AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56 Reviews [*UPDATED* Aug 28]

[Ryan Smith]

WHAT?
This is a COMPLETE reversal of what anandtech posted. WOW. So what are the actual settings? Is someone using AA? What's the discrepancy? Techpowerup isn't using AA in this instance. I tried to check anandtech to no avail, before I had known of HardOCPs conclusion.

"On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but it not increasing the view distance any further."

 

[PeterScott]

Tech has got to be the only market on the planet where if your release doesn't crush the opposition, you get burned at the stake.

Do people flame Campbell's for making worse baked beans than Bush? No.

It's not tech, it's nerds. Nerds don't care about beans.

If nerds care about it, there will be arguments about it. There are fights over comic books, movies, PnP RPGs, video games, and everything tech related.

Beyond that Vega was special case because:

• It was ridiculously late.
• The endless hype and teasing was pissing people off even before it got released, when it turned out mediocre the ire was magnified by hype that preceeded it.
• There are multiple ways to examine it, from price/performance some view it as OK, from an engineering perspective some view it as a disaster.
• Some are still trying to search for the good in it, some see only more dreadful things.

For a nerd battle it just keeps giving.

 

[Maverick177]

Why?

What goes around comes around.

 

[tential]

"On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but it not increasing the view distance any further."

So what's you're take on the aa situation?
Or are you looking into it yourself?

Thanks for the update wow. This really gets me super interested. Amd is amazing. Someone asked about the wait for Vega? Great. It doesn't get more interesting than an amd launch for sure. Always a new twist and turn.
Can't wait to see what happens next!

 

[Olikan]

Msaa problems, eh?

Mmm... I am wondering if the L2 cache is the reason for most the vega problems. It might just can't keep up with the card... as pretty much every stage uses it now

 

[tamz_msc]

I "flame" every car maker for making worse cars than Tesla.
*snip*
Should Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, get a pass for making WORSE cars than the Model S? No, they should be crucified, over and over again, until they get the picture. Look at Porsche's statement, where they renegged on their "Screw electric" and hopped on that train instantly when the model S was decimating their cars.

Everytime I see someone with a new car that isn't a Tesla actually (or an all electric car when it's clear it would fit their needs), I lol....

What's so special about Tesla? As far as I'm aware the model S is the first all-electric car which also has the performance to boot. It's no M3 or C63S or 911.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Tech has got to be the only market on the planet where if your release doesn't crush the opposition, you get burned at the stake.

Do people flame Campbell's for making worse baked beans than Bush? No.

Food is different from tech, actually even most tech is different from tech in computers.

Taste can be subjective while in computers there's no other way to slice being faster, quicker in TTM, and lower power. It's just a better product versus a worse product.

You can be fine with a luxury car of 5 years ago while in computers 5 year old computer is in almost every way worse than a current generation mid range computer. Of course that's starting to change because progressive is starting to crawl, but that logic still very much applies today.

 

[PeterScott]

Man I am going to need an Anti-Aliasing primer when I get a new card, there are so many kinds of AA that I don't have clue what they mean anymore.

 

[Elixer]

Apparently, crossfire isn't working either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6tz1pq/anyone_with_2x_vega_64_get_crossfire_working/

 

[zinfamous]

If thats true, and prices rise 100 $/pounds, then vega is DOA. Period.

If they sell, they sell. That's really all that matters. I bet people will still buy them, as stupid as it sounds. And the price hike could be because of low supply and/or mining demand. After all, AMD often gets shafted through retail pricing of their cards due to mining anyway, right? Doesn't everyone here often laugh at them for losing out on those profits? Now it's shameful if they actually do profit this way? I'm confused.

 

[xpea]

There is a AMD beta driver for "Blockchain Compute". It increases Ether performance: Hot Hardware, Hardware Luxx

so one side AMD says they made bundles to avoid too much cards going to miners, and other side they release specific drivers for miners...

 

[zinfamous]

I "flame" every car maker for making worse cars than Tesla. If you can objectively measure something, and then you want to say that a conversation about that measurement is "flaming" because the measurement is negative, well then there is a LOT of flaming that goes on.

Should Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, get a pass for making WORSE cars than the Model S? No, they should be crucified, over and over again, until they get the picture. Look at Porsche's statement, where they renegged on their "Screw electric" and hopped on that train instantly when the model S was decimating their cars.

Everytime I see someone with a new car that isn't a Tesla actually (or an all electric car when it's clear it would fit their needs), I lol....

One of the worst things to creep into our society is that everyone is a winner. Some things just aren't that great and it's ok to say it.

We're not reviewers who get card samples. We don't need to put every card in the best light.

Edit: Simply existing is also NOT cause for praise. "We should be happy they're even there!" does not add to the conversation.

