AMD to Launch Mid-range SKUs of the Radeon RX 9000 Series in March

[AusWolf]

It's actually like:

Consumers: AMD please lower your prices
AMD: lowers prices to the point of having razor thin margins

Consumers: WTF why doesn't this GPU cost $100 like it was 2009? This is unfair! AMD GREED??!!!

Or like:

Customers: AMD please lower your prices.
AMD: *lowers prices*
Customers: Pff, what a piece of rubbish, Nvidia does RT so much better!

 

[3valatzy]

It's actually like:

Consumers: AMD please lower your prices
AMD: lowers prices to the point of having razor thin margins

Consumers: WTF why doesn't this GPU cost $100 like it was 2009? This is unfair! AMD GREED??!!!

AMD has two options, in fact:

1. Charges as much as it wants, and later exits the market forever.
2. Invests in market share by giving extremely deep discounts, and saves the situation at least for now...

 

[Dr. Dro]

It's more like:

Consumers: AMD, please lower prices so you can be competitive.
AMD: *lowers prices $10 below Nvidia on every tier*
...
AMD: Why don't they buy my shit?

I hope this will change with the RX 9000 series, but based on the article, I have my doubts.

$10 isn't gonna make up for the... well it's no longer a gulf, it's the depths of the Mariana trenches in driver quality and software support at this point

 

[Taisho]

AMD's MCM design was such a huge flop that they decided to play along with nVidia until they found other ways to catch up. It was supposed to be super cheap to produce but they abandoned it first in their entry models which says a lot about how their plan worked out.

I'm not saying they would lower the prices if successful, but at least offer meaningful improvements at the same price. Their 6000 series was great and competitive only because the node was miles ahead of nVidia. Yet they managed to have similar power efficiency and traditionally worse video playback or limited FPS efficiency. On equal nodes, AMD is years behind nVidia architecture since many GPU generations. Hopefully, they can invent something like X3D for CPUs because, unlike Intel, nVidia doesn't stop with progress, but raises the prices until they become so absurd that they need to rename the products to "justify" the cost.

 

[AusWolf]

$10 isn't gonna make up for the... well it's no longer a gulf, it's the depths of the Mariana trenches in driver quality and software support at this point

Just what in the world are you talking about?

The "drivers are shit" argument is very tiresome coming from people who haven't had a single AMD card since the 5700 XT (which was the last AMD card I had driver issues with).

Or do you mean Nvidia's obvious lack of care for Linux? If so, then yes, there really is a trench in driver quality in AMD's favour.

 

[3valatzy]

nVidia doesn't stop with progress

It actually has already stopped. The thing is that you have to be able to see it.

Crap:

Crap:

More crap:

Crap:

Crap:

Utter joke:

 

[Dr. Dro]

Just what in the world are you talking about?

The "drivers are shit" argument is very tiresome coming from people who haven't had a single AMD card since the 5700 XT (which was the last AMD card I had driver issues with).

Or do you mean Nvidia's obvious lack of care for Linux? If so, then yes, there really is a trench in driver quality in AMD's favour.

It's because they are, and I'll tell you what's tiresome.... Literally the other day I was looking at the bug tracker for a certain application and... you guessed it. If I just roll my eyes every time I read about API features being broken or noncompliant on Radeon, I can only imagine how it must feel for developers constantly dedicating time to workaround or fix problems with AMD's "shit drivers" instead of actually doing something useful.

I mean, JFC.

Utter joke:

View attachment 378108

The 4080's AD103 is 98% enabled and other specifications are identical... thus it stands to reason the 4080S is up to 2% faster...

 

[igormp]

Or do you mean Nvidia's obvious lack of care for Linux? If so, then yes, there really is a trench in driver quality in AMD's favour.

FWIW, I've seeing you saying such things many times, but that thought is really outdated and just shows your lack of experience in that area.

 

[AusWolf]

It's because they are, and I'll tell you what's tiresome.... Literally the other day I was looking at the bug tracker for a certain application and... you guessed it. If I just roll my eyes every time I read about API features being broken or noncompliant on Radeon, I can only imagine how it must feel for developers constantly dedicating time to workaround or fix problems with AMD's shit drivers instead of actually doing something useful.

I mean, JFC.

As far as I see, that's one bug submitted yesterday, with 0 replies. Nice edge case, not representative of anything.

I'll just ask then: When was the last time you had an AMD card?

FWIW, I've seeing you saying such things many times, but that thought is really outdated and just shows your lack of experience in that area.

