Since no one's bothered (why?), thought i may as well make a post about it.
Baseline $699 for either one according to the official statements, available (who'd have guessed) February 7th.
Interestingly, the Sapphire's 'Peak' clock is listed at 1750 rather than the officially announced 1800MHz, while AsRock appears to have refrained from posting specifics altogether. Our understanding of the differences between 'Peak' and 'Boost' aside, it remains to be seen whether the GPU has been dialed back, or whether AMD has chosen to go the Nvidia route; will remind here that these will also be sold directly from AMD.
As can be found here:
https://www.techpowerup.com/251798/s...r-direct-sales
And here:
https://www.techpowerup.com/251826/a...-card-revealed
__ opinion, ie the part you can ignore __
+ Am personally interested in this, though i understand i'm probably a minority. The extra bandwidth could potentially improve/alleviate some issues the previous Vegas had, the extra performance makes it an upgrade over its siblings and once again (unexpectedly too) i continue to have zero reason to buy from Nvidia. Being aware of the prices for HBM (calculated at around $300-350
per unit), the cost doesn't annoy me either; though of course yes, cheaper will always be better. Except there
is cheaper and with either company; choice.
A reasonable upgrade for someone unwilling to buy Nvidia or not aiming at top tier performance. Its being a 're-purposed' Instinct doesn't annoy or interest me in the slightest. I don't see why this needs be portrayed negatively.
Now the people that strive hard to blind themselves with 4/8/9000K setups mere centimeters away from their eyes and/or the people that need to post pics of their 8k rigs (next one will cost ten thousand guyz, hon3st!!!1) may not be interested in any of this, but am somehow hoping that reasonable people will see it differently.
I'd like to see it sell, not only because any AMD income is a welcome income, but also because it would validate the existence of, again, some semblance of reason within this hype-driven market. NuGreedia gimmicks are currently just that, gimmicks, and gimmicks that come at a cost; not just financial either, as the patch required to make some (non)use of them requires specific versions/builds of Windows; shoehorning you before you're even being shoehorned; some more that is.
- Lack of a dual BIOS is a bad move. It was a bad move in the Vega FE, it is even worse a move here as it precludes the FE from being the single exception to an adhered rule. This was an AMD staple, this was convenience and/or QoL, this was an affirmation of their sticking to their 'mentality'. It should not have been absent, am not liking this.