AMD Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" RDNA2 Graphics Card Launch Liveblog

[moproblems99]

Because if that happens the price difference will be even bigger and make it a real nice card to own if you are not doing 4k and instead going for high FPS on lower resolutions, right?

Pretty sure you don't even need one of these for high fps gaming on lower resolutions.

 

[Totally]

how so? AMD announced a few weeks ago they are still producing rx 5700 and zen 2 cpu's "if there is demand for it we are still making it" and Amazon is getting a restock of zen 2 after zen 3 comes out... so.... you can see it on their order page even... "in stock in november"

5700 is EOL, the 5700 XT is still in production iirc. They probably got to a point where they don't need to bin the chips anymore. And with the new cards coming why not give the weakest sku with smallar margins the axe?

 

[Space Lynx]

5700 is EOL, the 5700 XT is still in production iirc. They probably got to a point where they don't need to bin the chips anymore. And with the new cards coming why not give the weakest sku with smallar margins the axe?

this makes sense, cheers

 

[Steevo]

5700 is EOL, the 5700 XT is still in production iirc. They probably got to a point where they don't need to bin the chips anymore. And with the new cards coming why not give the weakest sku with smallar margins the axe?

Die loss is still a thing. Plus why not reward lower bins with higher clocks and maybe the ability to unlock features (something Nvidia doesn't do, and the reason I found this site..... Years ago)

They probably have contracts for production.

They are trying to sell out of what inventory they have.

 

[kruk]

Production is already mature though. AMD skipped 5nm and all the ensuing supply war and stayed with mature (as of now) 7nm. I think opposite will happen. AMD keeps the best of the best Navi 21 dies for RX 6900 XT while relegating slow/not-so-best dies to RX 6900 to fight off RTX 3080 Ti.

Maybe. The maturity argument seems reasonable ... but the gap between RX 6900 XT and 6800 XT is already tiny, and unlike nVidia, which can use more VRAM for RTX 3080 Ti, AMD can't really do much.
I mean ... they released water cooled Vega with 375 W TBP, why would they hold back now, especially when the competition went crazy with the power consumption?

And then there is this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1321522404800299009

Maybe 30% frequency increase over RDNA was for Navi 22, maybe we misunderstood how they calculated this, or maybe they have another ace up their sleeves (maybe Navi RAGE Edition?) ...

 

[Space Lynx]

Maybe. The maturity argument seems reasonable ... but the gap between RX 6900 XT and 6800 XT is already tiny, and unlike nVidia, which can use more VRAM for RTX 3080 Ti, AMD can't really do much.
I mean ... they released water cooled Vega with 375 W TBP, why would they hold back now, especially when the competition went crazy with the power consumption?

And then there is this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1321522404800299009

Maybe 30% frequency increase over RDNA was for Navi 22, maybe we misunderstood how they calculated this, or maybe they have another ace up their sleeves (maybe Navi RAGE Edition?) ...

or maybe they are just giving us generous overclocking headroom for board partners too? its possible.

 

[okbuddy]

Looks like four to me.

usb for charging iphone

 

[Caring1]

usb for charging iphone

Lol, it's for HMD's.

 

[ratirt]

Maybe. The maturity argument seems reasonable ... but the gap between RX 6900 XT and 6800 XT is already tiny, and unlike nVidia, which can use more VRAM for RTX 3080 Ti, AMD can't really do much.
I mean ... they released water cooled Vega with 375 W TBP, why would they hold back now, especially when the competition went crazy with the power consumption?

And then there is this:

The 3080 TI will be in between the 3080 and 3090. So not sure what you are after with this. Sure the 6800Xt is not so far back but isn't that what the 3080 is versus 3090? If NV releases 3080TI which will be in between NV 3080 and 3090 with more Vram than the 3080 the difference in will be very small. AMD already has sufficient amount of VRam so why bother. 3080 Ti may have more Vram but what would the performance look like. I think now, this is the main factor here if NV decides to release 3080 TI that is.
The question is, when NV release it, when we can have it in the market shelves? 3080 and 3090, where are live are scheduled for January btw. 3070 at the end of November.
If AMD delivers November 18th, it is a huge win for AMD.

