2017 Hardware Thread

sygnus21 said:

Thank you Steve, that's exactly it.

@slicendice, you can't argue with a person if you don't understand the issue. And by your own admission you don't understand the difference between 10 bpp vs. 10 bpc so arguing is futile here.

Peace

You are wrong! I know exactly what it means! It's just the naming convention that is confusing. It does not make any sense at all, since it's descriptive properties are misleading.

I know for instance what taking a 14-bit RAW digital photo means and what it means to the color space. I also understand what support for true 10-bit image processing means and what that means to the color space and it's accuracy. But still the naming conventions are very confusing and misleading.

essenbe said:

I think when this conversation started, what Drew wanted was a card that could do both Professional grade graphics as well as gaming. I think you just said it wasn't both. I think AMD has been unclear where it is positioning the card. Do we compare it to a Titan XP or a Quadro? Can it do rendering as well as a Quadro and game as well as a Titan? I certainly don't know, and I haven't heard of AMD saying either.

You can do it all according to AMD. It is just that the gaming performance is not that good compared to the latest NVidia gaming cards. But that is pretty much the case with ALL AMD vs NVidia gaming cards anyways.

pparks1 said:

He is not buying it to game, he is buying it because it would work great as a professional graphics processing card. However, if it also games well, the price would be easier to accept.

I know! I was only referring to all the talk where AMD places this card.

It's a professional card, right alongside all the other AMD Workstation cards. It has all the features one would expect from a professional card for 3D content creation, Computing and Image and Video manipulation and VR. If this card is only delivering 8bpp instead of 10bpp internally when processing images/video, then that would be the most stupid move AMD has ever made. The card is 100% guaranteed to support this, but if the drivers are crippled to 8bpp instead of 10bpp, it would be a total waste. If this is the case then there is nothing Pro about it at all and the specs should be delivered to 3rd party manufacturers, so they can make it yet another gaming card that just cost a lot and only the most fanatic enthusiasts would buy.

What comes to gaming, the 300W (air cooled) model is decent while the 375W (water cooled) model is a bit better, but there is a huge difference in price too. Both perform far from what the enthusiast gaming cards from NVidia delivers. Mainly because of the same reasons why ALL AMD cards perform worse for most gaming titles. But performance is still more than good enough in most cases. It is better at gaming than all the Quadros out there. Playing at 4K with ultra high settings should do just fine, though if a really high paced game one could experience drops below 60fps, which is not desired.

Interesting information for NVME PCIe SSD users:

Cliff S said:

Interesting information for NVME PCIe SSD users:

I've been waiting for a decent review of this and how all these ASUS peripherals will perform on a platform that supports it. Awesome performance, just as I was hoping for.

slicendice said:

I've been waiting for a decent review of this and how all these ASUS peripherals will perform on a platform that supports it. Awesome performance, just as I was hoping for.

I found the general info about lanes vs number of SSDs interesting.

slicendice said:

I know for instance what taking a 14-bit RAW digital photo means and what it means to the color space. I also understand what support for true 10-bit image processing means and what that means to the color space and it's accuracy. But still the naming conventions are very confusing and misleading.

This right here tells me you don't understand what I'm talking, nor have your read posted links, because 14-bit has nothing to do with the 30-bit workflow under Photoshop or other applications that use a 30-bit workflow. One of the requirements for a 30-bit workflow is a professional grade card that offers 10-bit per pixel as opposed to consumer grade cards that offer 30-bit per channel. Per Pixel is a lot wider than Per Channel. And in order to take advantage of these wider colors, you'll need a professional grade card like an NVidia Quadro, or an AMD FirePro card. You'll also need a wide gamut monitor, an HDMI/DisplayPort cable, and a software to use it (Photoshop). What is a 30 Bit Photography Workflow?

My question - WILL/DOES the Frontier qualify as a professional grade card in allowing a true 30-bit workflow. I suspect it does not. Does that mean its not a good card that can be used for professional use. NO, it just means it may not offer a true 30-bit workflow. That's the question. What I and many are looking for in the graphic drives is this....

Here you can see the option to enable 10-bit pixel format (10-bpp) this would be on AMD's Professional grade FirePro cards...


On AMD's Consumer grade cards (Vega, R9, R7, HD, and others), you'd see this in the driver package 10-bpc...


For those with AMD's consumer grade graphics card look at your driver package, and you'll see 10-bpc, NOT 10-bit per pixel. open AMD settings, click display, under Color Depth....



Don't know what NVidia's package says or looks like as I've never use NVidia cards, but they also have their professional graphics cards in Quadro.

And for the record, I've got an AMD (Sapphire) R9-Fury, which is NOT a professional grade card, but it does what I need it to do for my photo work. This is also because I'm also an avid gamer who needs a good gaming card. If the Vega Frontier can bring the best of both worlds, I'd be willing to get it. AMD doesn't seem to be clear here.

slicendice said:

If this card is only delivering 8bpp instead of 10bpp internally when processing images/video, then that would be the most stupid move AMD has ever made.

You did NOT read what was posted and do not understand the issue and I never said anything about 8-bit.

The card is 100% guaranteed to support this, but if the drivers are crippled to 8bpp instead of 10bpp, it would be a total waste.

I would unequivocally 1000 percent agree here :)

8-bit wasn't even in the conversation until you introduced it