AMD are rumoured to be shipping Vega silicon to their AIB partners this week

[AlienALX]

I have to agree with the sentiments here AMD were stupid to faff about with HBM2 when they knew how long it would be delayed for they should have bitten the bullet and gone with DDR5x and released their cards already, too little too late me thinks

Pure stupidity tbh. I absolutely hate saying that but it's true. They are trying to reinvent the wheel and we already have it.

For every month that passes Vega will look worse performance wise. I'm also not feeling paying the HBM2 tax which is definitely going to be added.

 

[g0ggles1994]

Yes mate. That's why something like the GT210 which we would pay £28 for costs like £500.

Round the clock support, better drivers etc. I remember a time where us guys were hacking the Quadro drivers to work with the GTX 470 (Hmm and myself did it haha) because the 470 drivers were busted

Damn, that never occurred to me either, learn something new everyday.

Hearing that about the 470 makes me even more glad that I never got Fermi

I will say that I agree with everyone about the hype train crashing and burning. I was gonna get one but now I've decided to use the cash I've saved to get a OnePlus 5 (As long as it's good) instead. In my view, the only thing that can save Vega is that it absolutely blows everything out the water and scales fantastically at 4K. But I'm not getting my hopes up

 

[AlienALX]

Damn, that never occurred to me either, learn something new everyday.

Hearing that about the 470 makes me even more glad that I never got Fermi

I will say that I agree with everyone about the hype train crashing and burning. I was gonna get one but now I've decided to use the cash I've saved to get a OnePlus 5 (As long as it's good) instead. In my view, the only thing that can save Vega is that it absolutely blows everything out the water and scales fantastically at 4K. But I'm not getting my hopes up

Loved my 470 ! outfitted it with the Zalman 3000 VF immediately.



There it is above the 6970 Lightning I bought about 18 months later (BF3 was running out of VRAM).

I paid £170 for the 470 on OCUK special (down from £300) and the cooler cost me £25 inc from OCUK. So for £195 I basically got a Zalman Amp card, as the cooler was identical lol.

That thing used to hit 850mhz on that cooler. Amazing card I loved it

 

[AngryGoldfish]

Pure stupidity tbh. I absolutely hate saying that but it's true. They are trying to reinvent the wheel and we already have it.

For every month that passes Vega will look worse performance wise. I'm also not feeling paying the HBM2 tax which is definitely going to be added.

Maybe they could have given us a slightly cut down version of big Vega in March or April using 8GB of GDDR5X HBM2 that performed just below a GTX 1080 for $450. That would have tided people over until full Vega is released with HBM2 and charged $600 for a card that easily beats a 1080 and nips at the heal of the 1080Ti. I don't know whether that would have been possible architecturally as HBM is installed directly onto the transposer, but if it were physically possible it might have been a way of keeping consumers happy.

 

[AlienALX]

Maybe they could have given us a slightly cut down version of big Vega in March or April using 8GB of GDDR5X HBM2 that performed just below a GTX 1080 for $450. That would have tided people over until full Vega is released with HBM2 and charged $600 for a card that easily beats a 1080 and nips at the heal of the 1080Ti. I don't know whether that would have been possible architecturally as HBM is installed directly onto the transposer, but if it were physically possible it might have been a way of keeping consumers happy.

I think it has literally come down to ego and pride fella. AMD are too proud to use the same thing as Nvidia, and Nvidia probably won't want to dirty themselves with something they have to buy from AMD.

So Nvidia are knocking out GPUs cheap and cheerful (but that do the job admirably) and AMD are on a mission to "one up" Nvidia.

And we're gonna pay for it, just like we paid for 4gb of HBM.

And it was all pointless.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

I think it has literally come down to ego and pride fella. AMD are too proud to use the same thing as Nvidia, and Nvidia probably won't want to dirty themselves with something they have to buy from AMD.

So Nvidia are knocking out GPUs cheap and cheerful (but that do the job admirably) and AMD are on a mission to "one up" Nvidia.