 

[Zach_01]

6800 16GB vs 3070 8GB, see the difference in price?

6800 according to the slides and AMD statements is +18% faster than the 2080Ti/3070 8GB with a +16% in price.
Although those graphs was with the 6800 the SmartAccessMemory on. If you cut that off it may be just 15% faster or around that.

RX 6800 is 60CU > RTX 3070

RX 6800 XT is 72CU ≈ RTX 3080

RX 6900 XT is 80CU ≈ RTX 3090

Aside from so many Rs and Xs I had to type (geez!) I hope AMD has a backup for the rumored 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti.

The 6800 probaly is the 3070Ti competitor as its above the 2080Ti/3070

---------------------------------------------------------------

I can see there is a lot of confusion about the new feature AMD is calling "Smart Access Memory" and how it works. My 0.02 on the subject.
According to the presentation the SAM feature can be enabled only in 500series boards with a ZEN3 CPU installed. My assumption is that they use PCI-E 4.0 capabilities for this, but I'll get back to that.
The SAM feature has nothing to do with InfinityCache. IC is used to compensate the 256bit bandwithd between the GPU and VRAM. Thats it, end of story. And according to AMD this is equivalent of a 833bit bus. Again, this has nothing to do with SAM. IC is in the GPU and works for all systems the same way. They didnt say you have to do anything to "get it" to work. If it works with the same effectiveness with all games we will have to see.

Smart Access Memory
They use SAM to have CPU access to VRAM and probably speed up things a little on the CPU side. Thats it. They said it in the presentation, and they showed it also...
And they probably can get this done because of PCI-E 4.0 speed capability. If true thats why no 400series support.
They also said that this feature may be better in future than it is today, once game developers optimize their games for it.
I think AMD just made PCI-E 4.0 (on their own platform) more relevant than it was until now!

Full CPU access to GPU memory:


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My opinion on the 6000series is mixed.
They probably dont have as good implementation of RTRT and DLSS equivalent than nVIdia has, probably a 2080Ti perf for RTRT at least and cant comment for the Fidelity thing because I dont know.
But that is not why the mixed taste the 6000series had left me. RTRT is the future yes but today or the next year is still too restricted and not so important to most. For some is. For variable render resolution we will also see how it goes.

The 6800XT seem to me the only card priced well at 649$ according to rasterization performance against the 3080. With no rage mode or SAM. Given the fact that with those on it may beat the 3080 depending the OC headroom and the 3080's inability to clock more than marginal it makes 6800XT more appealing.

The 6900XT is not a 3090 rival the way 6800XT is for 3080. Yes it had the about the same chart differences with the below pair (6800XT vs 3080) but only with rage mode and SAM on. Which means that without them, out of the box on 300W will be probably half way between 3080 and 3090. Really tight gap but still. That makes it about 5~6% better than 6800XT? more or less. For +54% price? Yeah...
Probably AIBs may exploit more out of the 6900XT GPU and match the 3090 or even pass it, but I hardly believe that those will cost less than 1100~1200$.
The 6900XT will probably be a 3080Ti competitor on perf and price(?).

I was expecting a little more distinguishable products at the top end from AMD and not follow the nVidia stupidity. Why AMD didnt give +10% power draw headroom for the "FE" to match or even pass the 3090... I dont know. Maybe its the cooler design that max out at 300W. As I said AIBs (if will exist for 6900XT) probably will do that, but not for 999$.

The 6800 at 579$... a little steep... It will be more clearer when the 3070Ti is out, but comparing it to the 6800XT and its perf difference its should've been at 549$ max. That would make more sense.
+10% more price for +15% more performance of the 3070nonTi and a nice 3070Ti rival which I see the 600$ price tag on it.

I guess reviews will clear things better, but I think wont make any significant differences on my initial thoughts.


Edit(s):
typo(s)

 

[TheLostSwede]

About that, I have two considerations:
1-Contracts/Agreements between TSMC and AMD: Basically, whether the RDNA1 production is kinda required to meet the terms of their deals or not. Also, and somewhat related to that, whether AMD can simply say "screw it" and switch out RDNA1 production for RDNA2 overnight.
2-Contracts/Agreements between AMD and OEMs/AIBs/etc.: Whether AMD has to provide RDNA1 products to others due to legal obligations, regardless of the shiny new RDNA2.

