AMD, Nvidia Have Launched the Least-Appealing GPU Upgrades in History [extremetech.com]
Yesterday, AMD launched the Radeon VII [extremetech.com], the first 7nm GPU. The card is intended to compete with Nvidia's RTX family of Turing-class GPUs, and it does, broadly matching the RTX 2080. It also matches the RTX 2080 on price, at $700. Because this card began life as a professional GPU intended for scientific computing and AI/ML workloads, it's unlikely that we'll see lower-end variants. That section of AMD's product stack will be filled by 7nm Navi, which arrives later this year.
Navi will be AMD's first new 7nm GPU architecture and will offer a chance to hit 'reset' on what has been, to date, the least compelling suite of GPU launches AMD and Nvidia have ever collectively kicked out the door. Nvidia has relentlessly moved its stack pricing higher while holding performance per dollar mostly constant. With the RTX 2060 and GTX 1070 Ti fairly evenly matched across a wide suite of games, the question of whether the RTX 2060 is better priced largely hinges on whether you stick to formal launch pricing for both cards or check historical data for actual price shifts.
Such comparisons are increasingly incidental, given that Pascal GPU prices are rising and cards are getting harder to find, but they aren't meaningless for people who either bought a Pascal GPU already or are willing to consider a used card. If you're an Nvidia fan already sitting on top of a high-end Pascal card, Turing doesn't offer you a great deal of performance improvement.
AMD has not covered itself in glory, either. The Radeon VII is, at least, unreservedly faster than the Vega 64 [extremetech.com]. There's no equivalent last-generation GPU in AMD's stack to match it. But it also duplicates the Vega 64's overall power and noise profile, limiting the overall appeal, and it matches the RTX 2080's bad price [extremetech.com]. A 1.75x increase in price for a 1.32x increase in 4K performance isn't a great ratio even by the standards of ultra-high-end GPUs, where performance typically comes with a price penalty.
Rumors and leaks have suggested that Nvidia will release a Turing-based GPU called the GTX 1660 Ti [tomshardware.com] (which has also been referred to as "1160"), with a lower price but missing the dedicated ray-tracing cores [soylentnews.org] of the RTX 2000-series. AMD is expected to release "7nm" Navi GPUs [tomshardware.com] sometime during 2019.
Radeon VII launch coverage also at AnandTech [anandtech.com], Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com].
Related: AMD Returns to the Datacenter, Set to Launch "7nm" Radeon Instinct GPUs for Machine Learning in 2018 [soylentnews.org]
Nvidia Announces RTX 2080 Ti, 2080, and 2070 GPUs, Claims 25x Increase in Ray-Tracing Performance [soylentnews.org]
AMD Announces "7nm" Vega GPUs for the Enterprise Market [soylentnews.org]
Nvidia Announces RTX 2060 GPU [soylentnews.org]
AMD Announces Radeon VII GPU, Teases Third-Generation Ryzen CPU [soylentnews.org]
AMD Responds to Radeon VII Short Supply Rumors [soylentnews.org]