "launch" prices, rebates to retailers for launch only, SEP double-talk vs MSRP.   Strange, isn't it, that all these bundles are trying to sell Ryzen CPUs and boards - is there a problem with Ryzen sales?  Normally hardware sold in bundles is over-stocked last generation stuff, trying to get rid of them before they're stuck with a loss.  So another lie was, "the bundle strategy is designed to thwart miners".  Funny how these dozens of bundles all have Vega cards available, but there's no cards available alone. Then, just yesterday, "we've worked out the "logistics issues", and all stores will be fully stocked THIS WEEK".  Now today they say supplies won't normalize until October.  So which is the real story?  It doesn't even matter, because only one story can be the real story, and by definition, the other contradictory stories HAVE to be lies.  Take your pick, but I am fairly sure that NONE are the real story, and ALL are lies.  It's a high-stakes game they're playing, and people who believe them do so because they desperately refuse to hear anything negative about AMD.  I think it will explode in their face very soon.



The real story is this: AMD talked itself into producing Vega with HBM for so long and so often that there was no turning back. They had to release the card, knowing it would never reach the 1080ti anyway, but still would require to do so to extract enough of a margin on it to make it worthwhile. They also HAD to release some sort of high end offering at this point; not being present for even longer in that segment would have marginalized RTG entirely. They desperately tried to stretch performance; evident by all those BIOS versions they employ; if they had a well rounded product they would have given us one optimized BIOS setting that covers all bases.

I don't buy 'low yields' arguments anymore btw, having a yield issue this late in the game just doesn't happen. Yields don't just change for the worse, unless you've got drunk employees handling the silicon. What really happens is that HBM supply is funneled to the high margin markets first, which is super obvious and the story of HBM's short life up till today.

So here we are, AMD employs every stalling trick in the book to keep supply low and keep the product scarce to drive up its price to a manageable level. You can be sure that even Project 47 (Hitman, anyone?) is a dedicated attempt to increase margin on Vega cards.


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## HD64G (Aug 26, 2017)

Hynix failure to be on time with mass production HBM2 forced AMD to pay much more to Samsung and get half of their needs. That made stocking more difficult and selling for lower price impossible. That's why the packs with monitors, ryzen builds or games. Some of us have written here about this problem months ago but most kept on blaiming AMD only. AMD's own failure was to have good drivers with all features enabled. But we are used to it for 5 years now. Some here also think it is easy to change the memory type of a GPU ready to get to mass production just a few months before that when AMD learnt from Hynix about their fail on production of HBM2. Not possible at all.

As for the reference design's cons, when was the last time that a ref design from any maufacturer was GREAT for high-end GPUs that didn't need the custom ones to get the best out of it for performance-noise-thermals?


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## Assimilator (Aug 26, 2017)

HD64G said:


> Hynix failure to be on time with mass production HBM2 forced AMD to pay much more to Samsung and get half of their needs. That made stocking more difficult and selling for lower price impossible. That's why the packs with monitors, ryzen builds or games. Some of us have written here about this problem months ago but most kept on blaiming AMD only. AMD's own failure was to have good drivers with all features enabled. But we are used to it for 5 years now. Some here also think it is easy to change the memory type of a GPU ready to get to mass production just a few months before that when AMD learnt from Hynix about their fail on production of HBM2. Not possible at all.



As I stated in my previous reply, AMD already had problems with HBM supply with Fiji, so it would have been prudent (I would argue, necessary) for them to anticipate the same with HBM2 and build a GPU with a memory controller that could handle multiple memory types. That AMD chose not to do so is entirely their fault and represents an absolute failure in terms of risk-mitigation.



HD64G said:


> As for the reference design's cons, when was the last time that a ref design from any maufacturer was GREAT for high-end GPUs that didn't need the custom ones to get the best out of it for performance-noise-thermals?



There's a difference between "acceptable" and "terrible". Since Hawaii, NVIDIA's reference coolers have always fallen into the first group, while AMD's have always fallen into the second. AMD's failure to improve their reference cooler - over multiple GPU generations - is, again, entirely their own fault.

Fanboys making endless excuses for AMD isn't going to make AMD fix its s**t. Negative publicity and voting with your wallets will. No company should get a free pass on repeated failures, regardless of how small and underdog-y it is.


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## iO (Aug 26, 2017)

Assimilator said:


> ... to anticipate the same with HBM2 and build a GPU with a memory controller that could handle multiple memory types. That AMD chose not to do so is entirely their fault and represents an absolute failure in terms of risk-mitigation.


Not even Nvidia with their massively bigger R&D budget managed to do this and chose to build the same GPU twice with two different memory controllers.

And I really doubt adding another ~50W+ for GDDR5 memory and its subsystem plus another potential bottleneck by reducing the memory bandwidth would actually help the card...


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## arbiter (Aug 26, 2017)

iO said:


> Not even Nvidia with their massively bigger R&D budget managed to do this and chose to build the same GPU twice with two different memory controllers.
> 
> And I really doubt adding another ~50W+ for GDDR5 memory and its subsystem plus another potential bottleneck by reducing the memory bandwidth would actually help the card...


the die space needed to hold the memory controller is big as it is, let alone making it even bigger to support 2 diff memory option's that are massively different in terms of connection's needed to go from 256/384 to 2048. Its possible but space needed isn't worth it.


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## HD64G (Aug 26, 2017)

Assimilator said:


> As I stated in my previous reply, AMD already had problems with HBM supply with Fiji, so it would have been prudent (I would argue, necessary) for them to anticipate the same with HBM2 and build a GPU with a memory controller that could handle multiple memory types. That AMD chose not to do so is entirely their fault and represents an absolute failure in terms of risk-mitigation.
> 
> There's a difference between "acceptable" and "terrible". Since Hawaii, NVIDIA's reference coolers have always fallen into the first group, while AMD's have always fallen into the second. AMD's failure to improve their reference cooler - over multiple GPU generations - is, again, entirely their own fault.
> 
> Fanboys making endless excuses for AMD isn't going to make AMD fix its s**t. Negative publicity and voting with your wallets will. No company should get a free pass on repeated failures, regardless of how small and underdog-y it is.



The team of companies behind HBM and HMB2 has many and good companies in it. AMD is one of them to use the end product in its own products. I bet that never a company knows the future of a collaboration until the result becomes obvious. And most times than not, a 2nd gen product is better and easier to be produced than the 1st one. But they seem to need a prophet to predict and avoid such problems eh?

I do not remember you bashing the reference coolers of nVidia GPUs not allowing max boost clocks because of awful temps me thinks, or for being more audible than the optimum. Bashing AMD for anything on the other side is your 2nd nature. 

And to make it clear, my opinion is that Vega 64 isn't a good choice* for now*, but vega 56 is a great choice for anyone not having a 4K or 144Hz monitor that needs a 1080Ti only for being somewhat futureproof (2-3 years max). Custom models and further driver progress might change that drastically though.


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## r9 (Aug 26, 2017)

I'm upset with both AMD and Nvidia.
With AMD cuz they dropped the ball with Vega, but at least I know they are doing their best.
On the other hand what upsets me with Nvidia is you can always expect them to do their bare minimum.


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## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Hood said:


> First they said they were delaying launch to make sure there are no issues with supply, and the delay was almost A YEAR.  This is after there were several press releases about HBM-caused delays. Then, when supplies ran out on day one, their eventual answer was "we SHIPPED tens of thousands of cards, and 'logistical problems' kept them from reaching distributors (logistical problems involves physically being unable to get to their destination - were the damn trucks hijacked?



