[Updated with final Review] Vega FE Benchmarking by PCPER

[MoonSpot]

3 minutes ago, Fonzie92 said:

Just mow your grandma's lawn for a month or so and get a 1080.

Neither nvidia or amd accept the cookies and milk I used to receive for that.  They should though, Nana's cookies were flipping awesome.

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Valentyn said:

The problem with AMD lying is that they did so directly to investors during earnings calls and shareholder meetings. That'll get them in big legal trouble,

Although seeing major performance features like tiled rasterization not even working it looks like  major firmware and driver issues.

 

Still so many unknowns. We've not even seen a Frontier Edition tear down, or even an architectural break down in detail like with other GPU launches.

I can concede that some of those features could have bigger impact than just the drivers, but my reply to that is that it's gonna be for a very limited library of games that would support it so mostly theoretical gains.

[Valentyn]

8 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I can concede that some of those features could have bigger impact than just the drivers, but my reply to that is that it's gonna be for a very limited library of games that would support it so mostly theoretical gains.

Tiled Rasterization is not dependant on game titles support. It's literally the way the GPU rasterizes its output.

 

It's one of the main features that allowed Maxwell to be 50-60% faster than Kepler, while being on the same 28nm node, along with smaller clock increases than Vega has over Fiji.

 

At the moment Vega at 1400-1600Mhz is barely able to beat a Fury X at 1150Mhz, and still loses to the GTX 1070 in titles. This is despite a 50% increase in clocks, nearly 50% smaller node, 50% more VRAM, and these other new performance increasing features.
Never mind AMD having stated their new compute units will feature improved IPC.

At the moment it looks like Vega regressed in IPC by 30% or more given its performance per clock compared to Fiji.

So there's certainly something really really wrong here. Whether that's drivers, firmware, a fucked up vega stepping, or a combination of them all.

 

I'm going to be listening to the live AMD Q2 Earnings Call with much attention. The Q&A section is guaranteed to have questions about Vega Frontier Edition and these abysmal performance figures.

[Misanthrope]

Just now, Valentyn said:

Tiled Rasterization is not dependant on game titles support. It's literally the way the GPU rasterizes its output.

 

It's one of the main features that allowed Maxwell to be 50-60% faster than Kepler, while being on the same 28nm node, along with smaller clock increases than Vega has over Fiji.

 

At the moment Vega at 1400-1600Mhz is barely able to beat a Fury X at 1150Mhz, and still loses to the GTX 1070 in titles. This is despite a 50% increase in clocks, nearly 50% smaller node, 50% more VRAM, and these other new performance increasing features.
Never mind AMD having stated their new compute units will feature improved IPC.

At the moment it looks like Vega regressed in IPC by 30% or more given its performance per clock compared to Fiji.

So there's certainly something really really wrong here. Whether that's drivers, firmware, a fucked up vega stepping, or a combination of them all.

 

I'm going to be listening to the live AMD Q2 Earnings Call with much attention. The Q&A section is guaranteed to have questions about Vega Frontier Edition and these abysmal performance figures.

Well if well implemented it could be what they need. I just don't think it will see such massive gains but we'll see.

[Valentyn]

2 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Well if well implemented it could be what they need. I just don't think it will see such massive gains but we'll see.

 

Yeah, but even a 10-20% gain through the new features activated and decent drivers puts it between reference gtx 1080 and 1080Ti. Decent spot if price is right.

Although at the moment FE does worse than the the old Vega Engineering sample running debugging code, on a debugging PCB in DOOM. In that demo Vega was 10% ahead of an overclocked 1080.

We all want and need answers really. The earnings call will be interesting, and I can't wait to see what Raja has to say some Siggraph about all of it.

[DocSwag]

9 hours ago, Hunter259 said:

It's a prosumer card with a Gaming mode. It's a titan for AMD. The have actual pro cards on the way. Quadro's aren't "meant" for gaming but run just as well as their GTX counterparts. This is such a weak argument for this card. You might get 10-15% on drivers but this still is such a disappointing card.

Generally quadros lose about 10% or so to their equivalent gaming GPUs. If we add that in, the FE is still only around 1080 level when it comes to gaming.

