WYP
News Guru
Does AMD have a stronger graphics card in the works?
Read more about AMD's RDNA 2 teaser and a possible bigger Navi GPU.
Read more about AMD's RDNA 2 teaser and a possible bigger Navi GPU.
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AMD may not have shown its strongest RDNA 2/Big Navi GPU at their Ryzen event
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
AlienALX
Well-known member
It could go two ways. AMD are trolling for excellent reviews, or they are trying to prevent disappointment and stop the hype train of "Fast as a 3090" that has been going on.
What I mean is if they are sandbagging then when the reviews go live every one goes from disappointed to "OMG check it out !".
However, from plenty of experience of AMD GPU releases I would be scared to stick my neck out and assume they were indeed sandbagging. They may just be doing some damage limitation.
I hate feeling that way, but every time I have gotten excited about a new AMD GPU it's usually as bad as Nvidia's BS.
What I mean is if they are sandbagging then when the reviews go live every one goes from disappointed to "OMG check it out !".
However, from plenty of experience of AMD GPU releases I would be scared to stick my neck out and assume they were indeed sandbagging. They may just be doing some damage limitation.
I hate feeling that way, but every time I have gotten excited about a new AMD GPU it's usually as bad as Nvidia's BS.
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
All companies like to cherry pick results, I'm thinking at best we'll get 3080 performance, Going by AMD's sneak peak results, But with 16GB memory.
Nvidia will then announce around February that they are releasing the 3080 Ti which will have a few hundred CUDA cores less than the 3090 and 4GB less memory with improved clocks etc...
I can see the situation being exactly like when the 780 and 290X launched, Nvidia countered with the 780 Ti.
Nvidia will then announce around February that they are releasing the 3080 Ti which will have a few hundred CUDA cores less than the 3090 and 4GB less memory with improved clocks etc...
I can see the situation being exactly like when the 780 and 290X launched, Nvidia countered with the 780 Ti.
AlienALX
Well-known member
You can see that all you like but the truth is Nvidia don't have more to give. The 3090 is very close to the $6000 "quadro" card now.
And let's face it, even if they had left bigger gaps in the performance here (which they clearly haven't as the 3090 is a lolcard not worth buying) then they would need better bins to pull that off. Which let's face it, we know are not happening. They can't even get enough dies out the door for what they have released, let alone start pushing out better ones.
That's why they sandbagged on VRAM dude. It's to leave that question in your head of "Is that enough?" and then they come along with ones with twice that on them and you decide it's somehow faster. Better in a way yes, but not faster.
They may have very clearly undershot the VRAM of the 3070 too, and hence they have pulled that for now. Or delayed it, right until after AMD launch.
Especially as from the sound of it both of AMD's high end cards coming out (or was it three?) are all rumoured to be carrying 16gb.
AlienALX
Well-known member
Been thinking about this a lot.
Right now the rumour mill is alight with 80 CU (TSMC supposed leak) and 2ghz+ easy. This is based on a presentation AMD did last year and one of their guys talked about "Multi GHZ GPUs" IE multi meaning more than one. So at least two.
With the assumed spec the Navi 21 should be faster than the 3080. Not as fast, or sometimes slower.
However all of that aside?
Tell me from the past when a company has ever "bolted their load" 20 days before a launch? that is the part that makes no sense to me, unless they are just trying to up 3080 pre orders to annoy Jen.
"It's as fast as a 3080" - I will wait for AMD then, said no Nvidia fan ever.
I switched over the live stream to Not An Apple Fan (but clearly an AMD one) after the event ended. He looked absolutely gutted. So is this damage limitation? or are AMD truly playing a game here, going on the "Nobody tells you how fast their product is 20 days before the effing launch".?
Right now the rumour mill is alight with 80 CU (TSMC supposed leak) and 2ghz+ easy. This is based on a presentation AMD did last year and one of their guys talked about "Multi GHZ GPUs" IE multi meaning more than one. So at least two.
With the assumed spec the Navi 21 should be faster than the 3080. Not as fast, or sometimes slower.
