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

[krumme]

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.

Congrats. Thats an awesome deal. I also got my rx64 10% below 1080 price. Unfortunately i think we are and will stay a minor minority I dont even think i will try this card on the balanced profile but will take powersave day one and up max temp 10c. No way 292w on a blower. Ever.
We will make a dedicated rx64/rx56 builders thread. The ryzen and tr builders threads in the cpu forum is going very well and is a huge help for people beause they are not cluttered with all the other talk.

Then we can share undervolting, profile setups and bios tips. People can join with their overvolted 1900MHz custom liquid cooling 600w cards. From 130w to 600w. It will be fun !

....and really fun when wolfenstein hits

 

[renz20003]

Besides, everyone knows Rams are the best.

Damn right

 

[EXCellR8]

gah, still no AIB model info at all. unfortunately, I don't see the designer cards being much better than reference design. probably get a nice price spike also.

I've never been so torn on deciding what to do... course the easiest thing is just keep my current card. I'm open to suggestions though, but no crossfire.

 

[Despoiler]

gah, still no AIB model info at all. unfortunately, I don't see the designer cards being much better than reference design. probably get a nice price spike also.

I've never been so torn on deciding what to do... course the easiest thing is just keep my current card. I'm open to suggestions though, but no crossfire.

IDK if anyone posted this. Pictures of a 3 fan Vega prototype. A nano sized PCB and overhung cooler like the Sapphire Tri-X. This is the type of card I am waiting for.

https://videocardz.com/71958/prototype-radeon-rx-vega-56-pictured-with-three-fans

 

[beginner99]

gah, still no AIB model info at all.

maybe we will never see them. Why would an AIB even invest money into vega? Simply no business case to be made.

 

[DaQuteness]

Interesting... having 1/3 of the cooler overhung would alleviate choking in a crossfire setup. Although probably only gain 3-4C compared to 2 fans. See 1080Ti SC2 vs FTW3... 2 vs 3 fans.

Speaking of FTW3, as an owner of one, I have to say it's a beast, but the raw compute power of Vega tickles my fancy big time and I don't know what to do, go for a 64 or an FE... super torn :| if either of them...

 

[DaQuteness]

maybe we will never see them. Why would an AIB even invest money into vega? Simply no business case to be made.

Nope... but maybe coming up with an alternative air cooling solution to sell for existing cards will be, it would definitely unlock some headroom. Even if the PCBs are not custom, if the cooling solution is, it would still be an improvement.

 

[EXCellR8]

IDK if anyone posted this. Pictures of a 3 fan Vega prototype. A nano sized PCB and overhung cooler is like the Sapphire Tri-X. This is the type of card I am waiting for.

https://videocardz.com/71958/prototype-radeon-rx-vega-56-pictured-with-three-fans

yea except that does little for those who have space limitations... kind of odd having a PCB that much shorter than the cooler. that last fan just pushes air past the board...

maybe we will never see them. Why would an AIB even invest money into vega? Simply no business case to be made.

there's plenty of business to be had in Vega... I'd be very surprised if we didn't see something pop up soon

 

[Despoiler]

maybe we will never see them. Why would an AIB even invest money into vega? Simply no business case to be made.

Please provide your business case for Vega showing it's not worth the effort.

 

[Despoiler]

yea except that does little for those who have space limitations... kind of odd having a PCB that much shorter than the cooler. that last fan just pushes air past the board...

there's plenty of business to be had in Vega... I'd be very surprised if we didn't see something pop up soon

The cooler design is amazing. Check out the reviews for the Sapphire Fury Tri-X. It's as quiet at load as all other cards are at idle. The temps are well in check too. I expect it to be just what Vega needs. Reference coolers are meh... As far as space efficient, AMD showed off Vega Nano. It's the SFF card to get.

 

[Malogeek]

gah, still no AIB model info at all. unfortunately, I don't see the designer cards being much better than reference design. probably get a nice price spike also.

There was unsubstantiated information around that AIBs only received final BIOS early this month and that cards would start becoming available early September.

 

[EXCellR8]

nice, that's better news than I expected.

also, wth happened to Diamond and HIS?

 

[Stuka87]

maybe we will never see them. Why would an AIB even invest money into vega? Simply no business case to be made.

Is there really a reason to make a troll post like this?

Just because Vega is not as good as nVidia's offerings doesn't mean it has no market. They will likely sell every single one that is made.

 

[fleshconsumed]

IDK if anyone posted this. Pictures of a 3 fan Vega prototype. A nano sized PCB and overhung cooler like the Sapphire Tri-X. This is the type of card I am waiting for.

https://videocardz.com/71958/prototype-radeon-rx-vega-56-pictured-with-three-fans

That does look nice. Not sure why the switch to 8+6 pins, it's not like most 500W+ PSUs don't have 2x8pins already anyway. Who's the manufacturer? The sticker on the back says "Made in Canada". Who the heck makes cards in Canada?

yea except that does little for those who have space limitations... kind of odd having a PCB that much shorter than the cooler. that last fan just pushes air past the board...

I'd imagine fan pushing air past the board actually helps with cooling - less resistance and whatnot. Short PCB also makes it easier to mount DIY AIO cooler block on it if you wanted to. I really see no need for the huge PCB on an HBM card like that.

 

[Malogeek]

IDK if anyone posted this. Pictures of a 3 fan Vega prototype. A nano sized PCB and overhung cooler like the Sapphire Tri-X. This is the type of card I am waiting for.

https://videocardz.com/71958/prototype-radeon-rx-vega-56-pictured-with-three-fans

I like that design. The rear half of the card drawing a lot of the heat and pushing it north for the case airflow to dissipate.

