#buildzoid

Detailed informative vid on (finally) AMD’s re-entry into the high-end GPU sector. Once we saw the prices come out ($399 for Vega56), I knew this would be the only option. But as always you have the extremely bad air-cooled SKU at launch, no word on the capability to BIOS flash (I’m leaning no), and the high probability of much lower HBM voltage makes this a no-go until at least the non-reference cards are available.

Like the 290/290X, Fury/FuryX, the Vega56 is the most cost-effective option, but if you can’t scale the HBM to match Vega64 - what’s the point? Buildzoid even states how important HBM memory speed was in the performance gap between 470/480, so I don’t see that changing now with Vega.

Now, AMD hasn’t been nearly as restrictive on voltages compared to nVidia (see the evolution from Kepler, Maxwell, and Pascal, on locking down voltages)...so there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

But yet again, AMD is arriving 15 months after Pascal launch, and 5 months after the 1080Ti. nVidia had enough time to sell their cards for full price ($449/$599 and then still introduce a price cut, $349/$499) and then continue selling. I don’t know what it’ll take for RTG to catch-up, but sooner or later, they need to releasing their cards in a more timely fashion.