However all of that aside?
Tell me from the past when a company has ever "bolted their load" 20 days before a launch? that is the part that makes no sense to me, unless they are just trying to up 3080 pre orders to annoy Jen.
"It's as fast as a 3080" - I will wait for AMD then, said no Nvidia fan ever.
I switched over the live stream to Not An Apple Fan (but clearly an AMD one) after the event ended. He looked absolutely gutted. So is this damage limitation? or are AMD truly playing a game here, going on the "Nobody tells you how fast their product is 20 days before the effing launch".?
AlienALX
Well-known member
Hahaha, this has put the cat amongst the chickensAMD have been playing with leakers and influencers all year, the 150W and 10 Core Ryzen's spring to mind.
TBH that may be exactly what they are doing tbh.
I thought "Not An Apple Fan" was going to cry when they showed those GPU benchmarks.
Zoot
Active member
Even if it was the top card, it still could be a really good thing. If it was to get close to the 3080 and then undercut it on price to force some price cuts from Nvidia, everyone wins.
Anyone remember the HD 4870 from 12 or so years back? It didn't beat the GTX 280 at the time, but it came really really close while undercutting it big time on price. It ended up being a roaring success and proved quite popular in the end. I got one - it was my 1st ever card from Team Red, kept it for almost 4 years too.
I'm kind of hoping for something similar if I'm honest. Time will tell though.
Anyone remember the HD 4870 from 12 or so years back? It didn't beat the GTX 280 at the time, but it came really really close while undercutting it big time on price. It ended up being a roaring success and proved quite popular in the end. I got one - it was my 1st ever card from Team Red, kept it for almost 4 years too.
I'm kind of hoping for something similar if I'm honest. Time will tell though.
AlienALX
Well-known member
Something that consumes far less power will never be inferior.
With Navi (the original) it wasn't so much bad drivers. There was a flaw on the chip itself that caused the black screen. So whatever they did to fix that disabled whatever it was that was the bug.
I had a bug on my Vega 64 (pink screen crash) that was never fixed. So I hope this time they have worked a little harder and maybe at least invested a little more heavily into it.
Especially if they are going to start demanding more money for their products. Which they have been since Nvidia artificially inflated all the prices. They've been cosily slotting their inferior GPUs in behind Nvidia and charging ever so slightly less for them, whilst at the same time expecting people to put up with issues.
AMD's drivers are actually IMO better than Nvidia's. Their front end is miles better than Nvidia's aged old crap too. There was a while there when they were really focusing hard on drivers and improving games with every launch. Then they seemed to just let off the gas some and yeah, the "insert colour here" screen issues started.
looz
Active member
That's a good point, and it seems that Nvidia flew way too close to the sun with Ampere, full Rx590 style. Dropping power target doesn't impact performance nearly as much as one might anticipate - it's hard to imagine a reason for that other than Big Navi's fairly decent horsepower.
So their UI for software which ideally is set up and forget is a bit dated? Boo-hoo I say.
But I don't care for UI either way - new school google electron like or older Windows XP UI, whatever. As long as it's stable.
Though admittedly my view is rather one-sided since my latest Radeon was a 5850, and since then I never wanted to endure another sh*t-show like that, and people I know who have given Radeon a chance haven't exactly been issue free. Not to mention that Radeon GPUs are a stark minority according to Steam hardware surveys - but they sure aren't that in issue threads posted on forums.
But in the end competition is going to benefit consumers, and I hope Radeon won't drop the ball with this one. AMD's CPU department ironed out software issues with their chips pronto! If they can churn out a product which processes vertices at 3080 speed, is stable, and consumes less power, it's a great product. But there's a fair few ifs in that equation.
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My Radeon VII eats 1440p quite easily, and coupled with an HDR monitor looks bloody *stunning* in a game that supports it. I just started playing Horizon Zero Dawn, and in HDR it looks jaw-dropping. That game looks so much better on the Radeon VII than it does on a 2080ti. Yes, the 2080ti gets higher frames, put looks far worse doing it. Heck it looks so good I started playing it on my main gaming rig with the 2080ti, but after seeing how smooth and pretty it is in HDR, I restarted a new game on my all-AMD rig.
