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

[richaron]

Yes he is. Unfortunately for us success on the highend consumer market is probably not the most important.
Its obvious they need a new gamer oriented arch to be relevant for eg the mobile market.
Remember guys like raja and keller set the direction and chooses witch seniors have most influence on the design. Like mike clark on the ryzen. Perhaps its people like him needed for better arch.

I think a lot of the progress in development is mapped out years ahead. For example, they probably decided they needed a functional GPU with Infinity Fabric and their HBCC (and whatever else) before they could "Ryzen" their GPUs and make a modular product line (like Navi). Now they have Vega they have an important stepping stone to build their software/hardware ecosystem based upon their long term hUMA/HSA ideals (which both IF & HBCC are part of). For example I have no doubt software written for a IF dGPU & IF CPU will be applicable for APU use. And by a similar token software to run multiple IF dGPUs will obviously help any modular IF GPU setup.

So even if Raja was in control and to be "blamed" for Vega, I suspect the product is a necessary stepping stone before the real goals are reached. This is along the lines as how I see Carrizo vs Kaveri. Carrizo finally reached HSA 1.0 spec, and was the source of much of the power management which made Ryzen possible. So even though Carrizo is not necessarily a great product, I think it had to exist from a design iteration perspective.

Edit: Sorry CatMerc, I was rambling away while you posted that. But you are correct Raja's involvement is a moot point.

 

[PeterScott]

i guess you forgot the tegra devision that got subsidized by its gpu devision for half a decade. dont tell me they wanted them into cars first they wanted to be in mobile devices even bought a company for their radio bands and lost millions there too. they barely make money on them after losing millions each year.

No, I was pretty sure someone would bring up Tegra. But remember Tegra was starting from nothing at all. So it was going to take many years of subsidization no matter what.

Also Tegras weren't that bad. Tegra failed not because of the CPU/GPU, it failed because they are aimed at Mobile, and mobile requires modems, and Qualcomm pretty much has the patents locked up to where no one has a chance to compete.

If it was only about ARM based APU's NVidia might have had a chance, but patent encumbered modems makes it a struggle that is unwinnable for many.

The Nintendo Switch uses an older Tegra and does just fine. Who knows as some point and NVidia might replace AMD in consoles with ARM cores and Volta GPUs or successors. With the superior performance/watt of NVidia GPUs it could be a very compelling alternative, though it would break backward compatibility.

 

[maddie]

In case not posted yet. Looks like MSRP is not changing after all.

https://hothardware.com/news/amd-responds-radeon-rx-vega-pricing-more-499-vega-64-available-soon

"Earlier this week, we were a bit disappointed when we heard rumors that AMD would be dropping its standalone air-cooled Radeon RX Vega 64 SKU, effectively raising its price to $599 for the foreseeable future. If this was indeed the case, it would be the ultimate case of “bait and switch”, since AMD played up the attractive $499 price point for the Vega 64 and reviews recommending the graphics card (including ours) were based on this price point.

Rather than run with the story, which was originally posted by OC3D on Tuesday, we decided to reach out to AMD for further clarification. It took a few days, but the company finally contacted us with an official statement on the matter:

Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days."

 

[Unreal123]

One thing is confirm AMD will never ever match Nvidia until Hang decides to sit and do nothing for 3 to 4 years. Every year Nvidia increases 40% to 50% performance not like intel ,where they manage 30% more performance in 4 years and still Ryzen is 6% to 10% in IPC compare to Intel. Nvidia can only be beaten by them self and nothing else can beat them in GPUs.

 

[PeterScott]

In case not posted yet. Looks like MSRP is not changing after all.

https://hothardware.com/news/amd-responds-radeon-rx-vega-pricing-more-499-vega-64-available-soon

"Earlier this week, we were a bit disappointed when we heard rumors that AMD would be dropping its standalone air-cooled Radeon RX Vega 64 SKU, effectively raising its price to $599 for the foreseeable future. If this was indeed the case, it would be the ultimate case of “bait and switch”, since AMD played up the attractive $499 price point for the Vega 64 and reviews recommending the graphics card (including ours) were based on this price point.

