AMD Vega builders thread - rx 64 & rx 56

[Vincendre]

Hey, sorry If someone already asked, but I'm wondering if using the Enzotech copper heatsink on VEGA VRM and Chokes is safe ?
I'm asking since I saw someone did something similar in page 5. But I'm reading online that It might short circuit the card in some cases.

But since all heatsink will be covered by some thermal tape, my future Morpheus mod should be fine isn't it ?
I hope that I'm in the right topic for this, Thanks !

 

[zinfamous]

No, the MSRP of custom v56 cards starts @ $649.99. V64 custom start @ $749.99. Both were before the memory prices skyrocketed too. Initially the Sapphire Pulse V56 was listed at 789 euro.

EDIT: You are right about the FE cards. Those people got a heck of a deal in hindsight although I personally refuse to have a blower regardless of price. That aside I'm selling my R9 Fury for more than it would normally fetch in a "normal" market cycle. I'm going to pay $350 out of pocket for the new card. That's inline with my budget philosophy for buying new parts.

AIB v56 MSRP was always $649? so, $250 more than the standard card? I don't believe that is a real MSRP, as those didn't start appearing until the massive shortages of GPUs in general and price-gouging was well under way with Pascal, Polaris, and Vega.

I can't recall standard vs AIB pricing ever being anything like a $250 difference. There is no way that is legitimate outside of this paradigm of a crypto-dominated world. It's usually around $50.

 

[Despoiler]

Typing this from my Sapphire Pulse. Sweet card. It's whisper quiet just like I thought it might be. I can't hear it at all even under an overclocked load. Performance is good. It will run @ 1550mhz flat line no problem with max power limit. It doesn't go too much above that even with max clock @ 1600mhz. It's probably power limited like the other Vega 56. Power usage seems to be relatively OK. Adrenalin pegs the power around 225w with spikes to 250w. Max temp I've seen is 73C on the default fan profile. Overall I think Sapphire nailed this card.

 

[krumme]

Typing this from my Sapphire Pulse. Sweet card. It's whisper quiet just like I thought it might be. I can't hear it at all even under an overclocked load. Performance is good. It will run @ 1550mhz flat line no problem with max power limit. It doesn't go too much above that even with max clock @ 1600mhz. It's probably power limited like the other Vega 56. Power usage seems to be relatively OK. Adrenalin pegs the power around 225w with spikes to 250w. Max temp I've seen is 71C. Overall I think Sapphire nailed this card.

Sounds really nice congrats
I might give it a look

 

[Veradun]

Typing this from my Sapphire Pulse. Sweet card. It's whisper quiet just like I thought it might be. I can't hear it at all even under an overclocked load. Performance is good. It will run @ 1550mhz flat line no problem with max power limit. It doesn't go too much above that even with max clock @ 1600mhz. It's probably power limited like the other Vega 56. Power usage seems to be relatively OK. Adrenalin pegs the power around 225w with spikes to 250w. Max temp I've seen is 73C on the default fan profile. Overall I think Sapphire nailed this card.

Is it the one with the "passthrough" heatsink? I find that design brilliant.

 

[Despoiler]

Is it the one with the "passthrough" heatsink? I find that design brilliant.

Yes sir! It's the one. I agree with the design. Short PCB due to HBM is just killer.

I did some more tweaking. It turns out that in Wattman the target temp makes a pretty big impact on how the card operates. AMD put in a target temp and a max temp which has a slope between the two points. Much like setting up the fan slope. The card will try, and does, stay around your target temp. I find this unintuitive because it constrains your overclock. If you set +50% power limit it's still going to try to stay at the target temp. It seems unnecessary. Maybe I'm misinterpreting its purpose or use case. MSI Afterburner has it's own quirk. If I set +50% power it automatically sets max temp to 85. I can't +50% power and have max temp @ say 80.

HBM overclocking on this card is going backwards in terms of performance. The average GPU core clock goes down. I'm not sure if the overclock is generating that much more heat or if it's bugged behavior.

