GPU Megat[H]read - the cores of wrath grew heavy on the die that day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > GPU Megat[H]read - the cores of wrath grew heavy on the die that day

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Craptacular!: Jul 9, 2001; Fuck the DH

1gnoirents posted:

I even own a 1080ti ACX now.

That's impressive because they never manufactured one of those. All their dual fan 80ti's are iCX.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 03:17

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 12:20

Drakhoran: Oct 21, 2012

New Radeon drivers enabling 2x Crossfire on Rx Vega cards. Overwatch may still hang on "some system configurations."

# ? Sep 22, 2017 03:20

Shrimp or Shrimps: Feb 14, 2012

While I'm not going to say that I can't think of a more thankless and unsatisfying job, I will say that working for AMD's driver team probably sucks. I wonder if they get paid well, at least?

# ? Sep 22, 2017 03:50

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

Tom's Hardware: Technical Issues Affecting Custom AMD Vega Card Production

quote:

AMD�s Vega is the first high-end GPU to come out of Team Red in two years, so you would think that its board partners would be quick jump in with new custom products. However, that doesn�t seem to be the case. We�re hearing from sources that AMD�s AIB partners have found several issues with Vega chips that prevent them from creating custom cards for now.

As is often AMD�s strategy, the company rolled out Vega in a staggered release. It first launched the professional workstation-level and air-cooled Vega Frontier Edition in early July, followed by the liquid-cooled version a couple of weeks later. In August, AMD and its partners released the Radeon RX Vega 64 gaming cards, followed shortly after that by the RX Vega 56 cards. All of them were reference designs, and AMD promised custom third-party implementations of Vega later in Q3 �17 or early in Q4.

Indeed, most of AMD's partners are working on custom Vega cards--but not all--and for those who are, there seem to be issues.

XFX and Sapphire confirmed that they both have custom boards in the works, but they could not say when they might be ready. PowerColor said that it will have its own custom cards, with mass production scheduled for the beginning of November, but it hasn't yet received the DRAM it needs. (VisionTek didn�t immediately reply to our queries about their future offerings.)

AMD also has partnerships with Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI to build Radeon graphics cards, but these three companies don�t have exclusive deals with AMD. As such, they aren�t driven by necessity and have the luxury of choosing which components to support. We spoke with all three companies, and their responses indicated that their support for the Vega architecture is less definitive than AMD�s exclusive partners.

We already knew that Asus is on board with Vega. The company announced in August that it would be releasing a pair of ROG Strix Vega cards with Asus� custom cooling solution. Asus confirmed that those cards are still coming, although the release date has been pushed back from September to early October.

Although a Gigabyte rep said it�s likely that the company would be producing a custom Vega card, they would not or could not confirm with 100% certainty that it will. If it does, we likely won�t see it until the end of the year, or later.

MSI�s response surprised us. The company traditionally offers re-engineered graphics cards with custom PCB designs for all high-end GPU platforms, but it appears to be skipping the Vega lineup. A company representative told us that MSI �won�t be making a custom card anytime soon,� but could offer no additional information.

So what gives? Sources tell us that there is too much variance in the quality of the chips AMD is providing. AIB partners are unable to figure out a stable overclocked GPU frequency that works for all cards, and therefore cannot provide any sort of warranty on factory-tuned cards. Further, there continues to be discrepancies between the temperatures the GPU is reporting and what AIB partners are finding in actual measurements. This is true of the actual GPU and the capacitors below the GPU. We have some follow-up testing that will reveal more about these issues.

Finally, as we reported last month, there have been issues due to the different packages for Vega, making it difficult to efficiently mass produce custom Vega cards. We were seeing Vega with molded and unmolded packages, which we noted impacted package height. We were even seeing a third package--we assume, using SK hynix HBM. As we wrote then:

quote:
AIB partners face new challenges, since the HBM2 is about 40 μm lower in the unmolded packages, and the third variant's underfill obviously differs somewhat.

For one, the mass production and use of a common cooler for several models must take the applied heat conducting material into account. The thickness must be optimized for the unmolded packages, the viscosity must be high enough, and the resulting contact pressure can't damage anything after being bolted together.