 

I have a feeling though that Vega is gonna end up between 1080 and 1080 ti. If it means anything, Vega flagship has the same number of SPs as fury x, and if we factor in the 1.6* higher boost clock the FE has over fury x that gives us around 1080 ti performance, actually. Though I doubt that a lot of the cards will be able to sustain 1.6 ghz without some OCing, hence why I'm estimating between 1080 and 1080 ti

[yian88]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

Of course no professional apps were tested, his viewers want to know how it runs in games.  

 

So the answer is the later, you are not happy that people are considering the FE as a gaming solution.

 

Also you should check out what the 3rd person effect is, because I think you are suffering from it.  Mass media (or in this case youtubers) do not have the great effect on consumers you think they do.  We are not ignorant consumers that will avoid AMD just because a gaming hardware reviewer didn't run professional app benchmarks.  We want to know how well it runs games just like we wanted to know how the titan ran games.  Nothing new here.  I can't believe you are scared people won't look at the rx when it comes out becasue the FE didn't do well.

You are completely off, this Vega FE is not the same thing as a Titan, titan is not a professional graphics gpu, is just nvidia's highest, overpriced offering on each new arhitecture to milk some $$ out of it.

VegaFE is purely made for pro graphics apps, its pointless to compare it in gaming, and you shouldnt buy one for gaming just because you can.

If you look closely at the comments on this topic and most youtube videos or websites talking about Vega FE, people are already saying Vega = fail, based on retarded benchmarks that should not have been done.

Some videos and website benchmarks show VegaFE being faster than quadro in professional apps, yet in games it barely matches a 1070, does that tell you anything about what this card potential and what is actually made for?

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/251780-amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-benchmarks

Read the comments aswell, its the same shit everywhere you read about VegaFE.

https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/radeon-vega-frontier-edition-already-in-hands-of-users-benchmarks-posted-online/

 comments = more trash, comparing fireStrike scores LOLOL, on prosumer card vs gaming card.

 

How about some workloads for the market the card was made for? and how about some positive feedback for this amazing card, 999$ and it beats quadro P5000 thats 2K$ and close behind 6k$ p6000, how about give AMD some credit on their achievement?

But nooo, you must behave like a senseless gamer that dreams only games, and makes a confusion about VegaFE being the actual Vega/RX card for gaming, because nvidia has titan X at same price range? 

Your confusion is childish.

 

And yes the Vega gaming card might be just as slow, who cares dont compare apples to oranges, when the gaming version is out test it accordingly.

[goodtofufriday]

Guys. Dont worry. Vega is just being shy. 

 

[mr moose]

20 hours ago, yian88 said:

You are completely off, this Vega FE is not the same thing as a Titan, titan is not a professional graphics gpu, is just nvidia's highest, overpriced offering on each new arhitecture to milk some $$ out of it.

VegaFE is purely made for pro graphics apps, its pointless to compare it in gaming, and you shouldnt buy one for gaming just because you can.

If you look closely at the comments on this topic and most youtube videos or websites talking about Vega FE, people are already saying Vega = fail, based on retarded benchmarks that should not have been done.

Some videos and website benchmarks show VegaFE being faster than quadro in professional apps, yet in games it barely matches a 1070, does that tell you anything about what this card potential and what is actually made for?

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/251780-amd-radeon-vega-frontier-edition-benchmarks

Read the comments aswell, its the same shit everywhere you read about VegaFE.

https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/radeon-vega-frontier-edition-already-in-hands-of-users-benchmarks-posted-online/

 comments = more trash, comparing fireStrike scores LOLOL, on prosumer card vs gaming card.

 

 

 

I never said the Vega was the same as the titan, I sad the arguments people are making are the same.  And you are just as guilty of that.  Trying so hard to allocate it as only being a workstation card etc etc etc.

 

So no one but you cares about its performance as workstation card.  Guess what? most of us are gamer's and don't really care about that.   You need to work out how to get over it.   In the end we only care about how it performs.

 

 

20 hours ago, yian88 said:

How about some workloads for the market the card was made for? and how about some positive feedback for this amazing card, 999$ and it beats quadro P5000 thats 2K$ and close behind 6k$ p6000, how about give AMD some credit on their achievement?