@TheLostSwede you seem more knowledgeable on the fabs topic, so I refer to you I won't ask about legal agreements and what not because those papers are probably not public anyway, but is it possible for AMD to switch out RDNA1 for RDNA2 in TSMC fabs relatively quickly (say, a couple weeks at most) or is it a long, slow process?

Right, so AMD already has a great example of how foundry contracts work in their dealings with Global Foundries. They signed a contract with GloFo for X amount of wafers per X amount of time. GloFo obviously stopped developing cutting edge foundry processes, so I'm sure AMD could've gotten out of the contract somehow, but this is why we're getting the X570 chipset and the I/O die made by GloFo on a different node, which most likely also saves AMD some cash.

As for TSMC, their contracts are most likely the same, you place an order for X amount of capacity and you can make whatever products you've taped up with them, using up that allocation.

The key thing here is that you pay a fee to tape out your products, it's not little money, something small like a USB 3.0 device controller is in the region of US$500,000 on a not cutting edge node. This is one of the big costs when it comes to making an IC, so ideally you don't want more than one tape out, but we know that this isn't always the case. Once taped out on the fabs node, you can always go back and make more of the same thing and as we know, over time the fab tends to improve both yields and the quality of the chips they make.

So yes, as long as it's on a node that AMD has a contract to manufacture on, they can switch in whatever product they want. It would obviously take a bit of time to do this, a week or two I would say, as this isn't quite like baking cookies. I mean, just remember the issues that happened not to long ago for Toshiba/WD where a 13- minute power outage wasted 6-9 exabytes of flash and you realise how sensitive these fabs are. I have been to a few fabs over the years and although it's not the most exciting thing in the world, they are really quite amazing considering the tolerances and cleanliness that's required to make chips.

The short answer is, yes, AMD can swap in and manufacture whatever they want, as long as they have a contract to manufacture on said node and have enough capacity left.

As for your second question, there are different types of supply contracts. In most cases there's an EOL notice, you must've seen some of the ones Intel send out to notify it's customers that a certain product won't be produced past a certain date and this and this date is the final order and shipment dates. The other is like when AMD makes the console SoCs where they have a contract to supply X amount of chips per months for a certain period of time. I very much doubt AMD has such a contract with any of the graphics card makers. Quite often there's an allocation based per what each partner is planning on manufacturing for the next six months or so. I doubt many of their partners would still be interested in an older product now, so there isn't going to be any issues for AMD. Normally there's also a certain amount available in rolling stock, something you can quite easily see if you go to someone like NXP or Microchip and try to order some parts. Popular products are available in stock, whereas more niche products you might have to place an order for and then there's a lead time of 12-16 weeks at a minimum as an example.

They are not going to release a RTX 3070 Ti at $599. That would be a stupid business decision when the 3070 is at $499 and the 3080 is at $699. Thats only a $100 difference between each tier and is still at the bottom high-performance segment which is not exactly where most of the money comes in.

RTX 2060 Super = $399
RTX 2070 Super = $599

RTX 2070 non-Super came out the year prior for the same $599 price (someone correct me if I'm wrong about this), so this wouldn't count

The super was "only" $499 at launch.

GeForce 20 series - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I wonder if this Infinity cache will be implemented into 5000 series APU's to remedy System RAM bandwidth.

It's apparently based on the Zen L3 cache design, so that might be tricky.

 

[SN2716057]

And now we sit back and wait for the reviews.

The RX 6800 XT looks like a good competitor for the 3080 (short listed) but I wonder how the AMD will perform on my monitor (Acer Predator XB1 XB271HU [G-sync]). Cause I don't want to buy a new one.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Lol, it's for HMD's.

More and more monitors have DP alt mode over USB-C now.

 

[Turmania]

If 6900XT, has the same power requirement of 6800XT. I believe it is special cherry on top chips that go to 6900 XT.

 

[Zach_01]

If 6900XT, has the same power requirement of 6800XT. I believe it is special cherry on top chips that go to 6900 XT.

