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_]

AMD needs a new product manager, the way they run things now has lots of room for improvements.

Driver woes are a big problem and I would fire about 90% of the management for incompetence.

Keeping costs under control is not that hard. The bill of material for the Radeon VII was so high that AMD did not may anything on the cards outside the bragging rights for the first 7nm card.

GDDR6 is now the current memory offering so using that for the RX 5800 etc makes sense if AMD can manage to get a new design out the door this year. I would like a RX 5900 class card with some real brute force power for my 4K panel.

[hardcoregames_]

pokester wrote:

I would sure think that with the design change with RDNA that the Navi cards are really not as good of compute cards as Vega was. I would think a Vega would be a better choice for mining?

I suspect that mining code will be tweaked to use the new architures sooner or later.

The old cards are not as profitable as more modern hardware.

I buy cards from miners to get rock bottom prices. The RX 480 8GB still has lots of gaming left in it which is all I care.

[ajlueke]

black_zion‌ is correct that correlation doesn't prove causation.  Just because 5700 XTs are out of stock during an uptick in crypto mining doesn't mean the two are related.  Maybe AMD halted production to shore up the reliability.

AMD graphics cards are allegedly overheating because the screws are too loose - The Verge 

[black_zion]

My thinking would be more along the lines that AMD has cut back on Navi GPU production in preparation for the RDNA2 refresh. They can't afford to be stuck with a large amount of cards which may not even compete with nVidia's entry level Ampere card, plus it's difficult to believe any Navi card is selling in any decent volume. Also combine that with the fact that GDDR6 memory is in very high demand right now, with XBOX and PS5 reportedly taking upwards of 24GB of the stuff, nVidia no doubt hoarding it for Ampere, and AMD's imminent RDNA2 refresh, it makes little sense to waste it on RX 5000 series GPUs.

[black_zion]

Here's another post while my other is being moderated for some reason, by WCCFTech talking about the copious number of driver issues people are reporting. He also details the problems his wife's computer was having with a 2200G which continued with a RX 460, RX 480, and HD 7870. It only remedied when he put in an nVidia card. It's not very good when an editor for a major reputable third party tech site has this many issues with AMD cards all because of their software.

It also brings up another point, with the Radeon VII being EOL, if you have to RMA it, it may not be possible to receive a replacement. One user posted that AMD approved his Radeon VII RMA in December because of the random black screen mess, but going on 3 months later and no new VII stock has arrived for AMD to fulfill it.

https://www.wccftech.com/amd-driver-woes-leading-to-customers-having-radeon-regret/

[hardcoregames_]

black_zion wrote:

My thinking would be more along the lines that AMD has cut back on Navi GPU production in preparation for the RDNA2 refresh. They can't afford to be stuck with a large amount of cards which may not even compete with nVidia's entry level Ampere card, plus it's difficult to believe any Navi card is selling in any decent volume. Also combine that with the fact that GDDR6 memory is in very high demand right now, with XBOX and PS5 reportedly taking upwards of 24GB of the stuff, nVidia no doubt hoarding it for Ampere, and AMD's imminent RDNA2 refresh, it makes little sense to waste it on RX 5000 series GPUs.

RDNA and Ampere are probably going to marketed at the GDC upcoming

Intel is already marketing Xe for a late 2020 launch

[pokester]

I saw someone claiming a high percentage of returns on the 5700 series of cards yesterday. Someone else challenged that number is accurate. I hate when someone says 60% of something claims like they know the exact number anyway. However I had to pick up supplies last night on the way home from work so I was stopping by Micro Center anyway. So I thought I am going to talk to the guys at the computer desk about this claim. I asked them what kind of percentage they get back. While they could not tell me a percentage they absolutely do get a large amount back. He took me over to their open box display that is still under lock and key for the high dollar cards. There were 2 Vega II returned cards and 23 5700 & 5700XT cards. They literally had more open box returns than new ones for sale.  There was one green team card next to the locked case on the shelf that was several generations old that was only selling for like 30 bucks as an open box. The guy said it was returned because it didn't fit in the customers HP, small form factor case even though it was a low rise card.  So I have no idea how that translates to the whole selling world at large but I did find it pretty unusual for one store. 

[Anonymous]

Once you go HBM, you never go back to GDDR, not enough torque.

