[Hardware Unboxed] Finds 1070Ti is 5% faster than RX Vega 56

[Paratus]

I can’t say I totally agree with his performance conclusions. He compared an aftermarket MSI Gaming 1070Ti against a reference RX Vega 56.

With the various turbo algorithms used by each manufacturer the improved cooling capabilities of an aftermarket cards are very important to get the best performance.

I have a Powercolor Red Devil RX Vega 56 that I’ve been testing.

The better cooling makes a large difference straight out of the box performance.

(I’m hoping to finish up a review of the Red Devil like i did for my Threadripper 1900X - https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/my-threadripper-1900x-semi-formal-review-part-1.2544112/ )


In 3DMark Timespy Guru3D had the stock RX56 at 6601/6264 (total score/GPU score) and the MSI 1070Ti at 7123/6840. That’s 9% slower than the 1070Ti.


My Red Devil on the TR1900X Out of the box scores 7120/6885 @223W of GPU power. It’s effectively equivalent to the MSI 1070Ti.

OCing the MEM to 900mhz and undervolting (neither of which I’ve maxed out) gets me 7234/7025 for 208W, 15W less than stock. (Noise is basically the same as stock as I haven’t played with fan speeds yet).

Playing around with core clocks I’ve hit ~7300/7120 which puts me only 3% behind a stock 1080.

So my basic point is - compared apples to apples the aftermarket RX Vega 56s and 1070Tis are basically equivalent. And both are almost on top of the 1080.

 

[tamz_msc]

They're at parity only if you consider 3DMark performance, which always tend to reflect changes in core/memory clocks better than games do. Considering the fact that two of the most popular games right now are based on UE4, real-world performance is currently better on the 1070Ti than Vega 56.

 

[happy medium]

Techpowerup has the gtx1070ti FE equal to a aftermarket 1070ti and the FE card overclocks higher than all aftermarket cards.

They also have the 1070ti 6 % faster than a Vega 56.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1070_Ti_STRIX/30.html

 

[coercitiv]

A quote from the Tom's Hardware review of Gigabyte RX Vega 56:

In practice, the Radeon RX Vega 56 Gaming OC 8G achieves a 9- to 11%-higher clock rate than AMD's reference card, resulting in average frame rates that are anywhere from 6- to 8% better.

 

[amenx]

A 1070ti can be bought now @ $449. What does a 56 go for?

 

[Paratus]

They're at parity only if you consider 3DMark performance, which always tend to reflect changes in core/memory clocks better than games do. Considering the fact that two of the most popular games right now are based on UE4, real-world performance is currently better on the 1070Ti than Vega 56.

Well first off I’m comparing the Red Devil to the reference RX 56 in Timespy and finding it about 9% faster stock vs stock.

The Toms link below shows the Gigabyte aftermarket 56 to also be 9-11% faster than stock across a range of games.

That would make these aftermarket cards on par or slightly faster than the 1070Ti stock vs stock on average

You do have a point about UE4. The aftermarket 56 improvement won’t beat the 1070Ti in all games, UE4 being a prime example.

As always it pays to know what games you like to play.

Techpowerup has the gtx1070ti FE equal to a aftermarket 1070ti and the FE card overclocks higher than all aftermarket cards.

They also have the 1070ti 6 % faster than a Vega 56.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1070_Ti_STRIX/30.html

Yup. It looks like aftermarket or FE doesn’t matter for the 1070Ti in terms of stock performance.

It does however matter for the RX 56. Since the aftermarket 56’s tend to be about 9% faster than stock. Which was the point I was trying to make.

A quote from the Tom's Hardware review of Gigabyte RX Vega 56:

Thanks. That confirms what I’ve been seeing. The aftermarket 56’s tend to run a bit faster than stock.

Now if only the prices were reasonable.

 

[Paratus]

A 1070ti can be bought now @ $449. What does a 56 go for?

Newegg as my Red Devil for $539 (better than the $699 I paid back in January), and they have the Gigabyte model from the Toms review for $499.

While the prices are better the 1070Ti is still the better price to performance buy.

As a note, my issue with the video was specifically with his performance findings not price to performance.

 

[TeknoBug]

Hmmm $600 CDN 1070Ti vs $1000 CDN Vega 56, hard to decide.

 

[Guru]

Techpowerup has the gtx1070ti FE equal to a aftermarket 1070ti and the FE card overclocks higher than all aftermarket cards.

They also have the 1070ti 6 % faster than a Vega 56.
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1070_Ti_STRIX/30.html

That is not true at all. FE cards is purely a money grabbing scheme and those chips are not better in any way than any of the other chips.

Aftermarket 1070ti's usually come factory overclocked, and they usually have better cooling solutions, so its impossible for the FE edition to have the same performance as an AIB card. Any decent AIB custom card will have anywhere from 1% to 4% better performance.

 

[Dribble]

That is not true at all. FE cards is purely a money grabbing scheme and those chips are not better in any way than any of the other chips

There's more then cooling to making a card. The FE cards are all about PC manufacturers, they:
1) guarantee to exist for the life of the card meaning the manufacturer has to only verify it once and then know they will then be able to get that verified card for as long as they are selling PC's with those cards in.
2) use high quality pcb's and components (better then many aftermarket cards) so they will last.
3) remove heat from the case (blower fan) and be compact so easy to integrate into PC's.

