AMD to Unlock Professional Features for Radeon VII to Blunt RTX 2080's Ray-tracing Edge

[btarunr]

To add value and give it a feature-set edge over the GeForce RTX 2080, AMD is reportedly preparing to unlock several professional graphics features for the Radeon VII that are otherwise exclusive to Radeon Pro series graphics cards. These features will be released by simply adding Radeon VII support to the upcoming Radeon Pro 19.Q1 software suite. You uninstall your Radeon Adrenalin 2019 Edition drivers and replace them with the Radeon Pro 19.Q1 drivers to access pro features.

These include access to ProRender, certifications for various 3D, CAD, and CGI suites, SecureMI security, enterprise virtualization, and more. Over 320 professional applications are certified for the Radeon Pro 19.Q1 drivers, all of which will seamlessly run on the Radeon VII. AMD will also introduce a feature that lets you switch between the Radeon Pro and Radeon Adrenalin drivers on-the-fly (without needing reboots), so you don't lose your ability to play the latest games with day-one optimizations from AMD. These drivers will make the Radeon VII an incredible value in the enterprise space, as the GPU offers performance rivaling professional graphics cards priced well north of $3,000. It also blunts the feature-set edge the RTX 2080 holds over the Radeon VII.



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[HD64G]

Nice move imho. They can place Radeon 7 as a successor of Vega FE which was costing over $1000 when launched. And at 30% more performance with 30% less money, the VFM is strong there for whoever needs it.

 

[bug]

I won't complain about more features, especially since they only need a software update, but as someone pointed out in another thread, this card has a serious identity crisis. Adding more pro-level features to a supposedly consumer product won't help clearing that out.

 

[IceShroom]

Nice move imho. They can place Radeon 7 as a successor of Vega FE which was costing over $1000 when launched. And at 30% more performance with 30% less money, the VFM is strong there for whoever needs it.

Should have named VII FE.

 

[Aquinus]

I'm sure that somebody is happy to get 4 TFLOPS of double precision compute power. That won't be gamers though.

 

[silentbogo]

To add value and give it a feature-set edge over the GeForce RTX 2080, AMD is reportedly preparing to unlock several professional graphics features for the Radeon VII that are otherwise exclusive to Radeon Pro series graphics cards.

Which only proves that this is essentially an Instinct accelerator with display interface rushed onto the market at a big loss. Radeon VII is not that good as a consumer product, but probably the best bang for the buck in pro segment. BTW, some OpenCL benchmarks are impressive. I wish I could get my hands on one of those.

 

[the54thvoid]

Meanwhile, in an AI lab somewhere, scientists are playing network Doom on some Radeon Instinct accelerator cards.

 

[moproblems99]

I think this a bad idea. This does nothing to help the target audience of the cards: 'gamers'. What it does do, is piss of all those people that bought MI50/60s. Who now, if they can get one, will cannibalize the cards they can actually make a decent profit on.

 

[XXL_AI]

buuuuuuuulsh......................................t

 

[Fabio]

in the enterprise space it's a big value to swap driver and start playing battlefield? yeaaa... sure...

 

[f22a4bandit]

Good move considering they marketed this card for content creators as well.

 

[windwhirl]

As nice as this may be, won't it hurt AMD by reducing Radeon Pro sales, which leave a lot more gain for the company?

 

[Deleted member 158293]

The VII is very much a Prosumer card, not just a gaming consumer card. IMO it actually looks like AMD is giving TOO much away and it's giving fuel to the critics of their target audience, as bizarre as that sounds. Branding the card as an FE card probably would've helped alleviate some of the percieved confusion.

 

[bobalazs]

One thinks, was that the plan all along?

 

[MrGenius]

buuuuuuuulsh......................................t

Anywho...it looks like sweet redemption for me. Turns out I was right about it basically being an MI50. I was thinking you'd need to flash the BIOS to be able to run the Pro drivers to make it act like one though. Apparently not...

What comes next might be reminiscent of the mining craze with Vega. With the price for a Radeon VII skyrocketing. As professionals, wanting to get their hands on one for a much lower cost than the MI50(and willing to pay considerably more for a Radeon VII as a result), drastically increase the demand for one. Gamers probably should have got one while the getting was good. Because unlike the mining scenario, professionals probably won't be selling them used any time soon. And even when they do, not likely for cheap either.

 

[RH92]

Good for the extremely niche audience but for gamers who are the target audience that brings nothing relevant to the table !

 

[Patriot]

I think this a bad idea. This does nothing to help the target audience of the cards: 'gamers'. What it does do, is piss of all those people that bought MI50/60s. Who now, if they can get one, will cannibalize the cards they can actually make a decent profit on.

DP rate is still cut to 1/4 from 1/2
No Pcie4 or ring bus IF link.
And pro-render is not all the different compute modes which I am curious on their functionality.

 

[eidairaman1]

Which only proves that this is essentially an Instinct accelerator with display interface rushed onto the market at a big loss. Radeon VII is not that good as a consumer product, but probably the best bang for the buck in pro segment. BTW, some OpenCL benchmarks are impressive. I wish I could get my hands on one of those.

Its a 1080ti rival.

As I said a Prosumer card like Radeon Pro/FireGL of yesterday.

buuuuuuuulsh......................................t

Bitter much, don't be a r3+@#

 

[Mescalamba]

Expected.

I wonder, will it mine more or not? Someone test it!

 

[the54thvoid]

I don't think it has ECC, as @xkm1948 has mentioned. That makes it unsuitable for some specific tasks. The Titan Volta card had this issue as well (I think). ECC is what makes the actual compute cards, specifically suited to those workloads.

 

[phanbuey]

View attachment 116216


Anywho...it looks like sweet redemption for me. Turns out I was right about it basically being an MI50. I was thinking you'd need to flash the BIOS to be able to run the Pro drivers to make it act like one though. Apparently not...

What comes next might be reminiscent of the mining craze with Vega. With the price for a Radeon VII skyrocketing. As professionals, wanting to get their hands on one for a much lower cost than the MI50(and willing to pay considerably more for a Radeon VII as a result), drastically increase the demand for one. Gamers probably should have got one while the getting was good. Because unlike the mining scenario, professionals probably won't be selling them used any time soon. And even when they do, not likely for cheap either.

I mean gamers don't really like this card - it's expensive and hot and only very good in the DX12 latest titles. For professionals it makes sense. But for gamers the getting was never really that 'good'.

It really hasn't been good for a while, hopefully with the 7nm nvidia releases the perfromance will bump up at a reasonable price.

 

[Basard]

Well, I guess nobody else is going to buy it, so why not sell it off to the pros....

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

I don't think it has ECC, as @xkm1948 has mentioned. That makes it unsuitable for some specific tasks. The Titan Volta card had this issue as well (I think). ECC is what makes the actual compute cards, specifically suited to those workloads.

AFAIK HBM2 has built-in ECC functionality

 

[Charcharo]

AFAIK HBM2 has built-in ECC functionality

It does, but I think it can be disabled in software. It is disabled for Radeon VII, at least ATM. If AMD enables it though... yeah.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

knew AMD would do something like this...