Vega FE Hybrid Mod - Passing the 1080 but 400W+ Power Draw

[Phate.exe]

12 minutes ago, Hunter259 said:

Honestly that really is only true mattering on what you got. If someone bought a 2600k back in 2011 then they would still be find today. You can even go back to the i7 860 and you would still be GPU limited at higher resolutions (I had only 4-5fps increases in minimums going from a 4.1GHz x3470 to my 4.5Ghz 2600k). Unless you really need 100+ FPS capability in every game then even Intel CPU's from 7 years ago can do that.

Even my 1090T was still fine for solid 1080p gaming performance with an RX470, I just wanted to build something new.  I threw all my spare parts together into a build for my friend with an unlocked 960T, an SSD, 8 gigs of DDR3, and a 2gb R9 270x.  It's a great machine that offers a better gaming experience than a console, and all we had to buy was a case, a $45 960T, a cpu cooler, and the SSD.

[Agosto]

AMD NEEDS to pull the rabbit out of hat, otherwise evrything they gained with Ryzen will be lost due to Vega failing to deliver.

[Hunter259]

10 minutes ago, Phate.exe said:

Even my 1090T was still fine for solid 1080p gaming performance with an RX470, I just wanted to build something new.  I threw all my spare parts together into a build for my friend with an unlocked 960T, an SSD, 8 gigs of DDR3, and a 2gb R9 270x.  It's a great machine that offers a better gaming experience than a console, and all we had to buy was a case, a $45 960T, a cpu cooler, and the SSD.

If Linus did a CPU through the ages (Obviously only the stuff that can run Windows 10 which is nearly everything since 2000) it would really show people just how much CPU power you need. If they went and overclocked them as well then I could see late model Core 2 Quads even doing well at high resolutions.

[Taf the Ghost]

21 minutes ago, Agost said:

AMD NEEDS to pull the rabbit out of hat, otherwise evrything they gained with Ryzen will be lost due to Vega failing to deliver.

No? That's not really how this all works.

 

AMD just needs a high enough stack of GPUs to power the FreeSync monitors well enough in higher refresh gaming. The 1080 class, for as much as we talk about it, is a pretty small chunk of the GPU market. 

 

I still expect the top SKU to fit between the 1080 and 1080 Ti, though it's going to be a big power hungry. Whatever their 1070 competitor is will probably be the more important GPU in reality. And I'm really, really interesting in the 7700k vs Ryzen 5/7 results.

[Humbug]

33 minutes ago, Agost said:

AMD NEEDS to pull the rabbit out of hat, otherwise evrything they gained with Ryzen will be lost due to Vega failing to deliver.

Not really. The company future hinged on Zen being good. Vega has nowhere near that level of importance. It won't come close to sinking AMD even if it really sucks. At worst  Nvidia will keep winning the high end GPU battle until Navi when AMD will try to challenge again.

 

Whereas Zen cores were basically the future of AMD, the amount of money it brings in is so much greater. And it hits/will hit so many more markets from desktop to HEDT to laptops to servers and future consoles and APUs etc, as well as the basis to iterate in next few years over all those markets with Zen2, Zen3 etc. What we have seen with Ryzen desktop is just the start of the impact Zen core technology will have and even that market segment alone is way more lucrative than Vega.

 

You have to understand that if Vega is a turd it's just a question of AMD cutting prices and selling what they can in the high end until Navi. Whereas if Zen cores had sucked it would have been game over for AMD. No money and no question of trying again a year later...

[Phate.exe]

40 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

No? That's not really how this all works.

 

AMD just needs a high enough stack of GPUs to power the FreeSync monitors well enough in higher refresh gaming. The 1080 class, for as much as we talk about it, is a pretty small chunk of the GPU market. 

 

I still expect the top SKU to fit between the 1080 and 1080 Ti, though it's going to be a big power hungry. Whatever their 1070 competitor is will probably be the more important GPU in reality. And I'm really, really interesting in the 7700k vs Ryzen 5/7 results.

If we pretend the mining goldrush didn't happen, the 1070 really is the most important card in Nvidia's lineup, and is something AMD doesn't really have an answer to yet.

 

The 480/580 competed well enough with the 1060 that the card to get was more a matter of "do you care about adaptive sync" and "which one is on sale for cheaper this week".  The RX 470/570 was an absolute monster in the sub-$175 price bracket, and didn't really have any natural predators.  I loved mine.

 

There are a whole lot more consumers looking for a bit more than the RX480/580, but not necessarily looking to game at higher resolutions where the 1080/ti come into play (or shell out the cash for those).  The 1070 didn't use stupid amounts of power, and offered a "sane" high-end option before getting into full "enthusiast" level hardware.  You could run anything at 1080p and get high framerates with it, and it offers enough muscle to get into 1440p gaming for those that wanted to as well.