Firestrike graphics OC score is 21512 on the 18.3.3 drivers. http://www.3dmark.com/fs/15149429

 

[Despoiler]

Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 review @ Computerbase.de. They had some interesting results on overclocking. OC the HBM, but not the core and it's faster than the other cards. I'll have to try that.

https://www.computerbase.de/2018-03/sapphire-radeon-rx-vega-56-pulse-test/

 

[jackstar7]

Just curious how things are going with the recent drivers (18.5 and 18.Q2). Anyone got any issues of late? Or have things started to stabilize?

 

[estarkey7]

Just curious how things are going with the recent drivers (18.5 and 18.Q2). Anyone got any issues of late? Or have things started to stabilize?

I'm running latest pro drivers on the Vega Frontier Edition with 18.4 gaming drivers with no issues.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Paratus]

Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 review @ Computerbase.de. They had some interesting results on overclocking. OC the HBM, but not the core and it's faster than the other cards. I'll have to try that.

https://www.computerbase.de/2018-03/sapphire-radeon-rx-vega-56-pulse-test/

That’s a good link - even in German. I was looking for a comparison between aftermarket 56’s.


It shows my Powercolor Red Devil RX Vega 56 using the OC bios is about 8% faster than stock. Which is what I’ve found in my own testing.

I’ve also found that by undervolting and increasing memory speeds I can knock back power by a few percent while eeking out another couple of percent performance.

 

[zinfamous]

Now I'm curious if this air-cooled "Nano" is any good...and if it will ever be available.

...also somewhat disappointed that it doesn't have the liquid cooler like the previous nano, but I guess maybe it isn't really needed?

 

[jackstar7]

Jumping in with both feet, I now have a V64 and an FE ordered to see which will work best for a 3440x1440 100hz Freesync monitor.

It's my first time with adaptive sync, so very curious to see how it all shakes out.

I'm actually most excited by the tinkering things will require to really get going. CRU for the monitor's Freesync range, adjusting the voltages for the video cards... even all the driver nonsense. It's been a while since I've really put time into my computer. Hopefully I have that time, and it ends up working out as well as I hope.

Any tips and tricks are appreciated. I've been reading up a lot about the various steps involved and it definitely seems like it could get complex.

 

[EXCellR8]

I have my Gigabyte RX Vega 64 Limited up for sale on HW.

I think it's against forum rules to post links but it's in the marketplace under video cards.

 

[jackstar7]

Jumping in with both feet, I now have a V64 and an FE ordered to see which will work best for a 3440x1440 100hz Freesync monitor.

It's my first time with adaptive sync, so very curious to see how it all shakes out.

I'm actually most excited by the tinkering things will require to really get going. CRU for the monitor's Freesync range, adjusting the voltages for the video cards... even all the driver nonsense. It's been a while since I've really put time into my computer. Hopefully I have that time, and it ends up working out as well as I hope.

Any tips and tricks are appreciated. I've been reading up a lot about the various steps involved and it definitely seems like it could get complex.

My monitor showed up today - Viotek GN34C, and although I got it at a solid discount, it appears to have no flaws to speak of (save that I want to pick up a vesa adapter). Vega64 shows up tomorrow and FE should be here by Monday... so at least my current gpu will be going up for sale soon. Probably one of the Vegas and then some other things, too, to offset these expenses.

Fun times.

 

[EXCellR8]

What's your current GPU?

 

[jackstar7]

What's your current GPU?

980ti (MSI G6)

The reason for the change is primarily that I got my hands on the monitor for under $400 and it's pretty great and I'd like to be able to get the Freesync benefits from it. The Vega64 has arrived and the FE should be showing up early next week based on the tracking info. I'm feeling very likely that I'll deal with the extra trouble of the FE just to have the extra VRAM available for the future.

Either way, I plan to undervolt as quickly as I can manage it to see how low I can go towards keeping things cool-ish.

 

[Paratus]

980ti (MSI G6)

The reason for the change is primarily that I got my hands on the monitor for under $400 and it's pretty great and I'd like to be able to get the Freesync benefits from it. The Vega64 has arrived and the FE should be showing up early next week based on the tracking info. I'm feeling very likely that I'll deal with the extra trouble of the FE just to have the extra VRAM available for the future.

