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from the more-and-faster-and-cheaper...how'd-they-do-that? dept.
At AMD's CES 2019 keynote, CEO Lisa Su revealed the Radeon VII, a $700 GPU built on TSMC's "7nm" process. The GPU should have around the same performance and price as Nvidia's already-released RTX 2080. While it does not have any dedicated ray-tracing capabilities, it includes 16 GB of High Bandwidth Memory.
Nvidia's CEO has trashed his competitor's new GPU, calling it "underwhelming" and "lousy". Meanwhile, Nvidia has announced that it will support Adaptive Sync, the standardized version of AMD's FreeSync dynamic refresh rate and anti-screen tearing technology. Lisa Su also says that AMD is working on supporting ray tracing in future GPUs, but that the ecosystem is not ready yet.
Su also showed off a third-generation Ryzen CPU at the CES keynote, but did not announce a release date or lineup details. Like the second generation of Epyc server CPUs, the new Ryzen CPUs will be primarily built on TSMC's "7nm" process, but will include a "14nm" GlobalFoundries I/O part that includes the memory controllers and PCIe lanes. The CPUs will support PCIe 4.0.
The Ryzen 3000-series ("Matisse") should provide a roughly 15% single-threaded performance increase while significantly lowering power consumption. However, it has been speculated that the chips could include up to 16 cores or 8 cores with a separate graphics chiplet. AMD has denied that there will be a variant with integrated graphics, but Lisa Su has left the door open for 12- or 16-core versions of Ryzen, saying that "There is some extra room on that package, and I think you might expect we'll have more than eight cores". Here's "that package".
Also at The Verge.
Previously: Watch AMD's CES 2019 Keynote Live: 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm UK
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @01:07AM (2 children)
This is not a gaming card, it is a compute card for (high-end) gaming prices. A major bottleneck of computing on GPU is moving data from system memory to GPU memory, the number of cores and clock speed really isn't a big deal in comparison. Is there a comparable card with 16GB of GPU memory?
On amazon [amazon.com] the only comparable cards I see are in the thousands of dollars range.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)
I already looked. The RTX2060 is the closest 'cheap' card that Nvidia has, at 350 for 6GIG ram and competitive performance to the Vega 56 (it is comparable to RX570/580 on Single precision, but close to Vega 56 on FP16/FP64).
As far as GPU memory goes, AMD is hands up the winner compared to NVidia, with both HBM and larger capacities than Nvidia's GDDR6 devices. However between its lack of Cuda or even just hands off Cuda to OpenCL translation, it loses for a lot of applications, as well as where drive polish matters (their drives are STILL not coming out reliable a year later, just like when they started during GCN 1.0. Combined with their DRMed video bios and further locking down and reduced documentation, AMD is only compelling on cost and for a subset of workloads you can get away with them on. I don't imagine Intel is going to fare well against either of them when they finally release in a few years, but there is an opening in the market if Qualcomm or Broadcom chose to produce a discrete version of their own video hardware, both of which already have open source drivers and at least partial open source firmware thanks to reverse engineering. Since neither appears to required signed firmware blobs, both would provide a more libre alternative for open source systems, and once the money was there should have no trouble funding development for HBM based higher performance models. In the meantime, models with higher clocks and dedicated memory/bus access should be competitive with low end GPU hardware that has stagnated for at least the past 5 years, leaving openings until the other market members drop their cards down to reasonable price points once more.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:14AM
Supposedly there is tensorflow support for AMD cards via ROCm now: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Radeon-ROCm-2.0-Arrives [phoronix.com]
I haven't found any success stories yet though.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:04AM (1 child)
Then Ryzen CPUs, which typically become system bottlenecks at 1080p and below due to single threaded performance, will pair beautifully with cards like the VII, where all of that memory is available for larger textures. Red Team will be the Intel/Nvidia slayers for 4k gaming for at least the next year or two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @05:35AM
AMD needs to release new thread repairs like once a year. Their cpus are so buggy that all the fanbois get excited for each new repair.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 15 2019, @05:53AM (9 children)
Maybe if I have enough money (aaaahahaha) by the time Ryzen 3xxx is out I'll get back into Gentoo/Funtoo with it. Whichever of the chips can reasonably fit into the Fractal Design Node 202 case with a Noctua L9H-AM4 cooler, a tiny Optane SSD, and as much RAM as possible, is my target. Imagine something that looks like an XBox's scary kid sister with the brains of a small data center from 5 years ago basically. It's wonderful to see AMD succeeding like this, in spite of all the dirty underhanded tricks Intel's played on it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:44AM (1 child)
Are you moving from Ryzen 1700/1800 to 12-16 cores? I could imagine that setup lasting a long time. In fact, it could last until "the end".
Ryzen will have at least one "7nm+" refresh and make it onto the "5nm" node. From there we start looking into the distance... either a Moore's law abyss of "1-3nm" [semiengineering.com] or a singularity of 3D ICs [darpa.mil] and stackable transistors [soylentnews.org].