 

[Stuka87]

That does look nice. Not sure why the switch to 8+6 pins, it's not like most 500W+ PSUs don't have 2x8pins already anyway. Who's the manufacturer? The sticker on the back says "Made in Canada". Who the heck makes cards in Canada?


I'd imagine fan pushing air past the board actually helps with cooling - less resistance and whatnot. Short PCB also makes it easier to mount DIY AIO cooler block on it if you wanted to. I really see no need for the huge PCB on an HBM card like that.

My hope is AIB's will use the "power saving" BIOS instead of the "cook eggs" BIOS. Sure we may lose 2-3% performance, but the cards will use WAY less power and run far cooler/quieter. There is really no reason to build these cards for over clocking.

 

[PeterScott]

My hope is AIB's will use the "power saving" BIOS instead of the "cook eggs" BIOS. Sure we may lose 2-3% performance, but the cards will use WAY less power and run far cooler/quieter. There is really no reason to build these cards for over clocking.

OTOH, if you want to run in power saver mode, the stock cooler may be fine as it can run slower.

 

[DaQuteness]

Ok, apart from bashing this line-up, if we are disregarding the insufficient cooling (to which there are solutions) and the rather high power draw (again, this can be tweaked as we've all seen). Is this card (Vega 64) worth buying to watercool? We are enthusiasts in the end, we should be talking about the potential, not line 200 comments and 50 websites on the obvious draw-backs! May I remind everybody about the constant bitching about nVidia's FE coolers and GPU throttling?

How about the HBM2 / HBCC that allows people to render craploads more detail without being limited by on-board memory? How about the compute power that seems to compete with nVidia's top-end? I understand most people think about gaming but there's quite simply a bit more to it than that.

For content creators like me, Frontier is the sweet spot but seems to be HEAVILY crippled by drivers for now, however 64 seems just as potent! Compute power is through the roof, and it games decent for my purposes so I am considering putting this, and even 2nd one in the long run, for their compute power. I don't care about the Wattage, it gets the job done with time to spare.

Any thoughts?

I know this will never happen, but if a company like EVGA got their hands on Vega to solve the cooling issue, it'd be a sweet sweet time in this world... edit: EVGA VEGA 64... scrabble time...

 

[Tup3x]

That does look nice. Not sure why the switch to 8+6 pins, it's not like most 500W+ PSUs don't have 2x8pins already anyway. Who's the manufacturer? The sticker on the back says "Made in Canada". Who the heck makes cards in Canada?


I'd imagine fan pushing air past the board actually helps with cooling - less resistance and whatnot. Short PCB also makes it easier to mount DIY AIO cooler block on it if you wanted to. I really see no need for the huge PCB on an HBM card like that.

2x8-pin connectors on really small PCB? probably hard to fit all that VRM there... So, it makes prefect sense.

 

[Rifter]

Ok, apart from bashing this line-up, if we are disregarding the insufficient cooling (to which there are solutions) and the rather high power draw (again, this can be tweaked as we've all seen). Is this card (Vega 64) worth buying to watercool? We are enthusiasts in the end, we should be talking about the potential, not line 200 comments and 50 websites on the obvious draw-backs! May I remind everybody about the constant bitching about nVidia's FE coolers and GPU throttling?

How about the HBM2 / HBCC that allows people to render craploads more detail without being limited by on-board memory? How about the compute power that seems to compete with nVidia's top-end? I understand most people think about gaming but there's quite simply a bit more to it than that.

For content creators like me, Frontier is the sweet spot but seems to be HEAVILY crippled by drivers for now, however 64 seems just as potent! Compute power is through the roof, and it games decent for my purposes so I am considering putting this, and even 2nd one in the long run, for their compute power. I don't care about the Wattage, it gets the job done with time to spare.

Any thoughts?

I know this will never happen, but if a company like EVGA got their hands on Vega to solve the cooling issue, it'd be a sweet sweet time in this world... edit: EVGA VEGA 64... scrabble time...

Its not just the heat and power consumption, although those are huge drawbacks. The AA issue in some games is the worst of them all. No one buys a top tier GPU to not run AA. They buy top tier GPU to run high res high details and AA for best IQ. That is literally the point of spending $500+ on a GPU is to get best IQ possible at acceptable framerates. Go compare some reviews that test with AA and without and you will see that Vega absolutely chokes with AA in certain games. Above poster mentioned this in post # 471 and posted charts. This is unacceptable for a top tier GPU. Hopefully it can be fixed in drivers and is not a hardware constraint. Note how in GTA at 4K the vega drops 10fps behind the 1080 with AA, but without AA is same speed as 1080. Something is wrong with AMD's AA implementation and if they cant fix it i dont see to many gamers buying a $500+ card that they cant use AA on without taking a 20-30% performance hit vs a 1080.

 

[n0x1ous]

2x8-pin connectors on really small PCB? probably hard to fit all that VRM there... So, it makes prefect sense.

Not really. Look at Fury X

 

[ksheets]

Damn right

Wait, didn't the front end of your truck fall apart last week??!

 

[kawi6rr]

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....

I hope you were joking with the said statement above. Not many people can afford a Tesla! If they made one that was affordable in a truck form then I would be all over it since I have solar panels on my house but they don't.

 

[psolord]

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.

4K AND 4XMSAA?

Wow, you will not be happy even with the 3080Titi!

 

[zinfamous]

4K AND 4XMSAA?

Wow, you will not be happy even with the 3080Titi!

yes, it was a very strange comment.

Also, I have no experience with this, but I've read around here several times and it seems the consensus is that 4K more or less eliminates the need for AA, right? You're basically absorbing a massive performance hit for something like 1% or less in visual improvement?