But nooo, you must behave like a senseless gamer that dreams only games, and makes a confusion about VegaFE being the actual Vega/RX card for gaming, because nvidia has titan X at same price range? 

Your confusion is childish.

 

And yes the Vega gaming card might be just as slow, who cares dont compare apples to oranges, when the gaming version is out test it accordingly.

 

Because as has a been said too many times, most of use only care about games, if you think that makes us senseless and confusing then you are in the wrong forums.   Until you accept this fact you will always be upset that people are considering it as a gaming solution.  

 

EDIT: and just becasue you disagree doesn't make everyone else's comments/benchmarks "retarded".  They might be premature, but so are yours.

EDIT2; Oh look, it looks like the "moron" did consider professional workloads,  I guess there are a few who care about it enough for it to be considered.

 

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Valentyn said:

We all want and need answers really. The earnings call will be interesting, and I can't wait to see what Raja has to say some Siggraph about all of it.

That's key here: Suppose you're right and maybe their gains are even better than what you are expecting. Let's suppose they manage to come within spitting distance of the 1080ti or match it on AMD friendly games.

 

Then Nvidia just releases Volta. In my opinion that is what's killing them in the GPU market right now: timing. They're so unbeliveably late with Vega it will be basically a wasted effort, a lost GPU generation and considering how lukewarm was Fiji I think they might not be able to recover in terms of the high end market.

 

Honestly we might see them devote themselves completely to the midrange in the future. Enough to keep them on the fight to sell the console chips and APUs for Ryzen.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

That's key here: Suppose you're right and maybe their gains are even better than what you are expecting. Let's suppose they manage to come within spitting distance of the 1080ti or match it on AMD friendly games.

 

Then Nvidia just releases Volta. In my opinion that is what's killing them in the GPU market right now: timing. They're so unbeliveably late with Vega it will be basically a wasted effort, a lost GPU generation and considering how lukewarm was Fiji I think they might not be able to recover in terms of the high end market.

 

Honestly we might see them devote themselves completely to the midrange in the future.

 

Honestly if they did devote themselves to the mid range they would get more respect than constantly hyping up their products and using dodgy marketing tactics then coming to the party a year late.

[Orcblood]

47 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

Honestly if they did devote themselves to the mid range they would get more respect than constantly hyping up their products and using dodgy marketing tactics then coming to the party a year late.

That's the thing though, if they devote themselves to mid range they will eventually fall behind. Cause what's high end now eventually trickles down to mid and then low end. They have to keeping shooting for the top. Right now Nvidia's on top of a mountain with a beer and a lawn chair working one handed while AMD is scraping and clawing trying to make it to the top.

[JupiteL]

As much as I want to believe the "it's not for gaming" reason, knowing AMD, I'm just gonna assume the gaming version would just be a cutdown version of FE, which not gonna compete with 1080ti.

[Tech_Dreamer]

Unnecessary 'gaming' bench-marking  imo , but it's like testing titan Xp , so why not.

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, jman629 said:

That's the thing though, if they devote themselves to mid range they will eventually fall behind. Cause what's high end now eventually trickles down to mid and then low end. They have to keeping shooting for the top. Right now Nvidia's on top of a mountain with a beer and a lawn chair working one handed while AMD is scraping and clawing trying to make it to the top.

That's true, yet in the past they managed with their GPUs and they're close to managing it on their CPUs now, not quite there but getting there.

 

It seems to me that the problem it's still just spreading too thin: They're just not a big enough company to compete in CPUs and GPUs. So actually scaling back the GPU business might not give them the absolute crown on the GPU side but it will give them what they need to complete in integrated graphics. That was their bet many years ago anyway and at this point there might be no reasonable option but to stay that course.

 

We'll see when Vega for gaming is officially out though.

[othertomperson]

This has been on the cards for a long time. AMD could not shut up when it came to Ryzen. A year in advance of launch they were downclocking Intel 8-cores to show that their IPC was the same, if not slightly better. We're a month away from Vega and the only thing we know about it is that it has HBM? Where are the gaming benchmarks? Where are the shows analogous to what they did with Fiji that at least demonstrate it being comparable with the 980 Ti? Or even their own last gen? Nvidia's marketing is always comparing to previous generation Nvidia products -- where is the comparison with the Fury X?

