KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
AMD's RX Vega launch finally took place earlier this week after much delay. So far, we have heard from distributors that around a total of 500 cards hit the UK on launch and as we reported earlier this week, most RX Vega64 cards sold out on day one, with prices rising between £550 and £600.
In the days following launch, many KitGuru readers have contacted us, asking if we know when stock might be back at healthy levels in the UK and if prices will stabilise. We have followed up with AMD by sending a few emails on VEGA and are awaiting a response. From what we have been told, we can expect a statement from AMD in the coming days. For the time being, we aren't sure when higher volumes of the card will hit UK retail or prices will come back down closer to MSRP.
We are a little surprised that AMD seem to sold out so quickly though, as just a couple of weeks before launch, Chris Hook, Senior Director of AMD Marketing and PR, spoke with the American publication HardOCP on their YouTube Channel and said:
“Part of the reason thats its taken us a little longer to launch Vega – I'll be honest about that – is that we wanted to make sure we're launching with good volume. We have to compensate — for things like coin miners as they are going to want to get their hands on these. So we believe that we are launching with a volume that will ensure that gamers can get their hands on them. Thats what is important to us.”
You can hear that quote in the interview with HARDOCP, which you can find above. The statement is made around 48 seconds in. Essentially, Chris tried to explain that RX Vega's extensive delay was to ensure stock was available in good volume at launch. Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to have been the case, with so few cards arriving in the UK at launch and GPUs being sold out almost everywhere. Some cards will have been reserved for AMD's ‘Radeon Pack' initiative, which bundles a GPU with a Ryzen CPU and motherboard or a FreeSync monitor. However, these packs also appear to be sold out in the UK.
KitGuru says: We do hope that this launch smooths out for AMD, particularly since prior to this, pricing was expected to hit the $499/£450 mark. With the current state of things at retail, early adopters are paying well over MSRP to get their hands on one of these boards. The best we can hope for is more stock to meet demand, then prices will begin to drop.
TBH, anyone who believed that believed they would also do 70mh/s+ out the box 😀 lisa SAID “they would NOT be taking into account cryptominers” months ago. ALL ELSE, was rumor, nough’ said
all cards have been reserved for the packs that is the issue here….
Yes, I thought the same, but they are sold out too, as Matt said in the article
Not sure if they ever went on sale. I spent the whole day online. I didn’t see any for sale, only to see reports online they sold out. How can they sell out if they didn’t go on sale in the first place.
They weren’t even listed on Amazon.co.uk. (With only one rip off priced third party card listed.)
The whole thing is a giant con.
Also AMD rushed the 56 card reviews early because they knew all the bad Press was coming so all the REVIEWER drones would have their reviews up. Cards have been reviewed with wrong prices, compared to wrong competition ie 64 to 1080 when its priced towards the 1080 TI. In which case it should have been trashed. The smaller 56 was compared to 1070 when it should have been a 1080 and then it would have been trashed too.
A CON
PS…………..I bought a 1080
Yeah, they needed to ensure supply but I bet it was more about having supply at all rather than a robust inventory. It’s pretty clear that this is the case. Supply issues were worse than they lead on.
they did take a few more days to sell out all the packs tho. That doesn’t really count as having ample stock imo however, thats just reducing the appeal to buy them thus making the stock last longer.
they did take a few more days to sell out all the packs tho. That doesn’t really count as having ample stock imo however, thats just reducing the appeal to buy them thus making the stock last longer.
Tho its also possible AMD didnt deliver all the GPU’s. There was something about the first amount send being the discounted ones, and amd will deliver the non-discounted ones after the first stock runs out.
Regretting buying a Freesync monitor…
Gibbo from OCUK said he 1000 instock so is he full of it?
Utter shambles by AMD. Bought a Ti too, was only a little more!!!
Although in this case Nvidia is making the better refined and more premium product!
Ti is 900 $ right now. Also, its completely useless for 90% of gamers who are in the 1050-1060 arenas and use 1080p 60 FPS Monitors.
This was actually a huge win for AMD. 1080p/60 is bigger than all other markets combined. This card gives a person the ability to not just get a FreeSync card [which is massive for poor guys who want to run perfect 75-100 FPS] but its also a great 1440p upgrade for the future.
And since HBM is vastly superior and since no one knows currently how to unlock it fully, the fact its already beating the 1070 is amazing and the margins will just become much better.
Very few players will ever need or use a 1080ti so this obsession with it is laughable, and to the average player they couldnt care less outside bragging.
Its like me saying ” Good thing Ferrari smashed Audi super cars this year. So bad it was embarrassing” Then when asked what im in the market for, I respond ” A good gas mileage commuter under 30k dollars.”
There is a reason why Ferrari and Lambo has such a tiny marketshare. So who cares about it?
