1
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:08,559
it all started out innocently enough in late june of this year we asked AMD for

2
00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:10,160
a sample of the vega frontier edition we

3
00:00:08,559 --> 00:00:16,080
were hoping that we could compare it against the titan xp and gtx 1080 ti

4
00:00:13,679 --> 00:00:21,600
that back then cost a bit more and a bit less respectively and also use it to

5
00:00:19,039 --> 00:00:25,840
guestimate the performance of the then upcoming rx vega

6
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,279
so why are we finally publishing this video

7
00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:35,680
today well buckle up my friends because it's kind

8
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:40,480
of a long story and that story is brought to you by

9
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:44,079
tunnelbear try tunnelbear for free with no credit card required at

10
00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:56,559
tunnelbear.com LTT it's the easy to use vpn

11
00:00:56,559 --> 00:01:03,600
so AMD declined our sample request for frontier edition that happens sometimes

12
00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:08,000
and it's fine now sometimes companies do this because

13
00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:12,560
they don't want press looking too closely at a product but other times

14
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:18,159
it's for perfectly legitimate reasons either way it piqued our curiosity so we

15
00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:23,920
put on our big boy pants ordered one for ourselves and a week later tore it out

16
00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:27,040
of its box to bask in its blue brushed

17
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:28,560
aluminum and tacky yellow glowing

18
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:34,000
glory but what else is there in the box well

19
00:01:31,439 --> 00:01:38,479
there's some foam and this weird booklet of like kickstartery promotional

20
00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:42,720
material that's strangely for the product that we just already bought i

21
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:46,720
mean look at this stuff oh and

22
00:01:44,159 --> 00:01:49,840
they are people who boundaries as starting lines did anyone even proofread

23
00:01:49,119 --> 00:01:56,640
this the box might not seem important but this was actually a pretty pivotal point

24
00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:59,920
in our experience with the frontier edition

25
00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:04,159
because this was when we realized just how rushed and poorly thought out this

26
00:02:02,719 --> 00:02:09,599
product was and it actually went downhill from there

27
00:02:06,799 --> 00:02:14,720
we set up our closed GPU test bench downloaded the only available driver

28
00:02:12,640 --> 00:02:18,800
that was on AMD's site up until it finally got an update over three months

29
00:02:16,800 --> 00:02:23,040
later in october and fired up our blender test suite where vega ended up

30
00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:27,680
on the bottom in the bmw and classroom tests then all the way on top in the

31
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:32,800
fishy cat test making it at best inconsistent and at worst

32
00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:38,480
oh so at this point we ddu'ed and

33
00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:40,640
reinstalled the driver but no joy there

34
00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:45,599
and even tried switching to gaming mode in the dual mode driver which

35
00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:49,120
also didn't help okay then

36
00:02:46,879 --> 00:02:54,879
so since we're in gaming mode what about gaming unigin's super position and 3d

37
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:59,840
mark score saw it get absolutely spanked by the 700 1080 ti

38
00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:05,120
and then the butt paddling continued in both deus ex mankind divided and rise of

39
00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:09,280
the tomb raider at 4k in both directx 11 and directx 12 modes so between the

40
00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:15,120
performance the stability the thermal throttling and the power

41
00:03:12,879 --> 00:03:21,280
consumption the whole experience up to that point had frankly been super balls

42
00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:26,239
at this point we were certain of just two things one was that vega frontier

43
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:31,280
edition existed only to cater to hardcore AMD fans

44
00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:34,480
with what felt like it was an overpriced slap in the face

45
00:03:32,799 --> 00:03:40,959
and two that rx vega was going to be a power

46
00:03:37,599 --> 00:03:43,280
hungry dog at the rumored pricing

47
00:03:40,959 --> 00:03:48,400
now throughout this we hadn't heard back from AMD about our problems so we forged

48
00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:52,319
ahead and then just as our video was getting ready to be published actually

49
00:03:50,239 --> 00:03:56,959
while i was down at AMD checking out their vega supercomputer demo they told

50
00:03:54,879 --> 00:04:02,879
us well hey guys we think it's unfair of you to judge

