General Discussions

[black_zion]

At least in the FF XV benchmark. With a release date of supposedly Friday, we won't have to wait much longer. If it really is this fast, it's going to give the $260 RX 590, headaches, as it would make zero sense to buy it when the faster, much more efficient 1660 Ti is only $20 more.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gtx-1660-ti-leaked-benchmarks-pricing,38630.html

[noodles59]

The 6GB or 3GB of GDDR6 memory, on the other hand, runs at 1,500MHz (12,000MHz effective) across a 192-bit memory bus.

Why do they castrate the mem bus? I remember times where 256/512 bit bus was a standard. Cutting the mem bus means slower performance.

[black_zion]

Something nVidia has done for a while, since the 550, use a 192 and 384 bit bus instead of a 256 and 512 bit bus, which is how they end up with odd memory sizes (3GB, 11GB, etc). I imagine it's to help slow the card down on purpose so it doesn't encroach on a higher tier, but it also helps cut costs. But as we can see from the performance against the Vega II which has a monster 4096-bit bus due to the nature of HBM, it's not quite as important as the total memory on board.

[hardcoregames_]

my GTX 1060 has 3GB and the other version has 6GB so both cards have exotic memory issues

GPU-Z says my card has 192-bit memory so I guess it can be parked anywhere in the memory map 

[ajlueke]

Looks like it was actually about 5% slower, but slower than the Vega 56, not Radeon VII.

Basically you get GTX 1070 performance for $280.  That does render the RX 590 obsolete at that price point, as it is 24% slower on average than the GTX 1660 Ti.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1797-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-ti/

[hardcoregames_]

I have a GTX 1060 so this card is a definite improvement but I need more RAM and other hardware. I am sure the card prices will adjust quickly after a few weeks.Nothing like some price competition to make me happy.

[black_zion]

No surprise there, that's why you never trust first party benchmarks. I love TomsHardware because they do put together composite graphs for an overall average. It even puts the RX 580 in doubt that it's a viable card at its current price point, especially since AMD is not going to adjust prices of the 580, 590, and Vega 56, given the fact that the RX 580, a card which performs +/- a few FPS with the GTX 1060, has to make compromises in quality to maintain 60fps.

And let's not even bring up us Fury owners...

[hardcoregames_]

These small charts are not like anything I assemble

My benchmark charts take a long time to do

[ajlueke]

The RX 580 is still okay from a pure dollars per fps perspective.  It is actually better in that regard than the 1660 Ti. 

 

The RX 590 becomes completely irrelevant, $20 cheaper for substantially less frames.  Vega 56 could still make a argument, if the price were closer to $300. 

[hardcoregames_]

you chart does not account for my $137 Canadian I paid for my GTX 1060 3G which makes it king of the heap for bang for the buck

[evolution73]

I have watched multiple reviews on it. Honestly, It's going to be a headache for AMD. Its better then the RX-590 and competes with the Vega 56 (beating it in several games). At a damn good price point.

Will be interesting to see how AMD counters it....

[black_zion]

There's no way they can counter it until Navi drops in a few months.

[hardcoregames_]

All I know is price rot on Polaris cards is brutal

[ajlueke]

I wonder if that is happening sooner rather than later?  Vega's appear to have completely dried up, not much in the way of stock out there at all anymore.  Almost seems like they are no longer being made.

[black_zion]

There's been "rumors" since last year that AMD was diverting all the Vega GPUs into Founders Edition cards so they could upcharge the cryptocurrency miners, and that this, combined with the packing issue, meant the board partners weren't getting any Vega chips. When 7nm Vega debuted, I imagine the bulk of the HBM was diverted to it given MI50 and MI60 pack a ton of it, and it's extremely expensive and low in supply, so Vega is likely effectively canceled.

[hardcoregames_]

black_zion wrote:

There's been "rumors" since last year that AMD was diverting all the Vega GPUs into Founders Edition cards so they could upcharge the cryptocurrency miners, and that this, combined with the packing issue, meant the board partners weren't getting any Vega chips. When 7nm Vega debuted, I imagine the bulk of the HBM was diverted to it given MI50 and MI60 pack a ton of it, and it's extremely expensive and low in supply, so Vega is likely effectively canceled.

coins are down the crapper, games are back

[ajlueke]

Definitely seems that way.  Supply isn't really recovering.

[black_zion]

I doubt the demand is there as well at the price points AMD has to sell Vega chips at due to the expensive HBM2, not to mention the overall cost to run it due to the high power draw, and with nVidia supporting FreeSync they lose that advantage. Techspot put together a large 33 game benchmark, and if you look at their summary chart, while Vega 56 may be faster overall, it's only 8% faster than the GTX 1660 Ti, but they cost a massive 32% (or greater) more than the 1660 Ti, and on none of the games does it make the difference between playable and unplayable. The gap narrows if you take out Warframe (91fps 1600 Ti vs 148fps Vega 56). And to add another chart to yours, the 2560x1440 chart shows a 28.8% price premium per frame cost of Vega 56 vs the 1660 Ti.

It's a sad time for the red team, but, as I said before, at least they're not rushing Navi out unfinished. They've been working on it for 3 years, so it should be quite good.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1799-geforce-gtx-1660-mega-benchmark/

[hardcoregames_]

AMD probably should have made the Vega 56 and Vega 64 with GDDR5X which would have been cheaper

[pokester]

It depends on the game. As a recent purchaser of a RTX 2060 a card faster than this, especially Over Clocked as mine clocks to 2050/8000. This puts it solidly at Vega 64, GTX 1080  performance levels, but will pull well ahead with RTX only features as they become main stream and games begin to really optimize for them. I paid 314 for mine. So speed and price are way better than the above information shows. This card stomps all over anything AMD from a bang for the buck perspective, IMHO. The Vega II is faster in some scenarios but it ought to be at that price. Plus there are more trade offs then I care to write down, no uefi support, no play ready support, default settings don't work etc.  etc.  AMD just better hope for a home run with NAVI. If they don't, I don't think they are going to have much of a pc gaming user base left. I don't think they care though, as AMD users keep holding on to this ideal AMD cares. They have pretty much come right out and said they don't several times. It is Ryzen and more so Game Consoles keeping them barely above water. Not PC gamers. 

