Info Radeon VII owners/buyers thread

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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Ouch, that's a lot of reboots. I get Wattman crashes @ idle every 2-3 days but nothing like that.
 

guskline

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2006
5,338
476
126
My Rad VII is packed and on its way back to ASrock RMA.

BTW, they were very responsive and good to deal with.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
At least you got that sorted. Still wondering if I should put mine under water at some point. Looks like I'll have to go EK for their copper blocks to keep my loop all-copper should I go that route (Bykski apparently only has a nickel/copper waterblock).
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
Potential bad news for some of you waiting for an Alphacool Eiswolf release. Apparently, according to another user who has contacted Alphacool, an Eiswolf for the Radeon VII won't be released for another 2-3 months. This is contrary to the information that I received at the end of March stating it'd be released at the end of April / beginning of May. Now, these are presumably just customer service reps, so everything should be taken with a grain of salt, but if I remember correctly, a Vega Eiswolf was released maybe 6-8 weeks after the Vega 56/64 were released so I can't see it taking that much longer. I'm hopeful for a sooner release rather than later lol.
 
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IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,323
4,904
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Been using the Radeon VII today since my 2080 Ti decided to go Space Invaders on me.

At 970mV with a -20 power limit I'm still hitting around 1800MHz core in gaming and it stays pretty quiet. I'm also having a hard time noticing much difference in performance, surprisingly.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Been using the Radeon VII today since my 2080 Ti decided to go Space Invaders on me.

Ugh, not another one.

At 970mV with a -20 power limit I'm still hitting around 1800MHz core in gaming and it stays pretty quiet. I'm also having a hard time noticing much difference in performance, surprisingly.

Radeon VII delivers again. I'm sure you'll notice some differences somewhere, especially in minfps/.1% scenarios. But those differences do tend to show up more in benchmarks.
 

EXCellR8

Diamond Member
Sep 1, 2010
3,979
839
136
The special edition RED VII was available on AMD to order the other day... not sure if it's still.

Was VERY tempted to buy one just for e-peen but decided not too. Would have looked totally boss in my main rig but :shrug:
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
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41
AMD needed that from the get-go. Wonder how well it'll stack up against the stock cooler. Seen any benchmarks yet?
Nope. Just like when I bought an Eiswolf for my Vega 56, it was so early, I was kind of flying into uncharted territory. I just knew it couldn't be any worse than the stock reference cooler. My overclocked Vega 56 rarely exceeded 55°C while drawing ~280W. And that was with the radiator at the top of the case, sucking in hot air from other components, and only two fans in a push configuration. So I'm expecting 60-65°C core temp under load because I'll be overclocking the card passed 2000 MHz. As long as Junction temps stay way down I'll be happy. Not to mention a quieter experience.

EDIT: They tend to have extremely fast shipping. My first Eiswolf made it to me the next day via DHL from Germany (I live in the US). So I'm hoping to have a similar experience this time around and have it up and running by the end of the weekend.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
As long as Junction temps stay way down I'll be happy.

That's the big question right there. If the build quality of the new Eiswolf matches that of the old one, though, it should wind up being a legit product.
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
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41
Got my Eiswolf 240 installed today. The difference in temperatures are fantastic. I haven't had a lot of time to game extensively with it installed yet, but so far after running some preliminary benchmarks, things are looking really good.

Former Daily OC/UV settings: 1825 MHz @ 990 mV -- Max Core Temp / Junction Temp during Superposition (4K Optimized): 64°C/88°C with fan at 55%
Same Settings + Eiswolf: 39°C/65°C
New Daily OC Settings: 2050 MHz @ 1141 mV -- Max Core Temp / Junction Temp during Superposition (4K Optimized): 48°C/91°C -- I'll be tweaking this more as I go on, but the jump in voltage to get 2100 MHz stable is probably not worth the extra heat.