GDDR is cheap crap.

[colesdav]

Asus RX5700XT fix:

Asus Officially Fixes The 5700 XT Strix, But Blames AMD For Their Mistake - YouTube 

[black_zion]

I think we have just found the reason AMD is keeping Navi prices high, and are disinterested in fixing driver issues and changing the UI: Navi is selling.

https://wccftech.com/jpr-amd-clawed-market-share-from-nvidia-and-intel-as-gpu-shipments-surged-22-6-in-q419/

[colesdav]

It is good that AMD GPU shipments are up.

I would have been surprised if they had not improved.
They must have been low with AIB Vega 56/64, RX590 and the few Radeon VII as the only options for new discrete cards.

The AMD "GPU shipments" likely include AMD GPUs in new APUs. 
RX5700XT have had ~ 7 months of generally positive benchmark reviews, and lots of marketing with nothing new from Nvidia apart from "Super" cards.
There must have been many AMD users who stayed on Fury or Polaris, skipped Vega, waited for Navi and bought them after launch.

Some Nvidia users likely switched to AMD at Christmas.

Good Ryzen 3000 series CPU experience and reputation likely led many to give AMD RX5700XT GPU a try. 

AMD GPU Driver and Installer issues have finally started to get talked about by reviewers in past 2 months. 

I think many people realise the Adrenalin 2020 Drivers and Installer and GUI/UI need improved/fixed now. So maybe feedback on here will finally get attention.
Expanding support for older Radeon Cards like R9 Fury series in the Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise Drivers is a good move that should help some.
If Navi were not selling then the situation would be worse for existing RX5700XT users. I am glad they are selling well.

[pokester]

There is no doubt they are selling more. They are cheaper than the competitions card at near the same performance.

However how many of those that buy the cheaper card have remorse once they do so?

Based on what I read in these and other forums and what I saw on the physical open box return shelf at Micro Center a lot give up on these cards and go green.

So yes they have sold a lot of these.

They also have created a ton of ill will and people won't be likely to give it a chance next time.

Unfortunately there seems to always be enough new, uneducated or prior customers that were happy that will buy anything without investigating first. 

I truly hope they get it right by this next gen with drivers that work.

Unfortunately with the past 3 years of Wattman flavored drivers the outlook is not bright.

Navi has been out nearly a year and you can definitely say that not only have things not been made better in many areas but in some cases even worse since the 2020 drives came out.

I won't even run the 2020 drivers on my GCN cards. They are IMHO unserviceable. 

I am happy the bottom line is better at AMD as them having the financial resources is the only possible way they will ever be able to invest in getting these issues fixed. 

[hardcoregames_]

My Polaris based RX 480 is 14nm so I am using "last years" foundry. 

7nm hardware is still too underpowered for 4K so I have been speculating that more Navi cards will surface before the new consoles hit the street.

The upcoming GDC has seen some exhibitors cancel their show due to coronavirus which is becoming a real nuisance.

[ajlueke]

"They also have created a ton of ill will and people won't be likely to give it a chance next time."

I'll always give them a chance.  They have a long way to go to generate as much ill will as the competition.

[pokester]

I have always applauded AMD as being a company that supports a more open standards approach. They develop new tech then don't hold hostage to proprietary hardware and drivers. My only gripe with them is the driver situation of late. AMD has always done well for me too. I will certainly give them a chance again too, but likely will not be an early adopter. I will wait to see if the community feels the bad driver days are behind them. I defended ATI and AMD for years against the bad driver claims. Heck I ended up with ATI to begin with because I was tired of issues with Nvidia drivers. Back in the days of dial up Nvidia would quickly drop game support for old games to keep driver packages small. ATI did not do this and I wanted to play all my games not just the latest. I just can't deny though that my experience this past couple years has been pretty bad with the drivers and the green drivers have been no issue except one recent one. Again this comes back to Nvidia being stupid. They don't support 10 bit color at HDR 4K 60hz Display Port or HDMI. I did ultimately figure out that they do if you don't use the game ready driver but instead use the studio driver. Now it works fine. Again though this is ridiculous and typical Nvidia. 

