Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
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Ohio USA
Posting current GPU prices was a way to show how the "Future and Current Status" is shaping up. But, I won't bore you with prices much more (unless something changes dramatically).
In a nutshell:
GTX 1080 has become a $500 (plus or minus) GPU. Its worth it. The Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency effect is dead.
The RX580 and RX Vega 64 custom cards are selling at close to original retail. RX Vega 64 is back to $560 to $580 (leaving out the overpriced ones). Its worth it as it offers better "compute" (for those who want that). The Bitcoin effect is almost dead.
GTX 1080 Ti is staying around $750. It remains fastest card for gaming -- for folks who want the fastest regardless of cost. I.e. 20 percent faster than GTX1080 for 50 percent more money.
The reason why ASRock isn’t offering a custom board yet is due to the fact that RX Vega is still not available in good quantities. Manufacturers want to maximize profits with this card because custom cooling or not, users who want to buy Vega will buy it
Its news because this adds to the very-few RX Vega 64 and 56 brands/models and is being done now. The price does have to be right -- I assume $540 or less since one can get a custom card for $560 to $580.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
On the competition front:
Quote
Intel's 9th gen desktop CPUs leak online
Just a 100-200MHz frequency bump
Following the leak that Intel will be releasing Coffee Lake-based six- and eight-core parts as its new 9000-series 9th generation CPUs, more details have shown up online revealing a minor 100MHz to 200MHz frequency bump across the lineup.
.. the data shows that these are pretty much the same as the 8th generation 8000-series SKUs with a minor frequency bump.
Sales data is inconclusive but seems to indicate that AMD and Intel are virtually tied for sales to those who build their own PCs. Of course, Intel has brand name recognition and contracts with PC manufacturers; so. overall it sells a lot more. The virtual equality is among those who have choice and know the facts about what they are buying.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
More competitor news:
Apparently, Nvidia is ready to release new GPUs. However, they are waiting until they have sold much of the excess inventory currently on the shelves.
Quote
NVIDIA Has A Stock of Over A Million Next-Gen GeForce Graphics Cards Waiting To Power Gaming PCs, Report Alleges
the mining market has gone stagnant since cryptocurrency took a hit, making medium sized crypto operations (these include individuals too) just go out of buisness while the bigger operations and related firms are cutting down on accquiring new mining machines.
there’s a huge stock of currentl-generation graphics cards that needs to go away before next-gen are shipped out to the market. The issue mainly arose after NVIDIA overestimated the mining demand, overproducing current gen GPUs which are now sitting idle as demand for these cards is at an all time low.
Sounds real good for Nvidia fans: The new stuff is ready to ship. Those who want a "bang per buck" bargain from Nvidia can buy from the current stock of GTX1080 (I assume SimHQ folks only want the big/fast cards). If prices drop a bit more, two in SLI might be interesting for some games. No indication of "bang per buck" GTX1080Ti, yet.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Recent articles are dominated by author-speculation about upcoming hardware -- writers have to write. I'm waiting for a trustworthy "solid" rumor of general interest.
The solid news lately is prices. As we know, some GPUs are already down to their nominal list prices. Some of "last year's" CPUs are also becoming well priced.
Newegg and Amazon have the AMD RYZEN 7 1800X 8-Core 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo) 8c/16t for $240. They are not calling that a "sale price". As previously noted, mine runs at 4GHz all cores all the time. Its liquid cooled: but, it would probably do fine at 4GHz on good air cooling -- as do our Ryzen 1600X 6c/12t and 2400G 4c/8t APU.
The chip will rock 32 cores and 64 threads which eclipses Intel’s Halo product which will sport only 28 cores and 56 threads. The chip is expected to feature a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a maximum boost clock of 4.0 GHz while the precision boost overdrive clocks are rated at +200 MHz so expect up to 4.20 GHz in single core optimized workloads.
When compared to the Core i9-7980XE. the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X at around $1500 US offers better architecture based on a 12nm process, 14 more cores, 28 more threads and for $500 less
On the X399 front, we will be looking at a slew of new refreshed designs, specifically built for the 2nd Generation HEDT processors...
