UPDATED* AMD announces the Radeon VII - but it's $699 | Nvidia calls it "Lousy"

[YoloSwag]

As we all know from CES, AMD announced a lot of things but it's nice of them to announce a new GPU that can at least match a GTX 2080

 

The Radeon VII will feature 16GB of HBM2 with 1TB/s of bandwidth, 60 CUs, a core clock of up to 1.8GHz, and up to 25% of performance improvement vs previous generation.

 

What's a bit disappointing slightly 'meh' however is that they chose to release a card that will match a GTX 2080 but at $699.

 

I think at $699 this card loses a lot of attractiveness (The GTX 1080 Ti is still a good value card than a GTX 2080 and is cheaper). Perhaps even 8GB of HBM2 would be better, I just wish they'd push it down to $599 (VEGA 64 launched at $499, although it can be argued one can't find it at MSRP at that time)

But this is just me nitpicking since the card itself is $100 cheaper than a GTX 2080 (which launched at $799)

 

Well there you have it, it took AMD almost 2 years to have a card that matches the GTX 1080 Ti (which by the way launched also at $699 in March 2017).

 

Is this card worth getting over a GTX 1080 Ti right now? Maybe. We don't know. We have to wait for in-depth reviews.

In other news: GTX 1080 Ti have nothing to fear, just skip one more year!

 

(Source: CES, Fudzilla)

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention

Quote

For a limited time, Radeon VII will be bundled with Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2, and The Division 2 games.

So it could be a better value card than the GTX 1080 Ti at the moment assuming you play all those games (or sell them)

End.

 

Also in case you missed it -

 

UPDATE:

Nvidia's Jensen Huang had a couple of things to say about the announcement -

Quote

“The performance is lousy and there’s nothing new. There’s] no ray tracing, no AI. It’s 7nm with HBM memory that barely keeps up with a 2080. And if we turn on DLSS we’ll crush it. And if we turn on ray tracing we’ll crush it.”

LMAO. This is the first time I heard something like this from Jensen. He sounds like a 12-year old kid and he's the CEO.

Well, I think he's speaking to his own cards "And if we turn on ray tracing we'll crush it" yeah, sounds about right the way Ray-Tracing takes a toll on the RTX cards.

 

 

AMD's Lisa Su does however gave a moderate response -

Quote

“What I would say is that we’re very excited about Radeon VII, and I would probably suggest that he hasn’t seen it yet.”

 

Source: Fudzilla

 

[Ja50n]

Release price is one thing, but we’ll see what market forces do. Vega was an interesting one last year...

[YoloSwag]

1 minute ago, Ja50n said:

Release price is one thing, but we’ll see what market forces do. Vega was an interesting one last year...

Last year VEGA 64 was available on retail for $365 in my country. That's the same amount they were selling RX 580s when the mining thing peaked.

[VanayadGaming]

They launched a card that competes with the best from nvidia, except the 2080TI. I think they are ok. What did you guys expect? a 300$ card that competes with the Titan ? It is expensive though, and I would have liked it a bit cheaper...but still, it will be a great productivity/gaming card, just as the 2080. (maybe even better on the productivity side)

[Humbug]

These are defective instinct mi60 chips, hence the missing 4 CUs. Most of the defective ones end up as mi50, now they intend to take some of those for gamers. This was a late decision,  AMD previously intended to skip vega 7nm for gamers. See the below specs the new gamer card is exactly the same as the mi50. They even left the 16GB vram in there lol.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-instinct-mi60-mi50-7nm-gpus,38031.html

 

We will not see volume production, they will be hard to come by. AMD knows this so they priced it high. They know that the very limited quantities they make will be sold out.

[Humbug]

11 minutes ago, VanayadGaming said:

They launched a card that competes with the best from nvidia, except the 2080TI. I think they are ok. What did you guys expect? a 300$ card that competes with the Titan ? It is expensive though, and I would have liked it a bit cheaper...but still, it will be a great productivity/gaming card, just as the 2080. (maybe even better on the productivity side)

I agree this GPU is a good technological achievement.