Without the shipping manifests and receipts going public, there is no way to know. Shipping large volumes of units has always been a point of contention in the industry, I don't see any lies here.



Hood said:


> Then all the crap with prices started - bundles, "launch" prices, rebates to retailers for launch only, SEP double-talk vs MSRP. Strange, isn't it, that all these bundles are trying to sell Ryzen CPUs and boards - is there a problem with Ryzen sales? Normally hardware sold in bundles is over-stocked last generation stuff, trying to get rid of them before they're stuck with a loss. So another lie was, "the bundle strategy is designed to thwart miners". Funny how these dozens of bundles all have Vega cards available, but there's no cards available alone.



Bundles were announced before launch, so I don't see why this could be a lie on anyone's part. It's well documented and we all knew it was happening, which it did. The fact that Vega is bundled with Ryzen actually shows the opposite of what you're speculating. Ryzen is an extremely strong product for AMD and *should* (note: guessing) give a value proposition to somebody who would have already been considering a Ryzen based PC and possibly Vega. It bolsters the value by adding a product that AMD *knows* people are buying, and one that they *want* people to buy.



Hood said:


> Then, just yesterday, "we've worked out the "logistics issues", and all stores will be fully stocked THIS WEEK". Now today they say supplies won't normalize until October.



AMD's internal reports and the reports of "sources from the upstream supply chain" are going to vary wildly. Somebody has to provide an answer to consumer questions, and the ones that jump first usually aren't giving complete and correct information. Now that doesn't mean they are lying, it means they have information on the situation that they believe to be true and decide to share it, whether it is true and complete information or not. From reading the one-paragraph "article" above it seems that somebody with a distributor or logistics company decided to be the one to answer the question. Usually when AMD answers you get the name of the person and their position at AMD, not a half sentence quote from an anonymous source.



Hood said:


> So which is the real story? It doesn't even matter, because only one story can be the real story, and by definition, the other contradictory stories HAVE to be lies. Take your pick, but I am fairly sure that NONE are the real story, and ALL are lies. It's a high-stakes game they're playing, and people who believe them do so because they desperately refuse to hear anything negative about AMD. I think it will explode in their face very soon.



The real story is speculation at best from us, and because of that you don't _get_ a real story. Lots of subjective information based on objective anecdotes from news articles and anonymous sources. You're free to believe that everyone involved is lying to consumers and pulling some back-alley sleight-of-hand to fuck over the common man, but when reality sets in and answers are provided I'm going to bet that the whole situation is significantly more mundane than you're making it out to be.


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## Th3pwn3r (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> That's all well and good but I have yet to actually see anything beyond speculation that AMD has in fact lied about anything. Lots of crying and moaning from the *PC Gamers* and very little proof.



What is it when you say something that's completely untrue? A lie.



Hood said:


> First they said they were delaying launch to make sure there are no issues with supply, and the delay was almost A YEAR.  This is after there were several press releases about HBM-caused delays. Then, when supplies ran out on day one, their eventual answer was "we SHIPPED tens of thousands of cards, and 'logistical problems' kept them from reaching distributors (logistical problems involves physically being unable to get to their destination - were the damn trucks hijacked?  I don't recall any blizzards, floods, or hurricanes that week).  Then all the crap with prices started - bundles, "launch" prices, rebates to retailers for launch only, SEP double-talk vs MSRP.   Strange, isn't it, that all these bundles are trying to sell Ryzen CPUs and boards - is there a problem with Ryzen sales?  Normally hardware sold in bundles is over-stocked last generation stuff, trying to get rid of them before they're stuck with a loss.  So another lie was, "the bundle strategy is designed to thwart miners".  Funny how these dozens of bundles all have Vega cards available, but there's no cards available alone. Then, just yesterday, "we've worked out the "logistics issues", and all stores will be fully stocked THIS WEEK".  Now today they say supplies won't normalize until October.  So which is the real story?  It doesn't even matter, because only one story can be the real story, and by definition, the other contradictory stories HAVE to be lies.  Take your pick, but I am fairly sure that NONE are the real story, and ALL are lies.  It's a high-stakes game they're playing, and people who believe them do so because they desperately refuse to hear anything negative about AMD.  I think it will explode in their face very soon.



You said it a lot better than I would have, I'm in total agreement. To remind people *AMD delayed Vega to make sure they would have enough product on hand/in stock to meet demand.*



the54thvoid said:


> It doesn't matter how logically you try to put it, your argument is always ignored and a sly, troll comment is put in to attack you.
> Let people believe what they want and see what happens. I'm damn happy I didn't wait.



There's definitely some weird people out there. Instead of just accepting facts as they are they want to live in denial. No matter what excuses or reasons are out there, Vega upon launch was awful and that's being nice. Things seem to look better on a day by day basis, like I've been saying Vega 56 actually looks good, especially when next to 64 



r9 said:


> I'm upset with both AMD and Nvidia.
> With AMD cuz they dropped the ball with Vega, but at least I know they are doing their best.
> On the other hand what upsets me with Nvidia is you can always expect them to do their bare minimum.



LOL if this is AMDs best they are in some serious trouble. Who in their right mind conjures up something like this? Nvidia never had to even make a 1080ti, the 1080 itself has been able to and will continue to fend for itself against everything AMD has despite being ancient technology in my technological terms.


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## notb (Aug 26, 2017)

The fact that we're getting "unofficial" info about supply problems doesn't mean there actually are any...

It would not be the first time when company announces shortages, when they actually want to get the price up a bit (or have an excuse for not selling a bad product).
Especially now with the mining issue in the background... it's pretty sure a news like this will encourage people to get a Vega while the "still" can.

Also, keep in mind an unknown number of Vega FE is gathering dust in AMD's warehouses. Wouldn't they want to sell those first? It's the same card underneath... think about the profit margin difference...


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## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> What is it when you say something that's completely untrue? A lie.



What is it when you say something that is untrue but have been assured with complete sincerity that it is the truth? Misinformation. See there can be a grey area, it's not all black or white despite what everyone seems to think.


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## Th3pwn3r (Aug 26, 2017)

notb said:


> The fact that we're getting "unofficial" info about supply problems doesn't mean there actually are any...
> .



I'm pretty sure the supply problems are real when the product is sold out and there are consumers trying to buy it.



Fouquin said:


> What is it when you say something that is untrue but have been assured with complete sincerity that it is the truth? Misinformation. See there can be a grey area, it's not all black or white despite what everyone seems to think.



Okay, so misinformation from AMD is a gray area but not a lie to consumers? You seem like you could be AMD's terrible lawyer lol. Ever watch Arrested Development? You remind me of the Bluth's lawyer


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## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> Okay, so misinformation from AMD is a gray area but not a lie to consumers? You seem like you could be AMD's terrible lawyer lol. Ever watch Arrested Development? You remind me of the Bluth's lawyer



Well now hang on, where in any of this thread was there official information from AMD? All I've seen is speculation surrounding previous statements on unrelated facets of Vega's supply problems. Do you have links with evidence of actual lies? I'm genuinely curious.


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## Norton (Aug 26, 2017)

Keep to the topic- personal attacks won't be tolerated (subtle, indirect, veiled, etc.. included). Only public warning- infractions to follow beyond this point!

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/forum-guidelines.197329/


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## Th3pwn3r (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> Well now hang on, where in any of this thread was there official information from AMD? All I've seen is speculation surrounding previous statements on unrelated facets of Vega's supply problems. Do you have links with evidence of actual lies? I'm genuinely curious.