I notice in the attachment they are starting to speculate 64 cores and 128 threads in 2019. Seems VERY speculative. Still fun that CPU core count is "taking off" -- as it did with GPUs long ago.
China Finds Zen: Begins Production Of x86 Processors Based On AMD's IP
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Chinese-designed "Dhyana" x86 processors based on AMD's Zen microarchitecture are beginning to surface from Chinese chip producer Hygon. The processors come as the fruit of AMD's x86 IP licensing agreements with its China-based partners and break the decades-long stranglehold on x86 held by the triumvirate of Intel, AMD and VIA Technologies. Details are also emerging that outline how AMD has managed to stay within the boundaries of the x86 licensing agreements but still allow Chinese-controlled interests to design and sell processors based on the Zen design.
AMD's official statements indicate the company does not sell its final chip designs to its China-based partners. Instead, AMD allows them to design their own processors tailored for the Chinese server market. But the China-produced Hygon "Dhyana" processors are so similar to AMD's EPYC processors that Linux kernel developers have listed vendor IDs and family series numbers as the only difference. In fact, Linux maintainers have simply ported over the EPYC support codes to the Dhyana processor and note that they have successfully run the same patches on AMD's EPYC processors, implying there is little to no differentiation between the chips. ...
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
FsFoot, thanks for the info.
I've been posting Nvidia 1080 series pricing because the fall in price has been relevant to AMD Vega sales.
This article says "Hold Off" buying a 1080 or 1080Ti -- the prices are due to get better later this year. If you must buy a 1080Ti now, they predict the prices won't go much below $700 -- until the new Nvida 2080 series (or whatever its called) is released.
Quote
NVIDA GeForce Graphics Card Prices Will Not Fall Further Until Next-Gen GeForce Launch
Why buying NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 10 series graphics cards right now isn’t a good idea
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Cryptocurrency mining won't stop; but, it's no longer easy money. So, hardware to do it is no longer selling well.
Quote
Major AMD Radeon Add-in-Board Partner TUL Corporation Lost 60% of Revenue In Wake Of Crypto Slump
TUL Corporation, one of the largest AIB partners of AMD lost approximately 60% of revenue .. can be directly attributed to mining going out of fashion as the crypto market crashed and mining operations bled profitability.
AMD’s RX Vega graphics cards were absolute beasts when it came to mining profitability .. it was almost impossible to get your hands on a Vega 56 or 64 in the heyday of mining.
Keep in mind that NVIDIA graphics cards were not as outstanding in mining performance..That said, it is clear that NVIDIA GeForce ecosystem will be feeling this burn as well..
The silver lining in all of this is that Radeon fans will finally be able to buy Vega graphics cards at a reasonable .. pricing. The RX Vega 56 can be had for as low as $444 now with the Vega 64 going for as low as [$560].
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Quote
ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI B450 motherboards pictured
15 450-series motherboards pictured. The pictures don't show much. What's interesting is that the major motherboard manufacturers are providing a large selection of mid-priced gaming motherboards optimized for the Ryzen 2000 series of CPUs.
Mid priced is all one really needs for gaming. Newegg has lots of now-out-of-date B350 motherboards for $55 to $75. Combine with a now relatively inexpensive Ryzen 7 1800X (8c/16t) for $240, set the clock to 4GHz, and one has a strong combination for around $300. If only memory were cheaper.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
A new AMD GPU Beta driver released today -- Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 Optional.
For some of us the news is: The driver fixes the huge slow down in CorelDraw X8 and 2017 file opening and copy to clipboard. I tested my copies of CD X8 and CD 2017. It may work in earlier editions and probably works in CD 2018 (though Corel provided a fix for 2018 already)..
I've used CorelDraw and CorelPaint since the first edition -- circa 1991. During the '90s for quick technical illustrations/drawings of my designs and heavily illustrated view graph presentations used to sell them. Now, I use it to modify in-game graphics -- and very infrequently a drawing of an around-the-house project (e.g. I used CD to detail-design the house we live in, its furniture arrangements, and its landscaping).