I'm not lacking experience in that area as much as @Dr. Dro is lacking experience with modern AMD cards and drivers. But I get you, I'll play around with my Nvidia cards on Linux a bit more when time allows.

 

[igormp]

I'm not lacking experience in that area as much as @Dr. Dro is lacking experience with modern AMD cards and drivers. But I get you, I'll play around with my Nvidia cards on Linux a bit more when time allows.

Sure, fair enough, but I was not referencing to them at all, since I too lack any experience with either AMD and Nvidia on Windows, so I won't comment on that in any way.
Your argument, however, is not really valid, which is why I quoted that specific part.

 

[Dr. Dro]

As far as I see, that's one bug submitted yesterday, with 0 replies. Nice edge case, not representative of anything.

I'll just ask then: When was the last time you had an AMD card?

I'm not lacking experience in that area as much as @Dr. Dro is lacking experience with modern AMD cards and drivers. But I get you, I'll play around with my Nvidia cards on Linux a bit more when time allows.

Well, the developer literally disabled that to workaround the problem that had been reported months prior, really. There is an article from 2014 which focuses strictly on OpenGL (and this driver code has been largely replaced by now) and it's simply bananas to me how this still largely applies to the Radeon drivers at large to this day:

Vendor B driver's key extensions just don't work.
[...]
Vendor B can't update its driver without breaking something. They will send you updates or hotfixes that fix one thing but break two other things. If you single step into one of this driver's entrypoints you'll notice layers upon layers of cruft tacked on over the years by devs who are no longer at the company. Nobody remaining at vendor B understands these barnacle-like software layers enough to safely change them.
[...]My guess: this driver is probably using app profiles to just turn off entire features that are just too buggy.

Interestingly, Vendor B has a tiny tools team that actually makes some pretty useful debugging tools that actually work much of the time - as long as you are using vendor B's GPU. Without Vendor B's tools togl and Source1 Linux would have taken much longer to ship.

This could be a temporary development, but Vendor B's driver seems to be on a downward trend on the reliability axis. (Yes, it can get worse!)

I guess it is a temporary development in the grand scheme of time itself Even NVIDIA (Vendor A)'s mafia-like behavior stayed pretty much the same. The only thing is that Intel is no longer the afterthought, this is one of the blogs that aged the very best out of any I have ever read before.

FTR, I have a Radeon laptop with the R5 5600H. It's not the latest architecture, but it's still pretty much the only graphics hardware I constantly have issues with.

I also love at how quick to jump you were to defend AMD on the basis of "don't listen to him, he hasn't had an RDNA card so he doesn't know!!" as if I knew absolutely nobody who has one I said it before and I'll say it again... at the segment I buy, which is flagship to halo, I price NVIDIA's software support at around 25% of the price, up to $250. That's the point where I will start to consider AMD an option as long as the performance is the exact same between them. If it were to be between a 4080S and a 9070 XT... for me to tolerate the current state of the AMD drivers, it would need to be at least 25% cheaper.

 

[AusWolf]

Well, the developer literally disabled that to workaround the problem that had been reported months prior, really. There is an article from 2014 which focuses strictly on OpenGL (and this driver code has been largely replaced by now) and it's simply bananas to me how this still largely applies to the Radeon drivers at large to this day:



I guess it is a temporary development in the grand scheme of time itself Even NVIDIA (Vendor A)'s mafia-like behavior stayed pretty much the same. The only thing is that Intel is no longer the afterthought, this is one of the blogs that aged the very best out of any I have ever read before.

FTR, I have a Radeon laptop with the R5 5600H. It's not the latest architecture, but it's still pretty much the only graphics hardware I constantly have issues with.

I also love at how quick to jump you were to defend AMD on the basis of "don't listen to him, he hasn't had an RDNA card so he doesn't know!!" as if I knew absolutely nobody who has one I said it before and I'll say it again... at the segment I buy, which is flagship to halo, I price NVIDIA's software support at around 25% of the price, up to $250. That's the point where I will start to consider AMD an option as long as the performance is the exact same between them. If it were to be between a 4080S and a 9070 XT... for me to tolerate the current state of the AMD drivers, it would need to be at least 25% cheaper.

I don't intend to defend AMD, but I find it funny that it's always you riding the "drivers are shit" bandwagon just because you have a 5600H that you aren't happy with. If AMD drivers were really generally that bad, I would see a lot more people complaining here, or maybe I would have some issues of my own, don't you think?