_“Radeon RX Vega64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. *Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699*. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days.”_

This in conjunction with the cards being out of stock in a lot of places is more than enough to realize there's a supply problem. If there wasn't a supply problem there would be no statement.

EDIT:Vega came so late to meet supply demands which they are clearly not coming close to doing considering how everything was out of stock on day zero.


----------



## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> _“Radeon RX Vega64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. *Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699*. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days.”_
> 
> This in conjunction with the cards being out of stock in a lot of places is more than enough to realize there's a supply problem. If there wasn't a supply problem there would be no statement.
> 
> EDIT:Vega came so late to meet supply demands which they are clearly not coming close to doing considering how everything was out of stock on day zero.



There are no lies in the quoted statements. Supply problems are a given, just take a look at the last ten years and find a product that wasn't out of stock on release. *Maybe *you'll find one 5-10 years ago that didn't have supply problems. However I don't see how a statement saying "Demand is high, we're working on replenishing stock," is construed as them lying about Vega's supply.


----------



## Hood (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> but when reality sets in and answers are provided I'm going to bet that the whole situation is significantly more mundane than you're making it out to be.


You're probably right.  I just wanted to list some of the things they've told us that don't add up.  Mostly because I'm tired of AMD fans making more excuses for AMD's failure, and taking them at face value.  I don't recall any other company that gets a pass for this kind of behavior, and I'm not inclined to give them benefit of doubt at this point.  I don't like the way they play with people's heads, people who have been loyal to them and supported them wholly.  They cash in on that loyalty shamelessly and without remorse, in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and forget that customer loyalty is their greatest asset right now, and how fleeting it can be.


----------



## Th3pwn3r (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> There are no lies in the quoted statements. Supply problems are a given, just take a look at the last ten years and find a product that wasn't out of stock on release. *Maybe *you'll find one 5-10 years ago that didn't have supply problems. However I don't see how a statement saying "Demand is high, we're working on replenishing stock," is construed as them lying about Vega's supply.


The lie exists in the sense that they said they purposely delayed launch to produce enough stock for demand. That's one, the other is in pricing.


----------



## notb (Aug 26, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> I'm pretty sure the supply problems are real when the product is sold out and there are consumers trying to buy it.


That's a supply problem for the consumers. The rumour we're discussing says that it's the manufacturers that are having a supply problem. Now this is something that AMD could be faking or even creating.
We know they launched these cards with unrealistically low prices. We know they're trying to sell them for more.
What better excuse than "supply problems"?
This way they can sell these cards at elevated price for months.


----------



## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Hood said:


> You're probably right.  I just wanted to list some of the things they've told us that don't add up.  Mostly because I'm tired of AMD fans making more excuses for AMD's failure, and taking them at face value.  I don't recall any other company that gets a pass for this kind of behavior, and I'm not inclined to give them benefit of doubt at this point.  I don't like the way they play with people's heads, people who have been loyal to them and supported them wholly.  They cash in on that loyalty shamelessly and without remorse, in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and forget that customer loyalty is their greatest asset right now, and how fleeting it can be.



I won't apologize for them if they truly are lying straight to the consumer, and I'm curious to find out _why _many people (who in large part are not buying AMD's products) feel they are being lied to. This product launch doesn't look any different compared to the launches of the last 10+ years.



Th3pwn3r said:


> The lie exists in the sense that they said they purposely delayed launch to produce enough stock for demand. That's one, the other is in pricing.



So they lied because they under-estimated consumer demand? That's a poor marketing [of consumer demand] perspective, not a blatant lie. The pricing was a subject of another thread where an AMD representative (Gerald Youngblood) gave confirmation that prices set by AMD have not changed since launch.


----------



## Xzibit (Aug 26, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> The lie exists in the sense that they said they purposely delayed launch to produce *enough stock for demand*. That's one, the other is in pricing.



Might want adjust all your post for the miss quoting.



			
				AMD said:
			
		

> we wanted to make sure we were launching with *good volume*



Might be why you feel they lied to you or your lying to us.


----------



## Hood (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> Do you have links with evidence of actual lies? I'm genuinely curious.[/QUOTE
> Ambiguous statements are never attributed to a company spokesperson, it's always "a trusted source close to the company", or something else that provides maximum deniability.  These are tricks almost as old as humanity, used by lawyers, politicians, snake oil vendors, and other professional liars.  It's surprising that people still fall for them.


----------



## DeathtoGnomes (Aug 26, 2017)

AMD's supply and demand market models are out dated and could not account for such a huge demand.


----------



## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Hood said:


> Ambiguous statements are never attributed to a company spokesperson, it's always "a trusted source close to the company", or something else that provides maximum deniability. These are tricks almost as old as humanity, used by lawyers, politicians, snake oil vendors, and other professional liars. It's surprising that people still fall for them.



Which would generally be a suspicion if information quoted direct from AMD (employees, marketing representatives, etc) hadn't already been released addressing the matter.


----------



## Assimilator (Aug 26, 2017)

Okay, so I forgot one big drawback of GDDR over HBM: power consumption. This article sums it up nicely.

The tl;dr is that HBM is a necessity for Fiji and Vega - not because of bandwidth, but because of wattage. Those GPUs consume far more power than NVIDIA's ones of the same performance, and if AMD coupled them with GDDR, the resultant package's power use would make Fermi look like small potatoes.

Or to put it another way: NVIDIA invested money into making their GPUs energy efficient, and one of the dividends of that is that they can use the far cheaper and plentiful, but more power-hungry, GDDR memory. AMD either didn't or couldn't do the same, with the result that they had to find another option, and the only other option was HBM.


----------



## Th3pwn3r (Aug 26, 2017)

This lie or that lie, truth or not, it doesn't matter. Fact is Vega isn't in stock like it's supposed to have been no matter the reason. Prices don't make sense either, again, no matter what reason.


----------



## Fouquin (Aug 26, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> This lie or that lie, truth or not, it doesn't matter. Fact is Vega isn't in stock like it's supposed to have been no matter the reason.



Neither was Fiji.
Neither was Hawaii.
Neither was Kepler.

Could keep going back but the point is made. New GPUs run out of stock and are subsequently drip-fed into the market until demand subsides and stock can normalize. It's not something that AMD is doing specifically with Vega to piss off their customers.


----------



## Th3pwn3r (Aug 26, 2017)

Fouquin said:


> Neither was Fiji.
> Neither was Hawaii.
> Neither was Kepler.
> 
> Could keep going back but the point is made. New GPUs run out of stock and are subsequently drip-fed into the market until demand subsides and stock can normalize. It's not something that AMD is doing specifically with Vega to piss off their customers.



Personally I don't really care what the reason is, I'm not saying AMD is doing things to piss off customers. If people want to get upset and raise their pitchforks then whatever lol.


----------



## evernessince (Aug 27, 2017)

Hood said:


> Every day they release new lies designed to mitigate the fallout from the previous pack of lies.  All the lies were designed to call attention away from the main original lie - that Vega's performance was between a 1080 and a 1080 Ti, for $500.  All subsequent lies only made it worse, until even die-hard fanboys gave up in disgust.  AMD is going from being the much-loved underdog to being the much-hated liar, that caused thousands of people to wait for a pipe dream that never happened.  There's a thin line between love and hate, and many former AMD fans are crossing that line now.  I'm glad that I prefer Nvidia, I may have to pay high prices, but at least they deliver what they promise, without all this drama and BS.



Hmm... Why does this read like propaganda

oh wait 

"I'm glad that I prefer Nvidia"

Just stop, less you forget that Nvidia did the same thing with "Founders Edition" cards.


