AMD Radeon VII Unboxing & Preview

[Anymal]

Tell that to AMD as they are rebranding all the time. Radeon VII is rebranded MI50.

 

[Shatun_Bear]

I'm eagerly awaiting the 4K performance summary for this card. If it matches the 2080 or is a couple percent faster there, it's a good card just overpriced (and you'll have to deal with higher power draw than a 2080 obviously).

Another thing to expect is the OC headroom on this will very likely be limited as AMD have pushed it to 2080 levels out of the box (It's worth noting that the 2080 doesn't gain a great deal from overclocking either).

 

[deemon]

looks square like any other GPU these days. no benchmarks ... what was the point of this article?

 

[Vayra86]

Which it doesn't have. You can't surprise anyone with a flagship product that is only as fast as competitor's last gen flagship, after 2 years, at the same price.
GPU war isn't birthday party

And let me tell you something: Radeon VII exists mostly because RTX 2080 is too slow for the money.

It had the surprise element, you just dont see it, apparently.

This GPU was enough to push Huang to a very childish kneejerk response. He thought he had the high end on lockdown after Pascal and Vega's shootout, and confidently shoving an RTX future down our throats. Now he is looking at competition on his whole carefully planned and timed RTX 'chokehold', trying to strongarm the market for gamers into ray tracing at a massive price hike. The Radeon VII release, simply by existing, completely kills that agenda. Its a statement: Nvidia is alone in its push for RT. At least for the near future. AMD literally says: this tech aint ready until it can hit the midrange' and follows up with a GPU to support that idea. And: it gets better for them in that near future. They control the console ecosystem, and with that, they effectively control the midrange. Those Navi's are going into consoles. And they are likely also being pushed to the PC. Nvidia isn't leading anything here, with vastly overpriced GPUs and a 2060 below that. They're catering to the niche. AMD is catering to the masses - the masses required to make RT stick. Developers will NOT structurally deploy RTX on the PC alone. They will only do that if they can also capture the console ports. And I don't believe Nvidia will keep dropping those bags of money everywhere ad infinitum.

This GPU isnt about sales numbers or price/performance at all. Its about presence. And it is AMD fighting the opponent on its own terms for once instead of following. Radeon VII is a proverbial kick in the nuts, punishing Nvidia fior a very poor generational jump in performance - that is the reason this card exists to begin with. Think about it: if Nvidia had pushed all those square mm of the die towards absolute performance, Radeon VII would be pointless entirely.

 

[deemon]

So where is my 300€ 1440p 60+Hz full raytracing GPU? NOWHERE! sad.

 

[EarthDog]

It's a show piece cut from a pro card to fill a massive void in their lineup. The choices are....

A $700, 300W+ card that performs close to a 2080 with superior compute but zero ability ever to HW RT.

-or-

A $700, 225W card that performs as good/better, lacking in compute, but has the ability to use DLSS and HW RT (which is currently one title with almost 2 dozen more listed, several of which are AAA titles due out this year).


Clearly, there are choices depending on your needs. If compute is important...amd. If RT/DLSS or power use is a concern, nvidia. This card would be much better received though if it had 8GB and was $100 cheaper. Take away compute and dlss/rt we have similarly performing cards with one using a load more power for a similar price.

 

[Vayra86]

This GPU has nothing to do with RT/agenda. It's a show piece cut from a pro card to fill a massive void in their lineup. The choices are....

A $700, 300W+ card that performs close to a 2080 with superior compute but zero ability ever to HW RT.

-or-

A $700, 225W card that performs as good/better, lacking in compute, but has the ability to use DLSS and HW RT (which is currently one title with almost 2 dozen more listed, several of which are AAA titles due out this year).


Clearly, there are choices depending on your needs. This card would be much better received though if it had 8GB and was $100 cheaper...

You say that, but again, without RTX and with a regular generational (price+perf) jump from Nvidia, VII would have absolutely no point, whereas right now, it actually offers resistance. The only reason for that is because RTX 2080 is a 1080ti in disguise at a way too high price point. There is a very good reason this GPU was announced, after the RTX line up was announced and 'settled in'. And guess what. Even the RTX 2060 which is the most interesting card in the line up, is easily combated with the good ol' Vega. All AMD does is slash the price a bit more, or give another free game.

I go by the simple thought process of 'who benefits from what the most'. And here, AMD benefits the most from its timing, keeping VII under wraps for as long as it did, and positioning it where it is. It creates doubt that is enough to maintain at least some status quo and prevent a total takeover on high end PC. Again: its not about sales. Its about presence. You keep hammering on that 'choice', its not about that. Its about mindshare.

