General Discussions

[kingfish]

MD unveiled its new Radeon RX 5700 line of graphics cards with 7nm chips at E3 last month, and with just days to go before they launch on July 7th, the company has announced new pricing. In the "spirit" of competition that it says is "heating up" in the graphics market -- specifically NVIDIA's "Super" new RTX cards -- all three versions of the graphics card will be cheaper than we thought.

The standard Radeon RX 5700 with 36 compute units and speeds of up to 1.7GHz was originally announced at $379, but will instead hit shelves at $349 -- the same price as NVIDIA's RTX 2060. The 5700 XT card that brings 40 compute units and up to 1.9GHz speed will be $50 cheaper than expected, launching at $399. The same goes for the 50th Anniversary with a slightly higher boost speed and stylish gold trim that will cost $449 instead of $499.

That's enough to keep them both cheaper than the $499 RTX 2070 Super -- we'll have to wait for the performance reviews to find out if it's enough to make sure they're still relevant.

AMD fires back at 'Super' NVIDIA with Radeon RX 5700 price cuts 

[hardcoregames_]

I have been using Sapphire for a long time.

Cards work fine and they are stable and can tolerate a lot of abuse and keep standing. Look at my experience with my MSI X570-A PRO for my opinion of Sapphire. Wonder how well some competitors would fare.

I am also jonesing for a big Navi card.

[black_zion]

Would also like to add there was a new driver released today, and none of the UI complaints have been addressed, and there are still some major known issues with the RX 5000 series, namely a loss of display and a black screen.

[hardcoregames_]

The issue of no scrollbars in the game compatibility is still MIA

guess that did not hit the radar for this driver

[black_zion]

This is funny. AMD's Radeon Product Management Lead, Mithun Chandrasekhar, stated in an interview today about "Big Navi":

But here's the thing...The 2070 Super is a 4k60 gaming card in most games. If nVidia's next generation of cards are 50% faster or even 35% faster, that makes the card which will replace the 2070 Super, essentially nVidia's upper mid range card in the stack, as fast as the current 2080 Ti, and the replacement of the RTX 2060, nVidia's entry level gaming card, as fast as the 2070 Super. As a refresher:

RX 5500 = GTX 1660

RX 5600XT = RTX 2060

RX 5700XT = RTX 2070

RX 5800/5900 = RTX 2080/Ti

So I fail to comprehend how Big Navi will be disruptive to 4K when it will be a single, high/ultra high end card retailing for high/ultra high end dollars when nVidia's entry to mid range graphics will be solid 4K60 performers and entry level gaming cards will likely be 4K, and AMD's mid and entry level cards are a year away.

https://www.wccftech.com/amd-big-navi-radeon-rx-gpus-disrupt-4k-enthusiast-gaming-segment/

[colesdav]

Lets wait to see what happens when/if it launches and reviews come out.
Look at how Ryzen turned the CPU situation around. 
Ryzen 3000 CPUs are very impressive indeed. 
I think recent RX5700XT benchmark numbers I looked at are pretty good. 
Maybe ports of games from new AMD consoles will run well on AMD Discrete GPU and CPU PC and laptops.

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

Lets wait to see what happens when/if it launches and reviews come out.
Look at how Ryzen turned the CPU situation around. 
Ryzen 3000 CPUs are very impressive indeed. 
I think recent RX5700XT benchmark numbers I looked at are pretty good. 
Maybe ports of games from new AMD consoles will run well on AMD Discrete GPU and CPU PC and laptops.

I am hoping Ryzen 4000 desktop processors surface at NewEgg sooner than later.

[black_zion]

Yes, but to be "disruptive", it's going to have to be at least as fast as its competition while either retailing for much less or having a great feature set. Ryzen upended the market because it brought near Intel levels of performance, something AMD hadn't had for ages, along with many more cores for a much lower price. In the server market, that was combined a constant feature set, something Intel heavily segments, and a much higher core count than the competition. A GPU equivalent would be the HD 4870 which caused nVidia to massively reduce prices in order to compete, as the X1000 and HD 2000 and 3000 series SUCKED in comparison, although they were much more affordable. Big Navi isn't going to do that, it's just going to have the ultra high end performance (allegedly) of a TWO YEAR OLD CARD while not bringing any new features to the table, and it's going to immediately be outclassed by Ampere.