----------



## InVasMani (Aug 27, 2017)

Th3pwn3r said:


> The lie exists in the sense that they said they purposely delayed launch to produce enough stock for demand. That's one, the other is in pricing.


 Not really just because they did delay with that reason in mind doesn't mean they were able to fulfill it if the demand exceeded the supply in relation to what they were expecting and you can't just delay indefinitely time is of the essence.


----------



## Th3pwn3r (Aug 27, 2017)

evernessince said:


> Hmm... Why does this read like propaganda
> 
> oh wait
> 
> ...



Well, at least we all now know that FE cards are basically the bottom of the barrel. It's similar to EVGA and their SC and SSC cards, just marketing schemes that work on some people.


----------



## Prima.Vera (Aug 27, 2017)

Raevenlord said:


> As a footnote to its story, DigiTimes is also reporting that according to industry sources, NVIDIA has, in light of RX Vega's performance, decided to postpone the launch of Volta-based GPUs towards the first quarter of 2018.



Sorry, but allow me to take this with some grains of salt. I'm willing to bet that in October/November nVidia will launch it's new generation of cards, just because.


----------



## zo0lykas (Aug 27, 2017)

if you take a few second and google it, you can easy found "*the launch of Volta-based GPUs towards the first quarter of 2018*"

and we will see many issues get *Volta* then they go for new *DDR6* rams 



Prima.Vera said:


> Sorry, but allow me to take this with some grains of salt. I'm willing to bet that in October/November nVidia will launch it's new generation of cards, just because.


----------



## efikkan (Aug 27, 2017)

Has there been any solid indications on consumer Volta being launched this year? All the material I've seen have said 2018.


----------



## Vya Domus (Aug 27, 2017)

Hood said:


> I don't recall any other company that gets a pass for this kind of behavior, and I'm not inclined to give them benefit of doubt at this point.  I don't like the way they play with people's heads, people who have been loyal to them and supported them wholly.  They cash in on that loyalty shamelessly and without remorse, in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and forget that customer loyalty is their greatest asset right now, and how fleeting it can be.



You must be joking , right ?

AMD is slaughter by the press right now on Vega (in an unprofessional and ignorant way but that's another subject) , they sure as hell didn't get a pass.

You want to talk about companies that got a pass for this kind of behavior ? Let's see , how about Nvidia with the artificially inflated prices of their 1000 series with the Founders Edition price scheme ? For months the "non-FE MSRP" was no where to be seen and keep in mind there was no supply and demand issues and no mining craze at the time. The press hardly paid any attention to this , reviewers made no overly dramatic videos about how they are so mad and disappointed at Nvidia for not sticking entirely with the originally announced prices.

Allow me to conclude that this whole thing reeks of double standards and for that reason I couldn't care less what AMD did or what the press or anyone else says for that matter. It's all biased crap and no one should pay any attention to it.


----------



## nguyen (Aug 27, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> You must be joking , right ?
> 
> AMD is slaughter by the press right now on Vega (in an unprofessional and ignorant way but that's another subject) , they sure as hell didn't get a pass.
> 
> ...



well the 1070FE priced at 450usd still beat AMD 650usd fury X so no one was complaining, and the FE actually sold and reviewed at Nvidia promised price. In actuality i have seen cheaper AIB model sold at msrp+50usd which is still 50usd less than FE card


----------



## iO (Aug 27, 2017)

Prima.Vera said:


> Sorry, but allow me to take this with some grains of salt. I'm willing to bet that in October/November nVidia will launch it's new generation of cards, just because.



GV100 is the only Volta in 2017:


			
				Jen-Hsun Huang said:
			
		

> Volta for gaming, we haven't announced anything. And all I can say is that our pipeline is filled with some exciting new toys for the gamers, and we have some really exciting new technology to offer them in the pipeline. *But for the holiday season for the foreseeable future*, I think Pascal is just unbeatable. It's just the best thing out there. And everybody who's looking forward to playing Call of Duty or Destiny 2, if they don't already have one, should run out and get themselves a Pascal.



https://seekingalpha.com/article/4097782-nvidia-nvda-q2-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript


----------



## Hood (Aug 27, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> You must be joking , right ?
> 
> AMD is slaughter by the press right now on Vega (in an unprofessional and ignorant way but that's another subject) , they sure as hell didn't get a pass.


I was referring to the pass they get from their fan base in this forum, and right here in this thread.  Endless excuses for AMD's shady behavior...

"You want to talk about companies that got a pass for this kind of behavior ? Let's see , how about Nvidia with the artificially inflated prices of their 1000 series with the Founders Edition price scheme ? For months the "non-FE MSRP" was no where to be seen and keep in mind there was no supply and demand issues and no mining craze at the time. The press hardly paid any attention to this , reviewers made no overly dramatic videos about how they are so mad and disappointed at Nvidia for not sticking entirely with the originally announced prices"
What are you even talking about? - nobody was mad, because Nvidia did nothing wrong, and certainly didn't lie about anything.  I don't remember any serious bitching, only you, just now,

"Allow me to conclude that this whole thing reeks of double standards and for that reason I couldn't care less what AMD did or what the press or anyone else says for that matter. It's all biased crap and no one should pay any attention to it."
Biased how? And your above statement "reeks" of AMD bias - you just gave them a pass on their shady behavior, and exhorted the entire world to also give them a pass.  An unbiased opinion would hold all companies to the same standard, something which you seem unable to do.


----------



## Vya Domus (Aug 27, 2017)

Hood said:


> Nvidia did nothing wrong, and certainly didn't lie about anything.





Hood said:


> I'm glad that I prefer Nvidia





Hood said:


> Biased how?





Thanks for backing up my point.


----------



## Vayra86 (Aug 27, 2017)

Hood said:


> I was referring to the pass they get from their fan base in this forum, and right here in this thread.  Endless excuses for AMD's shady behavior...
> 
> "You want to talk about companies that got a pass for this kind of behavior ? Let's see , how about Nvidia with the artificially inflated prices of their 1000 series with the Founders Edition price scheme ? For months the "non-FE MSRP" was no where to be seen and keep in mind there was no supply and demand issues and no mining craze at the time. The press hardly paid any attention to this , reviewers made no overly dramatic videos about how they are so mad and disappointed at Nvidia for not sticking entirely with the originally announced prices"
> What are you even talking about? - nobody was mad, because Nvidia did nothing wrong, and certainly didn't lie about anything.  I don't remember any serious bitching, only you, just now,
> ...



I'm sorry but the MSRP weirdness of Vega is on the exact same level as the FE weirdness, except with the FE everyone saw it coming and Nvidia spinned it well; while with Vega AMD is trying to hide the fact afterwards and lost the opportunity to spin it well. Kinda the story of NV and AMDs life really. They both do underhand moves, but Nvidia sells them and AMD doesn't manage to do that, or it backfires on them.

In the end it makes no difference, in both cases it was blatantly obvious, and in both cases its a form of price inflation.


----------



## Hood (Aug 27, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> Thanks for backing up my point.


Yeah, thanks for quoting my post out of context - more tactics like AMD uses - now I see why you like them so much, you're just like them, lots of excuses, bad performance, and all your arguments are word games instead of facts.


----------



## Vya Domus (Aug 27, 2017)

My arguments don't contain facts ? 

