Thursday, January 10th 2019

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang on Radeon VII: "Underwhelming (...) the Performance is Lousy"; "Freesync Doesn't Work"

PC World managed to get a hold of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, picking his thoughts on AMD's recently announced Radeon VII. Skirting through the usual amicable, politically correct answers, Jensen made his thoughts clear on what the competition is offering to compete with NVIDIA's RTX 2000 series. The answer? Vega VII is an "underwhelming product", because "The performance is lousy and there's nothing new. [There's] no ray tracing, no AI. It's 7nm with HBM memory that barely keeps up with a 2080. And if we turn on DLSS we'll crush it. And if we turn on ray tracing we'll crush it." Not content on dissing the competition's product, Jensen Huang also quipped regarding AMD's presentation and product strategy, saying that "It's a weird launch, maybe they thought of it this morning."
Of course, the real market penetration of the technologies Jensen Huang mentions is currently extremely low - only a handful of games support NVIDIA's forward-looking ray tracing technologies. That AMD chose to not significantly invest resources and die-space for what is essentially a stop-gap high-performance card to go against NVIDIA's RTX 2080 means its 7 nm 331 mm² GPU will compete against NVIDIA's 12 nm, 545 mm² die - if performance estimates are correct, of course.
The next remarks came regarding AMD's FreeSync (essentially a name for VESA's Adaptive Sync), which NVIDIA finally decided to support on its GeForce graphics cards - something the company could have done outright, instead of deciding to go the proprietary, module-added, cost-increased route of G-Sync. While most see this as a sign that NVIDIA has seen a market slowdown for its G-Sync, added price-premium monitors and that they're just ceding to market demands, Huang sees it another way, saying that "We never competed. [FreeSync] was never proven to work. As you know, we invented the area of adaptive sync. The truth is most of the FreeSync monitors do not work. They do not even work with AMD's graphics cards." In the wake of these word from Jensen, it's hard to understand the overall silence from users that might have their FreeSync monitors not working.

Reportedly, NVIDIA only found 12 out of 400 FreeSync-supporting monitors to support their G-Sync technology automatically in the initial battery of tests, with most panels requiring a manual override to enable the technology. Huang promised that "We will test every single card against every single monitor against every single game and if it doesn't work, we will say it doesn't work. And if it does, we will let it work," adding a snarky punchline to this matter with an "We believe that you have to test it to promise that it works, and unsurprisingly most of them don't work." Fun times.
Source: PC World
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270 Comments on NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang on Radeon VII: "Underwhelming (...) the Performance is Lousy"; "Freesync Doesn't Work"

#51
champsilva
ShurikNYou'd be too if you lost this much of your market value in 3 months.

This is mining reason, same happened to amd.

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#52
ShurikN
champsilvaThis is mining reason, same happened to amd.
So? Money lost is money lost, no matter the reason.

Also AMD has much less value, therefore they lost less in pure numbers, not percentages.
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#53
Sandbo
The poll is one of the best follow-up I have seen.
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#54
megamanxtreme
I'll switch Ray Tracing on when a GTX X50 or RX X60 can play at 60fps and at least 1080p with it on.
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#55
Anymal
Its new and inovative tech, you can turn it off if you want, and play on 2080 as on new, the best amd has to offer, the radeon VII. Jensen made his decision after seeing a brand new 7nm gpu with no new features and performance similar to 2080/1080ti which was avaliable almost 2 years ago, gp102 as Titan Xp even more, 2.5 years.
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#56
TheDeeGee
Good to see competition, isn't it? :D
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#57
INSTG8R
Vanguard Beta Tester
ShurikNWhat do you mean "do not understand". Did you see DLSS in FF15, it's a mess. What's there to not understand. The evidence is obvious. Not to mention the horrible shimmering.
Yeah it looks like AMDs MLAA which also just made everything blurry but hey it doesn’t need a $1200 card to do it either...
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#58
ShurikN
AnymalIts new and inovative tech, you can turn it off if you want
And now you're stuck with a feature you will not use and one you paid extra for.
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#59
Smartcom5
Kohl BaasIt Just Works
Yup, like RTX and DLSS …



