Why does AMD STILL use Vega as integrated graphics ?

[Bl4ze_buoy]

AMD's integrated graphics (Vega) is a good replacement for old GPUs (like GTX 6th and 7th Gen) and REALLY good for emulation. In terms of AAA gaming (at 720p, LOW settings), it  BARELY plays games at 30fps. The Vega graphics is starting to show it's age as it's not been updated since the inception of Ryzen APUs. We didn't know of this since there was literally NO competition because, Intel's UHD graphics SUCK and the new XE graphics (though being pretty powerful) has BAD drivers and so, many games don't even run or have game breaking bugs. And then, the steam deck is given to reviewers. What most people thought was that it was going to be a souped-up Aya neo but the RDNA2 graphics BLEW EVERYONE'S mind. This raises the question why does AMD STILL use Vega graphics ?  Even something like RDNA1 on Ryzen 3000 series would make it GENERATIONS AHEAD of Intel.

 

[Guest]

Integrated graphics use your system memory as the VRAM. DDR4 will bottleneck RDNA2 based APUs.

 

Not to mention that the Vega architecture is proven to be very efficient, and works very well.

[Bl4ze_buoy]

6 minutes ago, sordinary said:

Not to mention that the Vega architecture is proven to be very efficient, and works very well.

Vega hasn't aged well and has stayed the same since Ryzen 2000 series. While Intel (UHD graphics) has been atleast improving A BIT evert Gen. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

Vega hasn't aged well and has stayed the same since Ryzen 2000 series. While Intel has been atleast improving A BIT evert Gen. 

AMD has done what they can with the graphics side of Ryzen APUs for now. I believe that's the reason why Ryzen 5000 APUs exist. They decided to improve on the processor side of Ryzen APUs instead. Since they can't improve on the graphics side due to memory bandwidth limit of DDR4 and for other reasons that only Lisa Su knows.

 

Just wait until DDR5 becomes the standard in the market. Maybe things will change.

 

[tkitch]

3 minutes ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

Vega hasn't aged well and has stayed the same since Ryzen 2000 series. While Intel (UHD graphics) has been atleast improving A BIT evert Gen. 

not at all true.  

the iGPUs on the 7th gen - 10th gen are all identical.

 

11th gen got some new iGPUs.

[Jurrunio]

10 minutes ago, sordinary said:

DDR4 will bottleneck RDNA2 based APUs.

I disagree. 6600XT has much less VRAM bandwidth than similar (or even slower) performance parts from previous generations like the 5700XT or even the Vega 56. In other words RDNA2 gives more performance under the same memory bandwidth constraint than Vega.

 

14 minutes ago, sordinary said:

Not to mention that the Vega architecture is proven to be very efficient, and works very well.

It's still GCN, it is not as efficient as Nvidia's equivalent (look at Vega 56 versus RTX 2070 Super, the Vega definitely draws more power while still being slower) so it can't be called "very efficient".

 

22 minutes ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

why does AMD STILL use Vega graphics ?

Probably to save on development cost. From Zen APU to Zen 3 APU, they just redraw the design of the CPU part and keep the GPU part the same.

 

23 minutes ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

it's not been updated since the inception of Ryzen APUs.

It sort of has, on the 2200G its Vega 8 started at 1100MHz and usually overclockable to say, 1400 ish. On the 5700G though it starts at 2000MHz and can be overclocked to around 2300-2400. This is similar to what Intel has done before Xe based iGPUs on 11th gen desktop CPUs, same design with more clock speed. Only for Intel, they added way less frequency than AMD has.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I disagree. 6600XT has much less VRAM bandwidth than similar (or even slower) performance parts from previous generations like the 5700XT or even the Vega 56. In other words RDNA2 gives more performance under the same memory bandwidth constraint than Vega.

 

Well, If that's true then, I guess AMD wants to save on R&D costs.

 

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

(look at Vega 56 versus RTX 2070 Super, the Vega definitely draws more power while still being slower)

Hey, at least the ones in the APUs are nice.

Anyway, thanks for the information and correction!
 

[porina]

17 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

6600XT has much less VRAM bandwidth than similar (or even slower) performance parts from previous generations like the 5700XT or even the Vega 56. In other words RDNA2 gives more performance under the same memory bandwidth constraint than Vega.

I'd guess that's down to the inclusion of Infinity Cache in RDNA2. It makes sense for a dGPU, but I'm not sure it fits an APU where the design goal is more towards a compact and thus cost efficient die. Even the CPU side of APUs get cache castrated at 16MB/8 cores compared to the full fat 32MB/8 core desktop equivalents.

 

The Steamdeck has more far ram bandwidth than regular DDR4 systems have and I feel that is the bigger contributor to its performance.

[Jurrunio]

16 minutes ago, porina said:

I'd guess that's down to the inclusion of Infinity Cache in RDNA2. It makes sense for a dGPU, but I'm not sure it fits an APU where the design goal is more towards a compact and thus cost efficient die. Even the CPU side of APUs get cache castrated at 16MB/8 cores compared to the full fat 32MB/8 core desktop equivalents

This is maybe true. 6700XT has 50% the compute units of a 6900XT and 3/4 the inifinity cache at 64.4% the size, while 6600XT has 80% the compute units of a 6700XT and 1/3 the infinity cache at 70.7% the size. I can see how there's a minimum size for RDNA2 if you dont remove all infinity cache that's still way too big for AM4 (6600XT alone is bigger than the whole 5700G after all)

 

TR4 APU when

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

TR4 APU when

Threadrippers with Integrated Graphics would be Linus' dream. The other Linus. Of course.