Bottom line though is that most people don't complain when they have an issue. They just don't come back. This is why it is so important to do the job right the first time. Luckily for companies like Nvidia and AMD they have captive consumer base with limited choices. You kind of have to come back. 

[black_zion]

They've already generated enough ill will with me that unless Big Navi is as powerful as Ampere as well as SUBSTANTIALLY less expensive, I'm talking about a return to RX 500 series pricing, and release an initial WHQL driver package which isn't as FUBAR as Adrenaline 2020, I'm going to happily pay more to go with the green team. Heck, right now, if I had to buy a new card, and if they were to price the RX 5700XT at $200...I'd still buy a RTX 2070.

[hardcoregames_]

I think AMD will continue to find demand for Polaris at the 1920x1080 market segment as they deliver excellent gaming results.

At 1920x1080 my RX 480 8GB is able to play almost all games cranked up. I tend to use games at the defaults and carry on after setting screen resolution.

My RX 480 8GB can hold its own on a 2560x1440 panel fine as well. Given I play at 3840x2160, anything lower in resolution will be much easier to play.

Polaris works well, simply avoid the 4GB version and you will be very happy.

[pokester]

I sure can't compare to Navi as I never had one but certainly see the complaint. However I was tired of crashes and features not working on my RX 580 that I gave up and went to an RTX 2060 with no regret. The sad part is the 580 performs great compared to many issues on Vega and Navi. 

I never felt like FreeSync worked right on my 580 and the when Nvidia offered support I tried the 2060 fully thinking I would return it but FreeSync actually worked right for the first time. Then for me last November I got my firs 4k tv and with all the complaints already with Navi, I just went ahead and got the 2070 Super. Aside from some standards support issues which now are resolved I have had zero issues. 

Like have said many times before I had mostly trouble free experience with AMD too for over 15 years. 

[black_zion]

I'm also sick of AMD saying they support cards when in reality they only support the most current generation with performance improvements and fixes. An oft cited example of mine is WCCFTech's GTX 1660 Super review shows RX 580 outperforms Fury X, 1660S outperforms RX 580, equal to... and I believe it was you who pointed out nVidia truly supports all their cards they say are currently in mainstream support. This really punishes anyone who buys a high end AMD card, as Fury, Vega, and especially Vega VII owners found out...

[pokester]

I have been unhappy with how quickly AMD is to drop support on some products yes. Fury is a great example of a card that still is a good performer yet support has suffered. I think Vega is already suffering this too. I said 2 years ago that I bet AMD can't wait to drop support for Vega. AMD has dropped support for mobile platforms that were being sold in the past year before. They dropped support for Windows 8.1. So it isn't picking on AMD it is just a fact that not just Nvidia but Intel supports older products and in some cases an api longer than AMD.  Intel for instance still actually supports GDI where neither AMD nor Intel do. Not that I think that support is needed today, but they do. Look at the support for Crossfire in the past couple years. They still claim support but support is awful at best. 

So yes I don't know over the years of any holes in what Nvidia supports like what AMD has done in some cases. Either they support a whole line or they don't. Nvidia has not picked certain cards out of their line up and pretty much exclude them while supporting others of the same architecture. There is not rhyme or reason why one driver works for why say FreeSync would work on one card vs. another with one driver release but another driver the tables turn. Or out of no where the same bug that was fixed a year ago comes up again. AMD does some strange stuff with driver branches/forks. They also don't seem to mind limiting or removing support from say flagship products abruptly or even mobile products. 

[colesdav]

Looks like Radeon Team has started to listen: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-20-2-2 
Lots of fixes in to attempt to stop PC hang & black screening.
Focus is on RX5700XT.

It looks like nothing has been done to improve the Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI yet to get it back towards usability of Adrenalin 2019.

I might try Adrenalin 20-2-2 drivers with the Adrenalin 2019 GUI/UI and see if BFV stops blackscreening / PC hanging on RX Vega 64 Liquid later this week.

[pokester]

Cool, let us know if they are real improvements. I am definitely routing for them to get things going in the right direction. 

[pokester]

reading the release notes one thing I find interesting is this known issue. DOOM™ may experience an intermittent system hang or application crash during gameplay.

This has been going on now for a while and the new Doom Eternal game launches soon. I played this game with zero issues in Vulkan in 2016 on my HD 7950 with zero issues but now 4 years later they can't fix what once worked. Just makes no sense to me. 

