AMD Unleashes The Radeon VII, World's First 7nm Gaming GPU

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Vega is build around HBM2 if I’m not mistaken so it would take a lot to shift it to GDDR5/6. Basically HBM has a MASSIVE amount of bandwidth and data throughput which is useful to things like mining and memory intensive tasks.
 
Wowzers, 7nm Vega has some legs. AMD really did rush original Vega out in an unfinished state. RTX 2080-ish performance with less GPU resources than Vega 64 had (fewer shaders and allegedly fewer texture units)... that is impressive. I wonder what an upscaled 7nm Vega could really do...

Actually, with AMD releasing this for their high end cards I'm starting to worry that Navi might not be the wonder chip that many hope it will be. AMD hasn't mentioned much about a high end Navi. They have mostly talked about GTX 1080 performance for cheap. If Vega on 7nm has this kind of power, is Navi going to be more powerful or is it going to be another Polaris to the R9 Fury X? As in less performance but for a much better price. Either way AMD will be better off... but I think a lot of us want to see an AMD card to take on the RTX 2080Ti.
 
Cmon here... Ray Tracing, as of now, doesn't exist. Maybe in 2 years, maybe in 4 years, but as of now, no way I am buying a GPU for it.

However as a content creator, 16 GB of HBM2 is a really good thing.
 

Actually, HBM2 is the better performing memory technology, so it's not going to get "kicked by GDDR6" from a performance standpoint. Even Vega 64 has more memory bandwidth at its disposable than an RTX 2080, and this card is said to double that. The problem entirely comes down to price, with HBM costing quite a bit more than GDDR. That in turn makes it harder to be competitive on price.

If AMD were able to offer close to this level of performance on a card with 8GB of GDDR6 instead of 16GB of HBM2, they might be able to get it down closer to the RTX 2070's price range, which would make it a lot more competitive from a gaming standpoint. As far as I know, these Vega GPUs are designed around HBM though, so they can't just swap it out.

AMD's upcoming Navi architecture is expected to use GDDR6 though, and rumor is that they are readying a graphics card that will offer performance around that of a GTX 1080 / Vega 64 as a successor to the RX 580, so a card like that could definitely be competitive around the price points that matter most. AMD has not yet announced their 7nm mainstream offerings yet though.

As for having a card to compete with the RTX 2080 Ti, in my opinion, it doesn't really matter. Nvidia shifted their product names to higher-priced products, so the 2080 Ti is in reality a Titan card by a different name. So few people actually buy graphics cards around the $1000+ range for gaming that it's a pretty niche market. And while Nvidia might technically be offering a card in that performance range, at its current street price of $1300-$1400, it's not a particularly viable product worth considering. And ultimately, I don't think there's currently a big demand for cards at that performance level. Some might want high framerates at 4K, but past a certain point you run into diminishing returns in terms of how much benefit you get from increasing resolution and framerates. Improvements to the gaming experience will be minimal, but the hardware resources required to get there are going to be expensive. I doubt AMD will release a Navi card that's faster than this, since Navi seems to be their Polaris successor aimed at the mainstream market.
 
Quote:
Who cares about ray tracing Cant even run bf5 60fps at 1080p on a 2080ti
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Uh.....where have you been? I average 85FPS @ 1440p with ray tracing on medium. And this is with a 2080.
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Agreed. I run between 60-120 fps in multiplayer with raytracing on ultra and all settings maxed at 1440p with my setup. 2080ti and 9900k

This is a perfect example of why they shouldn’t release drivers and features until they are ready. Still tons of people think it doesn’t work and is a gimmick. It runs just fine.
 
People like to trash wccftech about all the inaccurate garbage they post, but they really posted a gem about the Radeon VII a month ago in an article about the resignation of Mike Rayfield from AMD:

https://wccftech.com/exclusive-mike-rayfield-amd-retires/

"Rayfield was disengaged and very superficial. He would delete all his emails each week that he could not get around reading and would never work weekends or after 5 PM. He would pontificate in an abrassive manner and couldn’t remember any names [ of his peers].

Rayfield denied to Lisa Su that there was a talent problem and that the talent that had recently exited form AMD wasn’t actually an issue. He diend that there was a talent war going on [Usman: You can read up about the talent war here]

He presented suggestions that werent really feasible such as ‘Radeon VII ‘ which was to be a Vega 20 based consumer facing part that cost $750 to build and would barely tie in with an [NVIDIA] GTX 1080 Ti."

That last paragraph is obviously the important one. This is pretty much concrete proof that there are people at AMD who thought Radeon VII was a stupid idea that wasn't even a viable product. Now, here we are a month later, and Radeon VII has just been announced for $50 less. Why release this now if Navi is right around the corner and supposedly so much better? Makes you wonder what's really going on behind the scenes in AMD graphics division.
 
"Why release this now if Navi is right around the corner and supposedly so much better?"

It depends on what you define as 'better'... I think they wanted a higher-end card to compete more closely with the higher-end nVidia lineup, since they have pretty much failed in this area in the past.