The only way AMD is going to be disruptive is if Big Navi is the entry level model of an RX 6000 series and retails for $200, which we know it's not.

[hardcoregames_]

black_zion wrote:

This is funny. AMD's Radeon Product Management Lead, Mithun Chandrasekhar, stated in an interview today about "Big Navi":

But here's the thing...The 2070 Super is a 4k60 gaming card in most games. If nVidia's next generation of cards are 50% faster or even 35% faster, that makes the card which will replace the 2070 Super, essentially nVidia's upper mid range card in the stack, as fast as the current 2080 Ti, and the replacement of the RTX 2060, nVidia's entry level gaming card, as fast as the 2070 Super. As a refresher:

RX 5500 = GTX 1660

RX 5600XT = RTX 2060

RX 5700XT = RTX 2070

RX 5800/5900 = RTX 2080/Ti

So I fail to comprehend how Big Navi will be disruptive to 4K when it will be a single, high/ultra high end card retailing for high/ultra high end dollars when nVidia's entry to mid range graphics will be solid 4K60 performers and entry level gaming cards will likely be 4K, and AMD's mid and entry level cards are a year away.

https://www.wccftech.com/amd-big-navi-radeon-rx-gpus-disrupt-4k-enthusiast-gaming-segment/

I am hoping the RX 5900 cards will be good for 4K gaming which is what my panel is.

My RX 480 has demonstrated that Radeon has what it takes to play games.

[colesdav]

Sure I understand what disruptive means.
I look at RX5700XT as first step attempt at recovery from RX Vega 64 / 56 in gaming.
I am not purchasing AMD Cards anymore until I see the drivers situation change for the better including for Linux and I think it will be some time before that gets fixed. Obviously I still need to use my existing AMD GPUs.
All my existing PCS with AMD GPUs are stuck at Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 now.
I have a few PC builds I am working on / planning at the moment.
I will be purchasing Nvidia cards in the next months but I need to think about those purchases.

[black_zion]

It will be interesting to see how nVidia prices Ampere. Knowing typical nVidia they'll just tack on a 25% price premium onto the models they replace and leverage their much greater feature set, efficiency, and speed to sell.

There is, however, a potential wrench in the gears. In AMD's conference call Lisa Su stated first generation Navi, RDNA, launched in 2019, but that those would be refreshed in 2020, and RDNA2 would be a part of the 2020 lineup. Combined with Mithun Chandrasekhar's statement, could this indicate AMD actually will abandon the ill conceived leapfrogging design team strategy and launch a top to bottom RX 6000 range this year to compete with Ampere? It's possible. Actually is borderline mandatory that AMD do that, since Navi cannot compete against Ampere if it performs 50% faster, especially if nVidia were to price them anywhere close to current pricing, they would be as outclassed as the RX 500 series was against the RTX 2000 series for so long, and AMD cannot suffer an entire year of being crushed by nVidia in the entry level and midrange segments, not to mention the enterprise market. I also do not believe they can survive another year without ray tracing as a mainline feature.

If this is true, it's yet another PR nightmare as expensive cards are rendered redundant before a quarter of their warranty has expired a la Radeon VII, especially when you take into account AMD's habit of essentially dropping all but the most current generation of cards from mainstream support. Also, if AMD wants to be truly disruptive and returns pricing to the RX 400/500 levels, which are roughly half the current RX 5000 series prices for the same tier card, and is the only way the term "disruption" could be applied to AMD, I can believe most anyone who bought an RX 5000 series card will feel exceedingly ripped off and will much likely switch to nVidia in the future, though I imagine that number is quite low.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-announces-4q19-earnings-second-gen-rdna-in-2020-quarterly-revenue-up-50-percent

[hardcoregames_]

Given that Samsung does not disclose the level of detail that TSMC does, it is not easy to tell when risk production is taped out for prototype vs production reels

[black_zion]