Rather than run with the story, which was originally posted by OC3D on Tuesday, we decided to reach out to AMD for further clarification. It took a few days, but the company finally contacted us with an official statement on the matter:

Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days."

Corpspeak translation: Our token supply of standalone MSRP priced loss leader cards, will get another token resupply, with the majority of stock going to bundles and premium priced cards.

 

[PeterScott]

Edit: Sorry CatMerc, I was rambling away while you posted that. But you are correct Raja's involvement is a moot point.

I only brought it up in response to the too often floated meme of :

Wait for Navi, It's Raja's baby...

If Raja's involvement with Vega is moot, then can we please stop pretending Raja involvement with Navi is going to turn everything around.

 

[maddie]

Corpspeak translation: Our token supply of standalone MSRP priced loss leader cards, will get another token resupply, with the majority of stock going to bundles and premium priced cards.

Do you know that as a fact, or typical partisan speak?

Would you rather it not have been posted?

 

[richaron]

I only brought it up in response to the too often floated meme of :

Wait for Navi, It's Raja's baby...

If Raja's involvement with Vega is moot, then can we please stop pretending Raja involvement with Navi is going to turn everything around.

Of course without the possibility of proof all these arguments are moot. But a moot argument is not mutually exclusive with common sense. And like with the cardinality of infinite numbers, one infinite set can logically be larger than another.

Obviously Raja will have more impact on product as time goes by, opposed to what you're implying. What I'm saying is that common sense would dictate, as time goes by, newer "leaders" will have an obvious and logically higher impact on the products. Even if we do plaster the term "moot" everywhere.

 

[IRobot23]

Vega is a fail for gamers...

 

[richaron]

Vega is a fail for gamers...

Well thought out and informative post. I particularly like the part where you said that thing.

 

[Jhatfie]

I'll be interested to see the aftermarket Vega 56 reviews when they show up. I actually think it is a fairly compelling part at $399 as the performance appears to generally out perform a 1070 and the power consumption is more acceptable than the 64. For someone like me that has a 1440p freesync monitor, I would certainly entertain the thought of getting one, as long as the price remains near $400. Anything more and I'll figure something else out or just wait for the next round of cards.

 

[dlerious]

In case not posted yet. Looks like MSRP is not changing after all.

https://hothardware.com/news/amd-responds-radeon-rx-vega-pricing-more-499-vega-64-available-soon

"Earlier this week, we were a bit disappointed when we heard rumors that AMD would be dropping its standalone air-cooled Radeon RX Vega 64 SKU, effectively raising its price to $599 for the foreseeable future. If this was indeed the case, it would be the ultimate case of “bait and switch”, since AMD played up the attractive $499 price point for the Vega 64 and reviews recommending the graphics card (including ours) were based on this price point.

Rather than run with the story, which was originally posted by OC3D on Tuesday, we decided to reach out to AMD for further clarification. It took a few days, but the company finally contacted us with an official statement on the matter:

Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days."

I'm wondering when this is going to happen because there's a Sapphire card that's been available for 3 hours now at $689 (black pack). https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202300

 

[PeterScott]

I'll be interested to see the aftermarket Vega 56 reviews when they show up. I actually think it is a fairly compelling part at $399 as the performance appears to generally out perform a 1070 and the power consumption is more acceptable than the 64. For someone like me that has a 1440p freesync monitor, I would certainly entertain the thought of getting one, as long as the price remains near $400. Anything more and I'll figure something else out or just wait for the next round of cards.

This will definitely be a credible option if they are really $399. But that is a pretty big if right now.

 

[jpiniero]

Do you know that as a fact, or typical partisan speak?

Would you rather it not have been posted?

You're not going to be able to buy it at MSRP so it's pretty much moot what AMD says or claims to say.

 

[JDG1980]

AMD's Raven Ridge should be another winner for them, and you won't see Vega breaking power records there, I am betting we will see a pretty efficient version of Vega on die.
Interesting thing here is, obviously they can't fit Vega 10 in there, so, what parts are they "cutting out" to meet the space requirements?
Raven Ridge should be a hit with OEMs, and they will flock to it, and they will get a pretty big chunk of market share.

