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 

[colesdav]

PowerColor Red Dragon RX5700XT just arrived.
Pictured with a Gigabyte RX 590 REV 1.0 for comparison.

[colesdav]

So what is the prediction for the Navi RX5700XT refresh announcement?
The AMD Game Bundles have ended.
Prices for new RX5700XT AIB are generally at  ~350-400 and stocks are depleting.
I think they will be announced by end July 2020.

[colesdav]

Navi RX5700XT was launched on July 7 2019 so it will be Navi's one year birthday next week.
Maybe the refresh will be launched next week along with a new Adrenalin Driver update?

I think AMD should announce something and discuss where Navi is w.r.t. drivers and Blender and ROCm Compute.

[hardcoregames_]

I was experimenting a while ago with GL tessellation and mesh shaders. Mesh shaders are demanding on VRAM and GPU horsepower.

Mesh shaders are in Windows 10 v 2004 DX12 Ultimate and NVIDIA has now stepped up with support so I expect AMD to support it as well soon.

Not sure how demanding mesh shaders will be but my old RX 480 can do it to some extent. My RTX 2080 can also handle mesh shaders.

DX12 is evolving towards a larger VRAM and brute force shader design with the graphics pipeline. Today pretty much all of the game is done with shaders now.

[pokester]

What I find interesting is the number of people that are now saying if they load the new drivers only from device manager and don't install radeon settings and wattman that the Navi cards are stable with just the drivers and afterburner. That was my experience too on polaris. AMD seems to create their own issues. 

[colesdav]

The Navi card I bought for the PC build I did apparently mostly working o.k. as long as it uses the Hybrid 19.12.1 GUI/UI + 20.5.1. driver

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

The Navi card I bought for the PC build I did iapparently mostly working o.k. as long as it uses the Hybrid 19.12.1 GUI/UI + 20.5.1. driver

I have a friend with a RX 5700 XT who does not have problems 

Makes me wonder about rig A vs, rig B etc

[black_zion]

My prediction is that it's going to be a failure...If AMD keeps doing what they've been doing. They're going to have to come out swinging, aggressive on prices, aggressive on squashing bugs, aggressive on increasing performance, and aggressive on perusing game developers so they can obtain the same level of access that nVidia has. If they come out like they have been doing the last few years, kinda just there and not anything special, throwing out "value additions" in the form of games and temporary games, nVidia is going to steamroll them again even though performance will have increased on all segments.

[colesdav]

Saw this - New games bundle on July 7 apparently:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/software/amd_s_next_ryzen_and_radeon_game_bundles_leak/1 

[black_zion]

Doesn't it seem funny that AMD would be bundling games with products which, when the game released, will be obsolete and replaced by supposedly much faster versions?

[pokester]

It just ticks me off that I have bought 2 ryzen processor in the last year and managed both times to get no games. 

[colesdav]

I have not checked what the stocks / prices are of RX5700XT everywhere.
Do they seem to be reducing in price / going out of stock where you are?
I think the last AMD Game Bundle promotion was extended a few times and
GPU prices were dropped to encourage people to buy the existing RX5000 series cards.
It might be this new Bundle is intended for the Navi Refresh, which might only have slightly higher Base/Game/Boost
clocks because of more mature 7nm process, and maybe some hardware bug fixes?
That sounds similar similar to the new Ryzen 3000XT processors.

[black_zion]

It's difficult to tell. There's plenty of Navi cards in stock everywhere I look, but with so much variability in both price and quality, I can't say if they're actually being bought or if prices are actually dropping.

And yea, I'm ticked too I didn't get anything with my 3700X too...

[hardcoregames_]

black_zion wrote:

It's difficult to tell. There's plenty of Navi cards in stock everywhere I look, but with so much variability in both price and quality, I can't say if they're actually being bought or if prices are actually dropping.

And yea, I'm ticked too I didn't get anything with my 3700X too...

I have noticed Navi cards are slowly disappearing at NewEgg which suggests Navi 2 is expected sooner rather than later.

Dealers with leftover inventory often can be stuck with it. Tax losses are about the only recovery.

In Japan, they invented just in time to handle automotive manufacturing. It has saved the sector a bundle as warehousing costs are very high.

[colesdav]

I wonder how a Radeon 7 would perform with some of this new hbm2e memory.
Do you think that could Radeon 7 with hbm2e could thrash a RTX2080Ti? 

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/memory/sk_hynix_s_460gb_s_hbm2e_memory_has_entered_mass_production_... 

[black_zion]

Not with the Vega architecture. Turing is too far ahead of Vega for memory alone to determine the performance.

[hardcoregames_]

My RTX 2080 is substantially more powerful than any gaming Radeon card out there.