The noise difference is most welcome. I've put four Arctic P12 PWM fans on the radiator in a push/pull configuration, with the radiator mounted at the front of my Fractal Design Define R6 case. Even with the fans at full blast the amount of noise is a fraction of the reference cooler at even 60%. It's also a more pleasing 'whoosh' sound of air moving.

The difference between the core and junction temperatures are a bit curious, but the instructions do say to tighten the backplate screws after 12 hours of use. I might consider taking apart the card and reapplying the thermal paste but I'm confident I did a fine job applying and spreading the thermal paste as per the instructions so it might just be due to height differences or maybe slight imperfections in the waterblock's copper plate.

I also took some pictures during the teardown / install if anyone is curious, but so far I'm very happy.
 
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DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Wow, that core/hotspot delta is huge. 43C? At least it keeps the beast in check (below 100C hotspot) but still. Ouch. Nice OC though.

On unrelated news, have any of you tried out your free The Division 2 code yet? I finally broke down and did it (Uplay ugh, it's still a buggy mess), and I noticed the other day with my 1940 MHz overclock on air that the GPU temporarily boosted to over 2050 MHz during gameplay, multiple times. Hotspot temps never got over 98C. This was in 1440p with max quality settings.
 
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Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
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Wow, that core/hotspot delta is huge. 43C? At least it keeps the beast in check (below 100C hotspot) but still. Ouch. Nice OC though.

On unrelated news, have any of you tried out your free The Division 2 code yet? I finally broke down and did it (Uplay ugh, it's still a buggy mess), and I noticed the other day with my 1940 MHz overclock on air that the GPU temporarily boosted to over 2050 MHz during gameplay, multiple times. Hotspot temps never got over 98C. This was in 1440p with max quality settings.

Yeah, I fired up the The Division 2 code the day the game was released. Played nearly 100 hours so far. I noticed the same core clock behavior, and I thought it was actually contributing to crashing for a bit, but it turned out to be something else hardware related. I settled on the daily settings I posted above, as the card would get quite toasty with core settings more aggressive than that. And Radeon Chill doesn't work properly in the last couple of driver releases. Limits the memory clock to 350 MHz. The problem was that I limited the max fan speed to 60%, so junction temps would sometimes spike to ~97°C. 1440p with Max Settings as well.
 

c3hammer

Junior Member
May 6, 2019
5
0
6
Newbie here at building a newer desktop. Put together an ASRock x399, TR1950x, Radeon VII, DDR4 2400, 500g sata ssd for CAD/CAM and video editing apps. Solidworks, Surfcam and Vegas Pro 16

Seems to be running nicely, but Userbenchmark.com shows the GPU running at only 130% vs what should be 145% for this card. Cinebench only gets 84 to 89 fps in OpenGL tests. Vegas Pro 16 is rendering the vegas red car test in HD AMD VCE at over twice the time of OC'd 1950x Vega 10 FE machine (34 seconds vs 14 seconds).

Only one little piece of the UserBenchmark test even hits the video card hard. GPU 1987 MHz, Memory 801MHz, Temp 52 C, Fan 1055rpm, Jct Temp 94c with auto gpu overclocking in wattman.

Any suggestions on where to look for issues with drivers (AMD 19.4.3) or windows 10 pieces parts that might not be up to snuff? Either have a dud of a card or I'm missing a driver somewhere. All the other tests of parts in the machine are testing very well in UserBenchmark. Memory shows in the 99th percentile at 149% ???

Been an interesting read of all your guys overclocking setups. Definitely been a useful thread to browse through, just no one else with a stable R VII that seems to be under performing.

Cheers, Pete
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
Newbie here at building a newer desktop. Put together an ASRock x399, TR1950x, Radeon VII, DDR4 2400, 500g sata ssd for CAD/CAM and video editing apps. Solidworks, Surfcam and Vegas Pro 16

Seems to be running nicely, but Userbenchmark.com shows the GPU running at only 130% vs what should be 145% for this card. Cinebench only gets 84 to 89 fps in OpenGL tests. Vegas Pro 16 is rendering the vegas red car test in HD AMD VCE at over twice the time of OC'd 1950x Vega 10 FE machine (34 seconds vs 14 seconds).

