Senior AMD exec teases Vega GPU launch venue

by Mark Tyson on 15 August 2016, 12:01

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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All the excitement generated by the AMD Polaris launch seems to have come and gone. Nvidia swiftly countered the Polaris launch, bringing forward availability of its GeForce GTX 1060, and looks to have done a decent competitive job. Now, while the thrifty await the settling of mid-range AMD and Nvidia graphics card prices, those with bigger budgets are considering whether to wait for AMD Vega GPUs or plump for one of Nvidia's top of the range Pascal graphics cards.

Helping give stamina to those that will wait a little longer for the latest and greatest, AMD has began teasing the release of its Vega-based graphics cards. In June AMD's Raja Koduri and his design team celebrated a Vega 10 milestone. However, he added that that there would be a "long way to go before you see it"

Who launches in a venue like this?

Nearly two months later we have had a new social media tease by one of AMD's high-level executives. Senior Director of Global Marketing at AMD, Chris Hook, has posted an image of the "Vega launch venue" on his Facebook page. The venue, which looks like a derelict steel works, old rail depot, or similar, is Mr Hook's 'cover photo' at the time of writing.

From the social media venue reveal Guru 3D is pondering whether the AMD Vega (Radeon RX 490) launch is imminent. It reckons planning for a launch event usually begins about two months ahead of the event, reinforcing earlier chitter-chatter picked up by Germany's 3DCenter.org (which we reported on in May).

At the current time we know very little about AMD's Vega graphics products. The publishing of the AMD roadmap including Vega showed another hike in perf/watt over the Polaris architecture plus HBM2 graphics memory. A mid-October launch doesn't contradict the roadmap scale, with Vega product availability following up later in 2016, or early 2017.



HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

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so vega 490 will essentially beat the P100, titan x and quadro p6000 in compute performance just like the old days of 6990 on how it shuttered 590? AMD fan boy alert but who cares!
Well on the one hand, AMD started talking about Polaris forever before we could actually get our hands on it.

OTOH it really doesn't make sense to book a venue until you know you can hit the date accurately.

Basically, Vega is now in production ramp for October (maybe November) launch. Sweet times. GFX 9 (likely GCN5) too, let's see what this brings (hopefully Perf/W on par with Pascal, sheesh).
I'm not sure that's the type of venue you book. You just push your way past the debris and get your tetanus shot.

This venue strikes me as a Battlefield setting; so, I wonder if Vega will be launched in tandem with BF 1.

I'm pleased that the HBM 2 cards are approaching so soon after the current gen.
I want to believe, but Polaris was (is) fairly underwhelming. Don't get me wrong: Polaris is a huge step forward for AMD and it's brought better power efficiency, but I guess I just wanted a triple-A performance from AMD rather B+.

That said, I still think the 4GiB RX 480 provides good value for money overall, but I'm less convinced about the RX 470 and RX 460, which need to be cheaper for what they provide. The issue is perhaps that it was so over-hyped that there was no way it could live up to it.

Nvidia are such prats that I really do want AMD to win for once, even if just to force Nvidia to reduce its price gouging, but in reality I'm sadly not expecting a revolution.
anselhelm
I want to believe, but Polaris was (is) fairly underwhelming. Don't get me wrong: Polaris is a huge step forward for AMD and it's brought better power efficiency, but I guess I just wanted a triple-A performance from AMD rather B+.

That said, I still think the 4GiB RX 480 provides good value for money overall, but I'm less convinced about the RX 470 and RX 460, which need to be cheaper for what they provide. The issue is perhaps that it was so over-hyped that there was no way it could live up to it.

Nvidia are such prats that I really do want AMD to win for once, even if just to force Nvidia to reduce its price gouging, but in reality I'm sadly not expecting a revolution.

Completely agree.