 

[nemesis.ie]

@EarthDog Where do you get this "zero ability to do RT ever"? It's had a very nice increase in compute vs V64, who is to say a "veneer of RT" (which is what RTX is currently) can't be done with compute brute force.

At the price of a 2080Ti you could nearly put in two Radeon 7s and dedicate one solely to RT overlay.

Time will tell.

 

[Anymal]

Its all about innovation, AMD has nothing new for gaming. 1080ti/2080 performance can be followed with 2 Radeons in CF, there no need for 7nm 300w GPU which is by itself a demonstration of desperate move. you yoi

 

[Vayra86]

Its all about innovation, AMD has nothing new for gaming. 1080ti/2080 performance can be followed with 2 Radeons in CF, there no need for 7nm 300w GPU which is by itself a demonstration of desperate move.

If its all about innovation, why have we been looking at simple generational performance bumps for the past 10-15 years? And were OK with it? Why is it that suddenly, because Nvidia said so, we're looking at a ray traced future? That is a lot of faith to put into a single near-monopolist on the PC platform for gaming. Its not a type of faith I tend to share, because history has proven that most of the time, this kind of a push won't stick. And it shows at this moment, with a very tiny selection of capable titles and DLSS that... well, really isn't present in regular gaming at all, but Nvidia loves to show it off in canned benchmarks.

 

[EarthDog]

@EarthDog Where do you get this "zero ability to do RT ever"? It's had a very nice increase in compute vs V64, who is to say a "veneer of RT" (which is what RTX is currently) can't be done with compute brute force.

At the price of a 2080Ti you could nearly put in two Radeon 7s and dedicate one solely to RT overlay.

Time will tell.

pretty sure I said hardware ray tracing. If not. I meant to.

As of now, we see what dedicated hardware does for RT...its a significant performance hit...I dont imagine software will do it better nor do I imagine that taking the cycles up to do it in software will help overall fps. There is a reason there are scores of GPU based servers for RT jobs. That said, I could be wrong though!

Surely 2x VII's with one for RT may work... but that is a 600W+ bet that also has to work notably better. Also mgpu is going down the tubes, not great scaling, dealing with 2x heat, so... there is that as well.

 

[Anymal]

2080ti is all about presence. Navi is all about sales but there is no presence. Because of 2080ti we can imagine what to expect when they migrate to 7nm. Radeon 7 is dead end in high end 7nm, Navi will only be midrange. AMD shown us as early as in January 2019 what is their best gaming gpu on brand new 7nm and that is performance of gpu gp102 16nm from August 2016. I dont disagree with you, I just add this to your "make sense".

 

[Vayra86]

2080ti is all about presence. Navi is all about sales but there is no presence. Because of 2080ti we can imagine what to expect when they migrate to 7nm. Radeon 7 is dead end in high end 7nm, Navi will only be midrange. AMD shown us as early as in January 2019 what is their best gaming gpu on brand new 7nm.

What you can expect is a 1600 dollar GPU. Did you look at the market for that price point by any chance?

 

[Anymal]

High end is about marketing, muscle show, parade.

 

[Casecutter]

Lisa Su got her (supposed) uncle Jen-Hsun to look the other way, when she pulled the fake. Psych!

 

[Aquinus]

It's a beautiful thing. What's crazy though is how the card itself isn't really all that cluttered. Sure, it has a lot of VRMs and circuitry dedicated to power delivery, but you're not cramming a bunch of GDDR chips in their along with that. I certainly can appreciate how much hardware is in such a small area.

Too bad I can't get a CPU with 16GB of HBM2.

 

[Anymal]

What you can expect is a 1600 dollar GPU. Did you look at the market for that price point by any chance?

They need to think 5 years ahead. Meanwhile they do deliver more performance in different price ranges.
1600usd gpu would be next step if AMD do not deliver something better or just stay in 1000-1200 price range with a product that would "never" be challenged.

 

[Vayra86]

They need to think 5 to 10 years ahead. Meanwhile they do deliver more performance in different price ranges.

Absolutely! But RTX wasn't about thinking 5 or 10 years ahead, if anything, it is the polar opposite of that. The tech behind it was never designed for RT. Besides, if Nvidia WAS thinking 5 or 10 years ahead, there'd be more content. Read between the lines: RTX exists because Nvidia smelled the opportunity to extract more cash this way. Not because 'it is time'. This tech exists to satisfy shareholders that are looking at a GPU landscape where gamers don't really need to upgrade much if at all, because the only reason to is when you're hard on pushing 4K or better - something the vast majority won't do anytime soon.

