AMD Radeon RX Vega Graphics Card Details Reportedly Unveiled

I hope this isn't the top model that's been the focus of all the rumors and hype. That has been building too long to be placed against the 1070, which is the same card the last two cards were pitted against. AMD has been toeing that line for over a year with their cards holding up with price for power.

Vega needs to come out in a big way. AMD fans have been waiting. The industry has been waiting. Non-loyal PC gamers have been waiting for this to break nVidia's price choke hold. If the 1070 is the card they're going to go up against, then I have to say the wait was all for nothing. I believe this isn't the case, but AMD has really disappointed before.

@akassassin11: The reason I have a gaming PC along with my console is variety. PC has so many more types of games than consoles. A lot of games tht will never be on consoles. Plus the better fps and graphics.

@akassassin11:

I'm a PC gamer. I usually replace my hardware on a 3 year cycle. I've always looked at it in cost per hour as that's the way my brain works. A $2K rig, 2 hours a day for 3 years, comes to $0.13 per hour vs PS4 which appears to be about $0.03 per hour. Then you get to all the other pro's and con's everybody always talks about.

@akassassin11: I hear ya.

I'm also doing more PS4 gaming nowadays than PC, but most of my gaming friends are younger, and work in IT... thus PC is overall preference in my circle. We like to play co-ops more than competitive, and they always push for PC version, so I must oblige. I've tried to persuade them going PS4 route on occasion, but most of them don't like or even cannot do shooter on sticks... well that's what they say. I can do either.

The Division was our previous go-to co-op, now we do GR: Wildlands. I must admit that both games were running OK on my 280x, combination of medium and high settings and frame-rates were fine for someone who plays many console games and is at peace with anything above 30fps :)

Anyway, curiosity got best of me and I did 1070. Since my monitor is only 1080p, I can pretty much max out everything in GRW, Division and any other PC game I have around. It does look better than my 280x, but frankly? After playing a few days, difference in visuals really loses its appeal. Sure I'd initially "suffer" falling back to 280x, but as it is, I cannot say that I enjoy game more than I did before. I probably would if I had to run game on low before, but it seems medium-high is good enough for my eyes.

I do enjoy my purchase in other ways, tho.. card is smaller, uses much less power and runs much quieter than 280x. Probably silly sentiments, but they do make me feel nice about my purchase, even if it wasn't really a must.

@akassassin11: If all you want to do is relax and game, then consoles are just fine. PCs offer a lot more for the competitive gamer, or for people that want easy access to things outside of the game. I enjoy the social tools available on PC. As far as consoles have come, they are limited compared to PC, and light on options.

For new experiences, PC and consoles both offer a lot of the same games. If you want to play an MMO type game, PC is the only way to go. Every other genre is well covered by any option.

PC hardware still lasts quite some time. I gamed on a 480GTX until finally upgrading to the 1080, and was satisfied with its performance. It couldn't give me smooth frame rates on high settings, but was serviceable. Honestly, it's main draw back was being as hot as the sun. I think building a 5 year rig is very reasonable. Now is a pretty good time to get into it if you're not into pushing into 4K, because 1080p has been completely mastered by nVidia and AMD with even their cheap card options.

You are also correct that SLI tech has basically faded out. As cards became more and more expensive it became less and less of a focus. DX12 might bring it back into the light a little if it does indeed allow any cards to work together and to actually utilize all of their RAM.

@akassassin11: PC has a lot over consoles and reasons to make that swap. However with the circumstances given, I would honestly say stay with the console. Sounds like you have decent gaming time and spoke on price. Since you mentioned baby don't know if I would recommend it. A kid is going to take that time and money away to a big degree so building a PC that may be expensive depending on what you go for and having less time then you had before to game on another device don't sound all that hot.

Depends on where it sits in the product line and how well that particular model is priced against a GTX1070 equivalent. I have my doubts that it's the top end card but I also have my doubts that they'll be effectively knocking on the GTX 1080Ti's door.

AMD is still making video cards? Who knew!?

It amazes me how many people didnt read this article properly.

It clearly says that the card is one of the cards in the Vega series.

AMD have never said that Vega will be one card...

I personally think AMD is doing us gamers a good service by introducing new technology.

Awesome news! I'm a intel + nvidia user, but I really respect AMD and all its efforts towards open-source software!

I can give some examples like Mantle being the prototype of Vulkan api (which I think is going to be the future in games) and also FreeSync... I just wish they open their drivers code! (that would really improve their cards performance, AMD drivers are rubbish right now)

As I said: awesome news! I want to see competition!

Sorry if I wrote anything wrong. (Brazilian...)

Didn't they just say that this card competes with the GTX 1070 according to that test?!?? And people are excited by that??!? Pfft. I'm betting this Vega card will be priced around $500-$600 so why not get the 1080 TI then for a smudge more?? I just can't see how people can be excited for a card with similar performance to the now dated 1070...(if that test is true...) Vega seems to have a lot of teraflops though but such weak test results if that test is truly legit..

I wonder if the leak was to soften and take focus away from the fact that AMD lost 30% of its market value this week or the backlash from people that are upset about the ad supported external tracking link desktop icons included with the new drivers.

damn, I was hoping it would compete with the 1080 or maybe even try to sandwich itself inbetween the 1080 and 1080 ti. Oh well, good news for folk that were looking at the 1070. Competition is always a good thing.

This is exactly what I wanted to hear from news regarding VEGA. I've been holding-out on jumping on an upgrade to GTX 1070 levels for a while now. Seeing as my current R9 280X (7970 Ghz Edition) has been constantly hitting its frame-buffer ceiling on the more recent titles.

This will be a win in my book.

(I think a full system rebuild is in order anyways.)

Time for an upgrade folks !

Best price/performance ratio once again !

Good for them. My previous rig had a Radeon 7990. That card was a beast for its time. I built a new PC last year with a 1080 GTX. I made the switch to NVidia because AMD was rather slow in releasing new drivers -- many months would roll by without a single non-beta release. If AMD wants to stay competitive, they need to beef up their sustaining team and regularly update the drivers.

wow amd is KILLING IT super fast gj amd

SOOO many people think Vega is running 14 nm GCN cores. When its using NCU cores. Completely different universes. An architecture that is essentially 5 years newer.

Much like keplar to maxell, you will see significant changes per die size from GCN to NCU cores. A polaris chip 232 mm2 can essentially equate to 180 mm2 on NCU while outputting less power. If AMD were to blatantly make 480s die a little bigger and add HBM2 then the card would be very power hungry while producing very little performance gains! One of the keys reasons why AMD did not continue GCN after 2016.

GTX 1070 is the sweetest of sweet spots right now (along with quality, affordable, high refresh 1440p displays).

1440p/60fps is a lovely standard to game at in all multiplatform titles.

If AMD puts forth a challenger at this tier, it will likely nudge the 1070 price down a hair.

HBM2 worries me. AMD acted as if that was the second coming when they poisoned the Fury X with it and it turned out to be a major bottleneck for the card. The Fury X consistently flat-lined when pushed with 4K content and higher res textures compared to the comparable Nvidia card with proper VRAM. Maybe they've improved it.. who knows. The prospect of how Volta counters Vega is far more exciting. I wonder why AMD has to rip off Nvidia's and Intel's naming conventions...

As long as AMD keeps targeting the welfare crowd they'll never gain market share.