AMD Readies Radeon Pro WX 9100: Vega for Professionals

[Raevenlord]

After releasing the Vega Frontier Edition, AMD's take on a "prosumer" GPU which straddles the line between a professional and gaming graphics card, with somewhat mixed results, AMD is apparently now working on the fully professional version of the Vega silicon. Identified as the Radeon Pro WX 9100 (which is in line with AMD's current professional nomenclature), this professional graphics card will look to fully accelerate professional workloads, with a driver specifically crafted for such.

Recently rearing its head on CompuBench, the GPU features a low 1200 MHz clock speed, which is around 402 MHz lower than the Frontier Edition, and supposedly lower still than the Gaming RX Vega variant of the GPU. The Vega-based WX 9100 joins the Polaris-based WX 7100, WX 5100 and WX 4100 professional graphics cards, thus apparently topping out AMD's professional line-up for the year.



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[R0H1T]

So the Vega FE was for suckers i.e. professionals who're occasional gamers

 

[xkm1948]

So this puts the VEGA FE in a real awkward situation.

 

[HD64G]

So the Vega FE was for suckers i.e. professionals who're occasional gamers

Not exactly... For game devs that want to try the code or the changes on the fly. That's a gpu for practicality that makes the life of devs easier and reduces their time lost.

 

[EntropyZ]

So the Vega FE was for suckers i.e. professionals who're occasional gamers

What? No! Didn't you see the OG slides? It's still for prosumers, sort of. But those who want to playtest/use the creations. It's best of both worlds. so you don't have to have a specific rig with a gaming card, and one dedicated for the work. How people spin this is absurd.

Edit: Sure, it's a near copy of the Titan tactic used by Nvidia just so they can fill a similar spot in their lineup of GPUs based on the same silicon that will be used by RX Vega and Pro WX cards, unless RTG pulls a rabbit out of a hat for RX, which is unlikely so far, it's just too close to release now.

 

[xkm1948]

Not exactly... For game devs that want to try the code or the changes on the fly. That's a gpu for practicality that makes the life of devs easier and reduces their time lost.

RTG just created a whole new tier of GPU. And Vega FE is the undisputed king of this new tier. Well until Navi FE drops.

 

[R0H1T]

What? No! Didn't you see the OG slides? It's still for prosumers, sort of. But those who want to playtest/use the creations. It's best of both worlds. so you don't have to have a specific rig with a gaming card, and one dedicated for the work. How people spin this is absurd.

Yeah I don't think so, AMD probably took a couple of leaves off Nvidia's playbook & (re)did the FE for prosumers, this coming from a long time AMD supporter.

Not exactly... For game devs that want to try the code or the changes on the fly. That's a gpu for practicality that makes the life of devs easier and reduces their time lost.

That depends on how the FE compares to say the WX 9100.

 

[EntropyZ]

Yeah I don't think so, AMD probably took a couple of leaves off Nvidia's playbook & (re)did the FE for prosumers, this coming from a long time AMD supporter.

That's supposed to be competition, I guess.

Anyway, if RX Vega is priced well, I don't really care if it doesn't push the envelope, that thunder belongs to Navi.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Hopefully this means vega FE is just for cheapskate pros and dumb consumers! This news plus vega 10's die size being much smaller than vega FE's gives me hope rx vega may not be terrible after all!

 

[EntropyZ]

Hopefully this means vega FE is just for cheapskate pros and dumb consumers! This news plus vega 10's die size being much smaller than vega FE's gives me hope rx vega may not be terrible after all!

People that favor GeForce are probably going to sh*t on it for having more power draw, as is their custom. Especially if Nvidia drops that Pascal refresh wccftech (take that with a grain of salt, it's rumor spawned by the people working there) was talking about, but AFAIK it's only going to appear wayy after RX Vega launch, so hopefully AMD can get some market share back in the mean time. This is speculation at this point, of course, since NV never announced it.

They could do it, it would almost be like going from Fermi to Kepler, but the die is most likely still going to be 14nm. So I guess the efficiency increase they can gain would be kinda low.

Remember how we had 28nm GPU's for so long and how both parties were trying their hardest to get every inch of performance out of it?

Oh no, I'm rambling again.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

People that favor GeForce are probably going to sh*t on it for having more power draw, as is their custom. Especially if Nvidia drops that Pascal refresh wccftech (take that with a grain of salt, it's rumor spawned by the people working there) was talking about, but AFAIK it's only going to appear wayy after RX Vega launch, so hopefully AMD can get some market share back in the mean time. This is speculation at this point, of course, since NV never announced it.

