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  • MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    I appreciated the detailed look at all the new features in this driver update! Thank you for the well written article
  • Nate Oh - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    You're welcome, thanks for the compliments :)
  • Manch - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    New acronym: AMDRSAE17MFU
  • jjj - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    2017 has been the worst year for GPUs in a long time.
    Even when excluding the mining turbulence, the way perf per $ has evolved is just really poor. AMD screwed up with Vega, 1 year late and every metric a disaster while Nvidia has no reason to do more. Granted, memory prices are a substantial headwind too.

    Worst case scenario, this is the beginning of the end for PC gaming, if there is no competitive pressure, if memory prices don't come down (or alternative solutions are explored), GPU makers might focus more on pushing prices up than on keeping the market alive- kinda like Intel did since Nehalem.
    Ofc to be fair the the pC dies soon enough anyway so it doesn't matter all that much how this racket goes.
  • Flunk - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Nvidia was never releasing a new card this year, Volta was always scheduled for next year regardless of what AMD did. Vega was about a year late, yes, but hit all the targets. It would only disappoint you if you weren't paying any attention to anything. The topline Vega card was meant to compete with GTX 1080 and it does. GPU prices are up due to altcoin miners buying them up, that's probably just a temporary thing because either that will die down or someone will make an ASIC for whichever algorithm is hottest.

    As for this being "the end of PC gaming", PC game sales are up even forcing many formerly console-exclusive developers to release games on PC like Bungie, Rockstar and Capcom. I'd say we're probably seeing the begin of the end of console gaming, but PC and mobile are doing better than ever.
  • jjj - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Nvidia had a lot of room to lower prices and add more SKU if needed, they got stupid high margins now because AMD has made a mess. The 1070 would be 250$ today if Vega was competitive.

    As for Vega, it's terrible in perf per W, perf per mm2 and much worse in perf per cost(note that cost and price are 2 different things). Vega 64 and 56 are a disaster for gaming and you are the one that lacks a clue, or objectivity.

    I did mention the mining thing and noted that even when excluding that but you are clearly unwilling to be rational.

    As for the end of PC gaming, again you seem to hit certain limitations. Folks buy new GPUs because GPU makers have been able to provide 30-50% more perf per $ every year, if that changes, GPU sale tank, PC gaming becomes a less interesting and evolves much slower and so on. The end is near anyway as glasses will kill PCs, phones and much more in the next decade.
  • BigCapitalist - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Please don't be an idiot.

    What about CPUs? AMD just made Intel get off their asses and they have a $15 BILLION R&D vs AMD Market Cap of $10 BILLION.

    So quit blaming AMD for crap, they're stretched as is and YOU are the reason PC gaming will die. People like you care about Watts like you live in a 3rd world country. AMD doesn't have the capability money wise to focus on power draw, it's pretty obvious.

    They're fighting Nvidia AND Intel and they're actually doing well against Nvidia right now but all you do is look at the majestic 1080ti(which wasn't the goal anyways) and power draw.

    I'm for companies that are pro consumer, Intel and Nvidia aren't, hence the crap performance gains of Intel CPUs for he last 5+ years and Nvidia making you pay for $100 Gsync.

    Also, I take it you don't pay attention to the developer side of the market. AMD offers WAY more power than Nvidia for Pro cards vs Quadro for HALF THE PRICE. But people like you just keep buying Nvidia because of the name, hurting the competition which is providing better resources. And in terms of development on games, there hasn't been a better time for them with all the new tools and softwares that are out now, coupled with the raw CPU power of Ryzens up to 16 cores and we have machines that can produce AAA level games on a $3,000 PC.
  • lmcd - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Look, AMD is an excellent value proposition for certain compute situations within environments where power is not a constraint.

    It also is a great option to support open source, if that's your thing.

    Small cases are in vogue. If I'm picking between a GTX 1070 and a Radeon 56 for my Silverstone SG09 (mATX case that's slightly larger than the original BitFenix ITX), it's pretty easy to pick the GTX 1070 -- it's cheaper, performs very similarly, and is available in ITX-sized cards.

    That said, with how the ReLive software is shaping up, I think that streamers should strongly consider AMD cards and using ReLive instead of managing OBS directly.
  • mkruzel - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    AMD does have very power efficient hardware available. My server is running AMD 3950 (15W) CPU and my desktop runs RX560 (40W) which is good enough for my gaming.
  • MamiyaOtaru - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    "People like you care about Watts like you live in a 3rd world country."

    haha wut. I care about watts because more of them is harder to cool. Fewer of them means a quieter machine.
  • StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - link

    I care about watts... Because although I live in a 1st world country... My electricity prices are trending towards 50' cents per KWH.

    With that... AMD ain't all bad as far as power consumption goes, VEGA for instance if you underclock and undervolt her, she can sip on the power... Still. I'll wait to upgrade from my Polaris card and hope Navi brings the goods next year.
  • Duckeenie - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    "People like you care about Watts like you live in a 3rd world country."