 

[Anymal]

If its all about innovation, why have we been looking at simple generational performance bumps for the past 10-15 years? And were OK with it? Why is it that suddenly, because Nvidia said so, we're looking at a ray traced future? That is a lot of faith to put into a single near-monopolist on the PC platform for gaming. Its not a type of faith I tend to share, because history has proven that most of the time, this kind of a push won't stick. And it shows at this moment, with a very tiny selection of capable titles and DLSS that... well, really isn't present in regular gaming at all, but Nvidia loves to show it off in canned benchmarks.

30 years ago we looked at real time ray traced future and nvidia has made the first step. RT is future and AMD will stay second. There wont be monopoly and you should not involve any emotions in that, its plain simple race. If AMD was first you would be making same statements?

Absolutely! But RTX wasn't about thinking 5 or 10 years ahead, if anything, it is the polar opposite of that. The tech behind it was never designed for RT. Besides, if Nvidia WAS thinking 5 or 10 years ahead, there'd be more content. Read between the lines: RTX exists because Nvidia smelled the opportunity to extract more cash this way. Not because 'it is time'. This tech exists to satisfy shareholders that are looking at a GPU landscape where gamers don't really need to upgrade much if at all, because the only reason to is when you're hard on pushing 4K or better - something the vast majority won't do anytime soon.

I do applaud to nvidia (or AMD or INtel,...or to any first one) because the main reason before was more pixels or higher refresh rate. Both are nice improvements though.

 

[Vayra86]

If AMD was first you would be making same statements?

Yes, if you hadn't noticed by now... I don't do brand loyalty. If AMD played this as Nvidia does it today, I'd have been the same kind of detractor. My view on things is governed by the economy behind it, and I'm not seeing it as favorable given the current state of the market. Money never lies - marketing always lies.

 

[Anymal]

Yes, if you hadn't noticed by now... I don't do brand loyalty. If AMD played this as Nvidia does it today, I'd have been the same kind of detractor. My view on things is governed by the economy behind it, and I'm not seeing it as favorable given the current state of the market. Money never lies.

If I have to choose between 4k or even 8k and RT I would 110% jump on RT. You say it is not time but I think it is THE time for that move as they are 2 years ahead in high end and still make perf improvements without RT.

 

[Vayra86]

If I have to choose between 4k or even 8k and RT I would 110% jump on RT. You say it is not time but I think it is THE time for that move as they are 2 years ahead in high end and still make perf improvements without RT.

...and time will tell I'm stepping out of this near-slowchat, this is old news. Ironically you already have this choice, seeing as you're rocking a 1080ti. The 2080 is there for you! Or even a 2080ti. Please explain why you've not got one yet? You're free to copy paste my posts for that

 

[Anymal]

We all can vote for amd or nvidia with our never lying money but the technology has to be pushed and one of them would always be first at something. I just dont understand what is your MO. Of course I too despise the marketing nonsense until I see it demonstrated and what I see is beautiful enhancement in graphics, its lively true real time effect and not just more defined picture.

...and time will tell I'm stepping out of this near-slowchat, this is old news. Ironically you already have this choice, seeing as you're rocking a 1080ti. The 2080 is there for you! Or even a 2080ti. Please explain why you've not got one yet? You're free to copy paste my posts for that

Its all about technology and visuals not about what I or anybody else have or could afford or want.

 

[EarthDog]

@Anymal - Would you please stop double/triple/quadruple posting (against the forum rules)? Edit to add...or take a moment and get your head together before posting.


... you may want to merge and delete before a mod does.

 

[Vayra86]

We all can vote for amd or nvidia with our never lying money but the technology has to be pushed and one of them would always be first. I just dont understand what is your MO. Of course I too despise the marketing nonsense until I see it demonstrated and what I see is beautiful enhancement in graphics, its lively true real time effect and not just more defined picture.


Its all about technology and visuals not about what I or anybody else have or could afford or want.

No its about adoption rate and that one is closely tied with price. You can want a lot, if you can't afford it, its dead in the water. And the outlook right now is that its going to be a pretty costly endeavour. Look at what mining does to this market. So yes, its entirely about you not having upgraded your 1080ti as well. Its not an insult, but an observation. You say you like the real time effect, but haven't deemed it worthwhile to invest in it and even now you dodge the question. I'm looking for a bit of reflection on that

See why I'm saying 'money never lies'?