Smartcom
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#60
Anymal
ShurikNAnd now you're stuck with a feature you will not use and one you paid extra for.
You can buy VII and you are safe than. Probably for the same money.
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#61
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
Im tired of NVs crap anyway.
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#62
Anymal
eidairaman1Im tired of NVs crap anyway.
Someone please explain how Vega and VII is not a crap.
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#63
Argyr
AMD fanbois will be so angry when in a couple of years RTX becomes standard, and AMD will be forced to adopt it effectively increasing the prices of their hot plastic cards even more.
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#64
Casecutter
"It's a weird launch, maybe they thought of it this morning", he's pissed no one in his company saw this coming and he found out when it was announced? Funny if he took CEO Lisa Su at her word "saying no consumer 7nm in 2019"... who lies to family! It was served cold and hard and he's under HUGE pressure already!

While, Wow just wow no one stop this guy? He thought his stock has been tanking this kind of tantrum from a CEO just drove it off the cliff!

Calling the Vega 7 "underwhelming" it matches the 2080 at the same price, his understanding of the word escape's him. Now while I wait to see reviews, I might say his company delivered "underwhelming"... at such price first. There's never truly bad cards just bad price points.

As to FreeSyn when your company just came out saying they are going to now support the VERSA adaptive Sync it, but says "does not work" I'm not interested in consider using your hardware, i'll go with a proven and working solution. Ah, so get your crack driver team to make it work on your cards, don't blame the an open source VERSA specification you never want to support or give input to, and now that your behind the 8-Ball can't seem to get it to work with your hardware. The chicken came to roost...

It seems like he's seeing AMD doing a "Ryzen" and instead of keeping a "stiff upper lip" like Intel did he freaked out, and this is not near as bad as Intel had it. Navi will be coming soon and I'd want to believe AMD will have more mainstream pricing for parts that does strong 1440p. Then he's realizes he's up against a Navi/HBM2 on 7mm part, and has no idea how that might turn out but is said to be more gaming than a Vega compute architecture. AMD is already proven they can 7mn, so it to be Navi gains on a big chip that's on 7nm, who knows. At this point the next thing might be he found out AMD has product lining up from the "Instinct geldings" and strong HBM2 supplies, and can fill the channel way better the first Vega. Jensen Huang knows AMD is in a better place to work down price if they can maintain strong product levels, while his investors would freak on him.

Find me Popcorn...
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#65
Valantar
DimiWell it is pretty lousy if you see the dozen different freesync ranges on all these monitors. Most of em only have a freesync range between 48hz-75hz. What is the point of that? There is no standard like gsync has. With gsync, the adaptive sync starts from 30hz up to its maximum refresh rate, almost every gsync monitor has a adaptive sync range of 30hz-144hz.

Mind you, my 1440p 165hz gsync monitor only cost me $350. Granted its a TN panel but i use a ColorMunki display calibrator for color accuracy.
Calibration can't make up for a low-gamut panel, but of course there are decent gamut TN panels out there. Just don't look at it from any kind of angle.

As for 48-75Hz, it sure beats locked 60Hz, which is what you'd otherwise get for that price. Added flexibility and higher refresh rates at the same price is a win for me. Would you rather have locked 60p? You're right that the lower bound requirement is an advantage for GSync, but other than that, it's a question of the panel quality. Also, what do you think of all the 60Hz 4k GSync panels? Are they equally useless?
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#66
Athlonite
Jensen to all nVidiots everywhere buy our new shit because it's new shit and it's not AMD
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#67
xkm1948
FuryX plus samsung 32” 1440p Freesync got the occasional pulsing problem. Can’t seem to fix it no matter what i do
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#68
Unregistered
Anybody, but especially a veteran CEO speaking and acting this speaks volumes.