 

If small vega can sit between the 1070 and 1080, and undervolts well (preferably if AMD does the undervolting themselves...), AMD won't have any problem selling them if the price is right.  A 20-30W difference is not a big deal at all and will likely be ignored.  A 50-70W difference is.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Phate.exe said:

If we pretend the mining goldrush didn't happen, the 1070 really is the most important card in Nvidia's lineup, and is something AMD doesn't really have an answer to yet.

 

The 480/580 competed well enough with the 1060 that the card to get was more a matter of "do you care about adaptive sync" and "which one is on sale for cheaper this week".  The RX 470/570 was an absolute monster in the sub-$175 price bracket, and didn't really have any natural predators.  I loved mine.

 

There are a whole lot more consumers looking for a bit more than the RX480/580, but not necessarily looking to game at higher resolutions where the 1080/ti come into play (or shell out the cash for those).  The 1070 didn't use stupid amounts of power, and offered a "sane" high-end option before getting into full "enthusiast" level hardware.  You could run anything at 1080p and get high framerates with it, and it offers enough muscle to get into 1440p gaming for those that wanted to as well.

 

If small vega can sit between the 1070 and 1080, and undervolts well (preferably if AMD does the undervolting themselves...), AMD won't have any problem selling them if the price is right.  A 20-30W difference is not a big deal at all and will likely be ignored.  A 50-70W difference is.

Correct. AMD decided not to make a "Big Polaris" and so there's a gap in the market. (Kind of ironically, no one can buy a 580 or below, but AMD will end up selling every GPU they ended up making. Go figure.) The lower SKU RX Vega at, say, $299 would be a beast for the next 7-9 months before Volta lands. It would also help AMD fill out that big market of FreeSync monitors that's coming online. Given that 1440p widescreen seems about as far as "gaming" probably has any reason to stretch for, that's the target market they really need to hit.

 

This does go back to the GCN architecture issues. It's very much an iGPU that's been scaled up. So as you approach 1080 class, it's going to eat up a lot of Power. This has happened every generation so far. (Nvidia's GPUs are all cut-down Machine Learning processors. CUDA was stupidly brilliant by them and they've been running with it ever since.) That's why the RX580 vs 1060 stuff is blow for blow. With a bit more Perf/Watt, the 1070 competitor should be solid. The top SKU stuff is its own issue. Though I'm suddenly curious if 3x CrossFire still works? 

[Agosto]

1 hour ago, Taf the Ghost said:

No? That's not really how this all works.

 

AMD just needs a high enough stack of GPUs to power the FreeSync monitors well enough in higher refresh gaming. The 1080 class, for as much as we talk about it, is a pretty small chunk of the GPU market. 

 

I still expect the top SKU to fit between the 1080 and 1080 Ti, though it's going to be a big power hungry. Whatever their 1070 competitor is will probably be the more important GPU in reality. And I'm really, really interesting in the 7700k vs Ryzen 5/7 results.

 

1 hour ago, Humbug said:

Not really. The company future hinged on Zen being good. Vega has nowhere near that level of importance. It won't come close to sinking AMD even if it really sucks. At worst  Nvidia will keep winning the high end GPU battle until Navi when AMD will try to challenge again.

 

Whereas Zen cores were basically the future of AMD, the amount of money it brings in is so much greater. And it hits/will hit so many more markets from desktop to HEDT to laptops to servers and future consoles and APUs etc, as well as the basis to iterate in next few years over all those markets with Zen2, Zen3 etc. What we have seen with Ryzen desktop is just the start of the impact Zen core technology will have and even that market segment alone is way more lucrative than Vega.

 

You have to understand that if Vega is a turd it's just a question of AMD cutting prices and selling what they can in the high end until Navi. Whereas if Zen cores had sucked it would have been game over for AMD. No money and no question of trying again a year later...

 I mean in terms of market share, stock value, general public opinion. 

If Vega fails miserably (and it's sadly very probable), the AMD lineup will be just the same as before, valid only up to midrange (except for zero cards in stock) with some power hungry, not strong enough GPUs on the high end. 1440p 144Hz (actually quite common among enthusiasts) can't be properly driven by Vega in its current state; same for UHD 60 Hz. By "properly" I mean 1080Ti levels, which is the first "affordable" card capable of pushing 60 fps on many games at UHD

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Hunter259 said:

Honestly that really is only true mattering on what you got. If someone bought a 2600k back in 2011 then they would still be find today. You can even go back to the i7 860 and you would still be GPU limited at higher resolutions (I had only 4-5fps increases in minimums going from a 4.1GHz x3470 to my 4.5Ghz 2600k). Unless you really need 100+ FPS capability in every game then even Intel CPU's from 7 years ago can do that.

I wasn't just talking about CPUs though e.g. buying two 780's and hoping they would last a long time is worse than buying one 780 then one 980 then one 1080 etc.

 

Buying the best of every part or two if GPU and hoping for long life will leave you quite down in performance over time, sure it can still be absolutely fine as you said but you could of had better for the same.