Radeon RX Vega Needs a "Damn Lot of Power:" AIB Partner Rep

[btarunr]

AMD is dragging its feet with the launch of its next performance/enthusiast segment graphics card based on the cutting-edge "Vega 10" silicon, the Radeon RX Vega. The last we heard, the company is announcing the product late-July/early-August, along the sidelines of SIGGRAPH 2017. The company already put out specifications of the first consumer product based on this silicon, the Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition; and according to listings by online retailers, its power figures aren't looking good. The air-cooled version has its TDP rated at 300W, and the faster liquid-cooled variant 375W. This is way above the 275W TDP of the TITAN Xp, NVIDIA's fastest client-segment graphics card.

An MSI company representative posting on Dutch tech-forums confirmed our worst fears, that the RX Vega will have a very high power draw. "Specs van Vega RX gezien. Tering wat power heeft die nodig. Wij zijn er aan bezig, dat is een start dus launch komt dichterbij," said the representative who goes by "The Source" on Dutch tech forums Tweakers.net. As a gentleman scholar in Google Translate, and citing VideoCardz which cited a native Dutch speaker; the MSI rep's statement translates as "I've seen the specs of Vega RX. It needs a damn lot of power. We're working on it, which is a start so launch is coming closer."



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[etayorius]

Poor AMD...

 

[Gasaraki]

Back to 1000W power supplies I guess...

 

[OneMoar]

well no shit because AMD can't come up with a decent architecture

they just throw gcn cores at the problem and fill in the blanks using buzzwords

 

[Exceededgoku]

Think my 2400W PSU can handle that so all good

 

[JATownes]

I find it interesting that this quote is included, but not the follow up exchange:

Someone replied with "This is not a good omen" to which the TheSource followed up with "Depends what kind of performance you sure get back

"

I am not having much faith in Vega right now, just because of the delays...but I guess we'll all just have to wait and see.

 

[damric]

Reminds me of Fermi launch.

 

[MnkyBrs]

So, both aircooled boards have a 25W difference? I don't see the big deal.

 

[Cybrnook2002]

So, both aircooled boards have a 25W difference? I don't see the big deal.

Just click bait to stir stuff up.....

 

[xkm1948]

Looks like it is gonna be Fiji core on steroids, I am talking power consumption of course.

 

[zo0lykas]

gaming card not will be more than 350W, max, and who use gaming gpu always on max?

on max we can use only for some test.. so calm down boys

 

[HD64G]

If on par with 1080Ti, not any enthusiast will consider 50W more are a problem for having a top tier GPU me thinks. It's performance and price are the only factors to become success or failure.

 

[looncraz]

Looks like it is gonna be Fiji core on steroids, I am talking power consumption of course.

It's 60%+ faster with largely the same specifications.

I also don't believe the TDP figures are actual TDP, but the cooling specification AMD has demanded for the GPU.

They did the exact same thing with Ryzen - their 65W CPUs use 95W TDP coolers and their 95W CPUs call for 125W or better coolers.

... In other words, the air cooler is spec'd to 300W and the AIO is spec'd for 375W.

The GPU might only pull 275W.

 

[Aenra]

"Our worst fears"..?

Speak for yourself, if that's the only drawback, i'll be happy personally, thank you very much

p.s. Always happy to know that in accordance with our times, i have people think for me before me, lol

 

[Steevo]

Meh. I could care less about TDP as long as it isn't the performance limiting factor.

 

[xkm1948]

I hope W1zzard has some VEGA FE coming in for review already.

 

[erocker]

Only really care about performance. 100 exta watts is no issue for me and hey! Maybe it'll keep the miners away and people can actually buy them.

 

[BadIronTree]

I used my 4970X2 to heat my room in the Winter ... 140w Idle lol

My 7970 only at 15w idle :/

 

[xkm1948]

Just finished reading on TPU Facebook page. I find it quite fun to match up TPU forum users to Facebook actual human. I think I linked up to 6 now. lol

 

[Fluffmeister]

Reminds me of Fermi launch.

Presumably they won't make a video mocking their own power consumption though

That Gold version with the horrendous markup and 375W TDP did ring alarm bells, but hey lets see how it performs, if it flies along then some people will lap em up regardless.

 

[madness777]

Guys, that means companies will be making over engineered PCBs again! Not to mention the cooling. If AMD will provide the chip for them of course. I really hope they do cuz I'm really missing the times when MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte went over the top with their insane PCBs.

 

[dj-electric]

14 months late. That's not ok in my books

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Over a year late, and the cracks are starting to show. Price will be the biggest determining factor, and given AMD is using HBM2, they wont have much wiggle room.

I hope AMD pulls off vega, but I think the surprise performance gain of ryzen has led people to think vega is going to be a magical piece of silicon. RTG was dragging their feet for quite a bit, and they didnt have a Jim Keller for GPUs. I expect 1080 performance unless AMD pulled a rabbit from their hat.

If on par with 1080Ti, not any enthusiast will consider 50W more are a problem for having a top tier GPU me thinks. It's performance and price are the only factors to become success or failure.

Considering the performance of the 480 per core at 1338MHz (the clock rate of the fastest 480), assuming VEGA is a 4096 core part( which is the most likely scenario) AMD would need a heck of an IPC jump to hit 1080ti levels of performance.

 

[acperience7]

I'd love lower power draw, but as long as the performance is there and the price is reasonable I'll bite. Still over a month away from seeing the gaming cards though....

 

[efikkan]

The air-cooled version has its TDP rated at 300W, and the faster liquid-cooled variant 375W. This is way above the 275W TDP of the TITAN Xp, NVIDIA's fastest client-segment graphics card.

Titan Xp is rated at 250W, not 275W.

For comparison, Quadro GP100 is rated at 235W.