And we're gonna pay for it, just like we paid for 4gb of HBM.

And it was all pointless.

I think it's more complex than ego and pride. AMD and Nvidia have shared technology for years. And AMD share technology with Intel. I don't think it has anything to do with pride and ego. Even if it is we have absolutely no way of proving it or even demonstrating it since those concepts are entirely personal and are not easily attributed to a conglomerate. They're traits you associate with a singular person because you see repeated examples testifying to it. It's harder to back up the statement that Apple is a proud and egotistical company versus saying the CEO of Apple is a proud and egotistical man.

 

[AlienALX]

I think it's more complex than ego and pride. AMD and Nvidia have shared technology for years. And AMD share technology with Intel. I don't think it has anything to do with pride and ego. Even if it is we have absolutely no way of proving it or even demonstrating it since those concepts are entirely personal and are not easily attributed to a conglomerate. They're traits you associate with a singular person because you see repeated examples testifying to it. It's harder to back up the statement that Apple is a proud and egotistical company versus saying the CEO of Apple is a proud and egotistical man.

It all passes down man.

Back in 1997 we were selling Pentium CPUs out of our shop. P60, P80 all the way up to the MMX. If our customers asked for overclocking we would do it, but void their warranty which they were cool with. They weren't enormously expensive then. MMX cost like £200 IIRC. Any way our Intel rep got wind of it and said if we continued to offer that service they would stop selling us CPUs.

It was so simple back then. Simply take, for example, a P60 and set the jumpers to P75 and boom, free performance. Intel did not feel that way about it though and made it clear how they wanted us to behave.

Around '99-'00 AMD started coming in with their Slot A Athlons. 500MHZ, 600MHZ etc. We were told that if we stocked AMD CPUs and so on that they would stop selling us Intel CPUs. My boss was scared, so went along with it. Our shop did not sell Athlons or boards for them.

Soon after Intel were slapped with a lawsuit from AMD about anti-competitive etc. If you don't believe me look it up. AMD won, Intel are still paying off the fines and fees, IIRC (the fines and fees cost less in the short term).

Microsoft have done it too. Windows 98 rev 1. You could only get on the internet if you used MSN and they pretty much locked down any other way. Sued, lost, Windows 98 Rev 2 was born.

If you think anything has changed? pfft, nah.

About two years ago Linus allowed certain people on his forum to be "Intel Response Squad" members. Admin rights, etc. Basically any thread that was operating on the forum where some guy, for example, asked about which AMD CPU to buy were soon met with rabid Intel "Response Squad" members brain washing them into going Intel.

All of the above are true, all of the above are 100% factually correct.

Intel treat us like dogs = correct.
Intel have no regard for us whatsoever = correct. Do you see Intel employees fraternising with us like Raja and Lisa do? do you feck.

And so on. That's how it is, always was, and always will be.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

I understand that. Intel are a soulless company to me while as you say AMD are much more warm and hands on. Intel could completely let go of its desktop and HEDT range of CPU's and still earn enough to be one of the biggest silicon manufacturers on the planet. If AMD lost in their respective segments, they'd go under or at least would have to let go of hundreds of staff members and shut factories down overseas forcing even more labor cutbacks. That puts AMD in the position of a desperate but competent worker. They are desperate to succeed but they're capable of it. That's great for us consumers, but a real challenge for them to pull off consistently.

I don't know how that make AMD act proudly and egotistically by blindly ignoring technology—which is what you are suggesting since that is what ego and pride causes a person to become; blind—that they already use in other components. It just doesn't make sense. You say all that about Intel making scumbag moves and that might be true, but it doesn't explain the belief that AMD are an egotistical cooperation and would rather adhere to their petty pride than make millions of dollars. All the heads can't all share the same callous and reckless view of pride.