Generally speaking, AIB partners seem optimistic about shipping Vega cards in 2017, and some pointed out that custom Polaris cards came a couple months after the reference card launch. By that timing, we should be seeing some custom Vega cards at the end of September, or at least in October. We�re not getting a strong feeling that will be the case, however.

We�ve reached out to AMD for comment, but the company didn�t immediately reply.

Gigabyte and MSI aren't doing Vega, Asus is only doing high-end cards and they appear to be the farthest along at this point, PowerColor is aiming for November but can't get RAM, XFX and Sapphire say they're working on it, no word from VisionTek (lol). And they're having problems with the variety of different package dimensions that AMD is throwing at them, and the quality of the chips is all over the place.

So the Strix is probably the only aftermarket card coming in the near future (at least for the next 3 months or so).

Dunno why PowerColor would be "waiting on DRAM", they should be getting finished packages. Maybe they meant that AMD has the chips but not any HBM2 to package them with?

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Sep 22, 2017

# ? Sep 22, 2017 04:00

GRINDCORE MEGGIDO: Feb 28, 1985

Good work, Raja.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 04:13

EmpyreanFlux: Mar 1, 2013; The AUDACITY! The IMPUDENCE! The unabated NERVE!

I think the key part is the huge ASIC quality variance, and the fact that a lot of Vega 64s will run fine at 1600Mhz and 1.05 to 1.1v (but a lot won't do that as well). Kind of means GloFo still.does.not.have.thier.poo poo.together with nearly a 3 year old process at this point, but it also means AMD was originally expecting Vega to consume about 100W less at least. That's got to be incredibly frustrating to have a card that could consistently beat the 1080 constantly held up by either GloFo, SK Hynix or thier own driver team.

"Guys lets do this in October, it'll be sweet"; no one is ready with HBM2 in fast enough or sufficient quantity, driver team says they need time.
"Alright fine, lets do it in January-March!"; ASIC quality is all over the loving place and generally really bad, no one is ready with HBM2 in fast enough or sufficient quantity, driver team says they need time.
"gently caress, come on guys! Shoot for May-June then!"; ASIC quality is all over the place and mostly bad, no one is ready with HBM2 in fast enough or sufficient quantity, driver team says they need time.
"HOLY poo poo PISS, GODDAMN WE'RE DOING IT LIVE! gently caress IT DO IT LIVE!"; ASIC quality all over the place and still somewhat bad, slow HBM2, poor chip quality, and still lovely drivers means godawful release.
"gently caress YOU, gently caress YOU, AND YOU! gently caress RAJA, gently caress VEGA, gently caress 14NM GFDFHDSJKGAHGKFJRDLSAGHASDFKLJGAEHERLKGUERH *Stroke*"; Vega will not feature on a 7nm node now.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 04:20

New Zealand can eat me: Aug 29, 2008

Some testers are starting to see Strix cards https://twitter.com/JayzTwoCents/status/910906361071857664

E: Apparently a new card was certified in SK? Last time we saw this was about 3 months until announcement http://rra.go.kr/ko/license/A_b_popup.do?app_no=201717210000211762

New Zealand can eat me fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Sep 22, 2017

# ? Sep 22, 2017 04:21

B-Mac: Apr 21, 2003; I'll never catch "the gay"!

Christ this release keeps getting better and better.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 12:49

wargames: Mar 16, 2008; official yospos cat censor

B-Mac posted:

Christ this release keeps getting better and better.

I would really like a run down of how hosed up vega is behind the scenes with all the poo poo catching fire.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 12:59

Stanley Pain: Jun 16, 2001; by Fluffdaddy

wargames posted:

I would really like a run down of how hosed up vega is behind the scenes with all the poo poo catching fire.

Probably something like that.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 14:15

..btt: Mar 26, 2008

Paul MaudDib posted:

A company representative told us that MSI “won’t be making a custom card anytime soon,”

It's not often you see a company just saying "lol no". In the most polite possible terms, of course.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 14:47

repiv: Aug 13, 2009

Paul MaudDib posted:

A company representative told us that MSI �won�t be making a custom card anytime soon,� but could offer no additional information.