    Donald Trump is broadening his horizons it seems, no longer is he content with trolling twitter.
  • Hurr Durr - Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - link

    If you`re triggered by what Trump says, you deserve it all.
  • mapesdhs - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    MAGA! 8)
  • sonny73n - Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - link

    Only idiots would not care about Watts. Less Watts -> less heat -> less than noise -> better cooling -> better overclocking.
    Only idiots would not want greater efficiency.
  • BigCapitalist - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Also, Nvidia offers a rendering software for like $300 a year called Nvidia IRAY.

    AND offer ProRenderer for FREE, and guess what? It works with Nvidia GPUs unlike Nvidia not working with AMD GPUs.

    That's the kind of future we get with Nvidia, all they care about is money. A real business with a good business model cares about the consumer as well.
  • mapesdhs - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    The consumer is free not to buy their products. Your name is ironic. Capitalism is simply don't steal and keep your word, the basic essence of free trade. "care" is an emotional concept, that's the sort of thing inferred by the customer, not implied by the seller. If NV is making pots, good, means they've found a market. Rule one of invention: identify a need.
  • JasonMZW20 - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    "As for Vega, it's terrible in perf per W, perf per mm2 and much worse in perf per cost(note that cost and price are 2 different things). Vega 64 and 56 are a disaster for gaming and you are the one that lacks a clue, or objectivity."

    This just shows that you have never used one. I have 2 and they're both running within 200W* undervolted (Superposition can push this up to 250W due to the number of triangles it renders, but only if you raise the power limit). GTX 1080 is 180W, more if OC'd obviously.
    *165-212W in Wolfenstein 2 and Ashes of the Singularity, 4k60p. 1565MHz avg. @ 1.006-1.025v, 1100MHz HBM.

    If you want to brute force Vega, you obviously can with power limit increases and more voltage. I've found that that isn't worth it, unless you're going for outright performance or bragging rights in benches. Vega will easily pull over 300W (hit 306-326W in Superposition 4k optimized with auto voltages and +50% power limit), but it doesn't tend to gain a huge amount of performance. I'm more interested in its efficiency, and have been surprised by it. I'm not easily swayed by internet opinion though.
  • JasonMZW20 - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    2 Vega64s*
  • Cellar Door - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    "this is the beginning of the end for PC gaming" - you sound like some doomsday evangelist, the kind that is proven wrong repeatedly... every year.

    Your statements are two-part.
    a)something obvious that most can nod to
    b)absurd speculation to draw attention(probably a endorphin driven loop when you get replies)

    This site really needs an upvote system to weed out this sort of behavior.
  • Gigaplex - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    If memory prices are going to kill the PC gaming market, they're going to kill the console market too. They don't work without memory.
  • mkruzel - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    Worry not. Higher prices = more incentive -> more competition. As long as we have free market higher prices will lead to more competition.
  • baka_toroi - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Have they finally got rid of that browser popup that opens when you finish installing drivers and reads in a single line of plain text "Congratulations, you have installed drivers!" ? I could get better UX design guidelines from Zimbabwean software in the Windows 98 era.
  • kronkers - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    If you look at the URL string it reports back to AMD with your system specs.
  • Flunk - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    I hope they let you not install all the extra software. All I want is drivers, the control panel and NOTHING ELSE.
  • FATCamaro - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Yeah I don't need an app for my video card.
  • GreenReaper - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    But, the adrenaline!
  • lucam - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    iPhone X review...when?
  • lmcd - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    While I appreciate that the wider community desires an iPhone X review, the core Anandtech community has traditionally enjoyed PC component news, reviews, and updates. They're not even the same reviewers, so it's really a nonfactor in the timing, but I'm glad to see more content like this appearing in a timely manner.
  • lucam - Wednesday, December 13, 2017 - link

    ..which means it's not gonna happen. Thanks for the update
  • lmcd - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Didn't realize how far AMD has gotten. Would've considered purchasing except for the unfortunate power draw.

    While multiple people are claiming that power draw should not be a consideration for me within the United States, heat is a consideration as to both the product's lifespan and its case compatibility. As someone happy with my Silverstone SG09 (except, maybe, that it's not an SG10), an ITX form factor GTX 1070 was the obvious choice. The Vega 56 does not have any ITX models, to my knowledge, and any such options would require liquid cooling and a custom PCB (well out of my price range).
  • B3an - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Wish Nvidia had those streaming features but i'm not downgrading to a less powerful GPU for them.
  • FourEyedGeek - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    The bait was thrown out, 3 days later no one has still bitten.
  • PeachNCream - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    I'm not so sure about the names of these driver releases from AMD. We've had ReLive and Adrenalin so is Amygdala or Pituitary next and when will we start exploring other hormones and neurotransmitters?
  • extide - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    It's Adrenalin, not Adrenaline. Adrenalin is a flower.
  • rocky12345 - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Nice write up on this thank you

    I kinda like the new look of the overlay and actually getting better support for a lot of the settings we need. The smartphone connect thing is also nice but myself and maybe a lot of other people already use the onscreen performance monitors provided through MSI Afterburner+Riva Tuner together. I also hope they do not break my Sapphire 390x tri-x card again like when the first Crimson driver release happened it took about a year to get that sorted out. Then again since most of this is just feature updates and not driver related us 290 & 390 series owners should be fine.