As for Linus, I didn't know about that, but it doesn't make sense. I don't know why they'd do it. Were they being paid by Intel to dissuade users from buying AMD components? That blatantly goes against all logic and is reckless and immoral. It seems very conspiracy theory-esque to be honest, or tinfoil hat-wearing BS. But hey, that's just me. Maybe I should look it up to see the evidence myself because I don't blindly trust you just like I don't blindly trust Tom or Linus.

 

[Type-8]

Gotta say i agree that the hype has died for Vega, but i'm still waiting on it. My plan was always to build my new PC in the second half of this year (around August/September), so from my perspective if AMD take an extra month to get everything (or most things) right before release then that suits me just fine. It's certainly hurt them though, especially because of how good Ryzen really is. Lots of people want to build a new Ryzen rig, but there's no high end AMD GPU to accompany it.

I'm just silently hoping that Vega has been ready and working for a while, and they're spent the extra time trying to optimise it as best they because of the release of the 1080Ti. Its a faint hope, but those new Samsung QHD 144hz HDR Freesync monitors make me want it to be true.

Also, given the way AMD have attacked the CPU market i expect Vega to be priced well, wherever it's performance lands. If not, then it may be time to switch to the green team [bows head in shame].

 

[NeverBackDown]

Gotta say i agree that the hype has died for Vega, but i'm still waiting on it. My plan was always to build my new PC in the second half of this year (around August/September), so from my perspective if AMD take an extra month to get everything (or most things) right before release then that suits me just fine. It's certainly hurt them though, especially because of how good Ryzen really is. Lots of people want to build a new Ryzen rig, but there's no high end AMD GPU to accompany it.

I'm just silently hoping that Vega has been ready and working for a while, and they're spent the extra time trying to optimise it as best they because of the release of the 1080Ti. Its a faint hope, but those new Samsung QHD 144hz HDR Freesync monitors make me want it to be true.

Also, given the way AMD have attacked the CPU market i expect Vega to be priced well, wherever it's performance lands. If not, then it may be time to switch to the green team [bows head in shame].

I think we all silently want it to do great. But we know the hype is gone and all the excitement with it. At this point if it did indeed do great it's just like ok good job just way to late.

 

[Dawelio]

I understand that. Intel are a soulless company to me while as you say AMD are much more warm and hands on. Intel could completely let go of its desktop and HEDT range of CPU's and still earn enough to be one of the biggest silicon manufacturers on the planet. If AMD lost in their respective segments, they'd go under or at least would have to let go of hundreds of staff members and shut factories down overseas forcing even more labor cutbacks. That puts AMD in the position of a desperate but competent worker. They are desperate to succeed but they're capable of it. That's great for us consumers, but a real challenge for them to pull off consistently.

I don't know how that make AMD act proudly and egotistically by blindly ignoring technology—which is what you are suggesting since that is what ego and pride causes a person to become; blind—that they already use in other components. It just doesn't make sense. You say all that about Intel making scumbag moves and that might be true, but it doesn't explain the belief that AMD are an egotistical cooperation and would rather adhere to their petty pride than make millions of dollars. All the heads can't all share the same callous and reckless view of pride.

As for Linus, I didn't know about that, but it doesn't make sense. I don't know why they'd do it. Were they being paid by Intel to dissuade users from buying AMD components? That blatantly goes against all logic and is reckless and immoral. It seems very conspiracy theory-esque to be honest, or tinfoil hat-wearing BS. But hey, that's just me. Maybe I should look it up to see the evidence myself because I don't blindly trust you just like I don't blindly trust Tom or Linus.

Really good post, thumbs up! ... Especially regarding that of Linus, it just feels off the whole thing really.

 

[The_Governour]

I was on 2 x 780s in SLI and a Fury X.

When the 10xx series was launched and its prices were so high then I said to my self that I would never buy the 1080 for that kind of cash.

I was ON & IN the Vega Hype Train. I was waiting for VEGA as I did not WANT to give my money to Nvidia.

In the end I paid 900€ for the Zotac Amp Extreme 1080 ti (I specificaly wanted the amp extreme for my build).