Here I'll quote myself :



Vya Domus said:


> Let's see , how about Nvidia with the artificially inflated prices of their 1000 series with the Founders Edition price scheme ? For months the "non-FE MSRP" was no where to be seen and keep in mind there was no supply and demand issues and no mining craze at the time. The press hardly paid any attention to this , reviewers made no overly dramatic videos about how they are so mad and disappointed at Nvidia for not sticking entirely with the originally announced prices.



You completely ignored this portion of my comment saying that "you don't know what I am talking about" but somehow you knew that "Nvidia did nothing wrong" . You did know what I was talking about , it was written in front of your eyes. You just simply chose to remain oblivious in a terrible attempt to disprove my points. A cheap tactic that I have seen many times.

Bottom of the line is I made it fairly evident that you are as biased as one can be and nothing will ever seem like a proper argument to you.

Anyway , I'm done on this discussion with you.


----------



## RealNeil (Aug 27, 2017)

the54thvoid said:


> No doubts the 56 is the better option. The 64 seems like a knackered warhorse pushed to its last breath.



Oh God! I sprayed coffee through my nose when I read that! LOL!

I have to say that I'm happy with the deals that I got on my GTX series GPUs. (two 1080FE cards, two 1070 Gaming G-1 cards, and three 980Ti cards)
They all perform well and I can wait to see if AMD ever gets their GPU act together in the future.

They were able to do it with Ryzen and ThreadRipper, so maybe it will work out with their GPUs too.
Intel was caught resting on their laurels, but I don't think that it will happen that way with NVIDIA. I think that they're lying low in the weeds, waiting for some competition from AMD, and then they'll strike. 

I also have to say that I had two RX480s and two RX580s here for a while. They worked well but were out-performed by my GTX counterparts.
I probably would have continued to use them, but someone made me an offer for all four of them that I couldn't resist. I shipped them out the next day. LOL!


----------



## HisDivineOrder (Aug 27, 2017)

Vayra86 said:


> I'm sorry but the MSRP weirdness of Vega is on the exact same level as the FE weirdness, except with the FE everyone saw it coming and Nvidia spinned it well; while with Vega AMD is trying to hide the fact afterwards and lost the opportunity to spin it well. Kinda the story of NV and AMDs life really. They both do underhand moves, but Nvidia sells them and AMD doesn't manage to do that, or it backfires on them.
> 
> In the end it makes no difference, in both cases it was blatantly obvious, and in both cases its a form of price inflation.




The other big difference is that nVidia showed up on time with product that surpassed what was out at the time.  So when shady stuff is going down, nVidia is still at the end of the day delivering superior product.  Meanwhile, AMD is a year late and pricing higher than the superior product from months (1080 Ti) or a year (1080 and below) ago.  AND STILL DOING SHADY STUFF OF THEIR OWN.

Plus, the fact that AMD must have laid off their marketing/PR team when they did all the massive layoffs really hurts them.  They are NOT good at spinning their BS.

Accept it.  nVidia and AMD are just as bad as one another at doing BS, but nVidia's far better at providing explanations that people accept for that BS and far better at delivering actual product on time, which mostly explains why the vast majority of consumers accept their product.

Hey, AMD.  Try delivering your equivalent GPU within the same QUARTER, let alone year, as your competition next time.


----------



## Assimilator (Aug 27, 2017)

Prima.Vera said:


> Sorry, but allow me to take this with some grains of salt. I'm willing to bet that in October/November nVidia will launch it's new generation of cards, just because.



It is a possibility, but IMO a small one. As I discussed in my previous posts, Volta with GDDR5/X is probably ready to go, but there's no need for NVIDIA to launch it because (a) Pascal is still good enough (b) Volta with GDDR6 will be a better product.

Nothing's stopping NVIDIA from putting the boot in, of course, but they're a business-savvy company that cares more about their profit margin than humiliating their competitor... especially since said competitor consistently humiliates itself.


----------



## qubit (Aug 28, 2017)

If every customer did the right thing, there wouldn't be any Vega supply issues.


----------



## R-T-B (Aug 28, 2017)

qubit said:


> If every customer did the right thing, there wouldn't be any Vega supply issues.



Which is what?  Buy NVIDIA?


----------



## Hood (Aug 28, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> Which is what?  Buy NVIDIA?


Good idea!  Or, we could all delay our next GPU purchase for about 6 months, using the perfectly good cards we already own (unless it's already dying) - that might level the playing field somewhat.  Then again, 6 months of the status quo may have the same result.  I tend to take the long view, anyway, since all this drama will pass, as always.  The debate is still interesting, even though I might not upgrade for another year.


----------



## R-T-B (Aug 28, 2017)

Hood said:


> Good idea!  Or, we could all delay our next GPU purchase for about 6 months, using the perfectly good cards we already own (unless it's already dying) - that might level the playing field somewhat.  Then again, 6 months of the status quo may have the same result.  I tend to take the long view, anyway, since all this drama will pass, as always.  The debate is still interesting, even though I might not upgrade for another year.



That's just crazy talk!

PS:  I know it is, because it's precisely what I have done!


----------



## Xzibit (Aug 28, 2017)

Hood said:


> Good idea!  Or, we could all delay our next GPU purchase for about 6 months, using the perfectly good cards we already own (unless it's already dying) - that might level the playing field somewhat.  Then again, 6 months of the status quo may have the same result.  I tend to take the long view, anyway, *since all this drama will pass*, as always.  The debate is still interesting, even though I might not upgrade for another year.



Will it ?

*NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980/970 GPU Supply Issues Bode Ill for Maxwell Already*

*NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 stock won't improve until at least late July*

Those are just a few headlines. Not even the DRAMATIC ones.

*TSMC being blamed for NVIDIA GTX 1080, GTX 1070 supply issues and retailer price gouging*

*Amazon Vendors Price Gouging On Scarce Supply Of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080*


----------



## qubit (Aug 28, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> Which is what?  Buy NVIDIA?


Bingo.  Just a sarcastic comment aimed at AMD since they've pissed me off so much with that disappointing Vega. It should have wiped the floor with the 1080 Ti.

Look at what's happening with Intel's upcoming 8000 series CPUs now that Ryzen threatens them and it doesn't even beat Intel current gen in everything.


----------



## xenocide (Aug 28, 2017)

Vayra86 said:


> I'm sorry but the MSRP weirdness of Vega is on the exact same level as the FE weirdness, except with the FE everyone saw it coming and Nvidia spinned it well; while with Vega AMD is trying to hide the fact afterwards and lost the opportunity to spin it well. Kinda the story of NV and AMDs life really. They both do underhand moves, but Nvidia sells them and AMD doesn't manage to do that, or it backfires on them.
> 
> In the end it makes no difference, in both cases it was blatantly obvious, and in both cases its a form of price inflation.



That is just plain false.  Nvidia sells the FE of cards at an established MSRP, the cards are reviewed and recommended based on that performance level and MSRP.  The price doesn't just suddenly go up a week after the FE of cards launch, and you're literally comparing opposing examples.

Nvidia:  FE launches at an established premium, non-FE price is available from the start.  Early Adopters can pay the premium for FE or wait a few weeks for AIB solutions.

AMD:  Vega launches at the price point they claimed it would launch at.  The price then mysteriously goes up a week later and AMD obfuscates why.  Early Adopters end up paying a discount while everyone waits for more cards to become available.

Those are opposite situations.  FE isn't a bait and switch the way Vega was.  Nvidia said from weeks or even months before the 1xxx series launched that the FE would be at a premium, but further down the line alternatives would be available for cheaper--and they were.  Vega was literally a product that launched at a lower MSRP than it realistically would sell for, with no warning about that fact.  AMD is doing damage control for a reason after all.