I think Raven Ridge will be fine. They're not trying to beat a pre-determined goal set by Nvidia, so they don't need to overclock it to the moon. Has anyone done a power/clock curve for Vega yet? I know that for 28nm GCN, the best perf/watt was around 800-900 MHz. Maybe with Vega they can clock it to 1100-1200 MHz before starting to run into diminishing returns?

My guess is that the design goal for Raven Ridge, with regards to gaming, is to get a steady 60 FPS in popular e-sports titles. (A lot of AMD's advertising for low-end GPUs has focused on e-sports.) This shouldn't be hard to accomplish; according to Tom's Hardware benchmarks, even a cut-down Cape Verde (HD 7750) from the first 28nm generation can do >60 FPS minimum with high details at 1080p on League of Legends and Dota 2. Existing iGPUs, with the possible exception of Intel's expensive Crystalwell, can't do it, but I think Raven Ridge should be able to.

Vega's effectiveness in memory bandwidth utilization is not on par with Nvidia's, but it is clearly better than GCN 1.2. RX Vega has about 30% better performance than Fiji despite having a few percent less bandwidth. It wasn't enough for a legitimate high-end dGPU competitor, but it should help provide some solid performance gains on bandwidth-starved iGPUs compared to the previous generation.

HBCC is completely useless on Vega 10, since almost no games need >8GB of VRAM, but if it can work with the L3 cache on Raven Ridge, it may make a big difference compared to most other iGPUs. This would be a similar method to what Intel did with Crystalwell. We still don't know if it can do that, but all the focus on Infinity Fabric indicates that CPU<->GPU cooperation was definitely on their mind in the Vega design phase.

The thing about Vega 10(?) is, what reason(s) is Vega's performance so mediocre?
On paper, with the feature set Vega has, it should have been much better than what we are seeing (and heavily lead to believe), and with over 18 months in development, it is looking more and more like that there are hardware issues that must be bypassed by software (drivers) to fix.

I think Vega 10's problems are due to a mixture of engineering miscalculations (similar to the ones in Bulldozer), an unbalanced design (too few geometry engines and ROPs), a failure of HBM2 to meet design goals (it was supposed to be faster at lower voltage than what we got), and maybe an underestimation of what Nvidia would do with regards to performance and price on high-end Pascal (this is the least excusable if true, since Nvidia executes like clockwork).

 

[CatMerc]

One thing is confirm AMD will never ever match Nvidia until Hang decides to sit and do nothing for 3 to 4 years. Every year Nvidia increases 40% to 50% performance not like intel ,where they manage 30% more performance in 4 years and still Ryzen is 6% to 10% in IPC compare to Intel. Nvidia can only be beaten by them self and nothing else can beat them in GPUs.

If you've been around this game long enough you'd know that there have been multiple times in history where either ATi or NVIDIA seemed impossibly behind, and then bounced back. It can still happen.

The entire industry operates under the same limitations: Physics, Process nodes, Economics.

As long as NVIDIA isn't breaking any of these, AMD can still bounce back.

 

[AtenRa]

I'll be interested to see the aftermarket Vega 56 reviews when they show up. I actually think it is a fairly compelling part at $399 as the performance appears to generally out perform a 1070 and the power consumption is more acceptable than the 64. For someone like me that has a 1440p freesync monitor, I would certainly entertain the thought of getting one, as long as the price remains near $400. Anything more and I'll figure something else out or just wait for the next round of cards.

I will agree, cheapest GTX1070 in newegg starts at $430 for the FE model, VEGA 56 even at $450 is a good card especially if you have a FreeSync monitor or if you are thinking of buying one.

 

[IRobot23]

I will agree, cheapest GTX1070 in newegg starts at $430 for the FE model, VEGA 56 even at $450 is a good card especially if you have a FreeSync monitor or if you are thinking of buying one.