 

The silence from AMD on this new release until this close to launch (and they continue to be silent) should have worried everyone, as we are now seeing.

[BuckGup]

I don't get it. When the new firepros came out no one benchmarked games on them. Same with the Nvidia Tesla GPUs or GRID cards. Oh wait that's right. THEY AREN'T INTENDED FOR GAMING.

[othertomperson]

2 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

I don't get it. When the new firepros came out no one benchmarked games on them. Same with the Nvidia Tesla GPUs or GRID cards. Oh wait that's right. THEY AREN'T INTENDED FOR GAMING.

Because this isn't a FirePro. This competing with a Titan, which people absolutely do use for gaming.

[Valentyn]

Full PcPer report on frontier edition is out!

 

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Radeon-Vega-Frontier-Edition-16GB-Air-Cooled-Review

 

Quote

From a gaming standpoint, the performance of the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition did not light the stage on fire. In general, our game benchmarks put the Vega FE somewhere between the GeForce GTX 1070 and the GTX 1080.

 Looked at solely through the lens of a professional user that is only tangentially interested in gaming, AMD can claim the product to be a success. For $999 the Vega Frontier Edition offers high levels of performance in some of our tested workloads from SPECviewperf, LuxMark and Cinebench. Our testing obviously isn't comprehensive due to time constraints, but it is a good indicate that AMD was right to target this product and this price at that kind of user. But Vega FE does well in these cases not because of the raw power of the GPU, but rather because NVIDIA has gated the performance between GeForce and Quadro. Regardless of how or why, the truth resides in the numbers. But that also is true for gaming use cases...the truth resides in the numbers.

 For some users, the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition graphics hardware represents a professional level of performance at a lower price that utilizes the AMD software ecosystem. For others, it is simply a bellwether for the coming Radeon Vega consumer graphics cards. For the gamers out there, reading this and hoping to be uplifted and excited about the RX Vega product, it’s a tough sell, no getting around that. There is still potential for the hardware, despite the much higher power consumption that it requires over competitive GeForce options, if the Radeon Technologies Group is willing to price it to make an impact. We still have 4+ weeks to wait and find out, and for AMD to come up with its plan to bring Vega to the gaming market.

For now, we will continue to plug away at the Frontier Edition hardware to see what we can learn between now and then.
 

 

 

[BuckGup]

Just now, othertomperson said:

Because this isn't a FirePro. This competing with a Titan, which people absolutely do use for gaming.

But AMD has specifically said it's not for gaming but content creations instead. The titan X is advertised and targeted towards gamers. 

[othertomperson]

16 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

But AMD has specifically said it's not for gaming but content creations instead. The titan X is advertised and targeted towards gamers. 

No it isn't. Nvidia have explicitly said it's not for gamers, and didn't even send sampled out, and when asked why said that it wasn't for gamers.

 

Nevertheless people do use it for gaming because it's a 1080 Ti with all the shaders unlocked. As such it's indicative of the gaming card's performance, as is Vega here.

 

This has absolutely none of the FirePro or Radeon Pro branding on it, whatsoever. This is AMD's Titan equivalent. They've even gone out of their way to copy the "Founder's Edition" bullshit.

 

Edit: forgot the word "samples" for a moment there.

[Phate.exe]

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

I know you're right, but part of me just wants to see what would happen if everyone came back and tried to address their claims afterwards.

I will, gladly.

 

Then again my claims aren't "Magical FineWine^TM Drivers are going to make the card 50% better".  My claims are more "The tech that is supposed to make Vega an actual architectural improvement over previous GCN cards are straight up not even working right now".  The card is just brute-forcing it's way through testing.

 

I'm fine with my Fury for a while.  It's by far the most powerful card I've ever owned and is still enough to enjoy games (especially the older ones I play) on a 4k monitor.

[The Owl]

So only 1-2 more months of panic left..?

[Agosto]

So the 64 ROPs value was right. Why AMD, why?

[Doobeedoo]

Ugh I mean who cares, can we wait for RX proper card targeted at proper software and drivers. I get the early results is nice to see, but don't be impatient and calm down and wait to see RX Vega with proper clocks and cooling and definitely drivers.