----------



## Vya Domus (Aug 28, 2017)

xenocide said:


> That is just plain false.  Nvidia sells the FE of cards at an established MSRP, the cards are reviewed and recommended based on that performance level and MSRP.  The price doesn't just suddenly go up a week after the FE of cards launch, and you're literally comparing opposing examples.
> 
> Nvidia:  FE launches at an established premium, non-FE price is available from the start.  Early Adopters can pay the premium for FE or wait a few weeks for AIB solutions.
> 
> ...



It's not false at all.

They advertised their cards at 2 different price points , while the FE price tag was mostly met , the other MSRP figure was no where to be seen once AIB cards came into play.

 It was a form of false advertising , they said you'll be able to buy the card at both price points but that wasn't the case. Pretty much all cards were sold at the FE price and up , regardless of the SKU. It wasn't until a few months later when you could have found a couple of cards here and there at the non-FE price.


----------



## Vayra86 (Aug 28, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> It's not false at all.
> 
> They advertised their cards at 2 different price points , while the FE price tag was mostly met , the other MSRP figure was no where to be seen once AIB cards came into play.
> 
> It was a form of false advertising , they said you'll be able to buy the card at both price points but that wasn't the case. Pretty much all cards were sold at the FE price and up , regardless of the SKU. It wasn't until a few months later when you could have found a couple of cards here and there at the non-FE price.



Not only that but the markup that was put on the FE was never entirely undone by the non-FE budget AIB versions either, best case you'll find those at 30-40% higher than 'intended' by Nvidia. And that's being lucky, and carefully timing your purchase at moments of good availability, which was basically only during a few weeks shortly before and after the price drop + the 9/11GBps versions of the 1060 and 1080. Even completely disregarding the mining craze, the intended MSRP was never ever met by a single AIB version. Pascal has literally not landed on the intended MSRP ever, until the official price drop was announced.



xenocide said:


> That is just plain false.


Whatever gets said in a press release and what then happens on the marketplace are two different things. Everyone knew exactly what was going to happen and if you didn't, or if you deny this like you are, you're utterly blind.

Provide some examples to show us how false it was, I'd say. The only thing I can distill from your response thus far, is that Nvidia's spin on the FE has worked very well in your case, just like I was pointing out. The fact remains that the FE blower is the bottom of the stack, and putting a premium on the bottom means everything else gets priced higher, that's plain and simple economics.


----------



## Vya Domus (Aug 28, 2017)

Vayra86 said:


> Whatever gets said in a press release and what then happens on the marketplace are two different things. Everyone knew exactly what was going to happen and if you didn't, or if you deny this like you are, you're utterly blind.





Vayra86 said:


> The only thing I can distill from your response thus far, is that Nvidia's spin on the FE has worked very well in your case, just like I was pointing out.



Which goes to show that the average Joe has no idea whats going on most of the time and can be easily influenced.

People only care about these sort of things when they get picked up by the press and turned into hot controversial subjects. This is why I am so annoyed by this whole thing , maybe AMD did in fact had bad intentions with Vega pricing just like Nvidia but the fact that the press only picks on them infuriates me. Selectively calling out on anti consumers practices does more damage than any of these companies could have done by themselves. You are essentially giving someone a pass to rip you off.


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## Hood (Aug 28, 2017)

The Vya/Vayra tag team is in rare form today - you two should start your own blog - you could call it "AMD Apologist's Club", or maybe "How about some Whine with that Cheesy GPU".  I'm sure you'd be a big hit since their are thousands just like you, endlessly crying about how life isn't fair.  It's not, you're right about that at least.  Keep trying, though, maybe life will become fair if everyone bitches enough...and maybe AMD will finally make a competitive GPU, though it's long odds against either scenario.  Thanks for the entertainment, AMD, keep it coming.  And thank you, Vya/Vayra, you're always good for a laugh.  Leave Average Joe alone - he can't help it.  Maybe you're Average Joe, if you were, you wouldn't know it, since, as you said, "the average Joe has no idea whats going on most of the time".


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## Vya Domus (Aug 28, 2017)

I , too , have to thank you for proving to me once again that you are nothing more than a troll or a very poorly informed individual shrouded by fanboyism , all your comments are completely void of any sort of meaning.

But don't worry so much about me ,  my ignore list was always open for submissions from people like you.


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## TheinsanegamerN (Aug 28, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> Which goes to show that the average Joe has no idea whats going on most of the time and can be easily influenced.
> 
> People only care about these sort of things when they get picked up by the press and turned into hot controversial subjects. This is why I am so annoyed by this whole thing , maybe AMD did in fact had bad intentions with Vega pricing just like Nvidia but the fact that the press only picks on them infuriates me. Selectively calling out on anti consumers practices does more damage than any of these companies could have done by themselves. You are essentially giving someone a pass to rip you off.


Perhaps if AMD could deliver on the goods at the rate nvidia does, then nvidia would be called out more. 

AMD gets called out because of it's own incompetence on top of the issue. Nvidia jacked up prices to what the market would bear after their competitor basically stopped competing. AMD jacked up the prices MORE ($200 vs $100) and delivered a product that doesnt effectively compete with a 15 month old part from its competition, after multiple delays and a weaksauce "excuse" of "we wanted to have proper supply" which laster a whole 5 minutes.  

Guarantee that if vega 64 performed on the level of a 1080ti or titan vs a 1080, people woldnt make nearly as much fuss about it. But AMD consistently fails to deliver on products, and has been competitively down and out since 2014. 

The "press" didnt really harp on prices too much for nvidia because the MSRP for third parties was cheaper then the FE, and generally third party cards were 70-100 cheaper then FE cards, and availability was quite good after the prerequisite "not available" ness of the first three months, which happens to every piece of tech in existence.


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## Vya Domus (Aug 28, 2017)

TheinsanegamerN said:


> Guarantee that if vega 64 performed on the level of a 1080ti or titan vs a 1080, people woldnt make nearly as much fuss about it.



Which makes everyone complaining about this a hypocrite. Period.

Sorry to say it but it's the truth , you are either totally against these practices or you shut up.

And as I said a million times , you can simply go to your favorite retailer , look at prices and you buy what you want. No one is trying to scam you.


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## Vayra86 (Aug 28, 2017)

Hood said:


> The Vya/Vayra tag team is in rare form today - you two should start your own blog - you could call it "AMD Apologist's Club", or maybe "How about some Whine with that Cheesy GPU".  I'm sure you'd be a big hit since their are thousands just like you, endlessly crying about how life isn't fair.  It's not, you're right about that at least.  Keep trying, though, maybe life will become fair if everyone bitches enough...and maybe AMD will finally make a competitive GPU, though it's long odds against either scenario.  Thanks for the entertainment, AMD, keep it coming.  And thank you, Vya/Vayra, you're always good for a laugh.  Leave Average Joe alone - he can't help it.  Maybe you're Average Joe, if you were, you wouldn't know it, since, as you said, "the average Joe has no idea whats going on most of the time".



We're a team now? 

I think all I said was, they both employ underhand pricing schemes, and they really aren't hard to see. Nowhere did I 'apologize' for AMD, I just counter the argument that Nvidia is not doing the exact same.

About fairness in life, absolutely true, nothing's fair, its just a marketplace; did I ever say the opposite? Did Vya? I can't recall crying about it. Your reading comprehension seems off.


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## BiggieShady (Aug 29, 2017)

Vayra86 said:


> *Everyone's* reading comprehension seems off.