What a shame, this new MSI cooler would have been perfect for Vega

# ? Sep 22, 2017 15:40

Wirth1000: May 12, 2010; #essereFerrari

[quote="�repiv�" post="�476649602�"]
What a shame, this new MSI cooler would have been perfect for Vega

[/quote]

Whoa that's loving massive. Man I love MSI aesthetics

# ? Sep 22, 2017 15:56

metallicaeg: Nov 28, 2005; Evil Red Wings Owner Wario Lemieux Steals Stanley Cup

Wirth1000 posted:

Whoa that's loving massive. Man I love MSI aesthetics

Maybe I'm just old and/or boring, but that's ugly as poo poo. I don't really like the look of any cards except for EVGA. Asus wouldn't be bad if they'd calm down on all the sharp angles on everything.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 15:58

Risky Bisquick: Jan 18, 2008; PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.; Buglord

It's too bad the dragon spins backwards on that gigantic cooler, ruins it

# ? Sep 22, 2017 16:00

craig588: Nov 19, 2005; by Nyc_Tattoo

I'd preorder the Volta x80 based on that cooler, too bad videocard preorders don't happen.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 16:25

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

FaustianQ posted:

I think the key part is the huge ASIC quality variance, and the fact that a lot of Vega 64s will run fine at 1600Mhz and 1.05 to 1.1v (but a lot won't do that as well). Kind of means GloFo still.does.not.have.thier.poo poo.together with nearly a 3 year old process at this point, but it also means AMD was originally expecting Vega to consume about 100W less at least. That's got to be incredibly frustrating to have a card that could consistently beat the 1080 constantly held up by either GloFo, SK Hynix or thier own driver team.

Any more information on GloFo's process problems? I mean TSMC doesn't seem to have any issues with an equally-large chip, although I suppose NVIDIA is selling Titans and 1080 Tis for a lot more than AMD can manage to get for Vega. You would really think they would have it more-or-less sorted after 3 years...

# ? Sep 22, 2017 17:17

Palladium: May 8, 2012; Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

Paul MaudDib posted:

Any more information on GloFo's process problems? I mean TSMC doesn't seem to have any issues with an equally-large chip, although I suppose NVIDIA is selling Titans and 1080 Tis for a lot more than AMD can manage to get for Vega. You would really think they would have it more-or-less sorted after 3 years...

Probably something to do with positive spillover effects by fabbing in ~~Taiwan~~ Apple Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 17:33

Wirth1000: May 12, 2010; #essereFerrari

metallicaeg posted:

Maybe I'm just old and/or boring, but that's ugly as poo poo. I don't really like the look of any cards except for EVGA. Asus wouldn't be bad if they'd calm down on all the sharp angles on everything.

The EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3 I bought looks pretty nice but typically I think a lot of EVGA's stuff is horrifically ugly. Their GPU cooler shrouds and, off topic given the thread, but their cases are just... lol.

I really liked the look of my MSI RX 480 Gaming X card so I dunno. I'd probably be rocking that MSI CPU cooler if 1) I had a case with a clear cover 2) it didn't suck 3) noctua didn't exist.

I mean, really, I won't ever not buy something just because I thought it looked ugly. It's still a computer in the end and if it performs as it should then cha-ching.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 19:07

1gnoirents: Jun 28, 2014; hello

Craptacular! posted:

That's impressive because they never manufactured one of those. All their dual fan 80ti's are iCX.

Hum, I thought it was an ACX cooler. I learned something!

# ? Sep 22, 2017 19:10

EmpyreanFlux: Mar 1, 2013; The AUDACITY! The IMPUDENCE! The unabated NERVE!

Paul MaudDib posted:

Any more information on GloFo's process problems? I mean TSMC doesn't seem to have any issues with an equally-large chip, although I suppose NVIDIA is selling Titans and 1080 Tis for a lot more than AMD can manage to get for Vega. You would really think they would have it more-or-less sorted after 3 years...

It's mentioned in the article you posted, but as of now you'd have to scour undervolting reviews to notice the wide variance of results people can achieve (some can get to 1v, others aren't stable past 1.1v). Like, it's not scientific but you have to compare reviewer to reviewer because single reviewers aren't going to throw down the cash for enough RX Vega for proper scientific testing. Keep in mind Polaris on original launch had more consistent undervolting numbers (usually all hit 1.05v with only some hitting 1.075v for about 1.27Ghz; newer RX 580s more consistently hit 1.3Ghz).