[colesdav]

I can remember watching buildzoid video where he was overclocking Vega 56 (onviously GF 14nm versus Radeon 7 on 7nm.
I wrote up the information from the video here:
https://community.amd.com/message/2818989?commentID=2818989#comment-2818989 

Recommendation ws to Maximize the HBM2 frequency.
Run HBM2 as fast as possible because it has the most impact on improving the performance of the Vega GPU.

800MHz - 1100 MHz = for every 3% increase in HBM2 clock you get about 1% Performance Increase.

In addition to that observation. Increased HBM2 frequency also increased the performance gain of overclocking the GPU SCLK.

Obviously 14nm not tnm but ~ same architecture as Radeon 7.

It might be interesting to see if similar measurements exist for Radeon 7, and check the datasheed for this new HBM2e versus the HBM2 used on the Radeon 7.

As for "RDNA versus GCN" and this new "RDNA versus CDNA" I think much of it is Marketing Spin.
For example - RX5700XT  is worse than Vega 64 Liquid at Compute, because RX5700XT has GPU compute nd cores count just slightly above that of the RX590/580/480 Polaris, and nowhere near that of RX Vega 64.

Surte RX5700XT Navi had some gaming focussed improvements that didn't make it into Vega, but RDNA was mostly more local cache, mostly to make up for using GDDR6. 

[hardcoregames_]

Vega 56 cards are still slightly overvalued relative to other cards. Same for Vega 64. While my TX 2080 is more expensive, I needed the performance for my 4K panel.

GCN is not the problem, it's the lack of them in a given card with a fast enough clock speed to matter.

[black_zion]

To borrow a couple of charts from Digital Trends (listed in order Radeon VII, 2080 Ti, 2080, Vega 64), the difference between the VII and 2080 Ti varies greatly depending on the game, from 29% at 4K ultra Deus Ex to 4% at 4K Battlefield V high. So to say that faster memory alone would allow the VII to "thrash" the 2080Ti, I just can't see it.

[hardcoregames_]

The disparity is game performance will likely narrow looking forward. My expectations for Navi 2 and Ampere are for more powerful cards but until the reviews are in and how good the drivers will be will influence sales

[colesdav]

Another attempt to sell downbinned failed to make the grade Radeon Insinct MI160:
https://www.amd.com/en/products/professional-graphics/radeon-pro-vii 

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

Another attempt to sell downbinned failed to make the grade Radeon Insinct MI160:
https://www.amd.com/en/products/professional-graphics/radeon-pro-vii 

Is that just a binned Radeon VII?

[colesdav]

It is ~ the same as an MI160 downbinned to Radeon VII specification but they have set the Peak Double Precision (FP64) Performance

to 6.5 TFLOPs instead of the Peak Double Precision Compute Performance of 3.46 TFLOPs on the Radeon VII.

[hardcoregames_]

colesdav wrote:

It is ~ the same as an MI160 downbinned to Radeon VII specification but they have set the Peak Double Precision (FP64) Performance

to 6.5 TFLOPs instead of the Peak Double Precision Compute Performance of 3.46 TFLOPs on the Radeon VII.

Does that card do any better encoding video?

[colesdav]

Right Now Is a Terrible Time to Buy a Graphics Card | Tom's Hardware 

I start to think it is always a bad time to buy a new GPU.

[pokester]

That was a good read. Thanks!

[colesdav]

RE: Right Now Is a Terrible Time to Buy a Graphics Card | Tom's Hardware 

They are VERY generous about AMD GPUs in that article.

Buying a new Nvidia GPU ~ 2 months after launch is o.k. Time for card reviews, AIB GPUs are launched fast and mostly good quality. Drivers work.

AMD took at least 8 months to get AIB GPUs out with working BIOS and "kind of working" drivers on Vega.

Navi 10 has been much worse.

In both cases 2 AIB GPU vendors I can trust, PowerColor & Sapphire.

I would say the best time to buy a new AMD GPU is actually just before they are EOLed, with a game deal, at a low price.
Even then in the case of Navi 10 - the value versus RX Vega 64 Liquid is just not there.

AMD GPUs are just not worth buying at launch, unless something changes w.r.t. Launch Drivers and VBIOS situation which was bad on Radeon VII (no UEFI support) and is  totally out of control with the RX5600XT (running GPU at higher VRAM clock speed than it was tested at).

I have just been looking at Adrenalin 2020 20.7.1 and it will not even install on latest up to date and patched version of Windows 10 19.09.
The installer crashes and bluescreens one of my Ryzen 2700X  PC (running at 3.7GHz base and 2133MHz DRAM) with atikmdag.sys BSOD or the installer simply Black Screens the PC and I can get n o video output at all.

Before anyone tells me I should be on the next version of Windows 10 - Version 2004: 

So regarding this:

July Updates for Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition
Which I am unable to rely to directly.

I just had to spend about 12 hours attempting to get that to Driver to install on that Windows version, which passes all checks.
That Radeon Adrenalin 2020 Software Team are not testing their Software Properly.