They could do it, it would almost be like going from Fermi to Kepler, but the die is most likely still going to be 14nm. So I guess the efficiency increase they can gain would be kinda low.

Remember how we had 28nm GPU's for so long and how both parties were trying their hardest to get every inch of performance out of it?

Oh no, I'm rambling again.

Wont happen Navi is going to be 7nm ,so we're not on 14nm that long.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Wont happen Navi is going to be 7nm ,so we're not on 14nm that long.

Lame!

 

[semitope]

this doesnt put fe in a weird position. this will cost a ton more due to certification etc.

 

[notb]

this doesnt put fe in a weird position. this will cost a ton more due to certification etc.

And people will buy it exactly because of "certification etc". So the short-lived "pro" Vega FE will become what it was meant to be from the start: a direct competitor to Titan. Not a very good one...

People that favor GeForce are probably going to sh*t on it for having more power draw, as is their custom.

Sure, because those that prefer AMD and Intel are different (years of jokes about FX and now a retaliation thanks to the so-so Skylake-X efficiency).

They could do it, it would almost be like going from Fermi to Kepler, but the die is most likely still going to be 14nm. So I guess the efficiency increase they can gain would be kinda low.

Originally (before the mining craze) NVIDIA was said to be preparing a Pascal Refresh for 1050(Ti) and Volta for everything above. Why? Because 1050 is artificially limited. Remove that and it'll reach the same clocks 1060 does. That would give it +50% performance - more than enough for next generation (even with new architecture).
As for the other cards... it's a mystery. To be honest they could just shift the models (2060 := 1070 etc) and add a Volta-based flagship. Again: +20-40% performance.
Pascal is so energy efficient that doing this would not make the cards hugely power-hungry. 1070 draws merely 30W more than 1060 - that's easily acceptable - especially when you look what's currently happening in the red camp.

 

[the54thvoid]

Same card, different drivers.

Whoo.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Same card, different drivers.

Whoo.

For the most part, yeah. Still, at least AMD seems to be doing some driver optimization this time round. Professional vega FE performance is the one department anyone cares about that it isn't rubbish in (other than price for a pro card).

 

[Camm]

Vega FE will become what it was meant to be from the start: a direct competitor to Titan. Not a very good one...

I actually digress - FE's at least give you full double precision and some optimisations towards workstation tasks.

Titan, ever since OG Titan started cannabilising Quadro sales, is just an early release + 100% markup gaming card of whatever big die Nvidia is using that generation.

The FE's are an interesting card, but the target market seems... limited all in all.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Same card, different drivers.

Whoo.

+ different Firmware/Bios

 

[Steevo]

I actually digress - FE's at least give you full double precision and some optimisations towards workstation tasks.

Titan, ever since OG Titan started cannabilising Quadro sales, is just an early release + 100% markup gaming card of whatever big die Nvidia is using that generation.

The FE's are an interesting card, but the target market seems... limited all in all.

Except beating $4000 cards in compute and rendering tasks?

 

[Fluffmeister]

I'm impressed with AMD, Vega has hit the market crash bang into the middle of prosumer no mans land, not optimised for gaming, kinda OK for pro workloads if you don't mind the odd crash, keep waiting Vega will be awesome.

These guys know how to do launches.

 

[semitope]

And people will buy it exactly because of "certification etc". So the short-lived "pro" Vega FE will become what it was meant to be from the start: a direct competitor to Titan. Not a very good one...

no. because some professional uses do not care about certification. those people would just go for the vega fe

 

[ShurikN]

The more time passes the more I hate the term "Prosumer".

 

[eidairaman1]

@u2konline

 

[londiste]

I actually digress - FE's at least give you full double precision and some optimisations towards workstation tasks.

no it won't. good old 1/16 for fp64, in line with amd gaming gpus.

 

[Steevo]

The more time passes the more I hate the term "Prosumer".

The same happens in many fields, stick a dead squirrel onto a camera and all of a sudden people feel like they are a famous director, actor or a pro in their field.

I feel the same about mining and crypto currency though, they work almost exactly the same as regular currency but the luck found in "creating" this wealth will eventually stop and it will experience hyperinflation, the most vulnerable will pay the price as it crashes. Pros know this and play the market just like regular stock, consumers may be left high and dry when the inversion happens and the money they invested will disappear.