[colesdav]

Testing this now:
Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI/UI with Adrenalin 2020.2.2 Drivers:

[colesdav]

Using Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI/UI and Adrenalin 2020 20.2.2. Drivers seems to be more stable than just running Adrenalin 2019.19.12.1 drivers.
I was able to run BFV for ~ 3 hours 4K DX12 Ultra w/o crashing. That is unusual.
It was definitely consistently crashing/hanging this morning when running Adrenalin 19.12.1.
I do need to do more testing though.
But it is encouraging.

Pity I have to put up with the Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI if I want to use Radeon Boost.
I really wish they made that Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI an optional Install just like GeForce Experience is.

I have to stop testing now.
Bye.

[pokester]

Good to know. I suggested them in couple other threads based on release notes alone. Nice to know that some knowledgeable hands on confirm this. As usual thanks for your testing. You do a great job!

[colesdav]

Hi,

I don't like having to use Adrenalin 2019 GUI with Adrenalin 2020 drivers as it is completely untested.
Doing this does allow me to have FRTC back and decouple it from Chill_Max.
Some broken things in Adrenalin 2020 - like Chill Hotkeys not working so you are stuck with using F11 happen, even though that works in Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1.

There is no slider control for Radeon Image Sharpening.

There is no Boost Control.

I am not sure if anything was done to directly improve BFV stability on RX Vega 64/56.
That driver combination does seem more stable to me, but it could be a total fluke.
I have been able to complete Combined Arms solo games I was using to test a number of times now. 

I still need to use Radeon Chill to run BFV at 4K 60 FPS peak frame rates but I still do need to set Chill_Min to 30 just to cool the GPU down.
The game will still hang/crash if I do not monitor the GPU temps reported by the Radeon Performance Overlay and make sure they do not go over 51'C.
I still need to stop, stand still, and look at the ground or sky (whichever results in lowest power consumption) just to get through a game.

In other words - this in the release notes: 

Battlefield™ V may experience an application hang or TDR after extended periods of play.

Is not fixed completely if I use that GUI/driver combination.
I am overclocking the HBM2 to 1120MHz but I think an Application should exit cleanly and not hang or cause PC reboot.

This just does not work at all - I cannot assign a Chill Hotkey in any version of Adrenalin 2020 yet. I am stuck on F11.

The Radeon Chill hotkey could sometimes continue to remain enabled once the user has removed or disabled the hotkey.

There are still some basic bugs in BFV with AMD Drivers such as this:

I can see that soldier when I run with an RTX 2080 OC and Nvidia Drivers.

The easiest solution for me is to run BFV on RTX2080 at 4K Ultra 60FPs with no crashing at all and no need to monitor GPU Temps and modify game play behaviour.

Maybe an RX5700XT would perform better than this GPU but I have not seen anyone show how that GPU runs BFV with an R7 2700X at 4K Ultra settings.

[hardcoregames_]

With all the discussion over price cuts you would think an RX 5700 XT would be down to $99 by now.

Over on EA's forum, lots of problems with BFV 

[colesdav]

The RX5700XT prices are bouncing around 300 - 330 for the cheapest models (Asus reference or Powercolor dual fan).

ASUS ROG Strix RX5700XT price was really low at the weekend from some retailers.
I would guess not many people want to fix the GPU after purchase with the screw kit.

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

The RX5700XT prices are bouncing around 300 - 330 for the cheapest models (Asus reference or Powercolor dual fan).

ASUS ROG Strix RX5700XT price was really low at the weekend from some retailers.
I would guess not many people want to fix the GPU after purchase with the screw kit.

Unfortunately up here prices have not been adjusted for the weak US dollar.

Cheapest up here is $600 which is a rip off. I have to criticise NewEgg a lot as it is often cheaper to buy it somewhere else in America and import it.

[ajlueke]

"Bottom line though is that most people don't complain when they have an issue. They just don't come back. This is why it is so important to do the job right the first time."

Interesting assertion.  Any data to support it?  I have often heard that when customers have issues is the only time you hear from them, as opposed to when things work correctly.

[pokester]

Yah it's why most restaurants fail. 

[pokester]

Google small business failure and you can find your own stats. 

