Wednesday, July 19th 2017
AMD's RX Vega Low Key Budapest Event: Vega Pitted Against GTX 1080
On the first stop in AMD's two-continent spanning RX Vega tour (which really only counts with three locations), the company pitted their upcoming RX Vega graphics card (we expect this to be their flagship offering) against NVIDIA's GTX 1080 graphics card. The event itself was pretty subdued, and there was not much to see when it comes to the RX Vega graphics card - literally. Both it and the GTX 1080 were enclosed inside PC towers, with the event-goers not being allowed to even catch a glimpse of the piece of AMD hardware that has most approximated a unicorn in recent times.
The Vega-powered system also made use of a Ryzen 7 processor, and the cards were running Battlefield 1 (or Sniper Elite 4; there's lots of discussion going on about that, but the first image below does show a first-person view) with non-descript monitors, one supporting FreeSync, the other G-Sync. The monitor's models were covered by cloth so that users weren't able to tell which system was running which graphics card, though due to ASUS' partnership in the event, both were (probably) of ASUS make. The resolution used was 3440 x 1440, which should mean over 60 FPS on the GTX 1080 on Ultra. It has been reported by users that attended the event that one of the systems lagged slightly in one portion of the demo, though we can't confirm which one (and I'd say that was AMD's intention.)
All in all, I have to say, this tour doesn't inspire me confidence. This isn't the kind of "in your face" comparison we're used to seeing from companies who know they have a winning product; should the comparison be largely in favor of AMD, I posit the company would be taking every advantage of that by showcasing their performance leadership. There did seem to be an inordinate amount of smoke and mirrors here, though, with AMD going out of its way to prevent attendees from being able to discern between their and their competitors' offering.
AMD reportedly told attendees that the AMD and NVIDIA systems had a $300 difference in AMD's favor. All other hardware being equal, and accounting for AMD's stance that a FreeSync monitor tends to cost around $200 less than a comparable NVIDIA G-Sync enabled one, that leaves around $100 savings solely towards the RX Vega part of the equation. This means the RX Vega could sell around the $459-$500 bracket, if current pricing of the GTX 1080 is what AMD considered.
Sources:
Reddit User @ Szunyogg, RX Vega Budapest Google Photos, WCCFTech
The Vega-powered system also made use of a Ryzen 7 processor, and the cards were running Battlefield 1 (or Sniper Elite 4; there's lots of discussion going on about that, but the first image below does show a first-person view) with non-descript monitors, one supporting FreeSync, the other G-Sync. The monitor's models were covered by cloth so that users weren't able to tell which system was running which graphics card, though due to ASUS' partnership in the event, both were (probably) of ASUS make. The resolution used was 3440 x 1440, which should mean over 60 FPS on the GTX 1080 on Ultra. It has been reported by users that attended the event that one of the systems lagged slightly in one portion of the demo, though we can't confirm which one (and I'd say that was AMD's intention.)
175 Comments on AMD's RX Vega Low Key Budapest Event: Vega Pitted Against GTX 1080
Look forward to the reviews, when are they due?
Nobody is saying its garbage, its going to have to compete on price again since performance right now has it on par with a 1080 and power to performamce is abhorrent.
I was about to buy a freeesync ultrawide (CF791) and hoping to put a Vega GPU. Between the flickering issues that have surfaced with freesync and this... It just makes me want to stay with nvidia and their damn expensive ecosystem, just to play it safe.
www.guru3d.com/news-story/ati-ad-that-mocks-nvidia-fermi-spotted-on-youtube.html
Its incredible and worth every penny. Coming from an IPS panel, i can't even tell this is a TN panel.
But sure, if you wanna be an ips elitist, you pay the price plus all the other major issues it brings with it. No thanks.
Tom's Hardware:PC Monitors:Neither seem to be thinking they were looking at an IPS and I couldn't find other reviews yet.
Between the high price of HBM2 (actually high price of ram memory in general) and high power consumption, I don't see how AMD will make a decent profit from Vega if it won't be at least as fast as a 1080ti.
Also, not all IPS panels suffer badly from the glow, but some have a weird coating that makes it worse.
Edit: Waaait, nevermind.