Well...
RX VEGA is 486mm^2, it is 14nm. I expected AMD to push gaming performance and they failed hard. RX VEGA is only good for gamers, because of freesync and price(for now)... thats all. Otherwise it is failure...

I don't get why they couldn't make polaris ~320mm^2 to deal with GTX 1080...

 

[Magic Hate Ball]

Well...
RX VEGA is 486mm^2, it is 14nm. I expected AMD to push gaming performance and they failed hard. RX VEGA is only good for gamers, because of freesync and price(for now)... thats all. Otherwise it is failure...

I don't get why they couldn't make polaris ~320mm^2 to deal with GTX 1080...

Let's see.... money?

People getting exasperated about a tech company not being able to fully match both competitors (Intel and Nvidia) who BOTH have multiple times the total R&D budget that AMD has to split to both CPU and GPU is just baffling to me.

They made a chip that can kind of do higher end gaming stuff, work as a workstation graphics card, oh and also be a freaking machine learning card all on the same piece of silicon!

They did what they thought they could to keep the company afloat by seeking the high margin markets more than the lower margin ones.

Here, this guy talks about it some more:

 

[maddie]

We have two perspectives as to Vega's perceived failure.

1) From a consumer viewpoint
2) From a shareholder/employee viewpoint

1) is simply a combination of price, performance, features and power consumption, which is unique for every individual, and changes due to circumstances.
The argument that Vega failed for X or Y reason is not an objective one but an attempt to impose a personal opinion on everyone.
The argument that it can only compete on price, and using this as a negative, is truly ridiculous. Guess what folks, everything competes on price. That is a core value of economics, to reduce variables to a value/cost so that we can compare diverse objects/endeavors and see which is better.

2) Vega is behind Nvidia, sometimes badly, in this category. Performance/watt, performance/mm^2, production cost. AMD will have to take a hit relative to Nvidia here. That does not necessarily mean they lose, only that they make less. Winner gets gold, but 2nd still gets silver, even in a 2 man race.
One poster even claimed that a $399 Vega 56 is a loss leader. What crap, when we saw estimates of Fiji costing < $200 and Vega has smaller die, smaller interposer, 1/2 # stacks HBM.


As to why they didn't just upscale polaris? Probably because of HBCC, IF, RPM, etc. These will be needed for the next gen and also for APUs. Sticking with Polaris is giving up. Even if the implementation in Vega is flawed, (either mistakes in design or software still unfinished), those new techs will still be needed in the future.

 

[stockolicious]

People keep using that deflection, like Vega was set in stone 5 years ago before Raja joined (4 and half years ago).

Jim Keller was only at AMD for about 4 years, and we got Zen.

You can't pretend Raja isn't responsible for Vega.

Its pretty crazy that both Nvidia (who said there will be no volta in the near future for gaming) and AMD came out with Vega to eh reviews. The true story is gaming is not as important to either of these companies anymore- The Pro market is exploding - its about compute performance - vega was built to be a killer in the compute market. AMD cards and Vega do very well at compute. This also helps with mining ect. I found a vid online - this dude is not the most entertaining but he is very good with understanding the technology and what is happening from market perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVPUjadCyh8

 

[stockolicious]

Corpspeak translation: Our token supply of standalone MSRP priced loss leader cards, will get another token resupply, with the majority of stock going to bundles and premium priced cards.

Its becoming evident that Vega was a compute performance card first and foremost, gaming secondary - right now that is where the money is. Nvidia and AMD have downgraded gaming to pursue other more lucrative things around compute. If you look at AMD cards they are very good at compute that is probably why they pivoted like they did. The pricing is going up and they are selling every card they can make but its not to gamers - Nvidia has that whole gaming market. (qualification is AMD will take share there due to Ryzen attach rate) "Gaming is no longer the #1 priority of GPU makers" With AMD's budget they had to make a choice and they made the correct one as their tech is better at compute and would not have beaten NVDA's titan in gaming performance.

 

[AtenRa]

Well...
RX VEGA is 486mm^2, it is 14nm. I expected AMD to push gaming performance and they failed hard. RX VEGA is only good for gamers, because of freesync and price(for now)... thats all. Otherwise it is failure...