I'm sorry but you just didn't show enough hatred towards AMD for you not to be called an AMD apologist (my guess is not enough foam at the mouth) ... you might as well put on your 'I  radeon' t-shirt now  ... and I fixed your statement for you (don't mention it)

... and now without sarcasm: Vega pricing, supply, power usage and drivers all suck (no particular order).


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## xenocide (Aug 29, 2017)

Vayra86 said:


> Whatever gets said in a press release and what then happens on the marketplace are two different things. Everyone knew exactly what was going to happen and if you didn't, or if you deny this like you are, you're utterly blind.
> 
> Provide some examples to show us how false it was, I'd say. The only thing I can distill from your response thus far, is that Nvidia's spin on the FE has worked very well in your case, just like I was pointing out. The fact remains that the FE blower is the bottom of the stack, and putting a premium on the bottom means everything else gets priced higher, that's plain and simple economics.



Well for starters, here's the 1060 I ordered the first week of October this past year--2 months after AIB versions of the card started popping up in August.  It was the price the average entry level 1060 was going for for several weeks at that point--$259.99, so $10 over the MSRP, which you can attribute to paying a slight premium for a significantly better cooling solution.  Lets check out the Price History on the ASUS 1060 6GB Turbo--the closest solution to a reference design.  Well look at that, it's regularly within 5% of the MSRP until this spring when all GPU prices went bananas.  Here's the 1070 Turbo, a bit more variance but still within 5% of the MSRP.  I looked at several AIB solutions and the trend was basically launch well below the FE price point ($449), and after a month or so drop down to around their MSRP.  I don't know what happened at the end of May but GPU prices across the board skyrocketed--which is ironic because there are several that just before the jump were selling for insanely low prices, quite a few 1070's going for as little as $330.

This is still the opposite of AMD, who launched at their MSRP and raised the price once the initial batch was gone.  There's also the fact that the 1080 and 1070 launched against no real competition, so they offered substantially better Price/Performance even at elevated price points.  AMD doesn't have that same luxury.  The Vega 56 is only a good value at $399.  If it goes to $499 it's not worth it, and the Vega 64 is decent at the $499 price point, but once it passes the 1080 in cost it is absolutely not worth it.  How a product launching at a premium--because it's very new and offers great value and performance--and subsequently dropping lower towards the MSRP, is the same at launching at the MSRP and the price going up afterwards and a "new" MSRP being revealed is exactly the same is beyond me.


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## Hood (Aug 29, 2017)

xenocide said:


> Well for starters, here's the 1060 I ordered the first week of October this past year--2 months after AIB versions of the card started popping up in August.  It was the price the average entry level 1060 was going for for several weeks at that point--$259.99, so $10 over the MSRP, which you can attribute to paying a slight premium for a significantly better cooling solution.  Lets check out the Price History on the ASUS 1060 6GB Turbo--the closest solution to a reference design.  Well look at that, it's regularly within 5% of the MSRP until this spring when all GPU prices went bananas.  Here's the 1070 Turbo, a bit more variance but still within 5% of the MSRP.  I looked at several AIB solutions and the trend was basically launch well below the FE price point ($449), and after a month or so drop down to around their MSRP.  I don't know what happened at the end of May but GPU prices across the board skyrocketed--which is ironic because there are several that just before the jump were selling for insanely low prices, quite a few 1070's going for as little as $330.
> 
> This is still the opposite of AMD, who launched at their MSRP and raised the price once the initial batch was gone.  There's also the fact that the 1080 and 1070 launched against no real competition, so they offered substantially better Price/Performance even at elevated price points.  AMD doesn't have that same luxury.  The Vega 56 is only a good value at $399.  If it goes to $499 it's not worth it, and the Vega 64 is decent at the $499 price point, but once it passes the 1080 in cost it is absolutely not worth it.  How a product launching at a premium--because it's very new and offers great value and performance--and subsequently dropping lower towards the MSRP, is the same at launching at the MSRP and the price going up afterwards and a "new" MSRP being revealed is exactly the same is beyond me.


Your argument is valid, and your facts coincide with my memory of the 10 series launch.  I have also tried facts, logic, citing articles, etc.  It doesn't do any good, the current AMD mania goes beyond common sense.  Apparently it's this recent generation's way of rebelling against their parents or "the man", since most of them never move out or even get a driver's license.  So the geekier ones have started bombarding all PC hardware review sites with their misguided posts about how AMD can do no wrong, and Nvidia is the spawn of Satan, like the Evil Empire of Intel.  It's ironic that most of them have Intel/Nvidia gaming PCs, possibly handed down from their parents, who had a lot more sense.


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## Vayra86 (Aug 29, 2017)

xenocide said:


> Well look at that, it's regularly within 5% of the MSRP until this spring when all GPU prices went bananas. Here's the 1070 Turbo, a bit more variance but still within 5% of the MSRP. I looked at several AIB solutions and the trend was basically launch well below the FE price point ($449), and after a month or so drop down to around their MSRP



That does look a whole lot different from what happened over here in the Netherlands. Thanks for the insight, because this is definitely not the same, I'll happily agree to that! 

There still is a slight markup on the MSRPs though right from the start, let's not forget that either. The x60 for example used to be a 200-210 EUR price point card but now that only gets you the 3GB (if lucky), that bottom end has gone up by a good margin of 20-30% in most cases. Similar for the x70 and x80. And it's also still rare for cards to really hit the set MSRPs; the Asus TURBO being a good example, it sporadically dropped to the intended 379 dollar price point, but averages out at 390 or so, even though this is also a bottom-end blower type like the FE - there is still some price inflation going on here. And since the price cut to 349 (which was the regular MSRP for x70), that MSRP is reflected nowhere since March even though it had other reasons. What makes the slight increase bearable though is that Pascal also presented a greater than 30% performance jump for most cards.

@Hood is this really necessary, every time? Grow the F up man

Meanwhile in the Netherlands... so you can see where I'm coming from...




 

Cheapest 1070...



 

Cheapest 1080


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## xenocide (Aug 29, 2017)

Vayra86 said:


> That does look a whole lot different from what happened over here in the Netherlands. Thanks for the insight, because this is definitely not the same, I'll happily agree to that!



It's hard to compare prices across markets due to things like VAT and Trade Agreements.  I know a lot of EU countries kind of get boned on the cost of electronics--especially AMD cards for some reason.  I am basing everything off the US prices because we are kind of the largest consumer market, and a majority of these products are launched in the US asap.  The one point I will concede after looking up the price histories and TPU reviews, is that a lot of the AIB solutions launched closer to the FE prices than the MSRP.  There were 1080's launching at $720 which was silly, but at the time it was undoubtedly the most desired card on the market, so the market kind of drove that way more than Nvidia had any ability to control.  I think the FE is a poor investment, but Nvidia launches them a month earlier than the AIB cards come out, and gets to recoup some R&D costs by charging early adopters who want to be on the bleeding edge.  Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.



Vayra86 said:


> There still is a slight markup on the MSRPs though right from the start, let's not forget that either. The x60 for example used to be a 200-210 EUR price point card but now that only gets you the 3GB (if lucky), that bottom end has gone up by a good margin of 20-30% in most cases. Similar for the x70 and x80. And it's also still rare for cards to really hit the set MSRPs; the Asus TURBO being a good example, it sporadically dropped to the intended 379 dollar price point, but averages out at 390 or so, even though this is also a bottom-end blower type like the FE - there is still some price inflation going on here. And since the price cut to 349 (which was the regular MSRP for x70), that MSRP is reflected nowhere since March even though it had other reasons. What makes the slight increase bearable though is that Pascal also presented a greater than 30% performance jump for most cards.



