AMD just had their 2017 Financial Analyst Day briefing. Some of the headlines follow. WccfTech has the detailed articles. Nothing we did not expect. They basically confirmed rumors/leaks reported above.






This Vega is for professionals who need "compute" power.



WccfTech Articles

According to AMD, the first Vega GPUs will be for professional use and cost a lot. Those are the ones being released in June.

According to AMD, the gaming Vega GPUs will be cheaper and fast for gaming. But, the gaming GPUs are coming out later this year (they were supposed to arrive in 2016).

The reason gaming Vega is still not released is delayed Hynix HBM2 memory -- not delayed Vega GPU chips. Quantity production of HBM2 is already delayed 9 months and is pushing a one-year delay.

AMD "took a chance" when they designed Vega for Hynix HBM2 memory that did not yet exist. Taking that chance did not "pay off" and is costing them the better part of a year.

Nvidia did not take that chance (they continued to use conventional memory). We now know why Nvidia has released their high end products so far ahead of AMD (delayed HBM2 production by Hynix).

Long Summary of QA Session

The Very Long Original QA -- Adds Little to Summary

Questions were directly from enthusiasts -- like us. So, the answers were a bit more relevant than we often get.

Mr. Koduri seems to say Vega gamer cards will be slightly faster than the Vega professional cards being released soon (the pro edition will do games just fine he says). They will also be cheaper than the pro version and high-end Nvidia cards.

He notes that HBM2 memory will be faster than it seems to be based purely on "memory speed" and "GB" numbers. Apparently, its accessed differently than normal DDR memory and is faster in practice. Also, for example, 8GB HBM2 can perform like 16GB of DDR5 or DDR6 in some situations.

However, the release date of Vega gamer cards is still not publicly available.

Thanks Allen for keeping this thread updated. Very useful information in one spot for ones like me who are interested.

You're welcome.

From Ryan Smith, Editor of Anandtech a tweet:



Much of what we "quote" in this tread are rumors/speculations. Although we try to "weed out" the unlikely ones, not all we repeat here will be correct. Always wait for actual product release to know when a CPU/GPU will be released and independent tests to know what a given CPU/GPU provides.

Most recently, two AMD rumor/speculations that interest me, are turning out incorrect.

1. Rumor: Vega gamer GPU will be released in late May or Early June. That's looking very unlikely now. We may wait more months for the gamer Vega. The professional Vega is what's coming soon -- it plays games well but is overpriced for gaming.

2. Rumor: Motherboard manufacturers would release a new Ryzen BIOS by mid-May -- that would allow easily clocking 32GB of DDR4 memory to 3200MHz (often one cannot exceed 2666 with 2x16GB). It's past mid-May and I haven't seen the new BIOS yet for either of my two Ryzen motherboards (most recent BIOS for both is April 10).

A similar leapfrogging (two design team) approach has been used by Intel CPUs for a while now (Intel "tick, tock" approach).

For many years, AMD went its own way. That did not work on CPUs (okay for GPUs).

Now, they are trying to beat Intel at its own CPU game. All things considered, I think that's a sensible approach -- because, in effect, Intel makes the rules for the CPU industry/game, today.

If "out by July" means "by the end of June", then that is what has always been promised -- e.g. by the end of the first Quarter.



A one hour question/answer done by 3 AMD staffers -- video. I liked it -- but, it is 1 hour long; so, not for everyone.

Video Q&A

Regarding rumor #2, AMD did release AGESA 1.0.0.4 to manufacturers this month; it's up to those partners to make it available to customers. See the list at the bottom of this link for individual model bios version. Crosshair VI Hero 1002!

http://infinityonloop.com/ryzen-cpu-bios-update-agesa-1-0-0-4-performance-improvements/

AMD just released AGESA 1.0.0.6 to good effect. Watch for updated BIOS from your motherboard manufacturer!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3198...tware-cures-ryzens-memory-headaches.html

Based on the attached listing, some "Threadrippers" have clocks within 0.1GHz of Ryzen 1800X 8 core. One is roughly equal. This may mean similar (not necessarily identical) single core performance -- with more cores. I'll be interested to see the practical impact of the 4 channel memory, if any. I'm also wondering about the retail price tag.

Competition is good



Intel has the money and resources to meet AMD "head on" and win. And, at first blush, they may have done it with an 18 core CPU (depending on clocks and performance which are TBD).

At least this much has become very likely (to me), 4 core/8 thread will be very inadequate in a couple years (for the newest games/apps). The folks who make the highest end games and applications will begin to design to make use of 16 cores/ 32 threads -- they must to keep their "highest end" ranking.

I don't agree with you at all, there is no pressure to adapt development to anything beyond optimal 4/8 core for gaming and apps - most apps still aren't doing it properly for multiple cores anyway. A lot of the gaming development will and always will be based around the consoles and it will be much more work or nigh on impossible in the long run for devs to create code for 16 core/32 threads and be backwards compatible for processors with much less core counts, especially when such a small proportion of gamers will have these CPUs at the higher end of the market. It's exactly the same reason we don't see much of a performance increase for cpu's with 8/10 cores now.

I personally believe it will be another 4-5 years before we see games utilising 4/8 cores optimally.

I've always "guessed" that 3nm might be the end for current silicon semiconductors. But, I also believe there's a good chance time will prove me wrong

As previously noted, AMD plans to jump from their current 14nm products to 7nm (skipping 10nm). Samsung's plans seem to indicate AMD's plan is quite feasible (anyone for 64core/128thread enthusiast CPUs ? ).

Intel's lineup against AMD Ryzen. The previous quote is from an article that seems to indicate Intel is "cutting corners" to rush Ryzen competition onto the shelves -- only time will tell if there is any validity to that theme.

I'll be interested to see/compare Ryzen 16core pricing. At these prices, I won't be "in the market".

We'll see AMD's presentation Tuesday evening (USA). Really don't know what they will show -- many rumors so far. So, let's wait and see.

The news media considers this a launch delay -- versus what they speculated AMD originally planned.



Some evidence that Intel is pushing to get its 16/18 core versions out in the same time frame. So far, its not obvious that the 16/18 core Intel products will out perform AMD 16 core. Some writers believe the Intel competing products are being "rushed" (their word) to have an Intel 16 core product on the shelf at the same time as AMD.

Result of last night's presentation: We wait until mid or end of Summer for products and unbiased data.

Meantime, the 1006 BIOS's for Ryzen are said to launch in Mid June at the discretion of the motherboard manufacturers (they already have it). 1006 is intended to jump memory performance up to 4000MHz (with appropriate memory) -- which actually matters with Ryzen CPUs.

Above I note that the 1006 BIOS is supposed to launch in Mid June.

I downloaded the Beta (not guaranteed to work) for my Gigabyte 370 K7 motherboard and installed it.

My memory is 32GB of 3200MHz DDR4. Users have found 16GB is relatively easy to set to 3200MHz and 32GB usually will not go over 2666 with older BIOS.

My memory now runs stable at 3000MHz. It boots and runs for a while at 3200MHz -- but eventually locks up. I have not tried any "tricks" -- just simple stuff. So, I suppose with some hand set voltages it would work at 3200MHz. Also works at 1T timing.

This is the Beta. So, the Mid June version may work easier -- they say OC to 4000MHz will be possible with some memory types -- if one is expert at OC memory.