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

[mohit9206]

Polaris/Vega/Navi are all named after stars. Stars burn bright so it's just a play on the naming.

Ok that makes sense but it would be confusing to readers who would think Vega is a great product as burning bright is a very positive phrase.
Rather than making a play on words, maybe a more appropriate title would have been better.
Like for example the title of GTX 480 review is " 6 Months Late, Was It Worth the Wait?"
So Vega could have been
" 14 Months Late, Was It Worth the Wait?"

 

[zir_blazer]

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.

 

[Mercennarius]

I'm just happy we have an alternative to a 1080/1070 now that isn't made by NVidia....will be a sad day if we no longer have another company to look to for high end GPU alternatives.

Vega 56 really is the winner here...and with better drivers and a better cooler will be a great GPU for 99% of the population.

 

[MTDEW]

Are there any reviews that pit the Vega 56/64s against aftermarket 1070/80s, instead of the founders editon that no one sane buys anymore?

Hardware Unboxed did in their youtube review.
Just look in the description for test system specs and he mentions it in the video too of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQCal8t-qvQ

TEST SYSTEM SPECS
Intel Core i7-7700K
Asrock Z270Taichi
32GB DDR4-3200 RAM (CL14)
Samsung SSD 850 Evo 4TB
Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Gaming [11GB]
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X [8GB]
MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X [8GB]
MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X+ 9Gbps [6GB]
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 [8GB]
AMD Radeon Fury X [4GB]
Gigabyte Aorus RX 580 XTR [8GB]
Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver 384.94 WHQL
AMD Radeon RX Vega 17.30.1051 Beta 6a
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

 

[PeterScott]

I'm just happy we have an alternative to a 1080/1070 now that isn't made by NVidia....will be a sad day if we no longer have another company to look to for high end GPU alternatives.

Vega 56 really is the winner here...and with better drivers and a better cooler will be a great GPU for 99% of the population.

Winner against what? Even Tech Report has the GTX 1070 edging the Vega 56 on overall performance. MSRP on the GTX 1070 is $349.

It's only mining inflated 1070 street prices that make a Vega 56 a reasonable option for the money, if Vega 56 holds to it's MSRP when it hits the street. Which seems questionable if everyone decides this is the Vega to get.

 

[Zstream]

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.

Same here, unfortunately no one does pro-consumer or professional reviews anymore. I'd think Brian Maddens site would have something, but that would be months/year down the road.

 

[Mercennarius]

Winner against what? Even Tech Report has the GTX 1070 edging the Vega 56 on overall performance. MSRP on the GTX 1070 is $349.

It's only mining inflated 1070 street prices that make a Vega 56 a reasonable option for the money, if Vega 56 holds to it's MSRP when it hits the street. Which seems questionable if everyone decides this is the Vega to get.

I just looked through Guru3Ds results and it looked like they had Vega 56 ahead in most games over the 1070...certainly in DX12 it had a healthy advantage. And this is with launch drivers and a reference cooler, we all know things will only get better in the coming months. I'm not saying the card is significantly better than Nvidia...i'm saying it's a great performing GPU at a competitive price and it's nice we have the option. And finally, if it's anything like the least few generations, over time this card will continue to have a bigger and bigger performance advantage over the 1070 based on driver improvements and developers better utilizing the architecture.

 

[lixlax]

Same number of stream processors, TMUs and ROPs, ~50% higher clockspeed, 4b more transistors, 14nm and more than 2 years of development time compared to Fiji. Doesn't sound too bad on paper.
But then- about 25% average perfomance increase with increased power draw as well is dissapointing to say the least. Vega is almost 20% slower per clock compared to Fiji witch itself had regression in that regard compared to Hawaii. Something went terribly wrong with this architecture.

On the positive side AMD has at least something out that is finally faster than Fury X.

 

[zinfamous]

wow, so Vega 56 actually looks a little bit better than I expected from the earlier leaks, and is exactly what I had been looking for...only complaint for me would be the noise and heat, but I think a solid aftermarket tri-fan or mini AIO solution would be perfect, so I will wait for those models. Hell, it manages to run just under the 1080 in some of those benches @ 2K and 4K!

Very disappointing, though, how incredibly close the 56 and 64 are in many of those benches. Vega really does have a scaling issue, or whatever it is that is going on.

 

[PeterScott]

I just looked through Guru3Ds results and it looked like they had Vega 56 ahead in most games over the 1070...certainly in DX12 it had a healthy advantage.

Different reviews seem to showing different things. HardOCP has the GTX 1070 neck and Neck with Vega 64 in DX11.

I do think Vega 56 is definitely the better Vega option, but how viable it is depends on where the real world pricing lands.

 

[n0x1ous]

Was able to snag an XFX liquid from Best Buy......everything was out of stock at Newegg immediately. No offer for the pack discounts on the hardware on best buy, but I didnt want them anyway. the game vouchers are in the box apparently

 

[Phynaz]

Edit:

Stalhart beat me to it.

