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

[LTC8K6]

How does 56 look good consuming so much more power than 1070?

 

[Sweepr]

When the best card is the card that competes with gtx 1070 level performance. Great for the amd crowd that cared but amd completely left the high end crowd in the dust. That's the complete abandonment of those of us who wanted to game at 4k. This is 1440p level performance.

If Volta launches in January - March I think some people will wish they held out a little longer when they see their gpu is a low midrange gtx 2060.
Less efficient gtx 1070/1080s aren't that appealing this late in the cycle

If someone told me a few months ago that an out of the box 14nm FinFET Vega 64 delivers worse performance per watt than a 2.5 years old 28nm GTX 980 Ti, I'd call that person crazy. And the competition is certainly looking at ways to convince those Pascal owners to upgrade in a few months. Based on GV100 FP32 specs, they might achieve another 30-50% perf/watt bump, which could enable GTX 1070 / GTX 1080 performance levels (hence matching/beating Vega) for a mainstream GV106 at 100-125W TDP.

 

[utahraptor]

So what went wrong here? Surely when they designed these cards they could simulate the performance? Once they had engineering samples they could confirm their simulations. What do they have to gain by bringing this to the market?

 

[imported_bman]

Has any of these reviews tried downclocking the memory? I am curious how Vega scales with memory bandwidth and downclocking the HBM might give some insight into if/how Vega is bandwidth limited.

 

[tential]

Vega 56 looks good. A little better than a 1070 and a good pairing with a cheaper-than-GSync 1440 Freesync monitor.

Vega 64 is just... ok. It's best use case is with a 4k Freesync monitor. Which is basically what Lisa Su said "smooth 4k gaming". Even the atrocious GTA V results look better when you look at the 99th %ile results.

I have a 4k Freesync monitor ($300 less than the GSYNC version) and I'll probably wait for a non-blower version and sell my 480 to a miner.

I had hoped for better, but it's basically what I've been expecting for several months now.

Is Vega really enough perf for you at 4k?

 

[railven]

How does 56 look good consuming so much more power than 1070?

Reading some other conclusions, because according to AT, it's aggressively priced. And TechPowerUP seems to have drank some crazy kool aid when they list Backplate and dual bioses are pros.

Some of these reviews are bending backwards hard to not slam these cards. I wouldn't call myself fully objective yet (I still want Radeon to succeed) but the Vega64 should be put on suicide alert. Outside of just wanting to own a Radeon, this card needs a price cut and the Liquid Cooled version should be the $500 base model fighting GTX 1080 FE, because a $50 more 1080 AIBs will DESTROY the $700 LC version.

 

[amenx]

How does 56 look good consuming so much more power than 1070?

Freesync.

 

[Glo.]

According to ComputerBase.de Primitive Shaders, and High Bandwidth Cache Controller are "inaktiv" in drivers.
High Bandwidth cache still can be switched "on" in drivers.

Quotes, translated, about Primitive Shaders: Problem: This function is also currently disabled in the driver. Vega currently only uses the traditional pipeline. When does this change? AMD does not call an appointment.

About High Bandwidth Cache: Problem: Currently, the HBCC is still switched off by default because the experience gained is not sufficient to activate the HBCC consistently. However, this can be changed in the Radeon Settings menu. Then, on the Radeon RX Vega, you can configure how much memory the High Bandwidth Cache Controller is to use as extended GPU memory - a maximum of 64 gigabytes is possible.

So in the end: it is not functional GPU, yet, with very important features being disabled still. Great release by AMD.

 

[Rifter]

Reading some other conclusions, because according to AT, it's aggressively priced. And TechPowerUP seems to have drank some crazy kool aid when they list Backplate and dual bioses are pros.

Some of these reviews are bending backwards hard to not slam these cards. I wouldn't call myself fully objective yet (I still want Radeon to succeed) but the Vega64 should be put on suicide alert. Outside of just wanting to own a Radeon, this card needs a price cut and the Liquid Cooled version should be the $500 base model fighting GTX 1080 FE, because a $50 more 1080 AIBs will DESTROY the $700 LC version.

Like ive said from the beginning pricing is key. The full model must be at least $50-100 less than 1080 or its DOA. No one will spend 1080 prices for slightly less than 1080 perf for significantly more power usage. People who care about efficiency wont buy in anyways, you've lost those sales already, but AMD can still reel in the diehard fans to try and salvage this IF they price it right.

 

[tential]

NV is just going to continue to milk people. With what AMD dragged out to represent their side for basically the remainder of 2017 and probably all of 2018, I won't be surprised if the G-Sync tax also inflates.

Well, guess the wait to see what AIBs can do but those aren't even expected until freaking September. Fury didn't do this bad and AMD ditched that name. I can only imagine how they'll try to distance themselves from Vega.

I think this is why I haven't gone Nvidia. This framing of Nvidia milking people. It's a bad frame. It's not really fair is it? Did Nvidia milk you really? Imagine if you had gone my route instead and Nvidia didn't "milk" you.

You would have never experienced 980ti or 1080ti levels of perf at similar times. You'd still wait for 1080ti performance until Navi or longer....

The price Nvidia charged for gpus this generation was a steal given the competition and given mining.

Nvidia didn't Milk anyone. They sold you a money printing machine.