Wow...
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#69
Anymal
Casecutter, VII is as fast as 2080 but on 7nm, 300w tdp. No worries then.
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#70
Argyr
yakkAnybody, but especially a veteran CEO speaking and acting this speaks volumes.

Wow...
He knows Nvidia is superior, if AMD would finally become proper competition maybe he would take back a notch.

Besides, who cares about CEO's nowadays? they are replacable like batteries. He's just a 3D printed bureoucrat
Posted on Reply
#71
Sasqui
NxodusAMD fanbois will be so angry when in a couple of years RTX becomes standard
You know, that is a good point, they invested in RTX and maybe or maybe not it'll play out well for them. "Standard" is also a good question, since DX12 introduced the RTX API in Win 10, it's still very young. It's all about the ecosystem, meaning how many developers are going to invest time into implementing it when there's only a handful (or maybe one right now... 2080 ti) that can really handle it.

It's not a very compelling story at the moment.
Posted on Reply
#72
Anymal
You have missed performance bump, 60fps even on 2060 1080p rtx on.
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#73
Vayra86
AnymalIts new and inovative tech, you can turn it off if you want, and play on 2080 as on new, the best amd has to offer, the radeon VII. Jensen made his decision after seeing a brand new 7nm gpu with no new features and performance similar to 2080/1080ti which was avaliable almost 2 years ago, gp102 as Titan Xp even more, 2.5 years.
In the end, 99.99% of all games ever made and to be made does not support this new innovative tech and your performance plummets when you dó use it, or you get a hideous looking AA mode in return for some 'free' performance. So what, realistically, is the added value here in RTX? The promise of something that might someday be nice (wasn't that an AMD punchline since forever)? You're still getting handicapped performance if you do use it - keep that in mind. How many BFV players have RTX ON, I'm very curious. Especially in the MP that the game focuses on.

So the bottom line is that AMD has a competitive product if they can price just under a 2080 which they probably will, in due time at the very least. That means the days of 2080 are numbered, because it is a very large die with some R&D budget behind it, while AMD is surfing the Vega wave they already paid for - dearly I'd say - and they have a smaller die with much better yields per wafer. That alone can offset their HBM2 expenses and create a margin that enables them to move along with any Nvidia price cuts. The only caveat is power consumption, but I'm getting the impression more and more people are willing to overlook that just for giving Nvidia a kick in the arrogant nuts. I would - if I was in the market for such a card.

In the end, Radeon 7 is essentially the long awaited 1080ti performance everyone wanted since the card launched. The 1080ti did that within a 255W power budget (more if you OC)... so how bad is it, really. 7nm is just enough to keep AMD in the game, in quite a convincing way. Its not ideal, but its a counterweight for certain.
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#74
Casecutter
AnymalNo worries then
I don't say it is a great part or the TDP, but dropping a part that's a cut-down version of Instinct production, is what they have... And I say we wait to see reviews that February 7th is coming up fast.

You got Lemons, a little work and you make good money selling Lemonade. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
Posted on Reply
#75
Argyr
SasquiYou know, that is a good point, they invested in RTX and maybe or maybe not it'll play out well for them. "Standard" is also a good question, since DX12 introduced the RTX API in Win 10, it's still very young. It's all about the ecosystem, meaning how many developers are going to invest time into implementing it when there's only a handful (or maybe one right now... 2080 ti) that can really handle it.

It's not a very compelling story at the moment.
You gotta start somewhere, right? That's principle of innovation. Innovation is the heart of PC nerding, isn't it? It's been so stale in the last decade that my heart starts racing even upon seeing the slightest innovation nowadays. Adaptive Sync, SSD's and RGB, that's about all the innovation we saw in the last decade.

Nvidia had a fantastic idea with RTX: it not only looks better, but it effectively helps developers finish games faster. It's sensational. I wish them all the best of luck with that.

While AMD, with its unlimited army of trolls does nothing, no innovation, and I'd be the first to shake AMD's hands if they finally did something to advance the industry. I want more games, I want hardware that helps devs finish games faster, I want to see some innovation finally
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