[RejZoR]

AMD has weird codenames recently where they have some sort of new generation of faster and more efficient Vega GPU cores, but they don't call them Vega 2 for some stupid reason. If it's Vega based graphics and it's AMD's APU from 2021 (maybe already 2020), it's this new Vega revision.

[Chris Pratt]

1 hour ago, Bl4ze_buoy said:

Vega hasn't aged well and has stayed the same since Ryzen 2000 series. While Intel (UHD graphics) has been atleast improving A BIT evert Gen. 

And, even still Vega is better than Intel graphics. The gap has closed significantly, to the point where Xe is almost as good, but still not quite as good.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

because all the good shit cant be made......

 

Amd is making RDNA apus, but theyre in the consoles and the steam deck.

Id bet that in the next year or two well get rdna or rdna 2 apus, maybe with am5, but i dont know for sure I dont work ar amd

 

Also without a gpu your gamig perf on a 3000g as on a 11900k

[WhitetailAni]

I bet they're saving it for AM5 so they get more memory bandwidth, and a great selling point.
"Our new AM5 socket comes with RDNA/2-based iGPUs! Better than a GT 1030!"

[GDRRiley]

vega takes up very little die space, thats why they haven't moved on from it. they dropped how many CUs and increased the frequency to take up less space

RDNA2 takes up a lot more

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

vega takes up very little die space, thats why they haven't moved on from it. they dropped how many CUs and increased the frequency to take up less space

RDNA2 takes up a lot more

Smaller dies > more dies to sell > more money for AMD

[HerrKaLeu]

I bet it is impossible (or at least impractical) to make an iGPU to be as powerful as a "real" GPU. There are thermal, electrical, space and RAM limits that all are resolved by using a separate graphics card. A CPU uses 100-200W, and then add the 200-300W for the GPU on the tiny die would require some really special cooling and power delivery. 

 

Even if they could make a CPU with a "good" iGPU, it would be hard to upgrade the GPU since that also requires CPU upgrade a the same time. And that CPU would then cost as much as a CPU and a dGPU combined and the user wouldn't have the economical choice to match a CPU to a GPU. And if you are a fanboy of intel or AMD, you would be forced to also pick their GPU. 

 

Once you get a decent CPU, you often can just upgrade the GPU when new games come out. If it is iGPU, you have to upgrade both (and possibly the board)

 

The use for iGPU basically is regular PC work (office, browsing, Netflix) and older or non-graphics games. Someone who plays real graphics games, or does graphics productivity work, wouldn't be happy with the iGPU anyway.

[YoungBlade]

Honestly, I think the real reason is the same reason that Intel was on 4c/8t as the top part for a decade: no competition.

 

It was only this current generation, and only in laptops, that Intel closed the gap and became competitive with Vega. AMD had no need to devote the resources to moving away from that architecture. As long as their APUs completely curb-stomped the only alternative on the market, they were still the market leader in that category. So now that Intel has finally got something decent, I think AMD's next generation will move to RDNA-based APUs.

[Surestgarlic2]

can I overclock Vega 3

[Jurrunio]

55 minutes ago, Benji said:

Look at reviews on pages like Notebookcheck. Xe 96EU is actually better in a lot of games at a lower clock speed with a similarly low power consumption as the 5000 Series APUs, so it is still as good or even better (not even including the AV1 decoder that AMD doesn't offer in that statement). In these tests, it basically only competes in the pretty much value-less 3DMark tests just to perform worse than they actually offer in games. The only issue are the drivers, but the Vega is definitely not "better" than the Xe graphics. It is definitely better than the Intel (U)HD Graphics, but it is barely competitive with the Xe Graphics. That the Xe is "almost as good, but still not quite as good" is quite the apt statement. It's not really true.

Those are the laptop quad core parts. Look at the higher CPU core count ones with up to 32CU, that's what Ryzen competes with.

 

but tbh, what really gets me is how Vega iGPU takes up PCIe lanes. That hurts the idea of using the iGPU before eventually getting a high end dGPU.

 

1 minute ago, Surestgarlic2 said:

can I overclock Vega 3

Yes

[Surestgarlic2]

6 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

 

Yes

if I overclock a Vega 3 will it be better than my current hd 5450 I think it's what it is

[Jurrunio]

16 minutes ago, Benji said:

What do they use instead?

good old ring bus.

 

17 minutes ago, Benji said:

And these laptop Tiger Lake are the most prevalent and relevant pieces. Barely anybody pays money for a rather expensive, high-performance CPU without buying a dGPU.

like, now cuz they cant afford one? Laptop argument doesn't make sense, high end gaming laptops come with high end GPUs have no problem meeting demands.

 

18 minutes ago, Surestgarlic2 said:

if I overclock a Vega 3 will it be better than my current hd 5450 I think it's what it is

5450? Easily.

[WolframaticAlpha]

What about the gabeboy? It will be RDNA2. Maybe other laptop manufacturer adopt it?

[Surestgarlic2]

23 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

 

 

5450? Easily.

what would it be equivalent to

[Kronoton]

Pretty much noone buying an AMD-APU desktop (and few with Laptops) cares about AAA games. All the want is a display-out that can playback video and maybe some super casual gaming.

 

So yes, given a top bar for price (and die size) AMD does prioritize CPU over GPU for these chips (unless they go into consoles) as that is exactly what costumers want.