I WANTED to wait for VEGA but got tired of waiting SO long and the money was burning a hole in my wallet.

Too little too late AMD. SRY.

 

[AlienALX]

As for Linus, I didn't know about that, but it doesn't make sense. I don't know why they'd do it. Were they being paid by Intel to dissuade users from buying AMD components? That blatantly goes against all logic and is reckless and immoral. It seems very conspiracy theory-esque to be honest, or tinfoil hat-wearing BS. But hey, that's just me. Maybe I should look it up to see the evidence myself because I don't blindly trust you just like I don't blindly trust Tom or Linus.

Fair enough. Evidence.

It seems Linus may have been contacted by some lawyers, because if you click on the link in that guy's sig it goes here -

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/16825-intel-response-squad/?hl=+intel++response++squad

Sorry, there is a problem
We could not locate the item you are trying to view.
Error code: 2F173/1

That link used to take you to Linus's post detailing how it works. Basically forum members were enticed with free products access to engineering samples etc etc.

Obviously some one realised that it sorta like broke loads of laws and it wasn't around for long.

What it equated to was a load of rabid Intel fanboys who would go around pestering people not to buy AMD products. Oddly enough their answers were usually set as "best answers" too.

Oh and if you hunt that user down and look at his sig it now states this -

Ex Intel Response Squad Member

 

[AngryGoldfish]

Fair enough. Evidence.

It seems Linus may have been contacted by some lawyers, because if you click on the link in that guy's sig it goes here -

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/16825-intel-response-squad/?hl=+intel++response++squad

Sorry, there is a problem
We could not locate the item you are trying to view.
Error code: 2F173/1

That link used to take you to Linus's post detailing how it works. Basically forum members were enticed with free products access to engineering samples etc etc.

Obviously some one realised that it sorta like broke loads of laws and it wasn't around for long.

What it equated to was a load of rabid Intel fanboys who would go around pestering people not to buy AMD products. Oddly enough their answers were usually set as "best answers" too.

Oh and if you hunt that user down and look at his sig it now states this -

Ex Intel Response Squad Member

Yeah, I found this stuff after I dug around myself. I don't see the correlation fully though. The whole "Ex Intel Response Squad Member" tagline suggests too many possibilities. I read one user who posted around 2013 on OC3D. His signature said Intel Response Squad Member and then something in the vein of "My opinions are my own and not representative of Intel" or something like that. Again, that brings up more questions.

I found the link that doesn't work, but I had no idea what the original page read. If you say it said that forum members were given engineering samples for their 'words of wisdom'—because let's be honest in 2013 Intel were the only ones producing a gaming CPU worth their salt—then that's obviously wrong. But why then say "Ex Intel Response Squad" in your signature? Wouldn't that be something you'd be ashamed of since it was shut down for being illegal?

 

[AlienALX]

Yeah, I found this stuff after I dug around myself. I don't see the correlation fully though. The whole "Ex Intel Response Squad Member" tagline suggests too many possibilities. I read one user who posted around 2013 on OC3D. His signature said Intel Response Squad Member and then something in the vein of "My opinions are my own and not representative of Intel" or something like that. Again, that brings up more questions.

I found the link that doesn't work, but I had no idea what the original page read. If you say it said that forum members were given engineering samples for their 'words of wisdom'—because let's be honest in 2013 Intel were the only ones producing a gaming CPU worth their salt—then that's obviously wrong. But why then say "Ex Intel Response Squad" in your signature? Wouldn't that be something you'd be ashamed of since it was shut down for being illegal?

I suppose it all depends on the level of self importance some people have on the internet really.

If it wasn't doing anything wrong then where did it go?

You don't have to believe me, but I was there when it started and then vanished. Maybe Intel felt they were so high they could take the pee a little?

 

[AngryGoldfish]

I suppose it all depends on the level of self importance some people have on the internet really.

If it wasn't doing anything wrong then where did it go?