51
00:03:59,599 --> 00:04:05,519
vega's gaming performance on frontier

52
00:04:02,879 --> 00:04:10,560
because raja kaduri posted in a reddit thread somewhere that it wasn't for

53
00:04:07,439 --> 00:04:13,120
gaming and that our benchmark suite

54
00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:18,160
wasn't showing frontier strength because workloads like blender didn't benefit

55
00:04:15,439 --> 00:04:22,000
from its workstation dna and we didn't include enough scientific performance

56
00:04:20,479 --> 00:04:26,880
analysis so what they offered was to give us some

57
00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:31,199
help with the second part of it if we held off publishing the video to ensure

58
00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:36,720
we were doing it properly okay fair enough then i guess but weeks

59
00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:40,400
and then months passed and that help didn't materialize then while we sat

60
00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:45,199
there waiting rx vega launched with

61
00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:50,800
performance that put frontier neck and neck with vega 64 exactly as we'd

62
00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:56,000
expected and laid out in our original script for this video and it makes

63
00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:58,880
perfect sense other than color the only

64
00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:04,400
differences between them are the driver the frame buffer size frontier edition's

65
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:08,560
higher bass and boost clocks and a locked maximum fan speed of 40

66
00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:15,600
so i'm not gonna mince words we felt cheated as a customer remember we bought

67
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:21,840
this stupid thing for a thousand dollars and manipulated as press because it

68
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:24,639
seemed as though our video got buried to

69
00:05:21,840 --> 00:05:29,039
prevent the negative pr from raining on rx vegas parade

70
00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:32,960
and we made these feelings clear to AMD who renewed their commitment to helping

71
00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,320
us benchmark frontier edition properly but

72
00:05:34,639 --> 00:05:41,199
in the back of our minds what we wondered was if they were just

73
00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:46,080
hoping that we would just forget about publishing a video about a months old

74
00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:49,830
and now very irrelevant product and focus on their shiny new wx 9100

75
00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:56,080
workstation card no such luck

76
00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:58,400
so then for the first of two AMD

77
00:05:56,080 --> 00:06:05,199
recommended benchmarks we'll be looking at spec uprf 12.1 a collection of 3ds

78
00:06:01,919 --> 00:06:08,000
max maya solidworks and other workloads

79
00:06:05,199 --> 00:06:10,800
for which AMD says frontier edition is optimized

80
00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:17,360
and actually okay frontier edition does pull out

81
00:06:13,039 --> 00:06:19,520
ahead of vega 64 and even gtx 1080 ti in

82
00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:24,800
particular wherever edges are used in the rendering pipeline and in the memory

83
00:06:22,319 --> 00:06:30,000
shredding scientific energy and medical tests

84
00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:31,759
the titan xp though blows them all away

85
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:36,400
to see how much of this performance comes from the workstation driver path

86
00:06:34,080 --> 00:06:42,080
we switched the driver mode to gaming where interestingly frontier ends up

87
00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:44,639
well below vega 64 levels of performance

88
00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:48,720
so it's clear that unless your loads specifically benefit from

89
00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:53,759
gigs of vram any advantage to frontier is purely a

90
00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:58,560
software switch though to be clear we aren't singling

91
00:06:56,160 --> 00:07:03,039
out AMD for this behavior team green's titan and quadro lineups are

92
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:07,120
differentiated from g-force in a very similar manner

93
00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:12,560
and to AMD's credit frontier's positioning as a sort of workstation

94
00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:17,759
card like the original titan sparked a response from NVIDIA to give titan xp

95
00:07:15,199 --> 00:07:23,680
back some of the professional features that they had removed over the years so

96
00:07:21,599 --> 00:07:29,280
kudos for that the second of our two AMD recommended

97
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:33,039
benchmarks monero mining uses the vega

98
00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:35,520
optimized cast xmr miner and AMD's beta

99
00:07:33,039 --> 00:07:40,080
blockchain optimized driver and here we are actually greeted with

100
00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:44,479
excellent results of up to 1.85 kilo hashes per second

101
00:07:41,759 --> 00:07:48,479
though that quickly drops to 1.5 once thermal throttling kicks in

102
00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:54,000
i do believe a driver fix unlocking fan speed is coming but until then even a