Im only sad Vega didnt make a 48 and smash 1060 6GB cards in the nuts. This would have done great for greedy Nvidia who earlier raised prices on the 1060 and then sold a cut down card.
Ill also never understand people loyal to brands who the second they have a market dominated start kicking them in the nuts.
Look at Nvidia release all those free driver updates that increased perf on Tis and other cards vy 300% as soon as Vega was announced….You should thank AMD for forcing the greedy green team into doing something they never would have….The right thing.
The Nvidia Fanbois don`t seem to understand just how popular Vega is. Its not that AMD lied. Its that no one expected such a massive ordering of parts. Its the same as “Ryzen”. The MB manufacturer’s thought they were safe also, and these were 3rd party vendors like Asus/Gbyte/MSI who were simply not prepared by the sheer amount of guys who had been waiting. Ryzen basically sold out 6 weeks straight from Asus/Asrock/Gbyte/MSI and they each tripled orders and were sold out again. Guys were buying 350 boards and knowingly paying restocking fees until x370s came with more numbers later.
To guys like me who are not a die hard either way, but were pushed into hating one side because of the extremely naked greed, and the brazen mistreatment, price gouging and general lack of character, this choice is extremely clear.
Nvidia/Intel when they could have been benevolent and made the standard 100% markup [the winners purse] they instead chose to start making shittier quality stuff like CPUs packed with thermal paste, or simply pull stunts like the 1060 3 GB and then increasing prices to vendors for all 1060 6gb licenses. Or releasing no major leaps forward but forcing socket changes or not supporting vendors in buy back programs that “Insured tech” when releasing Pascal.
They are reaping what they planted while they were assholes on top of the pack.
Ryzen comes out and bam, Intel drops 30% prices on chips, but not until they saw the 6 weeks sales. Now, we will see much more driver updates like the 300% free perf ones from Nvidia, much more listening to market, and not allowing the Crypto Mining to be ignored on purpose.
Nvidia acts like they hate crypto miners and never wanted shortages and miners business…And yet they release patches to increase mining performance for almost all cards, and added a compute mode, made tons of global marketing pushes just for miners and sold 12-20 pack bundles of 1060s and offered special “Support” to guys who bought “Large GPU Bundles”…Hmm wonder who that was? SLI Movie makers?
AMD are not angels, but they know if they screw up as bad as Green or Blue, they are doomed. So right now they have no reason to lie or make scandals. All they have to do is let Nvidia and Intel keep digging themselves into holes and driving guys like me to hating them.
Why? They still are the best montitors for the buck by far, and still best for normal Vsync most times.
No one could have guessed they would have been this popular.
Even AMD keeps underestimating just how many pissed off gamers who are just so sick of Intel and Nvidia that if Cyrix came out with a product that was in the same league we would swamp it.
So many want intel and Nvidia to feel the sting as they are now forced to grab ankle.
To bad, Nvidia started to sell all its 1060s and 70-s to miners also. My card died 4 months ago and literally everyone is out, and the ones available were higher priced THAN LAUNCH!
Then seeing Nvidia the big boy manufacture selling 15 packs to miners, and releasing new “Compute modes” and not ramping up production says a lot more about Nvidia than AMD.
One companys cards are naturally miners, the other is adding bios and modes for better mining and adding all kinds of offers to attract miners. So I couldnt gewt a card until now, and with 1070s still at 450-500$ for a EVGA and with HBM having tons more ability to stretch and grow and the fact they beat them in many games by 2-6%…Its a clear choice for me, unless Nvidia nuts up and makes a new 1070 with better ram bandwidth and makes more units.
At least AMDs appears to be error. Nvidia looks like its shortages were deliberate
Yes, there were “hidden” sales links in forums so searches produced no results.
A well known etailer was supposed to have “1000” in stock but within a few minutes they were gone and some people who ordered and “in stock” was shown were later told they did not get one allocated and that the cards are on back order. Looked more like “100s” available rather than 1000+. Also lots of dodgy posting about huge hash rates (which are improving but were noit that great on launch day.
Bait and switch at its finest I think. 🙁
Here in the UK a Vega 64 is £629, whilst an aftermarket 1080Ti is £638. Considering the performance gulf, a Ti is a no brainer (to the gamer who has a few quid to spend and not a scrub).
Check the news and defend this https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/ocuks-andrew-gibson-clears-up-rx-vega64-pricing-disaster/
I got my MSI GTX1080 Gaming X plus 11GBPS for £480 from OCUK 5 months ago after selling my R9 290X and finally giving up on waiting for Vega. I’m not saying Vega is a bad card because its not but it was just to late and now it appears way too expensive.
I can see it being unexpected, but its like you said. Despite the price and the bundle requirement (which drop the price pretty substantially), people are quick to grab that which is not nvidia or intel. If only they had way better initial stock, this would have been a perfect launch.