[pokester]

Now I would absolutely agree that you hear less when things go well. 

But I will entertain your challenge here with a very relevant assertion. 

So tech sites have been talking about the AMD issues with drivers most here recognize it is an issue. However those that complain in these forums still only represent a fraction of a percent of those that bought the product. Do you truly believe it is only the fraction that has an issue? If it was true AMD would have nothing to fix. 

[ajlueke]

I do not believe that only the fraction that complains has an issue, but you used the word "most".  So there are several assertions there, one is most people who have an issue do not complain (is a restaurant a suitable proxy for a retail business?) .  Second, people who have an issue and do not complain, instead stop using the product.   

So if you look at black_zion‌'s earlier post about AMD gaining market share from NVidia with increased GPU shipments compared to the competition.  If the majority of people who have the issue don't complain and stop using it, it is safe to assume they would then use a competitors product.  So, that number would then be reflected in NVidia's sales numbers.  Yet AMD sales have grown relative to the competition.  One could infer then, that either:

1.  The number of people of have issues is very small.  Even if most of them don't complain and stop using the product and buy NVidia, there aren't enough of them to shift the market share back in NVidia's favor.  In which case, no, there is nothing to fix.

2.  Many people do have the issue, they just don't buy NVidia cards.  So they either keep using the card with issues rendering your assertion false, or they just give up on GPUs altogether.  Maybe they buy consoles instead?

So based on the data that was just presented, your subsequent assertion was extremely unlikely.  Which is why I was curious if you had other pertinent information.

[pokester]

Wow you like to argue. Most meant most that have issue not that most have issue or that most went to Nvidia. So are you telling me that every time you have an issue with something you complain to management? If you do you must be the most unpleasant person on Earth. Anyway it's pointless to debate this, it is an opinion. You nor I can back it up in numbers, beyond the fact as I pointed out most business fail period and a good majority of the time it's because they didn't have a product or service that didn't satisfy customer. If a burger place shuts down most likely they failed to satisfy customers. People didn't in most cases stop buying burgers because they didn't like theirs. They went some place else.  It's just IMHO the way people are, most are too polite to complain. They vote with their dollars some place else. I worked in restaurants working my way through school and have dealt with sales people since. It is my experience and I kept no log book of how many times to satisfy you.  What I said has been a sentiment said by many over the years by service and sales people. Some have said the similar statement that it is easier to get your first customer than to get back a customer you disappointed.  If you don't agree you don't have to. I could care less. Just don't know why you gotta pick fights over stupid stuff. Your read way too much into what is said and take it as some personal attack. 

[ajlueke]

"They vote with their dollars some place else."  And again, based off the data that AMDs sales are growing relative to the competition would mean...

1.  The number of people of have issues with AMD is very small.  Even if  your assertion is accurate and most of them don't complain but instead stop using the product and buy NVidia, there aren't enough of them to shift the market share back in NVidia's favor.  In which case, no, AMD has nothing to fix.

2.  Many people do have the issue, they just don't buy NVidia cards.  So they either keep using the card with issues rendering your assertion false, or they just give up on GPUs altogether.  Maybe they buy consoles instead?

That was my point.  The data that had just been presented in the previous post rendered your particular assertion extremely unlikely.  Which is why i was asking if you had additional info, since you made the assertion anyway.

"Anyway it's pointless to debate this, it is an opinion."

It is not.  It is an "assertion" as we already established. They cannot be used synonymously.

.

[black_zion]

Here's some interesting information which has eluded prying eyes for some time, as they date from October and November of last year. Geekbench reports from nVidia (Ampere or Hopper) cards. Performance of these obviously engineering samples puts up figures 40% faster than Titan RTX, so next month's reveal should definitely be quite interesting.

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-next-generation-gpus-with-up-to-7552-cores-benchmarked-40-faster-than-titan-rtx/

[black_zion]

Another bit of interesting news today, GDC is officially postponed until the summer due to the coronavirus. They say companies which were due to make presentations will do so via a web video, so it's still possible nVidia will reveal Ampere as expected.

https://wccftech.com/gdc-2020-officially-postponed-for-the-coronavirus-organizers-now-looking-for-a-summer-date/

[colesdav]

Maybe the delay will help and give more time to get next Radeon GPU launch ready.