[QUOTE=ewmayer;535592]Too late for me - I order an XFX R7 from Amazon for $550 on the 14th, just arrived this morning as it happens. But given how hit-or-miss even the new ones are - (per George: "I've had 4 and returned 2. Quality control may not be the best, but [$550] is a good price and Amazon was real good about the return") - I'd be very leery about trying to save a few bucks by buying used.[/QUOTE]

Not me. I'm just the opposite. I'm very good at refurbishing used computer equipment. I was able to snag my card for $400. :smile:

But math? Not so much... :smile:

[QUOTE=tServo;535281]They throw an error every so often.[/QUOTE]

I say use PPT (Power Play Table) to tune the clock and voltage a bit instead of using Wattman. But first use Wattman or afterburner to figure out whether if it's the memory that's unstable or not (if it's the memory just drop the clocks in Wattman and it should be good to go), otherwise use PPT to lock the voltage and clockspeed so the boost feature won't cause instability. This is what I did on my Vega 64 to maintain a stable clockspeed and temperature to whatever I want it to be instead of dealing with the default boost behavior. Sometimes it can make a certain clock that's usually unstable stable again.

[QUOTE=PhilF;535429]As of this moment there is a used Radeon VII on eBay for $425. I don't know the seller, I just wanted to put out a heads-up in case someone is looking for a number cruncher.

EDIT: Gone.[/QUOTE]

If one shows up used you might want to get it ASAP if it's from the first batch Radeon VII's.

The first 5000 that they produced are actually Radeon Instinct MI50's that they put a sticker Radeon VII onto. They are 6.6 Tflops double precision which they sold as 'radeon vii's.

Being capable of executing 3.3 Tops is a lot (3.3 T double precision instructions a clock - where FMA counts as 1 instruction).

When they sell next batch it's not clear whether it still is the same gpu or whether it's a fiat panda edition with lobotomized fp64. Like first 5000 panda's are having a V12 Ferrari engine of 6.6 Tflops pardon i mean liters and when they want to make money with it it's a 2 cylinder fiat panda.

I have no information whatsoever so i assume it's gonna be fiat panda's.

Would be interesting to know though. All those 'benchmark websites' already tested the radeon vii so they are not gonna change that any soon. Who would notice anyway?

I've seen supercomputers sold for dozens of millions of dollars factor 12 slower than they would be on paper ("marketing lies" in order to win the bidding contest) that never got tested during their lifetime. Yeah well until i ran on it and had written code for it that 'assumed' it would be 12x faster than it was :)

That is not my experience. I bought multiple RadeonVII at regular intervals (roughly 2 months apart), from multiple vendors, and all have similar performance. Small differences in undervolting (that is expected), but otherwise the same. Even the XFXs (I have two) are perfectly fine, it's just that the others undervolt a tiny bit better, not a big deal. I did have fan trouble on the Asrock one (treated with teflon oil).

[QUOTE=diep;535622]If one shows up used you might want to get it ASAP if it's from the first batch Radeon VII's.

The first 5000 that they produced are actually Radeon Instinct MI50's that they put a sticker Radeon VII onto. They are 6.6 Tflops double precision which they sold as 'radeon vii's.

Being capable of executing 3.3 Tops is a lot (3.3 T double precision instructions a clock - where FMA counts as 1 instruction).

When they sell next batch it's not clear whether it still is the same gpu or whether it's a fiat panda edition with lobotomized fp64. Like first 5000 panda's are having a V12 Ferrari engine of 6.6 Tflops pardon i mean liters and when they want to make money with it it's a 2 cylinder fiat panda.

I have no information whatsoever so i assume it's gonna be fiat panda's.

Would be interesting to know though. All those 'benchmark websites' already tested the radeon vii so they are not gonna change that any soon. Who would notice anyway?

I've seen supercomputers sold for dozens of millions of dollars factor 12 slower than they would be on paper ("marketing lies" in order to win the bidding contest) that never got tested during their lifetime. Yeah well until i ran on it and had written code for it that 'assumed' it would be 12x faster than it was :)[/QUOTE]

Here is the article:

[url]https://www.tweaktown.com/news/64501/amd-radeon-vii-less-5000-available-custom-cards/index.html[/url]

As you can see here:

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_VII_series[/url]

the mi50 gets listed as 6.6 Tflops double precision and the radeon VII gets listed as 2.x Tflops.

Factor 3 slower.

[QUOTE=diep;535638]As you can see here:

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Radeon_VII_series[/url]

the mi50 gets listed as 6.6 Tflops double precision and the radeon VII gets listed as 2.x Tflops.