Seems TomsHardware, and other outlets, saw it as I did, and they contacted AMD for an official statement to clarify, although they didn't really clarify anything. March 5th is when they'll release the details. GTC is at the end of March which is when nVidia is expected to release details of Ampere, so let us pray that AMD A) provides a wealth of accurate information and B) doesn't attempt to "bait" nVidia by providing misleading information. Let us also pray AMD gets their software division up to par so the so called disruptive launch is not marred by weeks, or months, of persistent potentially major issues.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amds-navi-to-be-refreshed-with-next-gen-rdna-architecture-in-2020

[colesdav]

I don't think they "baited" anyone at the RX5700XT launch pricing.
I think the "jebaited" meme is nonsense.
They had to drop the initial pricing.
I can even see the reaction from the audience at the launch event when announced how much AMD were trying to charge for the RX5700XT reference model in a shaped/"dented" blower.

[pokester]

The bad thing is if they do a complete top to bottom RDNA lineup, based on what they have done in the past, the will likely drop support for Polaris like a rock.

This would be really bad for those who still spent a lot of money for those cards in the past couple years. I hope this isn't true but they have definitely done this before. 

[colesdav]

I think that keeping support for people with older AMD GPUs is a very important.

So far RX580/480 seeem to be well supported. They seem to be the most popular and successful AMD GPU. I do not see that happening any time soon. I do not see any reason to upgrade those Polaris GPUs  the existing RX5000 series GPUs at the same price point / performance level. Especially if those GPUs need PCIe 4.0 interface to get proper PCIe bus speed and therefore performance. That would mean upgrading your motherboard as well.

Not the same story for older GPUs though.
Simple things like fixing the auto fan control in older GPUs like R9 390X, making sure latest drivers actually install on older "supported" GPUs have been missed.

The Windows 7 version of Adrenalin 2020 Driver will not install on Windows 8.1.
I have seen some posts about workarounds to do it but why are they even needed?

Allowing older Fiji Desktop Radeon GPUs like R9 FuryX/Fury/Nano to run with the Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise drivers since Radeon Pro DUO Fiji is supported anyhow. Radeon RX Vega 64/56 and RX500 series GPUs are supported with thoise Enetrprise Drivers. In the AMD Release notes it states that they do not guarantee Enterprise Level Quality and you are obviously not entitled to Radeon Pro levels of support.
I think the only thing stopping those Enterprise Drivers from installing on R9 FuryX/Fury/Nano is a "driver install whitelist".

[pokester]

I hope they don't too but I think they would love to be able to stop supporting Vega's as gaming cards and force older GCN users to finally upgrade. I just fear this as it is exactly what they did when GCN came on the scene. Guess I should not worry unless that happens but I fear that even in the best case scenario even if support continues many of the issues that still exist will never get attention. As an owner of Fury cards you already know that support is not equal across the supposedly supported products. 

[ajlueke]

It seems likely that Big Navi will be faster than the 2080 Ti, with several early benchmarks pegging in at about 20% faster.

Alleged AMD Radeon 'Big Navi' GPU Leaks With Big Performance Lead Over RTX 2080 Ti | HotHardware 

If Ampere slots in at 30% than the previous offering, the two could actually wind up being close, although I imagine NVidia will still be faster.  AMD does have an opportunity to be "disruptive" here.  Say, the Big Navi is within 20% of the 3080 Ti, and they charge $800 for it.  That would make the 3080 Ti a hard sell at 2080 Ti prices.  Is that really disruptive though?  Since graphics cards didn't cost that much until less than a year and a half ago when Turing launched. 

I guess the worst thing that would happen is if Big Navi ends up being similar to the high end NVidia GPU, and then AMD just prices it at $1,200.  That seems to be what they have been doing lately.  Figureing out where their hardware fits on the NVidia price/performance curve and then just slotting them in where they fit. 

[colesdav]

Forcing upgrade from existing AMD GPU by not supporting new driver features in older AMD GPU will only force an upgrade to Nvidia who still support cards as old as Kepler based GTX780Ti with new driver features in Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience.
Features like the latest Nvidia Image Sharpening filter etc.

The GTX780Ti was in November 2013, released within a month after AMD R9 290X.
I do not even have fan control that works on my AIB XFX R9 390X, nevermind features like Radeon Image Sharpening.
The R9 390X is essentially a respin of the R9 290X with more VRAM (8GB versus 4G) on initial R9 290X models, although some R9 290X AIB high end cards  have 8GB. They were launched in June 2015.

