AMD unveils Radeon 7 graphics card likely to appear in future pro Macs
AMD on Wednesday announced its next flagship graphics card, the Radeon 7, which it touted as the world's first 7-nanometer gaming GPU.
The card is claimed to offer 25 percent faster performance than earlier Vega cards, such as those used for the iMac Pro, AMD said during a CES keynote. To demonstrate, the company showed a preview of Capcom's upcoming action game "Devil May Cry 5," which ran in 4K resolution with framerates over 100 frames per second. Current games like "Battlefield V" are said to run at 60fps or more with maximum settings.
AMD is using 16 gigabytes of memory, offering bandwidth up to 1 terabyte per second. Processing happens on 60 compute units clocked at up to 1.8 gigahertz.
The Radeon 7 should ship Feb. 7 for $699.
Apple, a regular AMD customer, will presumably want to use some version of the card in future iMac Pro configurations, as well as its still secretive successor to the 2013 Mac Pro. The latter will be Apple's first modular computer in many years, finally letting hobbyists and professionals upgrade Macs gradually instead of having to wait for complete redesigns. Barring delays it's due to ship sometime in 2019.
The cost and size of the new Radeon will presumably keep it out of standard iMacs, where a sleek design is valued over performance.
AppleInsider is at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from Jan. 8 through Jan. 11, where we're expecting 5G devices, HomeKit, 8K monitors and more. Keep up with our coverage by downloading the AppleInsider app, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos throughout the event.
The card is claimed to offer 25 percent faster performance than earlier Vega cards, such as those used for the iMac Pro, AMD said during a CES keynote. To demonstrate, the company showed a preview of Capcom's upcoming action game "Devil May Cry 5," which ran in 4K resolution with framerates over 100 frames per second. Current games like "Battlefield V" are said to run at 60fps or more with maximum settings.
AMD is using 16 gigabytes of memory, offering bandwidth up to 1 terabyte per second. Processing happens on 60 compute units clocked at up to 1.8 gigahertz.
The Radeon 7 should ship Feb. 7 for $699.
Apple, a regular AMD customer, will presumably want to use some version of the card in future iMac Pro configurations, as well as its still secretive successor to the 2013 Mac Pro. The latter will be Apple's first modular computer in many years, finally letting hobbyists and professionals upgrade Macs gradually instead of having to wait for complete redesigns. Barring delays it's due to ship sometime in 2019.
The cost and size of the new Radeon will presumably keep it out of standard iMacs, where a sleek design is valued over performance.
AppleInsider is at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from Jan. 8 through Jan. 11, where we're expecting 5G devices, HomeKit, 8K monitors and more. Keep up with our coverage by downloading the AppleInsider app, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos throughout the event.
Comments
The choice between Nvidia and AMD depends on the application.
The Vega has been a “good” chip, but that doesn’t mean it’s the “right” chip.
Oh here we go with the its not a "Pro" unless you can change XYZ part out....such BS! Name me any significant "Pro" who regularly changes out their video card, RAM, CPU, etc, etc. I work in IT for a the Creative Department for a certain Theme Park in Florida...guess what, once the computer is deployed, we NEVER change any hardware unless of course if something failed. They use it until the 3yrs are up, then we provide them with a new computer. We don't touch the RAM, HD, Video Card, etc, etc. And these are up to $6,000-7,000 high-end workstations (Mac and PC).
You buy all you can afford, use it until its no longer useful to you and then get something different. That's how it works....not buy something and then turn around and try to upgrade it yourself. That's very unproductive...wasting time screwing around with upgrades instead of just doing work.
API level ray tracing support is different than what Nvidia is doing. They're taking that and applying their large neural engine to it for inferencing, filling in the gap of where ray tracing performance is now. In other words API extensions like Vulkan and DXR are just subsets of what RTX is doing.
I think it's more the subject of 'repairability'.
The current iMacs are a disaster for creative companies. I agree you are right when it comes to machines not being replaced once bought, but it's a company risk to have to go to an Apple Store to replace a hard drive, or having to deal with a computer stuck to a monitor. Companies have budgets and procedures for repair, replacement, and there is really no Mac right now that fits that need.
The benchmarks are no doubt picked to be favorable, so the primary draw would seem to be the extra HBM2 memory, might be an interesting card for researchers but few titles are hurting on 8GB for gamers yet. Seems like the Frontier again, or what some Titans have been.
Then again this is only die shrunk Vega, Navi will be the interesting one to see as the new architecture. Needless to say I'd prefer the RTX 2000 series in a new iMac and other Mac models, but still, Vega on 7nm will be a decent jump, hopefully soon.
I don't personally care much, but a heck of a lot of pros do.
Check near the bottom of this article to see what CUDA brings to these apps: https://create.pro/blog/opencl-vs-cuda/
Or, take a look here: http://barefeats.com/egpu_titan_xp_imac_pro.html
Well, a lot changes in the GPU world in 3 years. I think it depends on the scale of the organization, and what they are doing with the machine. If you can increase your output, say 20%+ a year later with a new GPU, for sure you're going to bother doing it.
That is, unless you're in a big organization where they just buy you the new machine the next year and pass your's down the line.
Pro machine, or pro user? If a pro user, that could mean just about anything. As I've said in the past, does a lawyer using a Chromebook make it a pro device?
If it is a quality of the machine, then it means some things in particular, not just that it can be used to make a living. (ie: faster, tougher, more stable, higher duty-cycle, etc.)