What kind of a price cut would y'all say it'd take for Vega to be a "good buy"?

[Vishera]

What kind of a price cut would y'all say it'd take for Vega to be a "good buy"?

Especially with the 2000 series coming out soon. I'd say AMD should come up with an open air design cooler, and start selling them straight to the consumer at cost, maybe $5 over that. I can't see them saving the architecture any other way to be honest, and at least they could make up SOME of their money. Or just pull the plug altogether and discontinue it.

 

[Janus67]

Especially with the 2000 series coming out soon. I'd say AMD should come up with an open air design cooler, and start selling them straight to the consumer at cost, maybe $5 over that. I can't see them saving the architecture any other way to be honest, and at least they could make up SOME of their money. Or just pull the plug altogether and discontinue it.

Iirc the vega64 was about even with a 1080?

In that case it would need to be $50 or less under the MSRP/going price of the 1080 to even be considered.

 

[Vishera]

With the 2000 series coming out? If V64 was released for $450, it'd still be getting crushed by whatever 1070s and 1070Ti's that will still be available for new purchase, PLUS the 2070 on top of that (whether it's a new GPU or not). Price it to compete with any remaining 1060s and the 2060, which isn't coming out until, what, November? December? Maybe even not until next year. That'd be a great price point to strike at. Throw V64 at the $300-$350 price point, and put V56 at the $250-$275 price point.

 

[Alaric]

Vega 64 doesn't get crushed by the 1070 or 1070 Ti, though. It's about even with to a little ahead of the 1070 Ti. And if you're going to mine, the AMD cards are very good.

 

[EarthDog]

Its just that double the power thing that can be a kick in the pants (can't say I care terribly... some do). Otherwise, its a solid card.

 

[mackerel]

Without looking through endless benchmarks again, I took Vega 56 to be comparable to 1070 or 1070Ti, and Vega 64 to be 1080 ball park. As such... a comparable price to those would seem appropriate.

I have a FE (or whatever) '56 and to me it seems held back by its cooling. After market ones should do better.

 

[Woomack]

Current Vega prices in my local stores are ridiculous. What more, stores don't have them in stock at all just because barely anyone is buying these cards. Considering that AMD won't release anything new anytime soon then I just find whole AMD graphics card line total fail. Lower cards are based on old/rebranded GPU, newer (already old too) are overpriced. In both cases these cards are heating up more than nvidia.
I'm not mentioning performance as any Vega is performing good. It's just the 'whole package' that in current price is really bad option.
For me AMD should drop prices by at least 20-30% and I guess it won't be enough with new Nvidia cards on the market in next weeks.

 

[mackerel]

Looking at one UK retailer, Vega 56 starts from £493, and Vega 64 from £550. On the green side we have 1070 starting at £378, 1070 Ti at £410, 1080 at £450, and 1080 Ti at £630. A 1080 is cheaper than the Vega 56 and probably uses less power too. You'd have to be a real AMD fan, or have a specific workload that benefits particularly from Vega to consider it at those prices. I can only imagine new and used nvidia pricing will continue to be pressured downwards in the near future.

I got somewhat lucky that I managed to get the Vega 56 for around £400 soon after launch, when one of the few non-bundle ones came up for sale. It was gone in a morning.

I was also wondering if there is anything AMD could do to stretch out Vega's lifespan a bit. It's on 14nm process, could they refresh it onto 12 or smaller? If they can't go fast, can they at least go wide? The problem there is, as it stands, the Vega die is comparable in size to the 1080Ti die so it would require a shrink to remain vaguely cost effective.

 

[Alaric]

AMD's RX 580 and down may be "old", but for the money they are certainly viable options. Even more so with Nvidia's current pricing. Anyone on 1080p (or lower) resolution can still game happily on a 570 or 580.

 

[mackerel]

Quick look at lower card pricing... RX 580 8GB starts from £260, and the 4GB isn't cheaper so forget that. 570 8GB starts from £240, again no saving going to 4GB cards. 1060 6GB starts £230, or £185 if you go down to 3GB card so at least there is a tangible difference there. Maybe closer than the case for higher end cards, but I still think there is a gap between red and green.

 

[Alaric]

Their prices are comparable here in that range https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...NE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007709 601205646 601296377 If it weren't for AMD's mining prowess their prices would be even lower.

 

[Woomack]

GTX1060 heats up less and is genereally a bit better option than RX580 so the same as with Vega, you have to be an AMD fan to buy it right now. I won't even mention that most of RX series cards are barely overclocking and many have design flaws. I mean problems with coolers or are on the edge of stability. I'm not saying that because I like nvidia. I'd rather to see something good from AMD but sadly there is nothing interesting for a long time. Their Vega series is something that should be released in a lower price and now it should be at least 10% cheaper than a comparable in performance Nvidia to sell good.
I was actually thinking to buy Vega but prices were sick since release, not to mention problems with availability. Now it's just old and there is no point to buy it, especially in current prices.

Btw Alaric, do you have any coil whine issues on your GTX1070? I'm just curious as I sold GTX1080 HoF not so long time ago. There were 2 problems with this card. One was mentioned coil while which was terrible and I mean louder than any fan, and I have 3 PC in my room. Other issue was the size of the card. I put everything into really small ITX case so after sale and switching some stuff I have now 1070 FE in my gaming PC. I have to work on airflow which will probably lower temps.