Either way, I plan to undervolt as quickly as I can manage it to see how low I can go towards keeping things cool-ish.

May I suggest benchmarking while recording data with HWINFO64. I’ve found it useful to look through the data while undervolting/OCing to see if Wattman is actually doing something and to give me a starting point to lower voltages and increase clocks.

(I save a .csv file, dump it into Excel, and use some conditional forumulas to calculate the max and average voltages, power use, core clocks, temps, etc while GPU usage is above 90%)

 

[jackstar7]

May I suggest benchmarking while recording data with HWINFO64. I’ve found it useful to look through the data while undervolting/OCing to see if Wattman is actually doing something and to give me a starting point to lower voltages and increase clocks.

(I save a .csv file, dump it into Excel, and use some conditional forumulas to calculate the max and average voltages, power use, core clocks, temps, etc while GPU usage is above 90%)

That's good advice! Thank you. I don't typically use synth benches, but will jump into some games and take a look at how things go. I definitely intend to take it slow and steady and incrementally to reduce the voltages, since there's no telling what kind of chip I'll have.

 

[B-Riz]

Anyone have the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56? Really tempted to get one now as Newegg has em for $500 and I do not think they are going to drop any lower. I also have an Acer CB281HK Freesync 4K 60Hz monitor to use with it. But may pickup a Freesync 2560x1440 144 Hz panel.

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/professional-model/UM.PB1EE.001

http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=19E343EE-46D4-45E8-9E3E-1693AB30DF14&lang=eng

 

[Despoiler]

Anyone have the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56? Really tempted to get one now as Newegg has em for $500 and I do not think they are going to drop any lower. I also have an Acer CB281HK Freesync 4K 60Hz monitor to use with it. But may pickup a Freesync 2560x1440 144 Hz panel.

https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/professional-model/UM.PB1EE.001

http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=19E343EE-46D4-45E8-9E3E-1693AB30DF14&lang=eng

I have one. Great card. Do you have any specific questions on it?

 

[B-Riz]

I have one. Great card. Do you have any specific questions on it?

Ummm, any outstanding issues? I read the review on the Gigabyte 56 and it was disheartening.

And, do you think it is worth the $500? (It seems like a fair price compared to reference launch $399 ish)

 

[Despoiler]

Ummm, any outstanding issues? I read the review on the Gigabyte 56 and it was disheartening.

And, do you think it is worth the $500? (It seems like a fair price compared to reference launch $399 ish)

I've had zero issues. Gigabyte has seriously gone downhill across their product lines. I won't personally buy anything from them. It's worth the $500 IMO. People referencing the $399 reference design MSRP missed the memo that the MSRP was raised when the custom cards hit. Mostly due to VRAM price increases. The Sapphire Nitro v56 was MSRP of around $650.

 

[B-Riz]

I've had zero issues. Gigabyte has seriously gone downhill across their product lines. I won't personally buy anything from them. It's worth the $500 IMO. People referencing the $399 reference design MSRP missed the memo that the MSRP was raised when the custom cards hit. Mostly due to VRAM price increases. The Sapphire Nitro v56 was MSRP of around $650.

Oh yeah, I'm not thinking it should be $399.

Did you do any tweaking in Radeon Settings or use other software to tweak?

And, are you getting the FPS you want? I checked out your panel; are you targeting high frames or quality settings? Or does that depend on the game?

 

[Despoiler]

Oh yeah, I'm not thinking it should be $399.

Did you do any tweaking in Radeon Settings or use other software to tweak?

And, are you getting the FPS you want? I checked out your panel; are you targeting high frames or quality settings? Or does that depend on the game?

Yes I use Radeon settings. It allows tweaking anything I need. Yes I'm targeting high framerates to eliminate tearing and enable black frame insertion(strobing) on my monitor to eliminate persistence. However, everything I play is set to high or ultra settings. If I don't use ultra it's because it's too small of a difference. It's not worth the perf hit. In general I don't have issues maintaining 120fps.

 

[EXCellR8]

Still no Nano's available... they might as well save them for 7nm at this point.