AMA: RTG with Raja about AMD VEGA

[Humbug]

Some interesting answers

 

Question: Was the card used in the gaming demos a Frontier Edition? And if so, was it the water cooled one or the air cooled version?
 

Raja: It was an air-cooled version

Raja : It was running on Frontier Edition

Raja : Consumer RX will be much better optimized for all the top gaming titles and flavours of RX Vega will actually be faster than Frontier version!

Raja : The Frontier Edition was designed for a variety of use-cases like Machine Learning, real-time visualization, and game design. Can you play games on Frontier Edition? Yes, absolutely. It supports the RX driver and will deliver smooth 4K gaming. But because it is optimized for professional use cases (and priced accordingly), if gaming is your primary reason for buying a GPU, I’d suggest waiting just a little while longer for the lower-priced, gaming-optimized Radeon RX Vega graphics card

[Valentyn]

3 minutes ago, Humbug said:

Some interesting answers

 

Question: Was the card used in the gaming demos a Frontier Edition? And if so, was it the water cooled one or the air cooled version?
 

Raja: It was an air-cooled version

Raja : It was running on Frontier Edition

Raja : Consumer RX will be much better optimized for all the top gaming titles and flavours of RX Vega will actually be faster than Frontier version!

Raja : The Frontier Edition was designed for a variety of use-cases like Machine Learning, real-time visualization, and game design. Can you play games on Frontier Edition? Yes, absolutely. It supports the RX driver and will deliver smooth 4K gaming. But because it is optimized for professional use cases (and priced accordingly), if gaming is your primary reason for buying a GPU, I’d suggest waiting just a little while longer for the lower-priced, gaming-optimized Radeon RX Vega graphics card

 

 

 

Raja : RX will be fully optimized gaming drivers, as well as a few other goodies that I can't tell you about just yet....But you will like FE too, if you can't wait:)

 

I do wonder what those "goodies" will be.

 

Also I noticed someone posted a comparison between Frontier Edition and a 1.96Ghz 1080Ti for Sniper elite.

 

[Taf the Ghost]

3 hours ago, Valentyn said:

Most likely the plan as well, as Raja during Computex 2016 talked about it all, and how many smaller dies are the way to go again.

So by 2019 I expect Radeons to be like Ryzens with multiple cores.

 

History hopefully doesn't repeat itself, and we have DX12 and Vulkan multi-gpu support more.

Haha.

 

There's a bit more going on than just putting multiple GPUs together.  Raja has talked about the bigger problem being actually getting the data to the GPU.  Obviously, this is bottlenecks, but at a more technical level.  It brings to question how much actual efficiency can be found in the rendering pipeline.  Obviously, there's the professional-level SSG card, but it'll be interesting to see how this tech plays out.

[Humbug]

3 minutes ago, Valentyn said:

 

Raja : RX will be fully optimized gaming drivers, as well as a few other goodies that I can't tell you about just yet....But you will like FE too, if you can't wait:)

So overall they have been using the slower non-gaming variant to demo gaming performance.

 

AMD

 

I know it's cause rx vega wasn't ready but still...

[Valentyn]

2 minutes ago, Humbug said:

So they have been using the slower non-gaming variant to demo gaming performance.

 

AMD

That does make me more hopeful; although...AMD does rather well in that game as it is.

So I suspect Vega FE will be just a smidge slower than stock 1080Ti in most other games.

Hopefully the Radeon RX version is clocked higher, along with these other goodies. I'll be a tad disappointed if Vega FE is as fast as they could have clocked the silicon and at most after market Radeons manage 50-100Mhz.

 

Gotta say though, I do like the look of the Frontier Edition.

Reminds me of Intel Xeon-Phi, and black version would be soooo good!

 

[Humbug]

Just now, Valentyn said:

That does make me more hopeful; although...AMD does rather well in that game as it is.

So I suspect Vega FE will be just a smidge slower than stock 1080Ti in most other games.