 

[Phynaz]

So after all the price was the price of the bundle.
There is ONE card at $499. Just to be true to the marketing.... lol.

Beat me to it. It's going to be mandatory to pay the extra $100 if you want one of these.

 

[Shmee]

I am interested to see custom cooled cards, especially for vega 56. At the right price, those could be a nice option.

 

[fleshconsumed]

yeah but what if a miracle driver appears and doubles mining performance? you'd want to bet on getting one now instead of being left behind later.

https://www.techpowerup.com/235813/...rmance-reportedly-doubled-with-driver-updates

So Vega will have double performance at double the price and power consumption. If this is actually true, if Vega driver update will double performance, and if this was a year ago when mining difficulty was low, getting Vega would have made sense from density perspective. However, ETH mining difficulty is through the roof, even if Vega attains Mh/W rating of RX480/1070, the buyer will never get ROI. Anyway, I look forward to cheap 580/Vega six months from now when disappointed miners will start dumping their cards.

 

[nathanddrews]

This thread really exists for one reason... OP trying to be the creator of a mega-thread, become famous and get all the ladies.

It's working! So many ladies! I'll post pictures later, but trust me, the ladies have arrived!


I'm trying to update the first post, but I think I've hit a wall in terms of the number of links I can include. Not sure...

http://pclab.pl/art75140.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_56/31.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_64/31.html

 

[amenx]

Good showing for the 56. Not so for the 64. Sadly for AMD, they could have a very small window to milk vega for all its worth. I expect Nvidia to push forward their Volta release in response. If they make a statement in that regard, it could hit vega sales even way before a volta release. If you knew something better was (hypothetically) 4-5 months away (or sooner), lot of people could delay their GPU purchase.

 

[khon]

Looking through the reviews it looks like AMD has basically reached the same performance that NVIDIA had a year ago, but at much worse power efficiency. In fact Vega is only barely beating Fiji in terms of performance/watt.

Not exactly great for AMD, but for people who only care about price per performance, which is to say most consumers, AMD does finally have a legit alternative to the GTX 1070/1080.

 

[UglyDuckling]

So the same issue is here, AMD Vega is basically suped up Fiji.

Slower at 1080P, gains more ground the higher the resolution you push. Not a terrible thing but for that power consumption, heat output, is it really worth it?

To me Vega looks like AMD with Bulldozer, better at larger tasks, weaker at smaller ones, it is indeed an IPC problem.

 

[PhonakV30]

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Radeon_RX_Vega_56/36.html

Reference Vega 56 = 75'c
So with AIB Air Cooling , It could reach 55'c

 

[Arachnotronic]

Good showing for the 56. Not so for the 64. Sadly for AMD, they could have a very small window to milk vega for all its worth. I expect Nvidia to push forward their Volta release in response. If they make a statement in that regard, it could hit vega sales even way before a volta release. If you knew something better was (hypothetically) 4-5 months away (or sooner), lot of people could delay their GPU purchase.

A small price cut on 1070, which is already cheap to make with salvage GP104 dies + common GDDR5 memory would kill Vega 56 stone cold dead.

 

[nathanddrews]

Looking through the reviews it looks like AMD has basically reached the same performance that NVIDIA had a year ago, but at much worse power efficiency. In fact Vega is only barely beating Fiji in terms of performance/watt.

Not exactly great for AMD, but for people who only care about price per performance, which is to say most consumers, AMD does finally have a legit alternative to the GTX 1070/1080.

Linus said as much, basically stating toward the end of the video that Vega finally answered Maxwell. Since the 1070 is more in line with what I typically buy, I'm looking forward most the Vega 56, Volta 2070, Navi RX770, whatever...

 

[PhonakV30]

A small price cut on 1070, which is already cheap to make with salvage GP104 dies + common GDDR5 memory would kill Vega 56 stone cold dead.

and price will be at least $100 more than MSRP due to mining.

 

[swilli89]

Winner against what? Even Tech Report has the GTX 1070 edging the Vega 56 on overall performance. MSRP on the GTX 1070 is $349.

It's only mining inflated 1070 street prices that make a Vega 56 a reasonable option for the money, if Vega 56 holds to it's MSRP when it hits the street. Which seems questionable if everyone decides this is the Vega to get.

From Anandtech's review:

Furthermore, when compared head-to-head with the GeForce GTX 1070, its closest competition, the Vega 56 enjoys a small but none the less significant 8% performance advantage over its NVIDIA counterpart.

 

[Bouowmx]

A small price cut on 1070, which is already cheap to make with salvage GP104 dies + common GDDR5 memory would kill Vega 56 stone cold dead.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 already got a price cut, from 380 to 350 USD. Just that demand changed equilibrium and raised the actual selling price.