As far as I can recall, a graphics card unveiling has never been quite as hyped as AMD’s Radeon RX Vega reveal and yet delivered so little. We’ve been reading about ‘Vega this’, ‘Vega that’ for the best part of two years now, the mythical unicorn cresting a horizon that we could never quite reach. Then some 14 months ago, Nvidia turned up and blew us away with its Pascal GPU and the GeForce GTX 10 Series. It felt like a true generational leap, delivering far superior performance to the already impressive Maxwell-powered GTX 900 Series.
Fast forward 430 days and AMD is finally on the scene with its own answer. The Radeon RX Vega is indeed a generational leap, but only on AMD’s own terms, pushing aside the Radeon Fury series with ease. RX Vega is still eclipsed by Nvidia’s biggest heavyweights, leaving plenty of us pondering just what all this means for the red team.
And before Nvidia fans get on their high horses, Radeon RX Vega matching a 14-month old graphics card isn’t good for anyone. The automatic assumption with Vega was that Nvidia would just have something else waiting in the wings, ready to outstrip AMD’s flagship at a moment’s notice. Only Nvidia still has the upper hand in the performance stakes, with no less than three GTX 10 graphics cards outperforming the highest tier AMD Radeon RX Vega 64. These high-end graphics cards aren’t where the bulk of the money is being spent, far from it, but public perception of AMD and Nvidia is inevitably guided by who’s capable of the best of the best. If Nvidia can create the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and make it an absolute monster, it makes sense that you’d trust them with a GTX 1060.
With Nvidia sat in pole position, they have literally no need to release the next generation of graphics cards, whether that be the rumoured Pascal refresh or the Volta overhaul. Why bother when you’re already king of the heap? Just stockpile your best for later.
All of this isn’t to make it seem like I’m laying into AMD. Far from it, in fact. The Radeon RX Vega graphics cards look like decent buys, even if they are thoroughly underwhelming when taken in context. AMD is making great strides in performance and reliability, delivering an experience which AMD believes is superior to playing on Nvidia. We’ll have to wait and see for ourselves whether there’s any truth in that. As it stands, AMD hasn’t revealed anything which screams ‘Must Buy’. It’s business as usual. Only, AMD’s turned up at closing time and everybody’s already heading home, pleased with the 14 months loyal service their GeForce GTX 1080’s have given them.
We asked earlier this month whether AMD had waited too long to launch Radeon RX Vega. I think we may have got our answer.
So over to you. Now everything bar independent benchmarks is out there in the wild, where do you stand on Radeon RX Vega? Still planning to buy one? Or is this all you needed to know before you waited for Volta? Let us know!
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What about some ACTUAL benchmarks and some ACTUAL eu store prices FIRST?
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Waiting for next generation before I bother upgrading my GPU, whether that is Volta or AMD's next gpu is a mystery. Price will obviously play a big part as I'm not made of money.
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Am I missing something? Are there official benchmarks of the Vega GPUs?
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Your right..
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Your left..
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*You're
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Not sure what option to choose in the poll. Can't afford the Vegas or the 1070, 1080. Was looking to go for Rx 470/570 but mining has destroyed AMD GPU prices/value, as well as 1060. The only option atm looks like 1050 Ti. Hope I'll be able to upgrade this year though. Am really broke.
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You should definitely wait, the GTX 1050 Ti, though still a great card, is too outdated to buy at this point. But yeah, miners are what had me pay 300 for a rx 580, so I feel you.
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I'm planning on upgrading next year, been holding on to my 780 for three years now.
Can't wait to see what the market will look like in that time!
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I have seen the whole SIGGRAPH AMD’s presentation.It was more about the pro market than it was about the gaming. Its pretty clear to me now that VEGA is in fact a pro architecture with a good capability for gaming too.
In my opinion now if somebody (including myself) buys a VEGA then one should go for a QHD freesync monitor it will best serve the purpose. :)
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Had waited 6 months for Polaris to release, hoping to get a high-end card. Was sorely disappointed.
Went ahead and bought the GTX 1070 last September
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After 5 years i finally might upgrade,usually I keep a card until it cant play anymore games at my resolution..and this fall it will happen
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I'm fine right now but im interested in navi for next upgrade
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My 1050 ?i is working awesome at my 1280x1024 display. I don't plan on getting a new GPU for a couple of years at least.
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With that resolution, you are golden
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Im saving for the Gtx 2080 for when its out
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I'd like to say yes... but at those price points it just doesn't interest me.... I have no problem with Vega being late to the game, I have no problem with Vega not offering significantly better performance.... it seems to me like they should have tried to price Vega a little better..... Vega 56 in the $300-$350 range would have been very interesting.
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and if the minners go start buying those u cant imagine how high could prices go
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maybe in the distant future
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Well I need 20 Vega XTs to go with 10 Ryzen 7s. Supercomputing here I come. The ultimate price to performance ratio. For supercomputing purposes I find nVidia useless due to them costing more. Vega XT beats Titan Xp in TFLOPS which is exactly what's needed for supercomputing. Also lol please don't downvote me for being an enthusiast....
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Question : Do you plan on buying 10 R9 1950X or something else , plus what do you do that needs supercomputing ?
No hate just curious
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No, 10 Ryzen 7 1800Xs. Supercomputing goes for molecular simulation, airframe sim, fluid simulations, possibly specialized rendering tasks. You name it. 300 TFLOPS max SP computational performance is kinda useful. Besides it's also a project to improve my Linux and parallel computing skills
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As for R9 1950X, that goes for my personal computer with Titan XV SLI. I ran out of power with my 1080s, 6800k and 64G RAM.... I never believed it to be possible but AE is kinda heavy
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Nice and good for you but wouldn't be better if you got like some of the R9 series ? or it doesnt matter for that ?
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Well yeah but I can't be sure about the pricing yet here in Finland. If it offers around 2x the power but costs more than twice as much, I need to think about it
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i upgraded from gtx 650 ti boost to gtx 1070 strix 6 months ago. I plan to use it for at least 3 more years. Besides it would be almost sidegrade not upgrade..
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Im waiting for Ryzen 2 and Navi since i think there will be better than this , or who knows maybe i just spend the money on hookers and blackjack
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If you have some luck with blackjack you can afford hookers and gpus
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Waiting for reviews and aftermarket solutions with cooling. Then I will think about buying lower end Vega. Still not sure if I will do it.
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am I really one of three people interested in a Vega 56? I actually don't need more GPU to go all HDR and while it isn't good that drivers aren't usually 80% ready with AMD at launch, I've enjoyed constant performance growth as drivers are released, given that TBR won't be ready for at least a month, 1070 performance with more memory bandwidth is just fine for me
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To be honest there is no huge step from your corrent gpu wait for navi and 7nm :D
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I'm considering that too, all I want is when I upgrade my main monitor to an HDR one that my graphics card is still running just fine, if it can't, I'm not skipping Vega, if it can, I will skip Vega
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My GTX 1070 is fine, I don't plan on upgrading soon, especially not to AMD.
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already have my strix 1070 running at 2ghz with +25 oc so i think im doing great
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Yeah dont get vega , take the vega 56 for instance , its 400 dollars almost and even if it beats 1070 it will be by a small margin and i think you will be wasting money buying it , just skip it. 1070 is great for 1440p 60fps Ultra gaming. and medium to high (even ultra) 60fps in 4k. Wait for Next gen gpus (volta/navi)