Hopefully the Radeon RX version is clocked higher, along with these other goodies. I'll be a tad disappointed if Vega FE is as fast as they could have clocked the silicon and at most after market Radeons manage 50-100Mhz.

He did confirm that the version shown so far was air cooled and that water cooled versions run higher clocks. Also I expect some variants rx vega to run at higher clocks.

 

Raja went quite far in his statement. He didn't just say that rx vega will be better optimized for gaming. He said much better optimized.

[Valentyn]

1 minute ago, Humbug said:

He did confirm that the version shown so far was air cooled and that water cooled versions run higher clocks. Also I expect some variants rx vega to run at higher clocks.

 

Raja went quite far in his statement. He didn't just say that rx vega will be better optimized for gaming. He said much better optimized.

 

That's true, and I hope it holds true. Honestly though, I really don't like that watercooled "gold" colour.

Also why the hell is the card so bloody long?! It's a single GPU, with HBM2; yet over 50% longer than the Fury X was. Hmmm

 

WhyCry recoloured it, and it looks so much better; even Raja liked his recolours.

https://videocardz.com/69636/just-some-concepts

[Taf the Ghost]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wFdGFMPp3Y

 

So for a well-clocked 1080 Ti, on a 7700k running at 4.5 Ghz, is a little bit faster.  It'll hit 85 FPS in some situations.  Obviously, Sniper Elite is a well optimized game & engine. (Impressively so, actually.)  So, there's head room to improve, which we don't know about.  We also don't know what CPU / System settings they were using.  (And, maybe AMD was dogging a bit with the system, we'll see.)

 

 

So, this does point to Vega being quite a bit better than the 1080.  Around the 1080 Ti, but since this test was on a 7700k and those are AIB cards that are hanging in the 80s, it'll be interesting.

 

I also repeat a previous statement I made that Vega on Ryzen might see upwards of 30% better results than the 1080 Ti in certain games.

[Valentyn]

4 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wFdGFMPp3Y

 

So for a well-clocked 1080 Ti, on a 7700k running at 4.5 Ghz, is a little bit faster.  It'll hit 85 FPS in some situations.  Obviously, Sniper Elite is a well optimized game & engine. (Impressively so, actually.)  So, there's head room to improve, which we don't know about.  We also don't know what CPU / System settings they were using.  (And, maybe AMD was dogging a bit with the system, we'll see.)

So, this does point to Vega being quite a bit better than the 1080.  Around the 1080 Ti, but since this test was on a 7700k and those are AIB cards that are hanging in the 80s, it'll be interesting.

 

I also repeat a previous statement I made that Vega on Ryzen might see upwards of 30% better results than the 1080 Ti in certain games.

 

One thing is clear though, they used the air cooled Frontier Edition; and Raja has stated that the RX Radeon version will be faster than that.

The results also depend on Where in the game GN tested. The results linked above was with a 1.96Ghz 1080Ti on a 5Ghz 7700K, running the same scene as Raja showed in the game.
Frontier Edtion being 10% slower than that does look great; but then as you said we know nothing of the rest of the system they used, or graphics settings.

 

I'm actually really excited to see what AMD brings out.

[Taf the Ghost]

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/03/22/dx12_versus_dx11_gaming_performance_video_card_review/9

 

I'm still trying to find a Ryzen + 1080 Ti test in Sniper Elite 4.  

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Performance_Analysis/Sniper_Elite_4/4.html

 

Even the Fury X is still a capable performer at 4K in Sniper Elite 4.  Obviously, it still depends where you benchmark.  AdoredTV's review of Prey had some interesting results between CPU and GPU combinations depending on where in the game you're testing.

[Valentyn]

1 minute ago, Taf the Ghost said:

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/03/22/dx12_versus_dx11_gaming_performance_video_card_review/9

 

I'm still trying to find a Ryzen + 1080 Ti test in Sniper Elite 4.  