This card is basically the 'new' 1080ti - fitting squarely in the bottom of the high-end GPU market.

NAVI will be more consumer oriented cards I'm sure, and more aimed at general gamers. Personally, I'm excited for it --- I do content creation and would love to have a 1080ti with 16GB of VRAM...
 


It would indicate that the rumors of Navi being 1080 level performance are likely accurate. You don't release Radeon VII now if Navi is a few months away and equal or faster in performance. It also doubles as an indicator that the 2080 Ti will be peerless in 2019 unless Nvidia releases a 7nm GPU line.
 
Or Navi is delayed until late 2019, AMD hasn’t released a new GPU since Vega 64 which everyone has forgotten about due to it being nowhere to be found at launch and AMD can’t rely on just RX 580/90 sales to carry them the rest of the way. They have to at least seem like they’re trying to compete. Saying that the 2080 is a powerful enough card to draw level with on the same arc as the card that was barely matching the 1080. If they bumped it up to 64 again or more when efficiency has improved they could theoretically get it to Ti levels.
 

Yeah, I was wondering if this might have been the card they had been talking about there. I didn't realize they had referred to it by name in that article though. So yeah, they might be selling these cards without actually making much profit off of them, though its possible that they might be releasing them a bit later than originally planned as the cost of 7nm production comes down.

Why release this now if Navi is right around the corner and supposedly so much better? Makes you wonder what's really going on behind the scenes in AMD graphics division.
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If they already had work put into turning this into a product, they might as well launch it, even if its not going to be all that competitive in the intended market. It does appear to simply be one of their Instinct compute cards with some changes made to make it work for desktop graphics. At the very least, it offers a product above the Vega 64 in AMD's portfolio, which could be important if AMD's mid-range Navi cards offer similar performance to first-generation Vega. I don't suspect Navi will at least initially have anything to offer in this card's performance range, and the mainstream cards probably won't be out until at least some months later.
 
This is a total let down. I would have much rather seen a RTX 2070 competitor at $350, probably like most people. This card is DOA for gamers. No compelling reason to get this over the Nvidia card if you're looking to spend $700.
 


The card has two 8 pin power connectors. Gamersnexus says the TDP is expected to be about 300w. Depending on how high AMD wants to push the clocks to increase performance, it could potentially end up above 300w.

https://youtu.be/IcL4XFwptHo?t=177
 
AMD's GPU is going to die if they don't release something better and affordable soon. Nvidia just made their Adaptive Sync technology compatible with selected Freesync Monitors. With this, I can see will result to further decrease of AMD's GPU market share. I myself have actually just recently switched to an Nvidia card to see how it is with the green team after being a loyal AMD customer for the past years.
 


Why would the Radeon Technologies Group die? The most popular GPU segment isn't the ultra high end. The most popular aka best selling segment is the one the GTX 1060 is in... and AMD has 3 good cards in that range, the RX 570, 580, and 590. AMD is about to release a card that competes with the RTX 2080, that isn't a small feat, but it is pretty much unimportant compared to the money that AMD makes on their Polaris cards. With Navi around the corner AMD is going to allegedly have cards with GTX 1080 performance at RX 580 (GTX 1060) prices. Do you know how huge that will be? NVidia just unveiled the RTX 2060, a card that performs like a GTX 1070 or Vega 56, for $350. AMD says they will have a card that performs like a GTX 1080 for $250 (maybe less?). If that is even close to true then AMD will eviscerate NVidia's mid range market.

The VII is probably going to be AMD's top card for a little while, and that isn't a bad thing. RTX 2080 performance is pretty darn good. Perhaps a 64 CU unit would get AMD into striking distance of the 2080Ti, maybe that is the next step. Who really knows? Perhaps this 60 CU chip is a 60 CU chip because the yields aren't quite good enough yet on 7nm for a 64 CU chip. Time will have to tell.

You can't judge a brand by its halo product. The real bread and butter is in the GPUs that the majority of people can afford. Right now AMD is doing just fine in that arena. They only have to hold out for Navi and the game will be back on. AMD certainly won't be dying any time soon with the success they have had in the CPU arena as of late, and RTG still seems healthy enough to launch cutting edge hardware. They are catching up, slowly but surely. Maybe Navi will do it for them on the high end, and maybe it won't, but if rumors are right AMD will be just fine, and very competitive in the upper-mid to low range... certainly not dying.
 
Never got why people think “AMD will die because they can’t match the Titan”. They make the most money on volume sales to industry and OEM and then on the midrange market where they can sell cards at 10:1 next to high end.
 


The reason I was into AMD GPU cards before is their value for money. They had cards that are reasonably priced lower than Nvidia's, has acceptable power consumption, delivers very good performance, offers nice game freebies, has good availability (in my area), and supports Freesync Monitors which are also priced much lower than Gsync versions. Most, if not all of these factors, I feel, has been reversed now and further been recently hammered by Nvidia by allowing their "Adaptive Sync" tech. to work with some Freesync monitors.