There will almost always be a premium on AIB cards over the MSRP, due to the increased cost of advanced cooling solutions and the perceived value of factory OCs.  Over time the prices have shifted due to things like AMD's Vega delays and now their inability to meet demand, as well as things like the resurgence of cryptocurrency mining.  This generation as a whole has been a bit of a crap shoot, but Pascal didn't launch nearly as sloppy as Vega has.  There were definite shortages, but according to Nvidia's shareholder meetings it was mostly due to absolutely insane demand--they didn't have the supplier issues that AMD is experiencing.  I know a lot of people--including myself--upgraded from 6xx/7xx gen cards to the 1xxx series back when prices dropped last year because at the time it was a pretty ridiculous value.


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## InVasMani (Aug 29, 2017)

VEGA 56 is good value for both gaming or 3D modeling/CGI for it's suggested retail price while VEGA 64 is good at the latter, but not so valuable in relation to price at the former.


Hood said:


> Your argument is valid, and your facts coincide with my memory of the 10 series launch.  I have also tried facts, logic, citing articles, etc.  It doesn't do any good, the current AMD mania goes beyond common sense.  Apparently it's this recent generation's way of rebelling against their parents or "the man", since most of them never move out or even get a driver's license.  So the geekier ones have started bombarding all PC hardware review sites with their misguided posts about how AMD can do no wrong, and Nvidia is the spawn of Satan, like the Evil Empire of Intel.  It's ironic that most of them have Intel/Nvidia gaming PCs, possibly handed down from their parents, who had a lot more sense.


 Not really the logic that VEGA in either case though more so with VEGA 56 is somehow bad or lesser value is invalid they are great DX12 cards which is the both the present and future of game development no it doesn't replace DX11 entirely, but it will become more standard and be utilized in better ways as time passes DX10 and DX9 held their own for a long while as well though no one judged current cards based around those outdated API's. More importantly outside of gaming these cards soundly hold their own in terms of value in a major way providing a huge bang for buck for Blender artists and money talks especially when they can be put to good use to make money that's reality and nothing speaks louder for value than something that can make you return on investment that's w/o getting into any of the mining drama mind you. It's not all about gaming these cards have a lot of value even outside of game performance and that's a big part of why they will be in short supply for awhile. I'm not sure why people are so damn upset about it for gaming where they perceive them as inferior anyways in large part like get over it and go buy that other product you deem superior anyway though the Vega 56 at it's suggested retail price is far better value than what Nvidia is offering even for gaming especially factoring in DX12 and how as things move forward that holds more and more weight in terms of value for money. If people don't think AMD is trying to deal with these VEGA supply issues they are very naive of course they want to sell as many as possible the fact is they can't keep up with the demand right now. Funny I didn't see people react nearly as over the top and harshly towards Nintendo with the Wii s shortages for example or the NES/SNES classic ones I mean sure people bickered, but they weren't having the same degree of completely irrational temper tantrums over it nearly as badly as people JayzTwoCents for example not put him exclusively on blast or anything.


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## Hood (Aug 29, 2017)

InVasMani said:


> VEGA 56 is good value for both gaming or 3D modeling/CGI for it's suggested retail price while VEGA 64 is good at the latter, but not so valuable in relation to price at the former.
> Not really the logic that VEGA in either case though more so with VEGA 56 is somehow bad or lesser value is invalid they are great DX12 cards which is the both the present and future of game development no it doesn't replace DX11 entirely, but it will become more standard and be utilized in better ways as time passes DX10 and DX9 held their own for a long while as well though no one judged current cards based around those outdated API's. More importantly outside of gaming these cards soundly hold their own in terms of value in a major way providing a huge bang for buck for Blender artists and money talks especially when they can be put to good use to make money that's reality and nothing speaks louder for value than something that can make you return on investment that's w/o getting into any of the mining drama mind you. It's not all about gaming these cards have a lot of value even outside of game performance and that's a big part of why they will be in short supply for awhile. I'm not sure why people are so damn upset about it for gaming where they perceive them as inferior anyways in large part like get over it and go buy that other product you deem superior anyway though the Vega 56 at it's suggested retail price is far better value than what Nvidia is offering even for gaming especially factoring in DX12 and how as things move forward that holds more and more weight in terms of value for money. If people don't think AMD is trying to deal with these VEGA supply issues they are very naive of course they want to sell as many as possible the fact is they can't keep up with the demand right now. Funny I didn't see people react nearly as over the top and harshly towards Nintendo with the Wii s shortages for example or the NES/SNES classic ones I mean sure people bickered, but they weren't having the same degree of completely irrational temper tantrums over it nearly as badly as people JayzTwoCents for example not put him exclusively on blast or anything.


This discussion was not about the card's performance or value, but about the way AMD treated their loyal customers when they lied about the real MSRP, which I thought was shitty of them.  Then the AMD-can-do-no-wrong crowd chimed in.  I don't care either way, I don't want a new card right now, and certainly wouldn't buy a Vega card, even at the fake launch MSRP - too hot and noisy.  I just get tired of hearing it, especially after AMD just bent them over again.


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## Hood (Aug 29, 2017)

Norton said:


> The shortage may have something to do with *Project 47* also. Wasn't that set up to use 80 Vega cards per unit?


Or maybe because of this recent news - https://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/expensive-failure-launch-Llanos-fine - about a class action suit won by AMD shareholders - AMD has no money, certainly not enough to do a proper video card launch.


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## Xzibit (Aug 29, 2017)

Hood said:


> Or maybe because of this recent news - https://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/expensive-failure-launch-Llanos-fine - about a class action suit won by AMD shareholders - AMD has no money, certainly not enough to do a proper video card launch.



Amazing what you find when you actually read.



			
				The Register said:
			
		

> Now AMD is pitching a settlement to end the case before it gets to trial. Under the proposed deal, *AMD's insurers will fund the $29.5m payment* and the chipmaker will be able to continue to deny it did anything wrong.



Just higher premium on insurance if the deal is accepted.


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## InVasMani (Aug 30, 2017)

AMD should have just waited another month before launching and let people cry about it not being out yet rather than allowing some people to get one now if they are fortunate enough...because if cake is available we all want it now god forbid someone doesn't get a slice and has to wait til later to enjoy cake. This VEGA situation isn't that bad Nvidia still has supply issues with Pascal relative to it's suggested retail pricing and AMD does as well with it's older generation cards the RX580 are also in short supply due to demand. Now on top of that look at the DRAM and SSD industry they are both in arguably worse situations price gouging want a example I bought 2 kits of 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200 for $150's in February of 2016 and those same kits now cost $255's they only increase $100's per kit no big deal right?????? SSD's prices have climbed as well...oh and motherboard and CPU prices have steadily been increasing over the last 5-10 years for anything that's a "practical" relative upgrade...it's called inflation supply and demand. AMD hasn't even had time to sort out it's VEGA supply issues at this point it hasn't even been 2 months yet since VEGA64/56 launched hell the latter launched yesterday I mean honestly...QQ


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## ppn (Sep 10, 2017)

There were some reports about TSMC adopting a single process for all things 10 and now skip 10nm directly to 7 nm, as opposed to having low power for arm and different for gpus. Could it be that next year amd is bringing this to the market. Well in that case can't justify buying anything now since 1080ti will be shrinked the size and power of 1060 or worse nvidia chooses 12  nm. I should have bought 1070 months ago. This is just too much.


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