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Performance_Analysis/Sniper_Elite_4/4.html

 

Even the Fury X is still a capable performer at 4K in Sniper Elite 4.  Obviously, it still depends where you benchmark.  AdoredTV's review of Prey had some interesting results between CPU and GPU combinations depending on where in the game you're testing.

 

Drivers will also play a massive massive role. The latest AMD Driver adds a minimum improvement of 4.5% in Prey alone.

Raja also mentioned that Radeon RX will be significantly better optimised for gaming; and that their driver team wishes Vega was more similar to Polaris from a development standpoint.

 

We just need to sit tight until Computex; and hopefully we'll see more information. Until then just gotta keep and eye out for Ryzen + 1080Ti for Sniper Elite 4K.
 

[Taf the Ghost]

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-1080-ti-review,12.html

 

The Fury X, especially, seems to have scaled really well into 4K w/ DX12.  There's really interesting.  And probably points to what AMD is up to for marketing. They're expecting to trade blows at 1080p, but since this is their high-end card they're going to focus on 1440p & 4K for discussion.

[TheRandomness]

I'm most excited for a potential SFF card. Hopefully under 16cm, hopefully not priced at $600, and hopefully a decent performer. Though, that joke was quite amazing.. Of course you'll need more volta(ge) for overclocking.

I mean: 

I'm too excited about that.

[Taf the Ghost]

 

This isn't at 4K, but it is on a Ryzen 5 1500X.  So that's 4c8t in 2+2.  This isn't a CPU limited game at that level, but you can see the headroom it would have.  At around 1 minute in, you see the demo scene from the Financial Analyst day.  That was at around 80 FPS on a RX 480 @ 1080p.

[Taf the Ghost]

Hopefully that takes you to the benchmark at 1m:45s in.  More Ryzen 5 1500X, but with a GTX 1080 @ 1080p.  Still interesting for an idea of what we're looking at.

 

Side note: the 1080/Ti line + 1500X or 1400 normally scales really badly. Seems to be that Nvidia driver issue again. Probably some issues with spamming across the infinity fabric.  But it's safe to say that the Demo was done on at least a 4c8t CPU.

[Taf the Ghost]

 

If the timestamp works, if not: @ 55 seconds into the video.

 

It's a Ryzen 5 1600X in Sniper Elite on a 1080 @ 4K in DX11. Comes in at 46 FPS. No clue on the testing system or where, but that does track with other reviews. The performance uplift from DX11 to DX12 on the 1080 seems to be very small in the game.

 

Which means the test CPU was probably a 1800X.  The game doesn't have CPU limitation issues and even a 7700k isn't really going to get much extra out of it. That's a dang amazing engine, really.

[Terryv]

All of this furthers my belief that the midrange vega card will match the 1080ti. The higher tier (and possible dual vega) will sit pretty at the top.

 

Running a lower clocked compute card with very early drivers thats within 10% of a 1080ti makes this likely.

[Doobeedoo]

17 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Some interesting tidbits hidden in there.

 

One thing confirmed: We will see some form of RX Vega that is faster at gaming then the Frontier 16GB HBM2 card announced earlier.

 

Raja also hinted at (but did not confirm) a 16GB HBM RX card - I think we can guarantee at least 8GB available for RX Vega, and I would expect a 16GB flagship card (Something perhaps comparable to 1080 Ti or Titan Xp in terms of pricing).

 

No hard specs or pricing or release dates.

 

Raja did indicate we'd see it at Computex, but that it would not be released that week... that week. Which could imply it would be released shortly afterwards, perhaps a week or two after Computex. But, that's pure speculation on my part.

