| JEMC said: I don't know how could AMD keep Fury as their high-end cards with only 4GB. That's why I think (or hope) that the 490X will be faster than Fury and around GTX 1070 levels of performance. Also, I think that AMD has Vega up and running, but they are waiting on HBM2 prices to fall down to launch it. They expect it will happen early next year, but if it happens before, they could release Vega late this year. |
The decision to go with only 4GB was made to allow the use of HBM. AMD got exclusive access to HBM and a high share of the initial production of the HBM2 modules. They kind of screwed the Fury X, but managed to get a huge share of HBM2. Nvidia isn't using it on Pascal probably because the amount of modules they would be capable to secure was too low so they went with GDDR5X. It was a strategic sacrifice to "screw" Pascal. Let's see if it pays off.
| JEMC said: I agree with you that having an "halo" product improves the perception of a company, but given the financial situation of AMD, focusing on what sells the best is the right choice. |
Yes, they are pretty beaten up. They lost tons os share in the GPU market and the CPU one is even worse. They have a console "monopoly", but integrated parts have slim profit margins, so that wouldn't keep them afloat. I'm a big fan of them, I would really like to see Zen put them back to the fight. I don't want my next CPU to be from Intel, but they need to step up their game right now.