It has only 15% higher clocks than Vega64. However the performance is 25-30% improved.

This is a clear sign that the architecture is much better on the newer Vega II. Not just a die shrink.

 

Also it means they are catching up on the high end. It took AMD 1.5 years to launch a gtx 1080 competitor. This time they are launching an RTX 2080 competitor within 4 months. So that is good.

 

However it's a disappointing launch due to the price. Nvidia has been recently damaging high end PC gaming by making it progressively more elitist and expensive. This was AMD's chance to do something disruptive and be the saviour. By launching Radeon 7 at $550 at most. Instead they are launching at $699 and everyone will buy geforce for the brand name recognition. Gamers don't need 16GB of HBM 2.0, they could have made it 8GB and saved that BOM cost. We are also all too familiar with what will take place- retail prices will be inflated and we will not be able to buy at MSRP.

 

Nvidia pricing trends have become toxic for PC gaming. They are poisoning the well.

Look at how the price is going out of control

GTX 960 to GTX  1060 to GTX 2060

GTX 970 to GTX 1070 to GTX 2070

GTX 980 to GTX 1080 to GTX 2080

etc

 

They are conditioning people to pay higher and higher prices. This is good for their margins short term but on the longterm it just makes PC gaming so much less appealing and drives people towards consoles.

 

This was AMD's real shot to be the savior and provide a lifeline to high end PC gamers. By delivering the Radeon VII at $500-550. But they did not. It would have been a great strategic move and added value to their brand, because of the timing when Nvidia is hurting the market.

[Blademaster91]

1 minute ago, VanayadGaming said:

They launched a card that competes with the best from nvidia, except the 2080TI. I think they are ok. What did you guys expect? a 300$ card that competes with the Titan ? It is expensive though, and I would have liked it a bit cheaper...but still, it will be a great productivity/gaming card, just as the 2080. (maybe even better on the productivity side)

I was expecting a card around the same price as a Vega64 that competes with a 1080Ti and 2080, but it should be great for non-gaming tasks with 16GB and more bandwidth than the 2080, though I agree AMD should be selling an 8GB version to keep the cost down. The triple fan cooler is nice to see and much better than a blower although i'm curious if it still runs hot like the previous Vega cards.

[Spotty]

$699 is the same MSRP as the RTX 2080 which AMD claims the Radeon 7 is on par with. Most feedback has been that the RTX cards are too expensive. I think AMD should have released a cheaper version of the Radeon 7 aimed more at gaming with 'only' 8GB of HBM2 memory and priced it around $599 [or lower] which would allow them to compete against Nvidia in pricing. There's really no need for a gaming graphics card to have 16GB of HBM2 memory, that's more workstation GPU area.

They did mention in the CES presentation that there will be more versions coming throughout the year, so hopefully we will soon see an 8GB version with the same GPU die that is targeted more at gaming and can bring the cost down.

[dizmo]

Makes sense to me.

• It has 16GB vs 8GB of VRAM
• It has HBM as opposed to GDDR6 (though, since GDDR6 costs quite a bit now, that difference likely isn't as large)
• Isn't this more of a workstation turned gamer card? Akin to the Frontier?

Just like OnePlus, AMD won't be racing to the bottom forever. Eventually they'll get enough traction where pricing their product at the same price, or perhaps *gasp* even higher than Nvidia will still net them with extremely healthy profits.

 

AMD won't be your white knight forever.

[YoloSwag]

13 minutes ago, VanayadGaming said:

They launched a card that competes with the best from nvidia, except the 2080TI. I think they are ok. What did you guys expect? a 300$ card that competes with the Titan ? It is expensive though, and I would have liked it a bit cheaper...but still, it will be a great productivity/gaming card, just as the 2080. (maybe even better on the productivity side)

and here's why I say this -

5 minutes ago, Humbug said:

By launching Radeon 7 at $550 at most. Instead they are launching at $699 and everyone will buy geforce for the brand name recognition.