As designed, AMD GPUs seems chronically overvolted, overheating, and underfed in bandwidth and power. AMD can design PCB but they seem to suck at making a good VBios, rather targeting stability for the majority of the product than what is good for it. Polaris gets more out of OCing it's memory from 8-9Ghz than it gets from a 100Mhz core overclock, and that barely registers on the power consumption scale so Polaris 10 on GDDR5X or 6 might be some 15% faster for probably 10% less power before undervolting shenanigans cut another 30W. From that point of view, AMD chasing bandwidth makes tons of sense because it's basically why they're cards are so underperforming, they went for high core count designs that either need to be fed by high bandwidth or large levels of L2/3 which is die size and thermally prohibitive.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 19:29

Seamonster: Apr 30, 2007; IMMER SIEGREICH

As of now, we also have to assume that Polaris is dead ended at it's current node and won't move to 12nm like Vega and Ryzen.

# ? Sep 22, 2017 20:27

SwissArmyDruid: Feb 14, 2014; by sebmojo

Seamonster posted:

As of now, we also have to assume that Polaris is dead ended at it's current node and won't move to 12nm like Vega and Ryzen.

I am not convinced that Vega is in a state that could enable it to be used on the Raven Ridge APUs whose benches have been leaking out here and there.

I mean, yes. Vega has Infinity Fabric built into it. That probably means that at some unspecified point in the future, Vega will meet Ryzen, and there will be an APU created from that union, but the timetables don't feel like they match up, not with how the drivers are still in utter shambles.

But I would not be surprised if the very first Raven Ridge parts are Zen + Polaris, before they roll out the actual ones with AMD 1500 graphics parts.

SwissArmyDruid fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Sep 22, 2017

# ? Sep 22, 2017 22:59

NewFatMike: Jun 11, 2015

New Zealand can eat me posted:

Some testers are starting to see Strix cards https://twitter.com/JayzTwoCents/status/910906361071857664

E: Apparently a new card was certified in SK? Last time we saw this was about 3 months until announcement http://rra.go.kr/ko/license/A_b_popup.do?app_no=201717210000211762

It's looking like a preposterous 13 SKUs, courtesy of WCCFTech:

https://www.google.com.au/amp/wccft...-certification/

# ? Sep 23, 2017 12:26

Anarchist Mae: Nov 5, 2009; by Reene; Lipstick Apathy

Think I'm going to finally buy an RX 560 next week. I really wanted to get a 570 at least, but they are all 2x the price still and I'm getting really sick of nVidia making absolutely no progress towards Wayland support. My lovely Core i3 laptop runs Wayland and the GUI is much more responsive on it than my desktop with a GTX 9 loving 50...

I wish I could just buy a 6GB GTX 1060, that would at least be worth 2x the price of an RX 560.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 17:15

Wirth1000: May 12, 2010; #essereFerrari

Measly Twerp posted:

Think I'm going to finally buy an RX 560 next week. I really wanted to get a 570 at least, but they are all 2x the price still and I'm getting really sick of nVidia making absolutely no progress towards Wayland support. My lovely Core i3 laptop runs Wayland and the GUI is much more responsive on it than my desktop with a GTX 9 loving 50...

I wish I could just buy a 6GB GTX 1060, that would at least be worth 2x the price of an RX 560.

Interested in an MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X 8GB?

# ? Sep 23, 2017 17:21

GRINDCORE MEGGIDO: Feb 28, 1985

metallicaeg posted:

Maybe I'm just old and/or boring, but that's ugly as poo poo. I don't really like the look of any cards except for EVGA. Asus wouldn't be bad if they'd calm down on all the sharp angles on everything.

I like the Palit Gamerock cards design. Shame they aren't plain alloy, the colours lame.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 17:28

ufarn: May 30, 2009

GRINDCORE MEGGIDO posted:

I like the Palit Gamerock cards design. Shame they aren't plain alloy, the colours lame.

