AMD's resources is limited and they selected a proper priority
1. CPU first, GPU next. as a break through in CPU side is easier than GPU side - just go with more cores with chiplet, since intel basically stopped innovation, while GPU side will be much tougher.
2. data center first, consumer/gamer second. Vega is not meant to compete with best Nvidia card, but it was designed to handle both data center/ML needs and gaming need, maybe the gaming version is just a space holder. The data center version will bring more profit and buy time for AMD to develop the software ecosystem -- CUDA is the moat of Nvidia, and AMD need time to overcome that.
So 7nm is used on data center version instead of a gaming card, which make perfectly sense for AMD.
1. CPU first, GPU next. as a break through in CPU side is easier than GPU side - just go with more cores with chiplet, since intel basically stopped innovation, while GPU side will be much tougher.
2. data center first, consumer/gamer second. Vega is not meant to compete with best Nvidia card, but it was designed to handle both data center/ML needs and gaming need, maybe the gaming version is just a space holder. The data center version will bring more profit and buy time for AMD to develop the software ecosystem -- CUDA is the moat of Nvidia, and AMD need time to overcome that.
So 7nm is used on data center version instead of a gaming card, which make perfectly sense for AMD.