And thats why the +20day release date. I expect 6900XT to be less available than 6800/6800XT and it does make sense since people buying 999+$ GPU card are far few. And other than that the 6800XT has miles away better perf/$ ratio (=less demand for 6900XT)

 

[mb194dc]

Need to wait for the reviews. Then need to see how high AIB can push the clocks, rumors are of Asus cards doing 2500 boost and higher than that might even be possible. Cards weakness will be RT, though with all the development going on for console games using essentially the same architecture, it could be largely mitigated in new games.

GPU market going to be most interesting since 2015 and will be interesting to see if AMD go for market share with a price war next year if they can produce mountains of these cards.

 

[medi01]

The 6800 at 579$... a little steep... It will be more clearer when the 3070Ti is out, but comparing it to the 6800XT and its perf difference its should've been at 549$ max.

18% faster card with 100% more VRAM could not cost 16% more.
Sense makes it none.

Why would yet another GA102 based NV GPU be less of a clusterf*ck than 3080?

half way between 3080 and 3090.

It helps to remember that that "way" is 10% of perf.

 

[kapone32]

the thing that sucks the most is that AMD is still using 7nm factories ot make ryzen 3000 series and navi 5 series... like seriously, screw it, go all in on this new stuff so it doesn't sell out on day 1...

One of the things that we have to keep in mind is how long these chips have been in development. Let's keep in mind that this architecture was also manufactured for the consoles. To me that says that there should be no stock issues. As far as I understand it the 5000 series is EOL anyway. The 3000 series is mature now so they should have lots of 3100s. For all we know the 3300x could be failed console CPUs which could explain it's Global scarcity. This is also the end of this node. We will probably see AM5 no earlier than mid 2021. They need the 3000 series to fill the stack for now. The pandemic shows no sign of slowing meaning that the explosion of the PC market will continue. I watched a case (Antec 400) go from $74.99 in my cart to $124.99 in less than a month on Amazon.

 

[Dave65]

$80 for +8 gigs of GDDR6... Micron 1GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps currently costs $6,86 when ordered in low quantities and much less if ordered in tons. You're paying double the price AMD pays for it. How is that a good deal?

Just checked with my wallet, it says it's a damn good deal.

 

[Shatun_Bear]

The $650 6800XT looks an even better deal compared to the '$700' 3080 as 700 for that card is basically a unicorn and will remain one; actual street price is $800, if you're lucky enough to be one of the people that gets your hand on one of the 200 stock...so $150 saving for similar performance and with non-gimped memory.

And if you go with a Ryzen 5000 (most new buyers will) performance should be faster than the 3080.

 

[medi01]

$80 for +8 gigs of GDDR6...

+16% price for +18% perf and +8GB VRAM as a bonus.

5700 is EOL, the 5700 XT is still in production iirc.

AMD denied any of 5700 series stopped being produced, so, uh, where did you get 5700 is EOL from?
There is a huge gap between 5700XT $399 and 6800 $579 and I doubt anything but perhaps mild price drop will happen here until low end 6000 series arrive.

 

[moproblems99]

Lol, it's for HMD's.

Her Majesty's Drones?

 

[windwhirl]

Her Majesty's Drones?

Hats off to you, that was too good!

 

[Totally]

+16% price for +18% perf and +8GB VRAM as a bonus.


AMD denied any of 5700 series stopped being produced, so, uh, where did you get 5700 is EOL from?
There is a huge gap between 5700XT $399 and 6800 $579 and I doubt anything but perhaps mild price drop will happen here until low end 6000 series arrive.

from the tpu article a couple weeks back

 

[EarthDog]

from the tpu article a couple weeks back

For medi and shiton bear...

AMD RX 5700 Series Reportedly Enter EOL - No Longer Manufactured

Update, October 7th 2020: AMD has confirmed it has ceased production for the RX 5700, but that RX 5700 XT manufacturing will be ongoing at least until 1Q2021. It's unclear what this means for the company's RDNA2 launch plans; it could be speculated the company will be releasing halo products...

www.techpowerup.com

Update, October 7th 2020: AMD has confirmed it has ceased production for the RX 5700, but that RX 5700 XT manufacturing will be ongoing at least until 1Q2021.