They get the best benchmarks, too. Of course, some people are hip to the open case trend, and their weird plastic look is not a peak aesthetic - still better than a lot of the PROGAMER design, though.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 17:37

GRINDCORE MEGGIDO: Feb 28, 1985

ufarn posted:

They get the best benchmarks, too.

I love mine. I'd be happy with this entire system if the 6600k in it had more cores.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 17:39

22 Eargesplitten: Oct 10, 2010

Where the hell do I find Nvidia Control panel? All I'm finding to download is Geforce Experience, and doing a search on my computer for nvidia control panel doesn't show anything. Whenever I want to change settings all of the answers (including on Nvidia's website) mention the control panel. I've got a GTX970.

E: Welp, I'm a dumbass. As soon as I google again I find it's just right click on desktop. I swear I didn't find anything within a half hour last time.

22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Sep 23, 2017

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:16

repiv: Aug 13, 2009

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Where the hell do I find Nvidia Control panel? All I'm finding to download is Geforce Experience, and doing a search on my computer for nvidia control panel doesn't show anything. Whenever I want to change settings all of the answers (including on Nvidia's website) mention the control panel. I've got a GTX970.

It comes with the driver, if you right click on the desktop there should be a shortcut there. It's also in the Windows control panel (the classic one, not the Win10 "modern" one).

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:19

Risky Bisquick: Jan 18, 2008; PLEASE LET ME WRITE YOUR VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT SO I CAN FURTHER DEMONSTRATE THE CALAMITY THAT IS OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM.; Buglord

Right click

How do you post in the gpu thread and can�t find the control panel :thunk:

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:19

22 Eargesplitten: Oct 10, 2010

I don't know. I really don't. I assumed it would be in the system tray or an application to find in the start menu. I seriously searched for half an hour a few weeks ago, and this time within 2 minutes of searching I found it.

I looked right past the drat thing dozens of times in the past and never noticed it was even there.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:30

Yaoi Gagarin: Feb 20, 2014

22 Eargesplitten posted:

I don't know. I really don't. I assumed it would be in the system tray or an application to find in the start menu. I seriously searched for half an hour a few weeks ago, and this time within 2 minutes of searching I found it.

I looked right past the drat thing dozens of times in the past and never noticed it was even there.

It definitely used to be in the system tray. I went looking for it last week as well and didn't realize it was in the right click menu until I googled where to find it

# ? Sep 23, 2017 18:33

RME: Feb 20, 2012

it did used to be separate icons for the control panel and gfe
some months after they gave experience the facelift and required login

speaking of which, why would gfe ever auto log you out anyways
it kind of nulls the whole ease of use thing if i only ever use to check for new drivers if it always requires me to input a login i never remember for it

# ? Sep 23, 2017 19:19

ufarn: May 30, 2009

VostokProgram posted:

It definitely used to be in the system tray. I went looking for it last week as well and didn't realize it was in the right click menu until I googled where to find it

They automatically show up in the system tray when you don't want them to, and never do when you want them to.

The right-click-to-open-any-driver-screen for both cards is one of those dumbass Windows things that just have to be memorized, because it makes zero sense.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 19:33

orcane: Jun 13, 2012; Fun Shoe

VostokProgram posted:

It definitely used to be in the system tray. I went looking for it last week as well and didn't realize it was in the right click menu until I googled where to find it

They removed the tray icon to GFE with update 3.9.0.97, according to their release notes:

quote:

Removed NVIDIA Tray Icon from Windows system tray in order to reduce the system footprint of NVIDIA software.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 19:41

Regrettable: Jan 5, 2010

e: nevermind

Regrettable fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Sep 23, 2017

# ? Sep 23, 2017 20:30

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

I just ran a quick test and the difference in FireStrike graphics score between 120% and 50% power limit on my 1080 is just about exactly 20%. So yeah, you can definitely reduce power consumption significantly by underclocking.

# ? Sep 23, 2017 21:05

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 12:20

NewFatMike: Jun 11, 2015

Wirth1000 posted:

Interested in an MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X 8GB?

If Measly isn't, I definitely am. Shouldt be able to purchase this week depending on how money stuff shakes out. If you're trying to offload in a hurry, totally understandable.

# ? Sep 24, 2017 00:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > GPU Megat[H]read - the cores of wrath grew heavy on the die that day

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