Yeah I'd expect the RX Vega to be faster at gaming though, being optimized for it, potentially different clocks and custom cards too were mentioned. And 16GB HBM2 version is what I expected at some point, maybe won't be on launch due to supply demand and cost but I can see it later on. 
I also read today that they managed 16GB HBM2 on two stacks of 8GB.
"Koduri confirmed that the 16GB Frontier Edition rocks two stacks of 8GB each, rather than a 4x4GB HBM2 configuration. Koduri also said “We will definitely look into that” when asked about a consumer Radeon RX Vega graphics card with 16GB of HBM2."
So 8GB per package and retaining having only two of them like showed before. That's pretty epic.
Soruce: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3197666/components-graphics/amds-radeon-rx-vega-graphics-cards-will-be-faster-than-the-frontier-edition.html

13 hours ago, Valentyn said:

That's too far out. Neither Samsung or Sk Hynix have even shown or listed their ability to manufacture 8GB HBM2 modules, and now they're are managing to supply AMD. 

 

I expect 8GB Vega, so two 4GB modules to be sourced from both Samsung and Hynix at the moment. 

 

I expect a Computex  announcement and in shops within the month. 

"Koduri confirmed that the 16GB Frontier Edition rocks two stacks of 8GB each, rather than a 4x4GB HBM2 configuration. Koduri also said “We will definitely look into that” when asked about a consumer Radeon RX Vega graphics card with 16GB of HBM2."
So 8GB per package and retaining having only two of them like showed before. That's pretty epic.
Soruce: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3197666/components-graphics/amds-radeon-rx-vega-graphics-cards-will-be-faster-than-the-frontier-edition.html

[Trixanity]

5 hours ago, Valentyn said:

 

Drivers will also play a massive massive role. The latest AMD Driver adds a minimum improvement of 4.5% in Prey alone.

Raja also mentioned that Radeon RX will be significantly better optimised for gaming; and that their driver team wishes Vega was more similar to Polaris from a development standpoint.

 

We just need to sit tight until Computex; and hopefully we'll see more information. Until then just gotta keep and eye out for Ryzen + 1080Ti for Sniper Elite 4K.
 

I think it's dangerous to assume that the consumer version will be significantly better. Sure, it might have slightly higher clocks and more optimized drivers but I honestly don't expect it to be much more than 5% faster depending on scenario all things considered.

 

I think Raja shouldn't have said that as it'll surely disappoint when the reviews are out.

[Valentyn]

10 hours ago, Trixanity said:

I think it's dangerous to assume that the consumer version will be significantly better. Sure, it might have slightly higher clocks and more optimized drivers but I honestly don't expect it to be much more than 5% faster depending on scenario all things considered.

 

I think Raja shouldn't have said that as it'll surely disappoint when the reviews are out.

The difference between the Quadro and its GeForce equivalent is around 10 % in games and that purely down to drivers. 

 

If they can manage that, plus higher clocks, and the "extra goodies", I would expect around 10-20% at least. 

[laminutederire]

22 hours ago, Valentyn said:

 

Those NVIDIA cards are Samsung 1.4Gbps 4GB Modules.

AMD are partnered with SK Hynix, that promised 2.0Gbps by Q3 2016, and only show 1.6Gbps for Q2 2017 now.

It looks like the Radeon Frontier Edition has 1.88Gbps modules, so those are most likely even lower quantities; hence 480GB/s Bandwidth as opposed to the original Vega spec of 512GB/s for 2 HBM2 modules.

Maybe the reason there is no 8GB modules listed is that AMD reserved them all?

[Valentyn]

6 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

Maybe the reason there is no 8GB modules listed is that AMD reserved them all?

 

That's  a possibility, but the catalogues are for their investors as well. As it shows what the company can actually produce, and when that time line is.

AMD now showing 16GB at 2x8GB modules, it's nice; but also shows how behind Hynix ended up being.

2.0Gbps 4GB modules were due for mass production end of September 2016.

If that worked out I have no doubt that we'd have out 8GB Vega 10 graphics cards by now.

 

Despite all that, I'm excited that AMD are finally going to launch Vega; as late as it is sadly. I can't imagine how popular Vega would have been if it launched in Q4 2016 instead of what's looking like Q2/Q3 2017.