Only one little piece of the UserBenchmark test even hits the video card hard. GPU 1987 MHz, Memory 801MHz, Temp 52 C, Fan 1055rpm, Jct Temp 94c with auto gpu overclocking in wattman.

Any suggestions on where to look for issues with drivers (AMD 19.4.3) or windows 10 pieces parts that might not be up to snuff? Either have a dud of a card or I'm missing a driver somewhere. All the other tests of parts in the machine are testing very well in UserBenchmark. Memory shows in the 99th percentile at 149% ???

Been an interesting read of all your guys overclocking setups. Definitely been a useful thread to browse through, just no one else with a stable R VII that seems to be under performing.

Cheers, Pete
I'm not too familiar with the X399 platform and don't have much experience with Threadripper in general, but my gut tells me to perhaps check your PCI-E Link speed and ensure it's at 3.0 and 16x. Perhaps some kind of weird lane sharing issue? Mind downloading Superposition Benchmark and seeing what score you get in 4K Optimized? Userbench is weird on this card and my previous Vega and I've found in the past that I've had to create a Wattman profile to force the maximum power state on the core and memory to get a decent score.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,583
10,785
136
Only one little piece of the UserBenchmark test even hits the video card hard. GPU 1987 MHz, Memory 801MHz, Temp 52 C, Fan 1055rpm, Jct Temp 94c with auto gpu overclocking in wattman.

Don't use the auto-overclock feature. If you want to run the card out of spec, you're going to have to tune it by hand to get the best results.
 

c3hammer

Junior Member
May 6, 2019
5
0
6
I'm not too familiar with the X399 platform and don't have much experience with Threadripper in general, but my gut tells me to perhaps check your PCI-E Link speed and ensure it's at 3.0 and 16x. Perhaps some kind of weird lane sharing issue? Mind downloading Superposition Benchmark and seeing what score you get in 4K Optimized? Userbench is weird on this card and my previous Vega and I've found in the past that I've had to create a Wattman profile to force the maximum power state on the core and memory to get a decent score.
Thanks for getting back to me!

It shows PCI Express 3.0 x16 in Radeon settings

I loaded the Superposition 4K benchmark and got 7523 in directX and 6093 in OpenGL I think that's the second lowest score for R VII cards. The highest being 9500 compared to the Titan GTX top score of 16,000 !!!

Not sure where to look from here.
 

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EXCellR8

Diamond Member
Sep 1, 2010
3,979
839
136
16,000 seems like RTX Titan and/or RTX 2080 ti, respectively. Twice the performance for twice the price...
 

Alcolawl

Member
Feb 15, 2019
31
24
41
Thanks for getting back to me!

It shows PCI Express 3.0 x16 in Radeon settings

I loaded the Superposition 4K benchmark and got 7523 in directX and 6093 in OpenGL I think that's the second lowest score for R VII cards. The highest being 9500 compared to the Titan GTX top score of 16,000 !!!

Not sure where to look from here.
Hmmm. That is pretty low. Seems like ~7900 should be what you're getting with stock settings. The only other thing I can think of doing at this point is updating the VBIOS on your card if you haven't already. I'm not sure if more recently manufactured cards have the updated VBIOS, I'm assuming they do, but it's worth checking. The current BIOS is V106 which can be found here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/radeonvii-vbios-eula -- AMD made a quick little flashing utility. GPU-Z, in the Advanced Tab > AMD BIOS (in the dropdown menu) lists the following:

Version: 016.004.000.038.011717
Build Date: 2019-02-11 14:18
Filename: D3600200.106

If yours shows anything different, especially an earlier build date, try flashing the new BIOS (x64 version, of course). Otherwise I'm at a loss. Perhaps someone with a similar build will be able to help you further, but if you've done the standard DDU + Reinstall Drivers, it's possible you may just have gottena dud card. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen it.