Factor 3 slower.[/QUOTE]
Yes, that 2784 GFLOPS is for a low (base) clock frequency at 1400 MHz. At boost clock (1750 MHz) 3458.5 GFLOPS. While there is only one figure for the MI50, I assume it's for the boost clock, as it should be exactly 2x faster at the same clock.

The [URL="https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-vii"]AMD Radeon VII product page[/URL] lists peak DP compute as 3.46 TFLOPS.

That Tweaktown article is over a year old now. They didn't know much about the card back then.

Anyway the real MI50 is now available for qualified buyers (datacenter customers), the 16GB model is less than $4000 while the 32GB model is about $4400. They've actually discontinued the MI60 32GB model that had all the compute units enabled.

It is well known by this point, a year later, that the Radeon VII hardware is pretty much the same as that Radeon Instinct MI50 16GB model, but with 1:4 FP64 instead of 1:2. The silicon is identical, it is limited in some other way (vBIOS?)

[QUOTE=nomead;535649]Yes, that 2784 GFLOPS is for a low (base) clock frequency at 1400 MHz. At boost clock (1750 MHz) 3458.5 GFLOPS. While there is only one figure for the MI50, I assume it's for the boost clock, as it should be exactly 2x faster at the same clock.

The [URL="https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-vii"]AMD Radeon VII product page[/URL] lists peak DP compute as 3.46 TFLOPS.

That Tweaktown article is over a year old now. They didn't know much about the card back then.

Anyway the real MI50 is now available for qualified buyers (datacenter customers), the 16GB model is less than $4000 while the 32GB model is about $4400. They've actually discontinued the MI60 32GB model that had all the compute units enabled.

It is well known by this point, a year later, that the Radeon VII hardware is pretty much the same as that Radeon Instinct MI50 16GB model, but with 1:4 FP64 instead of 1:2. The silicon is identical, it is limited in some other way (vBIOS?)[/QUOTE]

Ignore all those boosts if you do gpgpu 24/24. Even If you do gpgpu watercooled, which is much better than aircooled, you don't want to boost of course as you're going to be far above that 300 watt figure given - boost is not adviced for gpgpu.

The question is whether the cards we see now LL benchmarks from are 6.7 Tflops double precision - in short not lobotimized in FP64 whereas what they sell FEBRUARI 2020 and later are Fiat Panda's that get lobotomized which get 2.x Tflops double precision on paper.

[QUOTE=diep;535650]The question is whether the cards we see now LL benchmarks from are 6.7 Tflops double precision - in short not lobotimized in FP64 whereas what they sell FEBRUARI 2020 and later are Fiat Panda's that get lobotomized which get 2.x Tflops double precision on paper.[/QUOTE]

I recently got my card used, but I haven't figured out how to determine its date of manufacture. Do you have a method for that?

[QUOTE=PhilF;535654]I recently got my card used, but I haven't figured out how to determine its date of manufacture. Do you have a method for that?[/QUOTE]

How would i know of course, but those first 5000 cards sold they should overclock wonderfully well.

Let's use logics in a normal real world manner here.

What's a 6.7 tflops Tesla selling for these days. 5000 dollar or so?
So AMD basically invested 25 million dollar more or less into the first 5000 cards just in order to have a gpu on it that overclocks wonderfully well and has 6.7 tflops worth of double precision resources - all this just to score better in tests.

Hoping to sell billions of dollars worth of radeon vII and its future improved versions - just to position the card very well into the market place.

So it should overclock really well and turboboost better by default than the Fiat Panda's that come after the first 5000.

So by default in tests it should score higher than the fiat panda's.

I see a guy on ebay offer one claiming it overclocks well to 1.9Ghz. That probably is one. (edit; the overclocking is for games - which is very short term. for gpgpu i would advice to not overclock at all of course - you burn up the wires of the gpu (yeah those small 193 nm lines or something which they optimistically call '7 nm technology').

[QUOTE=diep;535676]Hoping to sell billions of dollars worth of radeon vII and its future improved versions - just to position the card very well into the market place.

So it should overclock really well and turboboost better by default than the Fiat Panda's that come after the first 5000.

So by default in tests it should score higher than the fiat panda's.[/QUOTE]

But rumors are there's limited availability, and that the product has already reached end-of-life.

So I have another possibility to offer: It could be that AMD is doing what all chip makers do, which is take all the chips that won't run reliably at rated speed (MI50 in this case) but are otherwise good, and throw them in a pile destined for later use (in this case the Radeon VII). That might even explain the limited availability, assuming that rumor is even true.

The Gigabyte branded board I have comes set at a default speed of 1800Mhz(!) and voltage over a volt. And you're absolutely right: That speed would never work reliably or efficiently when it comes to gpu computing.