In my recent purchase decision, I was initially aiming to stick with AMD to offer support because I especially prefer their business ethics over the competitor. I was planning on getting an RX590, Vega 56, or a Vega 64. But when the prices of GTX 1070s went down by a considerable margin (and now knowing the support for Freesync monitors will also be available for it), I instead snapped it up. For me, it was just too much to bear the cost of owning an AMD GPU right now. I felt the power consumption & inefficiencies of AMD cards were unreasonable for the prices that they were asking for them. It defeats the purpose of AMD GPUs being known for having value for money considering mostly everything. Aside from that, it was easier for me to acquire an Nvidia card now as more vendors seem to carry them in my area.

Anyhow, there are now only two major companies manufacturing GPUs and if Intel enters the arena in 2020, the market will further be divided into probably smaller shares over time. AMD's next GPU tech., I believe must really be great to continue to be able to compete for the top half of the market for their GPU division to further steadily grow... unless the market significantly expands in the upcoming years for everyone so each of them can meet their target share quota. :/
 
The Radeon 7 is based on professional card. They did know allready that it would be very expensive to produce, so not so good to Gaming market. But when RTX cards did get out with huge price increases, there suddently was room for this card. Amd can not sell this cheaper. It just cost so much. Navi is for the mainstream. But now we have a good choise. 2080 with raytrasing or Radeon 7 with huge 16Gb ultrafast memory. I am sure that 2080 will be faster in some task and Radeon 7 in some other. All of this just because Rtx cards Are Also expensive to produce.
But for less price we need Navi or very cut down version of this. Radeon 7 / 56 or something with HBM 1 memory with 8Gb of capasity. Those donät exist because AMD was not expecting to be price competative in Gaming with Vega20! But now... who knows. Maybe we will see smaller version that fits between Navi and Radeon 2. It all depends on how much there is a space between those. If the Gap is small, the cut down vega20 most likely is too expensive to be sensible if Navi can be as fast while being much cheaper!
All in all interesting releases indeed.
 


You're not the first I've heard to say this, but in what way?

I can tell you that, admittedly anecdotal experience of my own, having been AMD/ATI since the turn of the century until last year, that stability hasn't been an issue.

I also can tell you that, when it comes to having modernized the UI, the Radeon drivers are ahead by far (Nvidia REALLY needs to do something with the ancient UI for their drivers/control-panel)...

But I honestly don't know why some people complain about AMD's drivers.
 



Can't view the video now, but I'm not sure how much stock to put into how many connectors there are . . every Vega 56 I've encountered has 2x 8-pin connectors, and (trying to go by memory) I think even some of EVGA's 1070 models had 2x 8-pin.... which I thought was INSANE for a 1070.
 


AMD/ATI has been an up and down case drivers wise. I have used them since the 9700Pro (was my first ATI card) and sometimes the drivers were great and other times not so great. I went to a 980Ti (now 1080) a few years ago and the drivers have been consistent and the software is great. Plus nVidia seems to be more in with working with developers. To be fair though all they do is GPUs which makes it easier.

But as I said their drivers recently seem to have been better.
 


the AMD driver issues are old news back when windows was moving to vista and on, both Nvidia drivers, and AMD's drivers (and most every1s drivers for that matter) was a WILD mess. its just that windows was fundamentally different, and people had no idea how to make drivers for it yet. Nvidia drivers was actually the leading cause of windows crashes at the time and for several years. no idea why they don't get the same wrap. think its just fanboy trolls. AMD drivers are much better then Nvidias nowadays. besides game optimization, but thats hardly AMD fault
 


Depending on the time nVidia also held much more of the dGPU market so its hard to use that as a legitimate stat.

Thats like saying "Intel drivers were the leading cause for Windows Server crashes for the last 10 years" when Intel holds the majority of the market.

That said I have used and am still using both. I find nVidias software better and I have experienced issues and crashes with both. Its an experience more than anything.

And no, not a fanboy. The 980Ti was my first nVidia GPU in 13 years. Before that I was ATI/AMD from 2002 to 2015.
 


it been a long time since i saw the bar graphs, which i think was release by Microsoft, but i do remember Nvidia hold over 40% of all driver related crashes, think AMD had like 13 or something. the remaining where drivers from other devices many of which i think where printers. i may be mistaken but Nvidia did not control that much market of AMD at the time.

 
Just for full disclosure on my own experience, I have owned and used exactly TWO Nvidia cards:

GTX 1080
Riva 128 4MB

Briefly toyed with a system that I swapped a GTX 660Ti into, and it was unstable as hell, but that card worked fine in my son's PC (still in his PC at his mom's house), and that system worked fine with the Radeon 4850 it came with. Ironically, while puking on the Nvidia card and working with the AMD card, the motherboard used an Nvidia chipset! That's definitely one for my "The Universe Is Insane" files.

All others have been ATI/AMD, from the Rage 128 and Rage 3D on the old PCI slots, one or two AGP models (7250 and 9550 I believe), and a few Radeons (6450, 6670, R9 285) up to my son's just-purchased-last-month RX 580 8GB (in his PC at my house).
 
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