Oh, by the way, it also speeds up a game I don't play by up to 28 percent at 1440p
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Newegg has a 3 Fan Gigabyte gaming GTX1080 for $450 right now -- apparently limited time sale.
A couple days back, an online friend got a Powercolor Mining RX580 (only a single DVI output capable of 1440p) for $180 from Newegg. It can be used as a second card for effective Crossfire. The card was selling for roughly $460 a couple months back. Sold out now.
I bought the same card yesterday for stand alone use on one of our other PCs. Only need DVI 2K on that PC.May need a BIOS flash for top gaming performance -- it is designed to accept a user generated BIOS. We'll see how that turns out. A risk to save a few bucks.
Anyhow, if one shops daily sales, the lowest GPU prices are still lowering.
Edit: Now the mining RX580 back in stock at $410 (who's buying at that price????).
Last edited by Allen; 07/16/1806:13 PM. Reason: New Price
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Quote
AMD brags it has the most stable graphics drivers
Tested independently by QA Consultants
..AMD ahead with a 93 percent pass rate, compared to 82 percent on Nvidia-based systems.
..most of the application crashes, hangs or blue screens of death were noticed on professional graphics cards, so average consumers will not see any of those errors.
These results are not a big surprise as AMD has managed to completely change the state of its drivers and with the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition series, it brought even more stability and quite a few new features that really made the difference. Nvidia has been struggling with driver updates lately and there were a couple of big problems with some of the earlier releases.
The article links the lengthy .pdf independent test report.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Quote
Exclusive: Intel and AMD Talent Wars Heat Up
Talent is one of the most precious commodities in the silicon industry and last week’s headlines saw some executives move between Intel and AMD.
Intel fires the opening salvo
AMD strikes back
The third round continues
In response to this, Intel began firing back with some steals of their own. The third round in the talent wars, so to speak, is very quickly heating up
one thing is for sure, Intel is getting very serious about their GPU efforts. I have also heard rumors of them opening up shop in Canada that would be dedicated to this arm. AMD has already made a spectacular comeback in the x86 department, against all odds, and beating all expectations but now it also needs to win back some of the Radeon glory of olde.
I've often thought: Intel has so much money they could buy AMD, shut it down, and have the market to themselves (CPU wise). Rather, they are buying the AMD experienced talent -- primarily in the areas where AMD leads Intel -- as Intel is starting to compete in GPUs.
Often, folks in technical leadership roles got there by "rising to their level of incompetence" (a very old saying -- that is so obviously true if one has "been in the business"). So, the turnover could be good or bad for AMD. We'll see.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Prices of GPUs on good-sale continue to trickle down. I bought a couple during the last week.
I noted the mining RX580 above for $30 under Reference RX580 original list price. Its a mining card -- taking a risk to get it cheap. A few months ago, it was selling for 200% list price -- and after the sale has been marked back up to 180% of list..
Now, I ordered a custom RX560 for $10 under Reference RX560 original list price -- and $75 less than this low end card was selling for a few months ago. Exact make and model I've had my eye on for one of our other HTPC.
Why buy?? I save old cards and use them in secondary builds. I got tired of using very old cards because they don't get driver updates, can't handle 2K/4K, and are stuck 2 driver generations behind. Sometimes, it matters.
I assume sale prices will fall below what I paid. For gamers, the bargain remains GTX1080 sale prices (cheapest at Newegg today is $460).
I assume most folks who want cards are waiting for the lowest current generation GPU sale prices and the new generation GPUs -- both should be here around Black Friday time.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
A rumor about next year's AMD 7nm CPUs.
Quote
AMD Next-Gen 7nm Zen 2 CPUs Rumored To Feature 10-15% IPC Increase, Up To 16 Cores on AM4, 32 Cores on TR4 and 64 Cores on SP3
the rumor alleges that Zen 2 will feature a 10% to 15% improvement in IPC (Instructions Per Clock) [versus] current 12nm Zen+ based processors..