Here is the information on those GPUs:
The AMD Radeon R9 290X Review
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Review 
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/xfx_r9_390x_black_edition_review/1

[hardcoregames_]

Given my RX 480 8GB can hold its ground vs a RX Fury and using less power to do it seems like a move in the right direction. My card can even hold its ground against R9 390 cards. Sapphire overclocked the Nitro+ to over 6 TFLOPS.

Prices for Vega 56 and Vega 64 cards have softened making them slightly more interesting. 

[black_zion]

Sadly AMD has reached out to TomsHardware to clarify there will NOT be a top to bottom replacement of the Navi stack with RDNA Generation 2, so it appears as if AMD is sticking with the leapfrogging design teams approach and current Navi cards will be AMD"s entry and mid range cards until next year...Looks like we can look forward to another year of sky high prices due to lack of competition. I still wonder how the same company behind Ryzen can be the same company behind the fluster cuck that is Radeon...

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amds-navi-to-be-refreshed-with-next-gen-rdna-architecture-in-2020

[hardcoregames_]

I listened to Su and she said big Navi this year. But that is all she said so it could be anything from Q1-Q4 but no tapeout yet news from TSMC

[pokester]

According to news from the CEO today. The new card will be RDNA2 and there will be a full line of new RDNA2 cards as well. Not refreshes of current RDNA. No more specifics than that. Speculation is that the cards will shed the last remnants of GCN and may start arriving in June. More news March 3rd.

[colesdav]

It's the Hype Train again.
There is no point speculating about it. 
Just wait until launch day reviews. 
Then wait another 6 months after launch to assess the AIB GPUs and try to figure out if the GPU is EOL or not.
Then wait for the Annual Adrenalin release and give it another 2-3 months.
Then try to figure out if they are reliable enough before you even think about taking the risk of buying one.
Even then, think again.
I have no confidence in buying new AMD GPUs anymore.

[bearcat22]

I agree. Like I've been saying for over 3 years, it's been wash, rinse and repeat with AMD's GPU's.

[hardcoregames_]

pokester wrote:

According to news from the CEO today. The new card will be RDNA2 and there will be a full line of new RDNA2 cards as well. Not refreshes of current RDNA. No more specifics than that. Speculation is that the cards will shed the last remnants of GCN and may start arriving in June. More news March 3rd.

Lots of watchers are all looking forward to March 3

I am more interested in a CPU at the moment

[black_zion]

And by that time details and rumors of the next generation of cards start to appear meaning you should hold off buying any new card until they launch as you may get a significantly weaker card than the new version. Also remember that it is rumored that nVidia would launch a "2080 Ti Super" or new Titan at 7nm before "Big Navi" launch, party to ensure they remain performance kings, but also partly to test out the 7nm node the next generation of cards will be manufactured at and to milk every dollar from Turing that they can.

Still, rumors are rumors, but facts are facts, and the fact is that AMD's software is junk and their pricing is incredulous, and the reason people haven't lost their jobs over it and AMD hasn't made official apologies is astounding, even moreso is the fact Lisa Su touted Adrenaline 2020 as being so heavily downloaded, but then again if you have certain cards or play certain games you have no choice but to use it...

[colesdav]

What was that download number again?

3.4 Million.

Assuming everyone had my experience.

It covered Adrenalin 2020 19.12.2 / 19.12.3 time frame.

 
So divide the number by 2 as a starter I tried installing both.
Divisor = 2.

Then another divide by 2 for at least 2 downloads for each one of those because incremental install from within Adrenalin 2019 doesn't work.
That means one additional visit to the download web page to download the full install version.

Divisor = 4.

Then add at least another divide by 2 to allow for the fact that once you try Adrenalin 2020 and it crashes so much you DDU everything off your system, reverify or inplace reinstall Windows, redownload the full install because you think the first full install download must have been corrupted because Adrenalin 2020 cannot possibly be that bad/unstable.
Divisor = 8.

Then add in the possibility of yet more downloads because of GPU driver crashing whist running those drivers and causing unfixable windows corruptions.
If you need a full windows reinstall like I did then thats another factor of 1.5-2.
Lets say another divide by 2.
Divisor = 16.