If Nvidia's software support is worth that much to you because of your line of work, fair enough. But that's not a reason to criticise AMD drivers from an ordinary gamer's point of view. For installing Steam and clicking on a game without expecting any errors or bugs, AMD drivers are more than good enough.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I don't intend to defend AMD, but I find it funny that it's always you riding the "drivers are shit" bandwagon just because you have a 5600H that you aren't happy with. If AMD drivers were really generally that bad, I would see a lot more people complaining here, or maybe I would have some issues of my own, don't you think?

If Nvidia's software support is worth that much to you because of your line of work, fair enough. But that's not a reason to criticise AMD drivers from an ordinary gamer's point of view.

Either things are truly great indeed or next to nobody is using them, at an alarming rate even for what's easily considered home turf (tech forums where people are very lenient towards them), wonder what it is. Easy to figure out, of the last 15 active threads in the AMD GPU subforum here at TPU...

Threads regarding upcoming RDNA 4 in the slightest: 1, individual apparently closed to any alternative
Threads regarding hardware that is older than 5 years old: 13
Threads regarding hardware that is older than 10 years old: 1
Threads requesting the miracle elixir of a VBIOS: 12

 

[Taisho]

It actually has already stopped. The thing is that you have to be able to see it.

Crap:

View attachment 378103

You would be happy to see an 18% generational improvement for CPUs. It's even more amazing if you realize the 4060 is a renamed 4050. It was a huge node jump and nVidia capitalized on this progress, milking everyone left and right.

If Nvidia's software support is worth that much to you because of your line of work, fair enough. But that's not a reason to criticise AMD drivers from an ordinary gamer's point of view. For installing Steam and clicking on a game without expecting any errors or bugs, AMD drivers are more than good enough.

If I buy a 7600 months after the series debut and my PC shuts down 10 seconds slower because of that (13 seconds instead of 3), I'm not even reaching the gamer's perspective because I'm already out of this.

 

[AusWolf]

Either things are truly great indeed or next to nobody is using them, at an alarming rate even for what's easily considered home turf (tech forums where people are very lenient towards them), wonder what it is. Easy to figure out, of the last 15 active threads in the AMD GPU subforum here at TPU...

View attachment 378118

Threads regarding upcoming RDNA 4 in the slightest: 1, individual apparently closed to any alternative
Threads regarding hardware that is older than 5 years old: 13
Threads regarding hardware that is older than 10 years old: 1
Threads requesting the miracle elixir of a VBIOS: 12

Lots of threads looking for RX 580 BIOSes... Awesome. I don't see how that has anything to do with the driver issues you mentioned.

If I buy a 7600 months after the series debut and my PC shuts down 10 seconds slower because of that (13 seconds instead of 3), I'm not even reaching the gamer's perspective because I'm already out of this.

A whole 10 seconds? Oh my god, the apocalypse is here!

 

[ThomasK]

If I buy a 7600 months after the series debut and my PC shuts down 10 seconds slower because of that (13 seconds instead of 3), I'm not even reaching the gamer's perspective because I'm already out of this.

I have a business issued PC from the company I work for, which has Intel + NVIDIA. Takes ages to shut down, 'cause of the amount of bloat and software they run in background tasks.

The problem you are reporting has probably more to do with others things you are running, than drivers.

Next argument, please.

 

[Craptacular]

AMD's fine wine is just regular milk. I don't see a reason to be excited.
4 years ago, 6700 XT traded blows with 3070/2080 Ti.
Today, it trails behind 3060 Ti.

You do realize that if you look at both benchmarks the games used are different. So, it is not a like for like comparison in performance that you think.

 

[kapone32]

The battle has been Won. The Nvidia marines do not need to wax on about Drivers and software.

Either things are truly great indeed or next to nobody is using them, at an alarming rate even for what's easily considered home turf (tech forums where people are very lenient towards them), wonder what it is. Easy to figure out, of the last 15 active threads in the AMD GPU subforum here at TPU...

View attachment 378118

Threads regarding upcoming RDNA 4 in the slightest: 1, individual apparently closed to any alternative
Threads regarding hardware that is older than 5 years old: 13
Threads regarding hardware that is older than 10 years old: 1
Threads requesting the miracle elixir of a VBIOS: 12

Funny thing happened when I got my 7900XT. I was so blown away I did not spend much time in Forums but exploring my Game library.