..we are also expecting to see some clock rate bumps in the next-generation processors too..
The second part of this rumor is that three different designs may already have been finalized for the Zen 2 core. These include:
AM4 (Up To 16 Zen 2 Cores) TR4 (Up To 32 Zen 2 Cores) SP3 (Up To 64 Zen 2 Cores)
According to this, the maximum core count on the AM4 platform will be upped from 8 cores to 16 cores.
This is an early, unverified rumor. But, lately, AMD has been successful with CPUs -- and they are clearly pushing core count. I will be interested to see the price on the 16 core AM4 as it might replace my 8 core AM4. While I doubt I'll see any difference with 16 cores vs 8 cores in my applications, I am an AMD fan so I will buy before it makes much sense. It may be the last big change for a while and may fit in my current MB -- 3nm is a way off.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Regarding the competition:
Quote
Intel 9th Generation Flagship, Core i9-9900K 8 Core, 16 Thread CPU Specifications Leaked – Core i7-9700K 8 Core and Core i5-9600K 6 Core CPUs Also Detailed
Quote
NVIDIA GeForce 11 Series Graphics Cards Release Schedule Leaked – GeForce GTX 1180 in August, GeForce GTX 1170 in September, GeForce GTX 1160 in October
Intel and Nvidia leaks and rumors over the last few days. Thing is, none come across as truly solid -- mainly speculation and possible fake data (writers have to write). I assume the final products will be good -- but, the rumors are not good yet. I do believe the rumors about "expensive" for both competitors.
Meantime, my experiment with a sale low-priced AMD RX580 cryptocurrency mining GPU used as a gaming GPU worked. It runs the Firestrike and Time Spy benchmarks about 7 to 10 percent faster than my RX480 in head to head tests on the same PC -- when set to the same clocks as the RX480 using Wattman. The RX560 is working well with our 49 inch 4K monitor/HDTV in our exercise room -- did decently on the benchmarks -- one could game with it (not 4K game).
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Rumor is that in the upcoming Intel CPU release, only Intel i9-9000 series CPUs will have hyper threading.
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Intel Core i7-9700K with 8 cores and no Hyper Threading spotted
Intel’s 9th Gen Core series are just around the corner. The first processor from new series has made an appearance in SiSoft Sanda database.
Intel Core i7-9700K with 8-cores and… 8 threads
The 9700K will be a hard part to sell. The predecessor, known as Core i7-8700K, has 12-threads thanks to HyperThreading enabled. Intel’s new i7-9700K would lack this functionality. Despite having 8-cores it would still loose in multi-threaded applications against Core i7-8700K
I'm not sure about the author's last comment. Based on my testing, all else equal, a 6core/12thread would perform about the same (not better) as 8core/8thread in a normal benchmark test. We'll see.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
AMD provides competition to Intel and Nvidia. That keeps prices down and technology moving forward for everyone. So, its good to read AMD is doing well financially -- relative to past AMD years.
Quote
AMD announces its Q2 2018 financial results
Reports revenue of US $1.76 billion, up by 53 percent Y/Y
AMD reported operating income of $153 million, net income of $116 million, gross margin of 37 percent, and earnings per share of $0.11 (GAAP results).
This is a great financial quarter for AMD considering that a year ago the company was reporting an operating loss of $1 million and a net loss of $42 million.
the biggest piece of that $1.76 billion revenue came from the Computing and Graphics segment, reporting revenues of $1.09 billion .. [an overall] 64 percent growth compared to the same quarter last year .. [there was] lower revenue from GPU products in the blockchain market, confirming .. that the cryptocurrency market is slowing down.
Allen
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 8,855
Ohio USA
Quote
NVIDIA Partners Clear GeForce 10 Series Inventory By Offering Promo Bundles, Price Cuts on Various Custom Graphics Cards
The entire lineup has received the promo which includes GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, GeForce GTX 1070, GeForce GTX 1060 and the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. It’s note worthy that since this is a region-specific marketing campaign right now which includes the UAE, UK, and Portugal, prices are based in either British Pound or AED.