It should become clear where computing is heading by around 2025. If we get the magical developments I linked, we could see classical computing eventually get a thousand or a million times faster, making existing systems look like trash and enabling bizarre new software use cases for home users. If not, I doubt most people will need more than the 16-core Ryzen.
FYI: Any of the Zen 2 chips should fit into existing sockets. Even a 16-core Ryzen. But certain features might require a new motherboard. Or not, if you're lucky. [tomshardware.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:55PM
I have a Thinkpad T440s, with a Core i5-4200U in it. This is just fantasy; I'll be lucky to just be able to afford utilities and rent in the future, even WITH a full-time pharmacy tech job, unless I can pick up extra shifts since it's only 0.7 FTE officially. And I'm trying to help a very sick, very poor friend, which is where any extra goes.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:28PM (2 children)
My current Linux gaming rig - ha, ha, ha - has an AMD FX-8320. I've thought about getting a Ryzen 7 2700X, but I think I'll hold out for these chips in the summer. I wouldn't be surprised if the 15% boost in single-threaded performance is an exaggeration or only applies on a few key benchmarks. But at this point waiting has become its own kind of game for me. The longer I wait, the bigger jump I get. Maybe if Zen 2 underwhelms, I'll wait for Zen 3. :D
Gentoo/Funtoo, eh? I stick with Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Ubuntu MATE so when a friend asks for a Linux recommendation or needs help, I have up to date information and can walk through the steps they need on my own machine.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:46PM (1 child)
15% might be underselling it. I've also heard that we can expect a roughly 13% IPC increase (compared to Zen+) combined with clock speed increases. Even going up from 3.5 GHz to 3.6 GHz (~1.029) multiplied by 1.13 surpasses 1.15.
Combine that with well-binned 16-core parts, and maybe you could see 2.5x the total performance in some cases (compared to 8-core).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:07PM
Yeah, it could be awesome. One thing I am tempted to do is pick a motherboard that should be Zen 2 compatible and just buy something like a Ryzen 3 or maybe lower end Ryzen 5 for now, and then see if I can upgrade in the fall after the initial price spike on the Zen 2 parts ends. Though if they're good enough, the prices may stay high into 2020 - that would be great for AMD, not so great for my budget.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:09PM (3 children)
Assuming, I had the funds to do so, this is the kind of build I would go for:
Case: Antec Nine Hundred - $101.40 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021 [newegg.com]
Blu-Ray Drive: LG Electronics 14x Blu-ray burner OEM - $59.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16827136250 [newegg.com]
Motherboard: ASRock AB350 Pro4 AM4 - $82.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157761 [newegg.com]
RAM: G.SKILL Flare X (for AMD) 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 - $174.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232520 [newegg.com]
GPU: SAPPHIRE Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB 2048-Bit HBM2 - $399.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202326 [newegg.com]
CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700 8-Core 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 65W - $169.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113428 [newegg.com]
PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold (SS-650KM Active PFC F3) 650W - $90.75 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088 [newegg.com]
SSD: Mushkin Enhanced Pilot M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe - $194.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226886 [newegg.com]
OS: Windows 10 64-bit Pro OEM - $139.99 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?reviews=all&Item=N82E16832588491 [newegg.com]
Total Cost: $1,415.08 + Shipping + Tax
Total cost could be reduced some by going with a normal size 2.5" SSD that has 1/2 to 1/4 the speed (That one I chose has 2,710 MBps Read / 1,775 MBps Write) -$90 or so, the obvious use of linux instead of windows -$139.99, 16GB instead of 32GB of RAM about -$80, a cheaper case about -$50.
Slightly cheaper options total: $1,195.08 + Shipping + Tax
Slightly cheaper options total on Linux: $1,055.09 + Shipping + Tax
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:16PM
As it is, I would only need the Vega 64 and the SSD to upgrade my current machine. That would still cost me $594.98 + Shipping + Tax. Considering, I'm doing just fine with my current VR setup, I'm going to be saving up my pennies for a year or two and hopefully be able to afford a new machine at that time.
Current VR setup is similar to that build, but I have a "standard ssd" at about 500MBps read/write, and an RX480 GPU. The only VR game I've had to really tone down the graphics for was a random tomb demo. I.E. A tourist like view of I think the tomb of Nefertari.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:30PM
Check out https://pcpartpicker.com/ [pcpartpicker.com]
I would say spring for the cheaper SSD ($100 / 1 TB). Sure, you get less sustained read/write, but that should almost never be an issue since a 1 Gbps internet connection would be the bottleneck or you would not be copying large amounts of data onto the drive often (secondary storage is the place for that).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @12:44AM
32 Gb of ram and 8c/16t cpu is only 2 gb of ram per thread... you probably want at least 4 gb/thread.