 That's exactly why I am disappointed at this launch.

[YoloSwag]

Just now, dizmo said:

AMD won't be your white knight forever.

The saddest quote I was able to quote since I joined LTT...

[YoloSwag]

7 minutes ago, Spotty said:

$699 is the same MSRP as the RTX 2080 which AMD claims the Radeon 7 is on par with.

Yeah I guess I forgot to say that the RTX 2080 FE was $799.

Although I suspect you won't be able to get both the Radeon VII and RTX 2080 at MSRP in retail.

[Spotty]

Just now, YoloSwag said:

Yeah I guess I forgot to say that the RTX 2080 FE was $799.

Although I suspect you won't be able to get both the Radeon VII and RTX 2080 at MSRP in retail.

There are RTX 2080's that are currently available to buy in stores like Amazon.com and Newegg.com for the $699 MSRP. The RTX 2080 sells for anywhere between $670 to $900. https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=427&sort=price&page=1

[silentdragon95]

$699 is just the MSRP at launch, I expect the actual market price will be lower and they could still release a cheaper 8GB variant later. If the card delivers the promised performance at the same or a lower price than NVIDIAs offerings then I'll buy it.

[williamcll]

gonna have to wait for the reviews first.

[Mihle]

I bet Navi later this year will be s much better price for the performance, but ofc not as good performance as this. Because HBM.

[Humbug]

 

[Humbug]

15 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I bet Navi later this year will be s much better price for the performance, but ofc not as good performance as this. Because HBM.

Not because of HBM. But because the Navi that is launching this year will be midrange. Fewer CUs.

 

The Navi we are getting this year will compete with RTX 2060 and RTX 2070. AMD will retire Polaris or relegate it to low end at this point. So it will be low end Polaris/Navi, midrange Navi and highend Vega II by the end of this year.

 

Then in 2020 they will launch the high end Navi, only then will  they retire Vega II.

[Granular]

Probably a hell of a compute card.

As for gaming, wait for $NEXT_PRODUCT_CODENAME !

[sof006]

I'm interested to see if it's a power hog and gets really hot..  like previous Vega. Because if it does I won't want to get one.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Granular said:

Probably a hell of a compute card.

Probably a good thing crypto is basic dead atm, that amount of performance and memory bandwidth would make it a huge miners target.

[DrMacintosh]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

Most feedback has been that the RTX cards are too expensive. I think AMD should have released a cheaper version of the Radeon 7 aimed more at gaming with 'only' 8GB of HBM2 memory and priced it around $599 [or lower]

Instead they released a single card that matches a 2080 in gaming performance and beats a 2080 in compute tasks by a big margin. 

 

AMD is not Nvidia, producing one sku means lower production costs, something AMD needs. 

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, sof006 said:

I'm interested to see if it's a power hog and gets really hot..  like previous Vega. Because if it does I won't want to get one.

Heat wise AIB models were fine, not hotter than Nvida card using the same cooler, just slightly higher fam rpm. Power draw is going to be the same as current Vega, only difference here is a non terrible reference cooler and higher performance.

 

Edit:

Side note why does anyone even care about older AMD reference coolers anyway, in the past who was actually buying those cards. Only thing those reference coolers were used for was ammo to dump on AMD GPUs even though it didn't represent what people are actually buying.

[suicidalfranco]

sounds like a good card, too expensive for me personally, but not bad at all.

If combined with Chill it can be a dead silent card whilst gaming at 1080p@60  might attempt at considering it.

[Blademaster91]

14 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Instead they released a single card that matches a 2080 in gaming performance and beats a 2080 in compute tasks by a big margin. 

 

AMD is not Nvidia, producing one sku means lower production costs, something AMD needs. 

A single card that matches the performance Nvidia had with the previous 1080Ti, AMD is really late with a competing card that also still can't come close in power draw.  And as mentioned you probably won't be able to find a  Radeon VII at MSRP because these cards are made in limited numbers from their defective compute cards.