Edit2: Jealous of your Ti by the way. And to be clear, the point of my post is that let people discuss the GPU. Simply saying "Just buy Pascal then!!!!" just doesn't add to the conversation. In my opinion it hurts it. Discuss Vega. I'm going to see the GamersNexus undervolt/OC results of Vega 56 just because well.... we're on anandtech. We can't get enough info on GPUs and enough discussion about them.

what...the hell is this?

 

[Jackie60]

I didn't read HardOCP's conclusion because again not impressed with their reviews as of late.
However, I noticed in their review that Vega performance drops off a CLIFF if you enable AA.
From their conclusion:

Well, this got me curious when I saw this because GTA 5 is the game I like and I had seen THIS at anandtech.

Ok, Vega sucks at GTA 5, I accepted it and moved on....

WHAT?
This is a COMPLETE reversal of what anandtech posted. WOW. So what are the actual settings? Is someone using AA? What's the discrepancy? Techpowerup isn't using AA in this instance. I tried to check anandtech to no avail, before I had known of HardOCPs conclusion. I was lazy and gave up lol.

Now seeing this on reddit, I'm wondering if we're seeing Vega working right? Personally, I want to see all the 4K testing without AA.... I don't use AA and if AA is bugged, we may not be seeing these reviews correctly.

So.... maybe Vega we can restart the Vega hype train to fix this? maybe? lol.....

I want to see all 4K testing done with AA ideally 4x. I always use it and image quality at 4K on a 40 inch screen suffers without it. I didn't go 4K to start making image quality compromises.

 

[IntelUser2000]

so one side AMD says they made bundles to avoid too much cards going to miners, and other side they release specific drivers for miners...

Its all for show. On one hand they tell you they have bundles to discourage miners, but silently they release mining-optimized drivers. After all they are a business. It would make no sense to really kill miners off when possibly the single greatest reason Polaris was selling out was due to miners. If there was no mining in August of last year when Polaris released, GTX 1060 would have killed it off in most of the markets with better performance and far lower power. They released the reference card with 6 pin to pretend it really used only 150W and got hit with PCIe slot fiasco few months later.

Of course if they publicly appeased to miners it would anger the other crowd, which are gamers. Considering how polarizing the two sides are it would do them no good.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Personally, I'm not that impressed. The power consumption, and the benches are uninspiring considering the time it took AMD to bring Vega to the market. Price is the only thing Vega has going for it, and certainly at much worse margins to be sure than GP104 to be "competitive".

Of course I'm completely ignoring non-gaming applications, as gaming is the bread and butter of GPUs.

I just hope that Vega is AMD's Fermi, and the next round they double-down on power efficiency, so whatever architectural prowess is there is scalable to all markets and form factors. AMD does not have the benefit
of having the best GPU at this point in real world scenarios, despite the insane power consumption.

 

[Kallogan]

Those cards sell like pancakes no matter what lol

people are too afraid not to get one

that beta driver for mining will push speculation high on what will be the final hashrate after drivers goes out of beta + miner optimization over time haha

https://hothardware.com/news/amd-radeon-rx-vega-mining-block-chain-ethereum

 

[DaQuteness]

people are too afraid not to get one

actually, you just put in a sentence what I'm going through... I think well, shit, this is probably the only card I'd ever buy from AMD until the next screw-up launch which might be in 2 years. Was seriously looking at the FE for the pro drivers and workstation performance, but the embarrassing list of downsides steers me towards 64, but again, the power draw makes me cringe a bit for it's performance which drives me straight back into the arms of my beloved EVGA... I WILL buy one as a collectible mostly and as sign of faith that the drivers are the redeeming factor...

 

[krumme]

Personally, I'm not that impressed. The power consumption, and the benches are uninspiring considering the time it took AMD to bring Vega to the market. Price is the only thing Vega has going for it, and certainly at much worse margins to be sure than GP104 to be "competitive".

Of course I'm completely ignoring non-gaming applications, as gaming is the bread and butter of GPUs.

I just hope that Vega is AMD's Fermi, and the next round they double-down on power efficiency, so whatever architectural prowess is there is scalable to all markets and form factors. AMD does not have the benefit
of having the best GPU at this point in real world scenarios, despite the insane power consumption.

Look at tpu testing of the rx64.
Standard bios but just selecting powersave profile takes it from 292w to 214w at the cost of 3% perf deficit
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_64/29.html
Everyone can do that. Out the box.
Its then 48w above the 1080 that runs at 166w and 15w below the 1080ti that runs 231w.
Let the gpu run at same temp as 1080fe and even noise is solved.
With bf1 and doom perf at 4k its okey.
Do the same for the rx56 and you will probably have a card below 190w that in many cases is nearly midway between 1070 and 1080. For a power consumption that is below a 580.
Power is then a no issue. Its a push in driver setup.
Imagine how reviews would have been if powersave had been the default setting? I simply dont understand this need to go for the last 3%.

 

[Qwertilot]

Its just what AMD's GFX side do - see also 2/390, the 580 even iirc etc. Seems thoroughly daft to me too.