You don't have to believe me, but I was there when it started and then vanished. Maybe Intel felt they were so high they could take the pee a little?

I guess I'm just an optimistic (read: naive) kind of guy and unless I see categorical evidence of something bad, I don't believe it. It's something I'll chalk up to an unknown abnormality. Either way I don't use Linus' forums or his website and only occasionally watch his videos. Usually his thumbnails completely ruin my enthusiasm. I hate gaudy in-your-face crap like that.

 

[AlienALX]

I guess I'm just an optimistic (read: naive) kind of guy and unless I see categorical evidence of something bad, I don't believe it. It's something I'll chalk up to an unknown abnormality. Either way I don't use Linus' forums or his website and only occasionally watch his videos. Usually his thumbnails completely ruin my enthusiasm. I hate gaudy in-your-face crap like that.

Going back to the whole "the views I express are my own etc" - that was obviously how Intel thought they could get away with it. I mean let's face it on forums like that you already have mindless droids going around telling every one to buy Intel any way.

However, tis what it is. I'm not a liar. I would imagine AMD got their lawyers in on it and closed it down pretty quickly. I mean end of the day it really is paying some one indirectly to go around rubbishing your competitor.

I tell you what else is odd. Try finding more than a tiny handful of posts. The mods must have been busy when AMD brought down the hammer. Back then I was very active on LTT. Made a few good mates who I would Skype. Problem is like many they got bored of PCs and moved on. I think a lot of people do that (wanders off topic). Build their PC, ride the wave (posting logs and etc) and then get bored of it.

Linus is about one thing and one thing only though, money. He pretty much covers about every aspect he can to cover as much as he can to bring in the cash. That mofo has a bloody empire. And people do strange things when they get to that kind of status.

Which is why I am here. Oh, and one other PC forum. And that's it for me these days.

 

[BigDaddyKong]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMlSzts8fGQ&t=1432s


That is a pretty good watch, and I don't think he is far off from the truth.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMlSzts8fGQ&t=1432s


That is a pretty good watch, and I don't think he is far off from the truth.

Most of us here already theorised Navi's 'scaleability' that was quoted in AMD's roadmap would relate to the Infinity Fabric from Ryzen. He's used some pretty mundane and questionable arguments, even for me. For one thing, as has been said here the Steam survey is by no means a final tally of all systems.

Also:

GOG- “Polaris is coming, Nvidia is screwed!” “Polaris might have been only mid range but VEGA is going to be where it’s at” “Okay maybe VEGA is going to use too much power and get here a little late but NAVI will surely be the generation that beats Nvidia!”

It's true. The guy has been peddling AMD theories for ages and he's regularly been off the mark. AdoredTV has been wrong as well, but he's taken as AMD gospel preacher.

Going back to the whole "the views I express are my own etc" - that was obviously how Intel thought they could get away with it. I mean let's face it on forums like that you already have mindless droids going around telling every one to buy Intel any way.

However, tis what it is. I'm not a liar. I would imagine AMD got their lawyers in on it and closed it down pretty quickly. I mean end of the day it really is paying some one indirectly to go around rubbishing your competitor.

I tell you what else is odd. Try finding more than a tiny handful of posts. The mods must have been busy when AMD brought down the hammer. Back then I was very active on LTT. Made a few good mates who I would Skype. Problem is like many they got bored of PCs and moved on. I think a lot of people do that (wanders off topic). Build their PC, ride the wave (posting logs and etc) and then get bored of it.

Linus is about one thing and one thing only though, money. He pretty much covers about every aspect he can to cover as much as he can to bring in the cash. That mofo has a bloody empire. And people do strange things when they get to that kind of status.

Which is why I am here. Oh, and one other PC forum. And that's it for me these days.

But is it mindless to say that the 4670K will perform better than an FX 8370? Maybe it's parroted a little too frequently and without context, but it's not strictly speaking bad advice.

It is true that money changes people, but to what extent is rarely ever fully known. I would never call you a liar, but that doesn't mean you're right all the time.