Then add in people with more than one PC or Laptop with AMD GPU.
That will likely be at least 2. People with AMD GPU on their PC will likely have a modern laptop with AMD graphics on it.
I certainly have many more than that but lets stick to another divide by 2.

Divisor = 32.

So that gives:
3.4 Million / 32 = 106,250 Users downloading it and installing it.

On top of that I do not know if they count installs on new laptops or PC desktop sytems from vendors - they would skew results massively.

[colesdav]

It will be interesting to see what "Big Navi" can do with an extra 40 Watts of power budget to match the power budget of an RTX2080Ti.

The TDP of an RTX2080 is 220Watts on and the TDP of an RTX2080Ti is 260 Watts on TSMC 12nm FinFet, and that is on a GPU with RT and AI cores as well.

The TDP of an RX5700XT is about 220Watts, for the GPU alone, on TSMC 7nm process.

I think that much will be needed to be done to improve the power consumption of and "Big Navi" card if AMD want more performance and Ray Tracing capability.

One thing AMD could do is put some work into improving Radeon Chill so it could actually be used without killing in game keyboard only input  FPS performance. They should add user defined tweaking of Chill parameters.  Saving power by dropping FPS as low as possible (down to about 30FPS) when the game character is stationary is the advantage of Chill. It allows the GPU to cool down and keep you gaming.
If that were combined with an LFC FreeSync Premium Pro monitor, the monitor should double the 30FPS to 60 FPS anyhow if LFC kicks in properly it should avoid any monitor blanking out or flickering at that low framerate.

AMD may try to run Ray Tracing features like Global Illumination by running an algorithm on the GPU core itself rather than taking an Nvidia approach where additional dedicated RT / AI cores are added to the GPU die.

I have tested running a "Global Illumination Algorithm" on an RX Vega 64 Liquid on various games and it easily increases the max Power Draw up from 360W to 400 Watts on numerous titles (I changed the PowerPlay Max Power Limit to 400 Watts to test this on the GPU in question). So that may be one apprach taken. The performance hit is quite high running that algorithm ~ 60-> 30 FPS, more than what I see with RTX Global Illumination on Nvidia GPU with DLSS off.

Another thing they could do is release a Ryzen CPU with AI/Raytracing Chiplet replacing one of the CPU cores on Ryzen and using the high PCIe 4.0 bandwidth to pass data over to the GPU core. The PCIe 4.0 bandwidth and latency issues may be a problem though. If they could get that to work they could have a RayTracing solution that would give people a reason to go Ryzen + Radeon and it would also allow them to produce one 7nm GPU Die which did not have additional area taken up by RT/AI cores.

I am hoping they do not get into the RX Vega 64 Liquid type power draw levels again (360 Watts in Turbo mode) unless they are prepared to provide twice the size  of AIO Cooler Radiator with dual / quad fan options. I am unable to game on BFV at 4K Ultra on an RX Vega 64 Liquid for more than 5-10 minutes with the GPU running in Turbo Mode and with max power limit set. The card can hit 60FPS in that condition but it heats up and when the reported GPU Edge temp gets to about  48'C the HBM2 seems to struggle and I start to get large blue squares screen corruption. Then the drivers are guaranteed to crash.  They always crash the game, loosing the Wattman settings. They often cause the PC to freeze/Audio Buzz and often cause a  BSOD crashing the entire PC.

Turning on Radeon Chill with Chill_MIn = 30, Chill Max = 300, and Global FRTC (a feature now removed in Adrenalin 2020)  to 59 allows me to play BFV at 4K Ultra settings on that GPU with my FreeSync Monitor. However the keyboard only input FPS is limited to 54-55 FPS with those settings, because AMD will not fix Chill to allow the user to increase that internal Chill Limit to 59-60 FPS. Obviously with Chill on and the game character stationary, FPS drops to 30, and that is when the GPU cools down.

[hardcoregames_]

The TDP of an RTX2080 is 220Watts on and the TDP of an RTX2080Ti is 260 Watts on TSMC 12nm FinFet, and that is on a GPU with RT and AI cores as well. The TDP of an RX5700XT is about 220Watts, for the GPU alone, on TSMC 7nm process.

