AMD "Vega" Outsells "Previous Generation" by Over 10 Times

[medi01]

AMD CEO: "Thank you Cryptocoins, you saved our hide!"

Both Vega56 and Vega64 are good (56 is great) at MSRP and below.

Why would I want to do that? I mean the sheer number of Polaris (and Vega) equipped laptops would be enough to prove me wrong. Right?

Wrong.

 

[Captain_Tom]

But I thought Vega was a complete failure? /s

Yeah Vega competes with Volta in compute with HALF the die size, and its mobile/APU chips are more efficient than Pascal. Vega is a fantastic architecture.

Mining really boomed for them.

At the same time if Fiji had 8GB of VRAM they will also make great mining cards.

I am hoping David Wang can finally get something amazing done to pull the plug on GCN.

You are incorrect. Fiji is fantastic at mining, and in fact it is better than Polaris depending on what you are mining.

Furthermore it's not "just mining" that is helping Vega's sales. Rendering farms and scientific research firms are buying them up in droves, and it is incredibly efficient in laptops.

 

[Basard]

Jack of most trades, master of few.....

 

[Captain_Tom]

Jack of most trades, master of few.....

I would like to play devils advocate here: What is Volta or Maxwell a "master of"?

-Maxwell can do gaming best (As long as the game doesn't use all of Vega's features)
-Volta does AI best

That's it lol. So if Vega is a master of "few", it's better than any other architecture as far as I can tell. All of the others pretty much only do one thing well.

 

[Vayra86]

I would like to play devils advocate here: What is Volta or Maxwell a "master of"?

-Maxwell can do gaming best (As long as the game doesn't use all of Vega's features)
-Volta does AI best

That's it lol. So if Vega is a master of "few", it's better than any other architecture as far as I can tell. All of the others pretty much only do one thing well.

Not sure what you're smoking, but...

- Versatility. The performance is quite a bit higher in each respective segment (AI/machine learning/gaming/prof. apps) In fact a Pascal Geforce card already gets similar or better perf in most of the workloads its NOT optimized for versus a Vega alternative. When we get into the Quadro world... its not even a competition
- Perf/watt. The higher performance level is attained within a much tighter TDP budget.
- A much wider boost range. This is why Nvidia cards get put into laptops a lot more. Its 2018 and AMD still has a completely silly GPU boost that is more than a generation behind reality. Vega is the perfect example of it; it boosts itself out of the comfortable temp range and underclocking/volting gets better results. But even then, the boost range remains limited and its one of the reasons the perf/watt stays behind. Its also the reason you don't see Polaris in throttling laptops - performance would nosedive.

Vega only competes in one area and that is price. Price does not make it (GCN) a good architecture. Nor does it finally make AMD turn a good profit on their GPU division - something that has never happened... ever.

You also seem to forget that all of these Nvidia 'architectures' are not some unicorns that all live in separate worlds, they're all branches of the same underlying tech/arch. Nvidia diversifies without losing the edge in any segment, with new systems or tweaks. Tensor cores, NVlink, perhaps a small subsystem for RTX when it gets there... Not with entire new 'architectures'. So yes, the jack of all trades master of none does apply to GCN and does not apply to whichever Nvidia 'arch' you pick. I mean its not even a discussion or a contest anymore. Its a different way of building GPUs and its evident which of the two is more effective.

 

[Basard]

I would like to play devils advocate here: What is Volta or Maxwell a "master of"?

-Maxwell can do gaming best (As long as the game doesn't use all of Vega's features)
-Volta does AI best

That's it lol. So if Vega is a master of "few", it's better than any other architecture as far as I can tell. All of the others pretty much only do one thing well.

It was sort of meant as a compliment to Vega. I didn't say anything about nVidia.
I could have been a real dumb ass and said "Jack of ALL trades, master of NONE" like the saying actually goes. But Vega does seem to be the master of a SMALL portion of games and computing--therefore I said master of "few." However, it's performance per watt and overall performance are generally abominable--unless you like playing the bitcoin game. But then the MSRP is not bad on the Vega series.
Vega 56 will probably be my next card, if I can nab one up for less than $450 in the near future--I've got a kilowatt to burn. Otherwise, it's 1070ti.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

Multi billion dolar companies would disagree with that. But it's your choice to believe it's all about good timing.

Great sales numbers are always about good timing. Try selling a mass supply of 1995 Dodge Neons right now. Silly example but your post was silly.

Just imagine if mining never happened , do you really believe the numbers would be the same? That's my point, I'm sure you get it now .

The best thing Vega 64 has going for it is Freesync, other than that I personally feel it's not good. Even if I was gifted one I wouldn't use one in my machines. I'd give it away or sell it.

 

[springs113]

Great sales numbers are always about good timing. Try selling a mass supply of 1995 Dodge Neons right now. Silly example but your post was silly.

Just imagine if mining never happened , do you really believe the numbers would be the same? That's my point, I'm sure you get it now .

The best thing Vega 64 has going for it is Freesync, other than that I personally feel it's not good. Even if I was gifted one I wouldn't use one in my machines. I'd give it away or sell it.

you're crazy, i don't like nvidia but if I was gifted a card...i'm using it.

 

[JRMBelgium]

I'm happy with my Vega 56

 

[trparky]

You should keep in mind that not every gamer runs the top tier(s) of graphics and jumps straight to 1080/1080Ti.

Certainly not I, there's no way that I'm going to pay for a 1080 (Ti or otherwise). They're just too expensive.

Can you tell me how many high-end cards are at the top of these charts? https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

Looks to me that a majority of users are using a GTX1060 which is exactly what I'm using.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

you're crazy, i don't like nvidia but if I was gifted a card...i'm using it.

Yeah, it's not something I want at all. If I want something I just buy it. If I can't afford something I'll wait until I can. I make enough money to buy stuff I want but I do wait from time to time.

 

[springs113]

Yeah, it's not something I want at all. If I want something I just buy it. If I can't afford something I'll wait until I can. I make enough money to buy stuff I want but I do wait from time to time.

Same here, funny thing is I read your comment and thought I wrote it lol. That's my sentiments exactly, and right now I'm happy withmy 2 vega 64s.