Agree with the general direction of your comments.

My personal take is:

AMD bet on HBM2, and lost. So, the product is 9 months late. However, that only hurts AMD -- 9 months of lost sales -- and a less competitive product for the date of release. It does not hurt any customer who buys an RX Vega or Nvidia card in the future. So, I have a problem with reviews dwelling on the "lateness".

I do understand why AMD has to "bet" on new technology. They don't have the money to have a "back up plan". So, they take their best guess and go for it.

For current buyers -- hmmm. Sold out. That was expected, by me.

The best cards always come out weeks or a few months after the first reference cards. Again, that hurts AMD because some folks can't wait for that. But, it does not hurt anyone buying AMD or Nvidia when they do arrive.

You may be correct about the 70/30 if one considers raw wins and losses and ranks performance in DX11 to be as important as performance in DX12 and Vulcan. I don't though. I consider "how close" was the loser and I consider DX12 and Vulcan performance to be "the future" (every card seems to do well in DX11 -- even my RX480 at 1440p). In almost all its losses, RX Vega would be hard or impossible to distinguish in a blind test (same for Nvidia in their losses -- too close to matter).

So, for now, it comes down to "bang per buck" in cards that perform within about 10 percent of one another -- to my way of thinking. Or, alternatively, is one an AMD Fan or an Nvidia Fan -- buy from your favorite manufacturer because you won't "see" the difference ("measure" but not "see").

The jury is still out on Bang per Buck, and new drivers, I think -- we have to wait for the drivers and market to stabilize (two or three months, at least). And, fans will be fans. I'm an AMD fan as you all know . So, I'll buy nothing or buy AMD (nothing for now). But, I do recognize AMD shortcomings -- when they occur

I don't expect everyone to see things like I do

Some rumors lately were that the $499 price was NOT the real price -- it would rise, they said.

At least for now, $499 is the "real price" for the Reference version of the card. Of course, sellers can charge whatever they can get -- and folks can buy or take a pass if they are too expensive -- that's capitalism.

I'm almost interested. I like the 49 inch measurement (nearly perfect for my space), 125%RGB, and the 3000:1 native contrast. However, I'd like a version in 1440p or better (but that's just me).

Anyhow, it would be an excuse to go RX Vega (right now I'm waiting to see what the RX Vega market will be on or around "Black Friday"). As I frequently note, all I actually need with my current games and monitors is my RX480 Reference card.

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This article repeats the theme: Free-market forces will keep prices up -- while AMD will be offering incentives that will make some cards cost the suggested retail price of $499. There is a good stock of cards existing in the pipeline the article says. However, there were shipment delays.

Its possible to charge high prices because people want RX Vega enough to pay high prices, "today". We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Not special by itself, the new beta driver indicates how new drivers may improve RX Vega in some games where it fell slightly behind its similarly priced Nvidia competition. We'll see where we are by Black Friday. I expect RX Vega to be "competitive" across the board -- not "the winner" in every game.

Surprisingly (to me), even Nvidia will be hit by a GDDR memory shortage leading to a price hike (as with AMD's HBM2 shortage in RX Vega).

Anyhow, Nvidia fans on the cusp of a purchase decision, might want to act sooner (or wait for Black Friday).

Only one unsubstantiated data point. However, in a benchmark, the "BIOS flashed" RX Vega 56 almost equaled or slightly out paced the standard RX Vega 64.

Let's say they were "competitive" (you won't "see" the difference between them after the flash -- based on one test).

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Newegg has the 16 and 12 core versions this morning at the advertised prices.

While I don't know how well Threadripper overclocks from my own experience, I do know that my Ryzen 1800X runs 4.0GHz on all cores at stock voltages (water cooled -- runs cool).

The charts tell the story and compare Threadripper to Ryzen 1800X.

Hmmm. That's my motherboard. Just changed to F5 BIOS a few days ago. Have to check it out.

UPDATE: Yup, the voltages are "INSANE". Almost 2 volts (1.45 is the most I want to go). So, time to turn it off and re-flash the BIOS.

Dropping back to the older F4 BIOS on the Gigabyte x370 made no difference in performance that I could see or measure (but I did not do a comprehensive test).

In checking, I noticed that Gigabyte has removed the F5 bios from the X370 support page.

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This article was published a couple days ago. However, RX Vega was so superior in the tests that there was some question if it was correct -- so, I didn't post the conclusions. Now, the conclusions have been confirmed.

The RX Vega 64 is not the "fastest" FPS card made (its "competitive"). However, these days, graphics cards are also supposed to do "compute" tasks. In compute tasks, the gaming RX Vega competes more than adequately. Thing is, that raises selling prices.

Otherwise, its a "quiet time" for AMD. Nearly all the new AMD game related stuff (Vega, Ryzen, Threadripper) has been released and independently tested. So, potential buyers can make their own decisions based on their needs and budget.

I'm still waiting to see what "Black Friday" brings -- what RX Vega custom cards, what performance, what price

For those of us with Gigabyte AX370-Gaming K7 motherboards -- ONLY (other makes and models do not have the issue).

The new F6 BIOS is out and works on my machine. The F4 BIOS is safe to use. The F5 BIOS should be replaced immediately with F6 or F4 -- it can ruin the Ryzen CPU by overvoltage.

Don Woligroski, Desktop CPU Marketing Manager at AMD answers questions in subject article.



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Basically, Ryzen and Vega are new designs that took 4 years to develop. At some point, they had to stop designing and start making parts to sell. Even so, the first products are very competitive with established Intel and Nvidia products. Things will only get better over the next couple years -- the AMD spokes person says in the interview.

The AMD marketing manager is hardly going to say anything to the contrary!

That article points to this 5 page Forbes article.




Forbes Article

As for some of the next AMD products now and next year:

Latest BIOS has been out for nearly two weeks on some motherboards. Thing is, its not clear what it fixes or improves. Some folks think it fixes the Linux issue that a few users were having.

I'm not updating BIOS to this version on my motherboard -- unless I know its better for my Windows 10 uses. At least one person wrote to say flashing the BIOS bricked their new system (that happens randomly with any CPU and motherboard -- so, flash BIOS at own risk). The current BIOS works fine for me and my "vanilla" settings with small CPU and Memory overclocks.