 

[Alaric]

I've never had any coil whine from the card. It's been trouble free. I was benching it a week or so ago and it never went over 70C with the GPU clock at 2164 MHz and the vRAM at 4500 MHz. (And got some great results, maybe too great. Still don't get why I beat EarthDog's 1080 so badly) I have a BIOS from the Limited Edition version I can load and hit 2265 MHz and the temp never went over 69C running Heaven.



Blender benchmark (thread here https://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/791532-Blender-release-official-benchmark/page3 )


My HOF has done nothing but exceed my expectations since I got it. I'm still on the original two year old drivers. It works so well I've been afraid to update them. Probably due to all those years of the AMD driver lottery.

 

[mux]

...I'd rather to see something good from AMD but sadly there is nothing interesting for a long time.

AMD has moved up the release of its 7nm Radeon Vega Instinct to this year. Who knows about performance, but 7nm process GPUs should mean a significant reduction in power consumption: https://hexus.net/tech/news/industry/121508-amd-accelerates-7nm-process-adoption/

a June lament from Tom's Hardware regarding the Vega Instinct: "Unfortunately for the enthusiasts among us, AMD designed the Instinct cards to capture the exploding data center AI and machine learning market, but [AMD's Lisa Su] assured the crowd that the company plans to bring the new process to consumer GPUs in the future. Su didn't specify if the new gaming graphics card would feature the Vega architecture, but we expect it to come with the next-gen Navi architecture."

 

[Woomack]

I've never had any coil whine from the card. It's been trouble free. I was benching it a week or so ago and it never went over 70C with the GPU clock at 2164 MHz and the vRAM at 4500 MHz. (And got some great results, maybe too great. Still don't get why I beat EarthDog's 1080 so badly) I have a BIOS from the Limited Edition version I can load and hit 2265 MHz and the temp never went over 69C running Heaven.

My HOF has done nothing but exceed my expectations since I got it. I'm still on the original two year old drivers. It works so well I've been afraid to update them. Probably due to all those years of the AMD driver lottery.

I had no problems with tests or general performance. Temps were low. Fans under load were really quiet. The only problem was mentioned coil whine, to the point I couldn't stand it sitting next to the PC and I had it for about 2 weeks only. I sold it after that 2 weeks. My card was in my brother's PC for couple of months. I have no idea how he could use it for so long time and wasn't complaining.
Other thing is that I wasn't even trying to overclock it. I got it in much lower price than it was listed, probably store made a mistake, and it went to my brother's PC (long story why). So I have no idea how it was overclocking. Good is that I sold it for as much as I paid for it over a year later.

AMD has moved up the release of its 7nm Radeon Vega Instinct to this year. Who knows about performance, but 7nm process GPUs should mean a significant reduction in power consumption: https://hexus.net/tech/news/industry/121508-amd-accelerates-7nm-process-adoption/

I've seen news one day after I said there won't be anything new from AMD ... as actually AMD said that but somehow now want to refresh their series.
I have no idea if lower process will help in power consumption as I bet they will add something to the chip I count more on higher performance. On the other hand it didn't really help in refreshed Ryzen so I'm not sure what to expect.

 

[Alaric]

I thought about about selling my HOF at the peak of the last mining craze. I could have gotten my money back easily, but I waited a long time to get a card I really wanted (a HOF), my rig was built around a white theme just for that card, and it performs great for my needs. If I had sold it for a 1080 or something down the road I would have ended up with a graphics card and that's all. It still games great at 1080p and I still have the card I really wanted. I'm glad I kept it.

 

[Woomack]

For me GTX1060 is enough for all I play in 2560x1440. Recently I had to give the 1060 to my brother so I have 1070 FE in my gaming PC. For tests I'm still using 1080Ti.
I was thinking to move to AMD and I wish to test Vega but prices are bad and it generates more heat than nvidia. I'm also not sure if it's good idea to spend so much money when it's already "old" generation.
In my small ITX case even now all is hot. Somehow funny for me is how high temp has the case and all works without issues, no throttling etc. If you missed some of my previous posts (and I have no setup in sig) then I have [email protected](lowered voltage), 16GB TridentZ@4500, MSI Z370ITX mobo, 250GB Samsung 970 Evo, 450W Corsair SFX and GTX1070 FE/stock cooler in Kolink Rocket case. I have to work some on airflow. Maybe I will cut a hole in the plate behind the motherboard and add small fans in front. I have a set of 40mm Noctua fans which are nearly silent and I have no idea what to do with them anyway.

 

[Alaric]

That's a lot of gear in a little box! I know what you mean about the 1060 vs. bigger card. I was content with the performance of my RX 480 @1080p. It was the other reasons I listed, and being able to skip the upgrade for 2 or 3 generations.

Do you think the FE being a blower card helps cool your mini ITX rig, or does it just make it worse because the blower doesn't cool the card as well?

 

[Dolk]

The best price for a Vega is $450

 

[don256us]

Because I fold and don't mine, Nvidia.
Because I fold several cards 24/7 and power usage is a factor, Nvidia.

For me to switch, it has to be good at folding, use less power and have a price tag that doesn't cancel out my power bill savings. Right now, AMD is out of my market.