All that to say I know AMD can deliver a decent GPU. As finicky as it is, the Radeon VII is an *excellent* GPU, once you get it underwater. They have the capability. FPS charts do not tell the tale.
All that to say I know AMD can deliver a decent GPU. As finicky as it is, the Radeon VII is an *excellent* GPU, once you get it underwater. They have the capability. FPS charts do not tell the tale.
Well, Polaris, Vega, ect were all pretty trouble free with drivers, before Navi independent investigations were finding AMD had the more stable drivers, I guess RDNA1 was a complete change and it definitely set them back a bit in the driver sphere, but with RDNA2 being an evolution hopefully we should be back to their stability of GCN post-2013/consoles, especially given RDNA2 will be the most popular gaming architecture for the next 7 years or so, as with GCN. It was great being able to use a mid range 2012 GPU (HD7870XT) well for 8 years with new games thanks to that optimisation and long term full driver support (I think Kepler was dropped several years ago in comparison).
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KingNosser
Active member
If that is the top card, then these new Navi cards will trade blows with the 3080.
Either way i'm buying one
Either way i'm buying one
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
I've been a constant user of AMD GPU's for 10 years now either in my main rig or in my HTPC but I have always had an AMD GPU on hand, In all honesty Navi has been quite unstable in the driver department even up until recently if you just tweaked the fan speed it could cause a driver crash, Happened many times so I just ended up leaving it alone and letting the card do its own thing, Same with Wattman in general, quite unstable.
For a plug and play card though the 5700XT is decent if you don't play around with the clocks, Volts, Power usage, Fan speed etc...
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AngryGoldfish
Old N Gold
I'm totally split on whether this is the best AMD can offer. It's not uncommon for a GPU to behind another in one game and ahead in a different game but ultimately being the same overall, so this whole idea of comparing three games to the 3080 in an uncontrolled environment is very much missing a large portion of the picture.
But I do wonder whether AMD are holding back.
I remember when they showed Vega 64 for the first time playing Doom. That was the best case scenario at the time. Forza eventually became their shining jewel, but GTX 1080 performance is all that the Vega 64 could offer and that's pretty much where it stayed.
This time, even if the RTX 3080 is all that AMD can muster, if it's cheaper, draws less power, and has wider availability, they've fixed the biggest issues of Vega and Ampere.
Still, I would love to see AMD beat the 3080 consistently so that Nvidia is forced to release a 3080Ti that has most of the power of the 3090 but at a much cheaper price. Now that AMD have demonstrated Navi 21, I wonder whether this is as good as it's going to get. Maybe they're holding back performance to trick Nvidia, but Nvidia will be prepared for either eventuality so I don't think it makes much of a difference.
But I do wonder whether AMD are holding back.
I remember when they showed Vega 64 for the first time playing Doom. That was the best case scenario at the time. Forza eventually became their shining jewel, but GTX 1080 performance is all that the Vega 64 could offer and that's pretty much where it stayed.
This time, even if the RTX 3080 is all that AMD can muster, if it's cheaper, draws less power, and has wider availability, they've fixed the biggest issues of Vega and Ampere.
Still, I would love to see AMD beat the 3080 consistently so that Nvidia is forced to release a 3080Ti that has most of the power of the 3090 but at a much cheaper price. Now that AMD have demonstrated Navi 21, I wonder whether this is as good as it's going to get. Maybe they're holding back performance to trick Nvidia, but Nvidia will be prepared for either eventuality so I don't think it makes much of a difference.
AlienALX
Well-known member
I think this is the main issue. People want something from AMD in order for them to buy Nvidia at a better price.
What we need is people switching to AMD outright so that Nvidia have to "drastically" lower their prices to win people back. Not drop it a little as an incentive to stay with them. Easier said than done of course since I think the same way as you. Its hard to move from the green team when their cards dominate so much. At least until now.
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