Nvidia may be an amazing corporation which I've always respected.
It's about time we respect them for actually delivering value at the high end.

Including the ridiculous framing of gsync tax which doesn't ever factor in gsync benefits over freesync. It's just been really a crusade against Nvidia that is borderline irrational.
Nvidia has only been more and more competitive... And the rhetoric has not reflected this.

 

[LTC8K6]

Freesync.

But a little while ago, a 45 watt higher TDP of a certain CPU over another was a source of giggles and a deal breaker to a lot of posters...

 

[Gikaseixas]

Vega 64 pricing is ridiculous, given the performance we get from it. Nvidia looks at that and thinks, hmmmm GTX2080 can be priced at $1000

Sent from my SM-C9000 using Tapatalk

 

[railven]

So in the end: it is not functional GPU, yet, with very important features being disabled still. Great release by AMD.

Not sure if this is sarcasm. I know I'm sarcastic, but how does one person say the first part of this sentence (bold) and then the second without a little grin. Even reading I had to chuckle.

 

[Mr Evil]

Any info regarding if consumer Vega supports SR-IOV for GPU Virtualization? AMD said that Vega itself can do up to 16 Virtual Functions, but they didn't stated if standard Radeons will support it, even in a cut down version (Less VFs than 16). I have been waiting for launch day just to know THAT little detail.

Level One Techs typically cover that sort of thing. Their preliminary review didn't cover it, but I expect they will do more testing sometime soon.

 

[Gideon]

2 years for 30% performance. Really patetic show for RTG.

2 Years and 30% performance would be perfectly acceptable at the same process node. What makes it abysmal is that it happened when moving from a 28nm planar process to a 14nm FinFET and with additional power draw to boot. Process changes have always been the biggest bumps in GPU performance for a looong long time.

In contrast, AMD managed to extract 52% extra IPC from the ZEN core (compared to Excavator) from the very same shrink while keeping or upping the clock-speed at the same power-draw.

I mean, Vega has about 4 billion extra transistors compared to Fury. Thats nearly as much as the entire Tahiti chip (280X)! The majority of which go to this clock-speed increase that regresses per-clock performance up to 20% while drawing extra power constantly (compared to new features that might at least be off at times) ...

 

[Glo.]

Not sure if this is sarcasm. I know I'm sarcastic, but how does one person say the first part of this sentence (bold) and then the second without a little grin. Even reading I had to chuckle.

I think there is pretty obvious sarcasm apparent.

If you release incomplete product, even with best intent, and priced... competitively, that is "great" release.

 

[Crumpet]

To everyone over the last year that i've suggested to "wait for Vega".. please accept my humblest and sincerest apologies.

The salt in the wound is in my country I can get a 1080ti for very little money more than a Vega 64 air.... 1080ti's are actually CHEAPER than the 64 liquid, with none of the bundle bonuses.

 

[Phynaz]

To everyone over the last year that i've suggested to "wait for Vega".. please accept my humblest and sincerest apologies.

The salt in the wound is in my country I can get a 1080ti for very little money more than a Vega 64 air.... 1080ti's are actually CHEAPER than the 64 liquid, with none of the bundle bonuses.

This is a stand up post.

 

[french toast]

I would like to know what the hell is wrong with it, Something has to be wrong, some fault or major bottleneck.
Is very bizzare it really is, RTG remind me of Nintendo's hardware engineering team circa 3ds/Wii/Wii u, expecting software to pick up the slack.
Except this is much worse, as it's actually a brand new up to date design, cram packed full of mod cons and technology, it's just damn bizzare it's actually annoying, purely from a wanting to know perspective.

How the hell did they achieve the impossible? That's certainly one peice of marketing they got bang on the money, just not the way we thought.

 

[Erithan13]

Just starting to get caught up with the reviews.

56 is looking fairly respectable. It's maybe not the slam-dunk AMD needed against the 1070 but at least it's not disgracing itself.

64 is amazing for all the wrong reasons. I'm not overly concerned with heat and power draw here (290 owners represent!) but even I have limits and this thing is way past them. I've seen 500W card draw reported for the liquid version under overclocking. If it was stomping the 1080ti for less money that could be a tolerable trade off. As it is even the decision to release the 64 seems pretty mind-boggling let alone the prices they seem to be asking.

 

[tential]

Remember when we complained about fury x.... Lol... Man.... I miss those days.

How could it be worse than Fiji release we thought? Lol....

 

[Rifter]

As it is even the decision to release the 64 seems pretty mind-boggling let alone the prices they seem to be asking.

This to me is truly most baffling part. WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY THINKING?????? this 64 needs to be priced like a 1070 or slightly less!!!!

 

[Gideon]

And not to just be a negative nanny.. The RX Vega 56 at least looks decent, I might convince myself to get one, if I'm able to get an aftermarket card for a decent price, just to have my envisioned All-AMD build ... but still, after Ryzen I'm sure I'm not the only one who expected more ...

 

[4K_shmoorK]

Bought an RX 64 at 9:07 on newegg, but they voided my order. Wanted to do some testing but oh well.

Also realized you could buy a 1080 Ti for $100 more...

 

[thilanliyan]

Yeah pretty disappointing release from AMD. Hope they get some gains from driver updates eventually, and hopefully the prices go down, because $599 is not what MSRP should be.