    Good to see AMD actually adding features a lot of people want it is to bad there are no Vega updates mind you I am sure the Vega owners were looking forward to some AMD love on the Vega front.
  • deksman2 - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    People... the reason Vega's power draw is a bit higher in relation to Nvidia is because AMD is forced to use a 14nm process designed for low power and low clocks - plus, it usually overvolts its GPU's for the sake of improving yields, and both Vega 56 and 64 have much higher amount of stream processors, which means they have higher compute capabilites - and guess what, that takes power.

    Obviously if you go past a certain limit in clocks, power draw skyrockets.
    The new 12nm process Vega refresh will be made should get rid of that problem and allow Vega to clock much higher with lower power draw.

    On the other hand, if you also undervolt Vega on stock clocks and even overclock it, you can get Vega 56 to behave like Vega 64 performance wise, while drawing LESS power than 1080.

    On the other hand in games that are optimised for PC platforms, also ones using DX12 and Vulkan, Vega 56 and 64 generally beat their Nvidia counterparts at stock.
    Vega 56 at 2k and 4k for example is equivalent to 1080, while 64 gets within 10% of 1080ti.

    Undervolt them both, and you gain better efficiency (more so on Vega 56 than 64).

    But, as I said, the 12nm LP should allow Vega to clock on both the core and HBM to higher levels while using less power, and ergo will perform a lot better.
    The 12nm LP is a process which Nvidia will be using for transitioning from current 16nm process (designed for high clocks).

    Plus, before he left AMD, Raja Koduri mentioned that Vega's Infinity Fabric was not optimised for games and that game optimised versions of Vega are coming (most likely on 12nm LP).
  • Gigaplex - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    Why is AMD forced to use a lesser manufacturing process? Neither AMD nor NVIDIA own fabs, they both subcontract to the same fab companies.
  • JasonMZW20 - Tuesday, December 12, 2017 - link

    The 14nm LPP process node is a decent process and is efficient. If it wasn't, Ryzen would've been a disaster. Sure, it's not the best out there, but it is a refined Samsung node that GloFo licensed. 12nm (14nm+) might be tech they acquired from IBM. "12nm" isn't a cure-all for Vega though; large dies have notoriously poor yields and 12nm won't shrink the die size (does have improved density though). Sure, it'll allow slightly higher clocks within the current 295W TBP (345W for LC) or they can offer the same clocks with a lower 236/170W (64/56) TBP (Flat 25% power reduction from 295/210W). True 2Gbps HBM2 would help too, as HBM2 voltage spec is 1.200v, but Vega64 has to use 1.356v to overclock HBM to 945MHz (from 800MHz).

    Vega uses more power simply because of what you said: amount of shader processors and higher stock voltages than optimal. Ryzen and Vega are similar in that they're pushed a little bit past their efficiency point. I've achieved good efficiency by undervolting, but I've completely given up on OC because my Vega64s just aren't compliant without significantly raising voltage and spiking power draw for a few percentage points of increased processing power (and maybe 5fps for an extra 40W). I need over 1.150v just to get 1677MHz. I stick to about 1565-1605MHz at 1.018-1.025v with good overall performance and reduced power usage.

    Keep Vega below 65C and you'll reduce chip leakage as well. I reduced power usage by 10-15W just by doing that on my air cooled cards (tested both with the same settings aside from temp target and 75C card consistently used 10-15W more with spikes up to 25W at times). 10-15W can get you a bit more headroom for GPU turbo.

    Also, Infinity Fabric auto overclocks with memory speed. At/After 1115MHz HBM, IF domain overclocks to 1200MHz (from 1107MHz), which can slightly improve overall performance if you can get it stable (HBCC, especially).
  • mapesdhs - Thursday, December 14, 2017 - link

    #include <rant.h>

    When did drivers start being given marketing product names as if they were physical things? At this rate driver releases are going to get "reviews" just like any other product, and they won't be free anymore.
  • Threska - Sunday, December 17, 2017 - link

    The only problem I hope this solves is the terrible lagging in MGS V: The Phantom Pain.
  • max0x7ba - Tuesday, January 16, 2018 - link

    You can now display your AMD Adrenalin performance logs with https://adrenalincharts.com/

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