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Radeon RX Vega for consumers might still be out a couple of months
Much has been said and spoken about AMD’s upcoming consumer release of Radeon RX Vega. The latest news now is that it might take a couple of more months before we see the actual product in stores.
The latest news is based up-on a reddit spot (and just that). Apparently Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD has stated in a JP Morgan conference that and I quote “RX Vega to be launched a "couple months" after Vega FE”. Now, the transcript of that conference is not yet available to the public, hence I cannot verify and factually check that statement myself.
But considering the VEGA FE is available late June, we might assume (if this is correct and true) that the consumer version of Vega will be available not earlier than August or September, maybe July at best. If true this is a big blow in the faces of the AMD Radeon PC gaming community as pretty much everybody is expecting that the long wait would be over after the pending Computex announcements.
AMD to date has not explained as they the delays keep piling up, we can only assume that there are issues with getting proper volume HBM2 memory. Hence the expensive business cards get priority, as the margin on such cards is much higher than the consumer-end products.
Thanks go out to to Denial from our forums for spotting this one.
AMD’s senior marketing director Chris Hook last week tweeted a photo showing the actual card in their Markham, Ontario labs.
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Valken
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#5435258 Posted on: 05/24/2017 11:43 AM
Sometimes all these rumors boils down to business 101.
Sell Vega FE for maximum money, and when the market is fulfilled, release the gamer GPUs. Makes complete sense since Raja said Vega FE can use game drivers to play games.
If Vega RX can also vice versa use FE drivers, then it can kill the compute business for AMD with buyers going to the gamer GPU.
I know RX has only 8GB of ram, but users can crossfire 2 RX for less than 1 FE so it might be a risk they are trying to minimize at the expense of gamers.
Sometimes all these rumors boils down to business 101.
Sell Vega FE for maximum money, and when the market is fulfilled, release the gamer GPUs. Makes complete sense since Raja said Vega FE can use game drivers to play games.
If Vega RX can also vice versa use FE drivers, then it can kill the compute business for AMD with buyers going to the gamer GPU.
I know RX has only 8GB of ram, but users can crossfire 2 RX for less than 1 FE so it might be a risk they are trying to minimize at the expense of gamers.
Fox2232
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#5435437 Posted on: 05/24/2017 07:40 PM
Well this has confirmed my GPU choice. This time next week I will have a 1080ti.
Such a shame AMD
Get new CPU 1st
Well this has confirmed my GPU choice. This time next week I will have a 1080ti.
Such a shame AMD
Get new CPU 1st
-Tj-
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#5435475 Posted on: 05/24/2017 09:17 PM
End of June, apparently ~ 22th or 28th.
End of June, apparently ~ 22th or 28th.
pharma
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#5435545 Posted on: 05/25/2017 01:36 AM
Here’s how I’d parse that statement. As per AMD’s previous comments, the only Vega shipping in June will be the Frontier edition. Lisa Su is saying that Vega will launch across all platforms against the next couple of months, which could be read several different ways. If she means “The next couple of months after June,” then we’re looking at consumer launches in August and September (assuming “couple” is read loosely). If we read it more tightly, then we could see launches earlier, in July – August. But there’s very much a question as to where AMD will focus its efforts, and how it will price Vega.
...
If AMD starts pushing Vega into consumer markets in July and can keep the card on store shelves at reasonable prices, it’ll be a sign that whatever production issues may have occurred, they’ve been ironed out. But if it continues to focus on the highest end of the market, or to emphasize data centers and machine learning, it could mean the GPU will only see limited release to consumers. We won’t know which way the situation will break until AMD releases more concrete information or launches the GPU.
...
If AMD starts pushing Vega into consumer markets in July and can keep the card on store shelves at reasonable prices, it’ll be a sign that whatever production issues may have occurred, they’ve been ironed out. But if it continues to focus on the highest end of the market, or to emphasize data centers and machine learning, it could mean the GPU will only see limited release to consumers. We won’t know which way the situation will break until AMD releases more concrete information or launches the GPU.
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/249761-amd-clarifies-vega-launch-dates-server-rollouts-talks-zen-follow-ups
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But all that would come anyway..
The information I'm looking for is what are the lost sales for potentially 6 months of complete abandonment of the "10%" market, vs sales if they released a GDDR variant of Vega in Q1 this year and then, more importantly, when did AMD realize Vega wasn't going to be launched until Q2 potentially Q3? People argue the GDDR would be way more attractive than nothing. Which is what it's up against. But my point is that the argument is moot.
We don't know what AMD's roadmap was for Vega and without it questioning whether or not it was a good idea to build a GDDR card is irrelevant because if two years ago they thought they could build the HBM card by Q1 2017 - why would they do a GDDR variant in the first place? And basically the only information we do have, indicates that AMD thought they could get the card out by then.
That thing again needs huge Memory Bandwidth even with new IMC (HBCC). Using GDDR would mean transistor wasted on regular Huge IMC and improving it to point it is as good as HBCC would cost, so it is quite likely any benefit from early delivery would be eaten by development cost. +as I stated, it would be weaker card due to TDP from GPU given to memories. And there is likely very good reason why Fiji has no GDDR variant and Polaris has no HBM variant.
They could, we saw working card demo. Question is what held it back:
Was it build defect rate? Probably not as Polaris is just fine on 14nm. And from construction standpoint they use simplified process in comparison to Fiji.
Was it Achievable clock? Likely as clock affects performance and AMD can't afford to sell card marketed as Top Dog while it is weak. (Polaris was never meant to be Top Dog.)
Was it HBM2 supply? I do not believe this because Hynix/Samsung had almost 9 months from then to ramp up production and weed out defects.
Was it driver? This is again quite likely. Getting compute performance from card is easier than making those new rendering features work reasonably well for release of gaming cards.
Was it expected profit? Again quite likely. AMD's priority number one is Desktop Ryzen where they have abysmal presence (Desktop crowd makes free advertisement for mobile.). Priority number two are mobile APUs as AMD is no longer in mobile. (Read "both can get them big part of pie".) If AMD sees that RX-400 are selling well enough and expected Return of Investment of Vega under current circumstances is not good...
My best bet is driver.
Btw.: 7nm tape-out for Zen+ is planned for Q4.