But only if you didnt already have the bundle additions. Otherwise the packs are pretty good.
The REAL problem is that there were no stand-alone cards sold for the refrence 64 at its msrp, nor enough non-pack stock.
They aren`t for most gamers. Most pros who actually ripped these cards apart and didnt just run them through a few games agree Vega 56 will 100% eclipse 1070 as soon as they learn how to code to use the HBM as well as the standard new release driver FPS increases. And Vega 56 looks even more promising because the HBM setup is so unique and so advanced.
GamersNexus and Buildzoid showed that the HBM has 5% FPS increases just sitting there without even overvolting, just taking the cards to a non under volted state. And if they can get custom BIOS program makers going its RIP for 1070 by as much as 20% in most games, meaning it will rival a stock 1080.
The thermal limit is not holding these cards back, but the power.
Nvidia cards are the same old same old as far as packing as many transistors on a board as possible and using latest gen DDR…Im sorry that isnt “Premium” IMO. It doesnt push the envelope at all, it doesnt challenge and current ideas or provoke thought.
HBM on the other hand absolutely does. And where HBM` had all the kinks of a Tech that pushes limits, Vega has ironed them out.
These guys who are talking about Vega as a failure are small minded. Even if you hate AMD and you think Vega as a overall gaming product is inferior because for some reason you ONLY are capable of comparing flagships[Even though 98% of guys will never own one and shouldnt care] the Vega still is already reaping green guys free increases in driver and program efficiency, lowering Nvidia GPU MSRP and will push Nvidia to release Volta sooner as its gonna want to do this whole “We are the pushing out the same quality cards 1.5 years earlier and so we are the leaders”.
So you all should love Vega, if not just because now Samsung cant make enough HBM and in doing so it is estimated to be 40% cheaper in one full year. Meaning we all benefit as HBM is regardless of what haters say, absolutely amazing and necessary.
Its simple engineering, getting around in a taxi in LA that is built on a huge 2-4 story massively spread out grid, will take you 10x as long to meet the same amount of people as well as take info from one person to the next up to say person 20k. In New York however that population that build vertically in 20-30 story buildings will pack huge numbers in tight areas and a person wouldn’t have to travel far at all in comparison.
Now imagine every single memory arrangement to this point has been LA taking 20 minutes to drive from one end to the next and HBM is NYC with 4 city blocks.
Sometimes I think guys don`t know just how big a leap forward this is. Its as big a difference as SSDs VS HD and bears a lot of similarities. And right now cost is its only major set back.
So whats the more premium product? The 1080 you will never own or the 1070 beating card that is cheaper than the card it beats while actually being able to truly say its somewhat “Future Proofed” since it can only but skyrocket in performance once we learn how to deal with it and how to abuse every inch of the much better designed memory. Once Game designers realize just how much this memory can do for the games
Its the exact 64 vs 32 debate 10 years ago. Many of us said, just wait till engineers start using the actual 64 bits and the same guys said “You can never use more than 32 bit provides anyways, I mean who needs more than 1 GB Vram let alone 2 GB”
It was unthinkable back then. Until we started needing 1080p Textures, then added AA and a bunch of other stuff. The point is we simply do not know, but if a technology comes out that changes things this much fro ma theory point of view, I guarantee it will be used and exploited.
TL;DR
It is by far the more premium out of the 2. Sorry but Pascal is just the same tech, made smaller. Im sure Nvidia already could have leap frogged it. Im sorry but I don`t respect that at all.
AMD did not make a mistake here. It takes time, time enough for them to figure out what they’re doing while they build supply but all the while they make representations to us that all is well. Speaking of who is worse, it’s confirmed that a retailer in the UK received a small allocation of Vega 64 at the AMD launch price, the allocation of which ran out of in 15 minutes, while the rest were either allocated to bundles or stand alone at the higher $599 price.
AMD said it would be $499. There were NO caveats in the slides showing that those prices were limited, conditional, but not limited to 700 out of 1000 for one retailer and then that’s it.
https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/ocuks-andrew-gibson-clears-up-rx-vega64-pricing-disaster/
Sun261s
The US is selling for 499. Im sorry, but not gonna freak out about it it until its a verified thing and not a few cards in the first week.
I simply dont trust this will be the case, for multiple reasons. But mainly because its a super tiny amount of cards in a super tiny market. But I saw a similiar story get debunked here in NA.
I just confirmed it, this was not a true story. Maybe the author thought it was, but the price is staying the exact same.
TBH, this sounded like propaganda. Even a inept company would not try to pull that,
What the hell are you talking about not verified? Joker is talking about it, Kitguru reported it and multiple retailers have confirmed it???
But whatever. Lead horse to water etc.