For that you pay a premium but it's worth it for PC manufacturers. Nvidia introduced the FE I suggest because it's what PC manufacturers wanted.

 

[Guru]

There's more then cooling to making a card. The FE cards are all about PC manufacturers, they:
1) guarantee to exist for the life of the card meaning the manufacturer has to only verify it once and then know they will then be able to get that verified card for as long as they are selling PC's with those cards in.
2) use high quality pcb's and components (better then many aftermarket cards) so they will last.
3) remove heat from the case (blower fan) and be compact so easy to integrate into PC's.

For that you pay a premium but it's worth it for PC manufacturers. Nvidia introduced the FE I suggest because it's what PC manufacturers wanted.

MSI's Gaming X, Asus Strix, Evga FTW, etc... all have much better cooling, better phase design, better VRM's, better capacitors and lower noise levels.

 

[Paratus]

MSI's Gaming X, Asus Strix, Evga FTW, etc... all have much better cooling, better phase design, better VRM's, better capacitors and lower noise levels.

Yup.

On pascal anything over 60C and boost clocks start falling. So better cooling and power delivery definitely help performance

 

[Bouowmx]

On pascal anything over 60C and boost clocks start falling.

When I use V-F overclocking (GPU Boost 3.0 per-voltage-point frequency offset) to set +160 MHz (2000 MHz actual) at 912.5 mV, frequency reduction of high temperature is minimal. Only 3 bins of difference (37.5 MHz) between 54 and 92 C. EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB SC.

 

[Paratus]

When I use V-F overclocking (GPU Boost 3.0 per-voltage-point frequency offset) to set +160 MHz (2000 MHz actual) at 912.5 mV, frequency reduction of high temperature is minimal. Only 3 bins of difference (37.5 MHz) between 54 and 92 C. EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB SC.

Well in the case of the 1070Ti FE it can lose 100mhz in clock speed at stock.

Ostensibly an aftermarket 1070Ti should hold higher clocks due to being able to hold lower temperatures. It looks like your card holds it core clocks pretty well at higher temps despite being close to a reference design?

For Vega 56 the reference card averages clock speeds in the 1400’s

Mine has been averaging 1550+ which is 8+% more than the reference design.

 

[Bouowmx]

It looks like your card holds it core clocks pretty well at higher temps despite being close to a reference design?

It's because of V-F overclocking (adjusting offset at individual voltages). I tested the frequency difference with more typical global offset overclocking. -200 MHz (to eliminate power throttling of FurMark) results in 87.5 MHz difference between 54 and 92 C.

If doing V-F overclocking, one choosing Founders Edition is not a great loss of, or choosing a partner model is not a great gain of core frequency.

 

[Paratus]

It's because of V-F overclocking (adjusting offset at individual voltages). I tested the frequency difference with more typical global offset overclocking. -200 MHz (to eliminate power throttling of FurMark) results in 87.5 MHz difference between 54 and 92 C.

If doing V-F overclocking, one choosing Founders Edition is not a great loss of, or choosing a partner model is not a great gain of core frequency.

That’s a pretty cool function. Just curious but does it do anything at stock or is it strictly an OCing feature?

 

[cmdrdredd]

That is not true at all. FE cards is purely a money grabbing scheme and those chips are not better in any way than any of the other chips.

Aftermarket 1070ti's usually come factory overclocked, and they usually have better cooling solutions, so its impossible for the FE edition to have the same performance as an AIB card. Any decent AIB custom card will have anywhere from 1% to 4% better performance.

Plus many aftermarket cards have binned chips. This is why EVGA has 10 different models at different speeds which I find ridiculous. They remove the silicon lottery and now charge the consumer a premium for a factory overclocked card. Used to be you could buy a lower end card and overclock yourself. Though GPU overclocking has changed significantly with GPU Boost now and power limits etc and I've found my own GTX1080ti to have almost zero overclocking headroom and setting thermal and power limits higher has no effect on sustained clock speeds over time. Result is running my card stock is the same as using overclock software, even with custom fan profiles. Not terrible as it's a beast of a GPU anyway.

The real benefit of aftermarket cards is the custom PCB with better power handling and of course better thermals from a custom cooling solution. Strangely I find many of the zero rpm fan options for when the card is at idle to be more appealing than anything else.

 

[Bouowmx]

That’s a pretty cool function. Just curious but does it do anything at stock or is it strictly an OCing feature?

If one has to adjust some things in third-party tools, like GUI MSI Afterburner (Voltage/Frequency curve editor), or CLI nvoclock or NVIDIA Inspector, it's not considered stock, right?

 

[dlerious]

That is not true at all. FE cards is purely a money grabbing scheme and those chips are not better in any way than any of the other chips.

Aftermarket 1070ti's usually come factory overclocked, and they usually have better cooling solutions, so its impossible for the FE edition to have the same performance as an AIB card. Any decent AIB custom card will have anywhere from 1% to 4% better performance.

Not sure if it's still the case, but Nvidia restricted speeds for the 1070Ti aftermarket cards at launch. https://www.techpowerup.com/237830/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-ti-overclocking-to-be-restricted