They claim to fix 25 bugs.
But they introduce one big BUG.
It will not even install.

[colesdav]

Just for some more information.
Nvidia GeForce Experience 3.20.4
Nvidia Control Panel 451.67
Install and work first time.

[colesdav]

I did managed to get this Hybrid Adrenalin 2019 19.12.1 GUI/UI +  20.7.1 driver to install. It was not easy.
So at least my 7 AMD GPU rendering PC can run with some drivers in the meantime.

[black_zion]

Did they solve the big bug yet of adding profiles for pretty much every .exe file on your system?

[colesdav]

I cannot tell you if that has been fixed or not. I did not check it last time.
Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI total lack of ergonomics mess, clutter, and instability just make me want to punch my fist through the screen if I try to use it for more than 5 minutes. It genuinely makes me angry. 
I think they are going to introduce it in the Radeon Pro drivers next, based on what they did in the latest  Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 20-Q2.1 Driver which includes the animated explosion installer:  https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-pro-win-20-q2-1 
There seems to be no escape other than to Nvidia.

However the difficulty of getting this 2019.12.1 GUI/UI  + 2020 Hybrid Driver installed is beyond tiresomme and is gettiung more dificult.

[colesdav]

New AMD Raise the Game Bundle:

https://www.amd.com/en/gaming/raise-the-game?utm_campaign=raise-the-gamel&utm_medium=redirect&utm_so...

RX5700XT stocks seem to continue to drop.
I do not think it will be long before Navi 10 Refresh  now.

So that will likely be (AMD Radeon™ RX 5700 XT)  XT ...

[colesdav]

Correction:

Only for the following Discrete GPUs. 
AMD Radeon™ RX5700XT, RX 5700, RX5600XT - 2 games.
AMD Radeon™ RX 5500 XT                                  - 1 game.  

There are also some desktop/laptop bundles.

[black_zion]

nVidia's supposedly discontinued all their Turing GPUs aside from the RTX 2060 and GTX 1600 and shifted into production Ampere. Guess they learned their lesson not to get stuck with a boatload of GPUs you have to buy back!

[colesdav]

Yes.
I wonder why AMD have not announced the Navi 10 refresh yet?
It looks like the stocks of RX5700XT are down apart from PowerColor cards.
The places offering the new Game Bundle also just increased their prices again by ~ 40 which is ~what the bundle is worth anyhow.
Smoke and Mirrors.

[black_zion]

That's a good question. nVidia's been in the news all week with Ampere speculation, a possible new high wattage power connector (12 pin for 400w) and now an article talking about how DLSS 2.0 makes Death Stranding playable on entry level gaming cards at 4K60 max details, and they're not even going to talk about Ampere for a while. AMD's been in the news for the CPU side, and today's Threadripper Pro reveal.

While Threadripper Pro could be a sledgehammer for prosumer applications with its 8 channel memory controller, gamers, and investors, care more about the graphs below.

[colesdav]

I think AMD need to stop the "More CPU Cores" story on Ryzen and improve IPC and maybe increase frequency.
I think Nvidia GPU CUDA and OptiX based rendring in Blender starting to take a lead over multi CPU rendering based on a few test cases I have run.
As for AMD Discrete GPUs, I think its over now. They are too far behind. I think Navi and AMD Drivers has been a disaster follow on from Vega.

[black_zion]

To AMD's credit they are improving IPC drastically with each generation so I'm not going to bash them too hard on their core counts especially as programs now are getting more able to take advantage of 8 cores. I do wish though they'd work harder on refining the designs so there wouldn't be a sort of big.LITTLE concept with favored cores and start using Turbo Tables like Intel so higher, and maximum, boost states could be observed in the wild outside of specific settings.

And of course, I wish they'd start taking their GPUs seriously. They've treated it almost as an afterthought for so long they're behind the 8 ball in terms of features and software, and it's bad for the end user because it means nVidia can charge exorbitant prices...

[colesdav]

AMD Q2 2020 Earnings: Record Revenue, Notebook and EPYC Sales, Highest Consumer CPU Sales in 12 Year... 

All good news on CPU but for GPU ...

GPU ASP down y/y and q/q due to lower channel sales".

I wonder why that could be?
Poor RX5700XT AIB GPU Card Quality?
Bad AMD Adrenalin drivers?
Adrenalin 2020 GUI/UI is a mess?
ROCm needs support?

At least the RDNA2 based GPU in XBOX Series X shows some hope for "Big Navi".

Note:

"AMD's discrete GPU sales and ASPs also declined, which was partially offset by increased mobile graphics sales (up double-digits). Su also said the company remains on track for its launch of the RDNA 2 "Big Navi" graphics cards later this year, commenting that "I think it's a full refresh for us from the top of the stack through the rest of the stack"

At the start of the year there was going to be Big Navi RDNA2 and a refresh of RDNA cards in 2020.

Now I am not so sure if the RDNA refresh will happen at all.