103
00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:57,919
vega 56 outperforms frontier edition significantly

104
00:07:56,319 --> 00:08:01,599
so then is vega frontier edition a legitimate

105
00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:08,960
product or was it like an early access game with

106
00:08:05,199 --> 00:08:11,919
day one dlc a beta where you pay AMD for

107
00:08:08,960 --> 00:08:16,240
the privilege of reporting bugs and third-party software incompatibilities

108
00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:23,360
like those blender crashes while they polish the real product wx9100

109
00:08:20,319 --> 00:08:26,160
on paper frontier kind of makes sense it

110
00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:30,960
gets more RAM and some workstation features compared to a consumer card and

111
00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:35,039
that's for half of the price of the higher end workstation card that gives

112
00:08:32,719 --> 00:08:40,399
you ecc memory support frame lock gen lock stereo 3d and far more professional

113
00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:45,440
application certifications but in the real world wx 9100 street

114
00:08:43,519 --> 00:08:50,320
pricing has fallen to just fifteen hundred dollars already for the

115
00:08:47,839 --> 00:08:55,760
full-fledged vega experience and frontier's actual value add over a

116
00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:57,200
regular gaming card is pretty limited

117
00:08:55,760 --> 00:09:02,320
leaving us in no man's land unless we're concerned

118
00:08:59,120 --> 00:09:05,279
with and only with some pretty specific

119
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:08,399
use cases i mean even AMD only managed to come up with one

120
00:09:07,200 --> 00:09:12,560
benchmark that actually demonstrated its value for

121
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:16,640
us so then

122
00:09:13,839 --> 00:09:23,839
if AMD had positioned frontier as a developer kit like the oculus dk1 or dk2

123
00:09:20,560 --> 00:09:26,720
and even if it was paid and expensive

124
00:09:23,839 --> 00:09:31,440
but available to developers like through their website we wouldn't be having this

125
00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:36,000
conversation but as it is whatever they posted on reddit months

126
00:09:33,279 --> 00:09:42,000
ago their actions were to put this product on sale to consumers in the

127
00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:46,720
consumer channel even going as far as to bundle quake champions crap with the

128
00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:50,480
water cooled version get upset when we wanted to talk about why it was a stupid

129
00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:54,720
product for consumers then come up with only a couple of

130
00:09:52,640 --> 00:10:00,160
pretty flimsy reasons why we shouldn't be pissed about the performance of our

131
00:09:57,279 --> 00:10:05,519
castrated wx that we bought instead of a titan xp which incidentally would game

132
00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:10,720
better in our spare time and consume less power

133
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:16,000
smells like early access to me i think the right way to fix this is for

134
00:10:12,959 --> 00:10:18,320
AMD to just discontinue this thing and

135
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:23,360
even if it doesn't help the AMD enthusiast gamers out there who got

136
00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:27,040
sucked into it turn around and unlock as

137
00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:30,079
many of the wx 9100 features as they can

138
00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:32,880
for the people out there who have them

139
00:10:30,079 --> 00:10:37,279
what do you guys think we really do want to hear from you in the comments

140
00:10:35,279 --> 00:10:41,040
mass drop is a great place to get quality products at amazing prices and

141
00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:45,120
this year for the holidays they're making it easier than ever to find the

142
00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:48,560
perfect gift they've got a collection of over 20

143
00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:52,240
of their most popular mass drop made products that are available to ship in

144
00:10:50,399 --> 00:10:58,320
two to three days so they'll make it to you by christmas one of the products is

145
00:10:54,800 --> 00:11:00,240
the mass drop x akg k7xx audiophile

146
00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:04,399
headphones they're lightweight they're comfortable they perform way above their

147
00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:08,480
price point in terms of sound and they are highly recommended check them out

148
00:11:06,640 --> 00:11:12,399
along with the entire massdrop holiday gift collection at the link in the video

149
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:16,000
description so thanks for watching guys if this

150
00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:19,519
video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that

151
00:11:18,079 --> 00:11:22,959
like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we feature

152
00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:28,720
in the video description also linked in the description is our merch store which

153
00:11:26,959 --> 00:11:33,519
has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally

154
00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:33,519
join