Im very curious to understand why as a consumer/Gamer I care if the GPU is 486mm2 or 600mm2 or 300mm2 ???

Desktop Gamer - he/she needs a Graphics cards for 1920x1080/2560x1440 with a budget of $400-450

With Vega 56 we now have a second choice that we didnt have for over a year. For almost the same price, one card is faster and has more features, the other has lower power consumption.
This is what we should care about and honestly what reviews that addressing the consumers/gamers should have aimed for to communicate.

I dont like VEGA from the technological perspective but from the Gamer/consumer point of view its a second choice we didnt have that brinks competition in the $400+ segment and for that its certainly not a failure.

 

[PeterScott]

Its becoming evident that Vega was a compute performance card first and foremost, gaming secondary - right now that is where the money is. Nvidia and AMD have downgraded gaming to pursue other more lucrative things around compute. If you look at AMD cards they are very good at compute that is probably why they pivoted like they did. The pricing is going up and they are selling every card they can make but its not to gamers - Nvidia has that whole gaming market. (qualification is AMD will take share there due to Ryzen attach rate) "Gaming is no longer the #1 priority of GPU makers" With AMD's budget they had to make a choice and they made the correct one as their tech is better at compute and would not have beaten NVDA's titan in gaming performance.

NVidia pretty much owns the datacenter GPU HPC market, and it's only about 10% of NVidia revenues, so that isn't where the money is (yet). A big part of this market is AI/Machine learning, note the Tensor processor units on NVidia GV100. I doubt simply having more compute performance on Vega is really going to translate into increased market share against NVidia in Datacenter HPC.

It doesn't seem very wise to deprecate a market where the vast majority of GPU revenue comes from, to chase one, where that is 1/10th the size that you have no presence in.

Unless by compute, you mean coin miners. That market really makes no sense as a priority, as it can bust in no time.

 

[tamz_msc]

AMD should invest in a GPU architecture that makes it very easy to run CUDA on it natively, because the GPU computing market is completely dominated by CUDA, like the PC is by Windows. Their ROCm efforts are laudable, but it's simply not possible to keep up with the changes every new version of CUDA brings to the table, not to mention the numerous software libraries that require it. By supporting CUDA at an architecture-level, they can focus more on driver development for the consumer market, and then it will be a matter of introducing new technologies in consumer GPUs and then refining the pro drivers for better utilization of those features in the professional GPUs. It's the same thing that NVIDIA does - except the P100 every Pascal Quadro is essentially the same GPU as it's Geforce counterpart, with some added memory here and there. I like to think of the P100/V100 as NVIDIA's Xeon Phi - they're highly specialized, command extreme prices, but do not constitute the bulk of the cards sold in the professional market. I think that NVIDIA can circumvent a lot of the issues with new architectures that AMD always has to face simply because every new NVIDIA GPU is guaranteed to support CUDA.

Im very curious to understand why as a consumer/Gamer I care if the GPU is 486mm2 or 600mm2 or 300mm2 ???

Desktop Gamer - he/she needs a Graphics cards for 1920x1080/2560x1440 with a budget of $400-450

With Vega 56 we now have a second choice that we didnt have for over a year. For almost the same price, one card is faster and has more features, the other has lower power consumption.
This is what we should care about and honestly what reviews that addressing the consumers/gamers should have aimed for to communicate.

I dont like VEGA from the technological perspective but from the Gamer/consumer point of view its a second choice we didnt have that brinks competition in the $400+ segment and for that its certainly not a failure.

Well Vega 56 isn't compelling enough against the GTX 1070 based on the criteria you've laid out. It isn't a better performer, the price isn't competitive - mining craze notwithstanding, and it consumes a heck of a lot power to merely trade blows with the GTX 1070.

Freesync/Gsync isn't even an issue here because different people have different expectations of what they want from a monitor. But everyone cares about performance, and to a lesser extent power and thermals. Being so late to the fight, Vega is barely able to match the performance while being significantly behind in power and thermals. I don't see how Vega is going to attract those people who've held out for this long.