My RX 480 uses an 8-pin power cable and it can use a lot of power when pushed hard. My GTX 1060 uses a 6-pin cable as the card is not quite as power hungry. My RX 480 can use 225W of power.

[colesdav]

Hi - yes I saw that one. I will believe it when I see it.
Thanks.

[black_zion]

EVGA reps stated they created this on their own to make a cheaper 2060, but I can't see other AIBs not taking the same kind of route if the 2060 GPU inventory is there, if for no other reason than to keep them from having a massive stockpile when the details of Ampere release and people stop buying cards, and if not for that reason, than to have a card to compete against AMD at that price point, but offer a superior feature set.

https://www.videocardz.com/newz/evga-preparing-geforce-rtx-2060-ko

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

No not really.
I am pointing out that AMD just pulled Global Frame Rate Target Control from Adrenalin 2020 19.12.2/3 and yet Nvidia just introduce the same function into their drivers.

I do not use them, I use in game settings if the play is sluggish

[colesdav]

I think Nvidia Frame Rate Limit has been added to help save power and also to allow users to cap frame rate below top end of FreeSync Range on cheaper "AMD FreeSync" monitors also known as "Gsync Compatible". Those monitoes often have a narrow freeSync range and a low top end FreeSync Limit < the monitor refresh rate which can cause screen tearing if the GPU is high performance and can produce high FPS. 

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

I think Nvidia Frame Rate Limit has been added to help save power and also to allow users to cap frame rate below top end of FreeSync Range on cheaper "AMD FreeSync" monitors also known as "Gsync Compatible". Those monitoes often have a narrow freeSync range and a low top end FreeSync Limit < the monitor refresh rate which can cause screen tearing if the GPU is high performance and can produce high FPS. 

I have not experienced "tearing"

perhaps this is due to the panel I use?

[pokester]

many games don't have an option for this. plus it is not just for sluggish game play. the same is true to cap the frames. if you are on a non variable refresh monitor this can greatly eliminate tearing by being to cap the frames. regardless more options are usually good thing, assuming the work as they should. that is not always the case with FRTC and maybe AMD just gave up and eliminated the problem instead of fixing it?

[black_zion]

I've wished for years AMD would release a control panel, and now with the Adrenaline 2020 drives, they need it anymore. I've always preferred things spartan, function over eye candy, lightweight over bloated, that's why I think Windows 2000 is the best OS as well. Now AMD has removed the minimal setup option, so you have people on here begging for drivers only, so it's a mistake not to have a control panel else people will switch to the competition purely because they have that option available.

Meanwhile nVidia is about to hit a record stock price as well with a target price of $275. Meanwhile investors don't seem to have cared about anything Lisa Su or the SVPs had to say yesterday at CES.

https://www.wccftech.com/nvidia-one-year-record-close-wall-street/

[pokester]

Thanks I have several green cards and had not seen this!

[colesdav]

As far as I understand it the RX5700XT GPU has PCIe 3.0/4.0 x 16 lane support, so in that case, existing motherboard with  PCIe3.0x16 primary GPU slot should be fine.

Intro:
PCI-Express 4.0 Performance Scaling with Radeon RX 5700 XT | TechPowerUp 
Performance Summary: 
PCI-Express 4.0 Performance Scaling with Radeon RX 5700 XT | TechPowerUp 
 Conclusions: 

PCI-Express 4.0 Performance Scaling with Radeon RX 5700 XT | TechPowerUp 

[colesdav]

Plenty of Testing and Feedback here: Do you like the new interface of Adrenalin 2020 Edition? 
I have tested the new Adrenalin 2019 19.12.2/3 interface over the past week but as a Christmas present to myself I uninstalled it and returned to Adrenalin 19.12.1, I have had plenty of time to "get used to" the new Driver UI/GUI, I still cannot stand it. It is unstable on RX Vega 64 Liquid and below. Some older  driver features are gone. New features of little use or no ability to turn them off. 

[black_zion]

There's also a bug with 19.12.3 where if you use Windows Snip (Win + Shift + S) to take screenshots or snippets, it causes the screen to turn black for a second or two after you start.