 

[Chrispy_]

1. Does it run new games at 1440p and fluid framerates? If yes, proceed to question 2.
2. Can you justify buying it, or is it so expensive that you'll make do with your 5-year-old GPU at reduced graphics settings.

I have a ton of disposable income and I get PC hardware for free, pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want. I still don't own a 7900XTX or 4090. Currently rocking a 7800XT because it does everything I need it to and gave me a free copy of Starfield, and it doesn't make my gaming room uncomfortably warm in summer.

I really hope the 9070XT is good. I will grab one at launch anyway, to replace the 7800XT out of sheer curiosity - but if it's offering anything less than 30% more performance/$ than Nvidia it's going to be another utterly dead generation for AMD. Let's face it, RDNA3 was 10-20% ahead of Nvidia for performance/$ and yet Nvidia's VRAMless rip-offs outsold AMD by 50-to-1.

 

[Taisho]

A whole 10 seconds? Oh my god, the apocalypse is here!

I used to make fun of nVidia fanboys mocking AMD fanboys about 'coping' but maybe it's real.

The problem you are reporting has probably more to do with others things you are running, than drivers.

Next argument, please.

I don't care if things work for someone else. AMD puts little effort into drivers and compatibility. I spent countless hours undervolting CPU, overclocking RAM, and changing multiple BIOS settings. Then I realized my shutdown times increased significantly. So many things that could cause it! But no, it's damn AMD drivers acting true to the memes I did not believe in!

 

[eidairaman1]

Lots of threads looking for RX 580 BIOSes... Awesome. I don't see how that has anything to do with the driver issues you mentioned.


A whole 10 seconds? Oh my god, the apocalypse is here!

The RX 580s that come here for a bios are typically because they are mining left overs, I do what I can to help them, once the issue is fixed they disappear to not come back

I used to make fun of nVidia fanboys mocking AMD fanboys about 'coping' but maybe it's real.



I don't care if things work for someone else. AMD puts little effort into drivers and compatibility. I spent countless hours undervolting CPU, overclocking RAM, and changing multiple BIOS settings. Then I realized my shutdown times increased significantly. So many things that could cause it! But no, it's damn AMD drivers acting true to the memes I did not believe in!

Wheres your specs?

 

[AusWolf]

I used to make fun of nVidia fanboys mocking AMD fanboys about 'coping' but maybe it's real.



I don't care if things work for someone else. AMD puts little effort into drivers and compatibility. I spent countless hours undervolting CPU, overclocking RAM, and changing multiple BIOS settings. Then I realized my shutdown times increased significantly. So many things that could cause it! But no, it's damn AMD drivers acting true to the memes I did not believe in!

Long shutdown times are caused by software. Your BIOS settings or CPU speed have very little to do with it. The AMD graphics driver isn't the only software on your PC, especially if you had Nvidia before and didn't properly uninstall it (even DDU isn't perfect). Just saying.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Or like:

Customers: AMD please lower your prices.
AMD: *lowers prices*
Customers: Pff, what a piece of rubbish, Nvidia does RT so much better!

I mean...they do, it's not contest, but that's a totally different argument. Everyone likes to pretend that consumers will find any reason to not buy AMD yet the 7900xt/x were regularly out of stock for months after launch, and the 7800xt couldn't stay in stock for what? Half a year?

Maybe if AMD stopped playing pricing games and focused on having a full line of competent cards for multiple generations instead of on a blue moon, they would sell. Seemed to work for the evergreen years....

 

[Random_User]

They're really good at learning from Nvidia on that front, I have to admit.

Yeah! It seems AMD is copy-cating nVidia's behavior, and even naming. But it seems, that the spell doesn't work, and they are confused, why they can't become several trillion bucks company overnight.

 

[Chrispy_]

Maybe if AMD stopped playing pricing games and focused on having a full line of competent cards for multiple generations instead of on a blue moon, they would sell. Seemed to work for the evergreen years....

Yeah, RDNA2 and RDNA3 really only had a few well-priced GPUs, IMO:

6600
6800
7800XT

Other cards were good, but priced too high to be appealing for most people, and more importantly they were priced far too high at launch when the review coverage had the most impact on people. 7700XT is a great card, but it wasn't appealing at $450, and the $900 7900XT made no sense whatsoever until last summer when it dropped to a more appealing $650-700.

Decent products ruined by greed and abysmal marketing. I'd like to hope AMD have learned from this, but they've had so many opportunities to learn from this same poor pricing at launch and yet they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot like they have for at least the 6 years since the 5700-series.