[black_zion]

They care about returning to profitability, that's why 75% of RTG assets are dedicated to the custom and semi-custom market, like consoles, with the fact that AMD is noncompetitive right now attributed to Raja.

[pokester]

Oh I fully get that. It's do or die for them. It's just many of the AMD users who are falsely holding on to this idea that the AMD of old currently exists and they acually care about PC gamers. Every bit of my experience in the past year has screamed the opposite. The glimmer of hope is that the last driver before this most recent, have not tried it yet, fixed a couple of long standing issues. So that is nice to finally see some progress.

I don't think any of this is because they don't care about their users either. I fear they are just stretched so thin, they don't have the resources or frankly the remaining talent to respond or fix issues in a timely manner. It isn't just Raja who jumped ship. From what I have read in various sites, it was several people beneath his level too. So when companies lose key people or cut key people because they can't afford to keep them, it really shows in the end result.

I wish nothing but the best for AMD and hope like heck if the profits return they will be better again too, with support and service.

However it's a chicken and egg scenario. Not sure how they get to one while nearly abandoning the other.

Time will tell.

[black_zion]

I don't see them being gone as a bad thing considering most of the crew was behind the essential flop that is Vega. Same thing happened on the CPU side as well, Keller left after the success of Ryzen, but that didn't stop AMD from making what will be huge gains with Ryzen 2, including the new chiplet architecture (which Intel will no doubt steal). Same thing I feel is going to happen with GPU side. Raja and the rest didn't have anything to do with Navi, they were Vega, so this crew, while not having big name recognition, isn't untalented, they're designing the GPU component of an APU which will be capable of 4k60 in the next Playstation, so I am quite optimistic, especially with Dr. Lisa Su likely being akin to Dr. No and saying in no uncertain terms "We do not tolerate failure.".

[pokester]

Like I said I do wish them well and am hopefully optimistic too, but cautiously reserved in my expectations. I would just feel a lot better as a consumer and long time patron if they engaged their customers and especially this dedicated community. Acknowledging failure and announcing a game plan to fix things is not a sign of weakness. It's kinda hard not to feel let down and frankly abandoned. As the saying goes " the silence is deafening". If they were acknowledging issues and revealing a bit more on the future it sure would help a lot. In fact I think people like to rally around the underdog, I always have. They just seem to be pushing the community away and walling themselves off to me. I loved supporting AMD it always is fun to stick it to Intel so to speak. They leave most everything to speculation which may be completely wrong, but in the face of no communication, that happens. I can't say I have as much dislike for Nvidia as I do for Intel, as they have just had despicable business practices for decades. About my only disdain for Nvidia has been their controlling of the gaming community by not embracing open standards and enjoying their ability to keep gamers locked in to much of their proprietary ecosystem. I can't however take away from them that they have a good stable product line. I do think it is still too pricey. Both companies top products are IMHO. I have to say though that these new products the 2060 and this new 1660 sure are a step toward doing better on bang for the buck. 

I really wish there was some huge company, like an Apple or Google who could invest in AMD and really give them the resources to shine. AMD has done amazing when you look at how small they are compared to an Intel. Nobody can ever take that away from them. Without AMD Intel would probably have us still buying 486's for 500 bucks a piece. People forget how expensive their stuff was back in the day before the AMD and Cyrix competition. 

[hardcoregames_]

I had an AMD 386-40 with a Cyrix FPU back in the day

[pokester]

The funny thing is using Cyrix and FPU in the same sentence! It's a real shame what happened to them. The really were on the cusp of some awesome tech and they just lost all their funding. If they had been able to stay in the game with a real 3rd competitor no telling where we might be today. 

[hardcoregames_]

pokester wrote:

The funny thing is using Cyrix and FPU in the same sentence! It's a real shame what happened to them. The really were on the cusp of some awesome tech and they just lost all their funding. If they had been able to stay in the game with a real 3rd competitor no telling where we might be today. 

Not sure what happened to Cyrix. The folded back in 1997.

After the 386 I had a K5 on a socket 7 board. MP3 pushed me to get a K6 which would play them as the K5 was not fast enough.

Bought one of these Seanix Pentium II-300 boxes SEANIX DESKTOP PC | HARDCORE GAMES™ 

That machine had limits on the amount of RAM it could use but it was enough for pushing Windows 98 hard. Also a 32GB disk limit was another problem.

Then I bought IBM 300GL 6563-4G3 | HARDCORE GAMES™ 

[pokester]

They had a design in the works that most believed would substantially be better than what Intel had. I think the company lost financial backing or flat ran out of money and couldn't arrange more money to continue. I know VIA ended up with rights to the name and IP. Not sure if that was bankruptcy or a sale in final hours of the company. I don't remember. I do remember talk of Intel wreaking all kinds of patent issues. If I remember correctly do to Intel suing them unjustly and I think Cyrix won, but the legal debts literally exhausted their funds. I think they just couldn't continue and nobody wanted to combat Intel. AMD has barely stayed alive against the Intel Monopoly. VIA didn't really seem to want to go further with the tech. They more or less just wanted what already existed and ins subsequent years that tech has mostly only gone through die shrinks and is used in embedded systems still today.