Their CPU side has thankfully managed to quit this behaviour!

 

[Glo.]

Now seeing this on reddit, I'm wondering if we're seeing Vega working right? Personally, I want to see all the 4K testing without AA.... I don't use AA and if AA is bugged, we may not be seeing these reviews correctly.

So.... maybe Vega we can restart the Vega hype train to fix this? maybe? lol.....

I do not want to be categoric with anything here, but judging that there are features that are still disabled in drivers of Vega, and those features have impact on performance it may be the case.

How long till we will see fixes for broken drivers? 1 week? 6 months? Only AMD knows...

 

[DaQuteness]

Might want to check this out as well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6tugld/vega_fe_driver_improvement_comparison/

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/aot/226126/aot/226100/aot/224202/aot/217914

 

[Kallogan]

yeah they are not that inefficient power wise, it's just that thay are hitting a hard wall like Ryzen and rx 480 do. Amd pushed their cards to their absolute limits to make them compete with 1070 and 1080. Shove a few Mhz and undervolt a bit and you have a very decent gpu. There are a sweet spot to find.

Now the same can be done with nvidia cards making them even more efficient...

But if you want freesync and amd, it's not that horrible (except prices). Amd stuff seem to always age well nowadays. Vega can still surprise in the long run. It's a bit of a bet.

 

[beginner99]

Raven Ridge will be a very nice part with a CPU section that is competitive with Intel, and an APU better than Intels iGP, but that is about it. Don't expect Raven Ridge to challenge event he lowest end NVidia mobile dGPU.

Getting your hopes up on something big happening in the Vega part of the Raven Ridge APU, is just setting up for another Vega disappointment.

True, And good thing intel iGPU also sucks in terms of efficiency (performance/area, performance/watt). Also leaks indicate 800mhz GPU clocks for RR and low clocks, low voltage Vega might actually be very efficient.

For big Vega with HBM2 they had to meet performance targets to price it accordingly. So in typical AMD fashion the cards run miles beyond optimal efficiency. undervolt and underclock might actually make them into good mining cards...

Also, energy efficiency has never really been a big concern at the top end of gaming GPUs until the last couple years. Not sure why people really care that much

I did not care until I got my 290x. Within 30 min the room is a lot warmer. There is no doubt about it. Especially sucks in summer. Yeah it's not that huge of a deal but if I pay same price I choose the one with lower power. 290x only hold up because it was cheap after mining craze.

If thats true, and prices rise 100 $/pounds, then vega is DOA. Period.

True but AMD doesn't care. The can fill the fabs with Ryzen dies which have much, much higher margin. Add in some dies for Vega professional cards (also higher margin) and AMD doesn't have an incentive to actually sell Vega dies for cheap to gamers as long as the can fill the fabs with high margin parts.

It's happening everywhere. Here in India the price set by distributors means that the cards are retailing at the corresponding "packs" rather than MSRP. Apparently AMD told them to sell at these prices.

Lol. Here it's not yet listed anywhere.

 

[richaron]

Well... Like most people I wasn't super impressed with Vega performance... But I managed to pre-order a Vega 64 in Aus' for slightly over the USD$500 rrp. Which is a pretty awesome price considering 580's are listed here for USD$400-450 (and higher), and 1080's are USD$600-700. Surely the prices of the other cards are on the way down, but equally surely the price of Vega will go up.

I'll be using the power saving mode though. No way I'm going to run this thing at full power; I must be an old fart because the idea of using stupid power for a few % more performance does not appeal to me. So I'd be interested in more data from reviews done with the different power settings and BIOS modes.

 

[wanderica]

Food is different from tech, actually even most tech is different from tech in computers.

Taste can be subjective while in computers there's no other way to slice being faster, quicker in TTM, and lower power. It's just a better product versus a worse product.

You can be fine with a luxury car of 5 years ago while in computers 5 year old computer is in almost every way worse than a current generation mid range computer. Of course that's starting to change because progressive is starting to crawl, but that logic still very much applies today.

Not to mention the many other flaws with his analogy, such as beans being a very short term invenstment. I've had beans be the meal that keeps giving from time to time, but I don't buy beans as a 2 year investment.

I do get his point though. Automobiles would have been a much better analogy, and as it happens, is an area that generates just as much, if not more, biased hate towards one's favored manufacturer. I can't tell you the number of "Ram sucks!" "LOL. PowerSmoke." or "Chevy has less HP!" type ridiculous comments I've heard and read. The truth is that HD trucks are as close as they've ever been in terms of performance and most of us are just shouting for our favorite. Besides, everyone knows Rams are the best.

I think the reality of the issue is a bit skewed though. Obviously, people visiting a tech forum, such as AT, are going to be more passionate about our hobby. As someone else pointed out. Only us nerds are arguing about this. The vast majority of the market aren't going to care. They'll just buy a pre-built PC based on one of our recommendations.