Info Radeon VII owners/buyers thread

[fstime]

From my brief research, this card was released to reviewers with premature drivers and it didn't really impress due to being equal or slightly slower than the 2080 while using more power and running hotter (not having custom coolers doesn't help this situation).

Have there been any reviews that show if the VII is now ahead of the 2080 with updated and more mature drivers or is performance still about the same?

 

[DrMrLordX]

I don't know that anyone has really taken a crack at seriously reviewing the card since the first run of reviews. Word from most owners (including me) is that you can just undervolt the silly things to deal with heat and power consumption. Works a treat, and you lose no clockspeed as a result.

 

[c3hammer]

Have there been any reviews that show if the VII is now ahead of the 2080 with updated and more mature drivers or is performance still about the same?

I've seen a few.

https://techgage.com/article/exploring-magix-vegas-pro-16-gpu-performance/

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-15-AMD-Radeon-VII-16GB-Performance-1382/

https://gizmodo.com/amds-radeon-vii-is-a-solid-gaming-card-but-thats-just-1832412200

I think and maybe more hope that they can get the drivers worked out for this thing and that more software will be able to take advantage of the VII's features. So far for my cad/cam and video editing work this thing is incredible, but not where it could be if my combo of drivers and hardware can be worked out.

Cheers,
Pete

 

[Alcolawl]

I'm really hoping for a driver release closer to when Navi launches that boosts performance and smooths out the overall driver experience right now. My main issue is random screen flickering that happens sporadically. They've acknowledged it but it's gone unfixed for several releases now. That and Radeon Chill straight up not working and ReLive causing the memory clock to get stuck at 350 MHz.

 

[Alcolawl]

Sorry for the double post, but it's been a few days.

Installed 19.5.1 Today. People are reporting performance gains in several games. Fired up The Division 2 and got 4-5 average FPS higher than 19.4.3 in the built-in benchmark (1440p max settings). I'll take it!

Additionally, I've received a notice from Alphacool about my Eiswolf and the possibility of a manufacturing defect that can damage my Radeon VII. They recommend removing the AIO. I've read about several experiences where this has happened with Alphacool Waterblocks and Eiswolf AIOs for the R7, but I' haven't had an issue thus far. Alphacool claims it's being investigated at "full speed" and will reach out shortly with more information. However, I've been following other users' correspondence with Alphacool Support and it seems to me that if you have a defective product (perhaps a certain batch?) that they will reach out and inform you to remove the cooler and send it back for a full refund including the shipping to Germany. I have not received such a notice, so I'm hopeful that I've been lucky enough to receive a non-defective unit.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Glad Alphacool is on top of the situation. Unlike that other company with the faulty Threadripper AiOs.

Also, I did not know The Division 2 had a built-in benchmark? Where can you access it?

 

[Alcolawl]

Also, I did not know The Division 2 had a built-in benchmark? Where can you access it?

Yeah, that Enermax ordeal is pretty wild.

The built-in benchmark is in the Settings menu on the main screen when you first fire up the game. Settings, then scroll down to "Benchmark". Gives you some decent statistics, graphs, even gives you a score. Also generates a CSV and a screenshot in your \My Games\Tom Clancy's The Division 2\ folder.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Okay, so on 1440p Ultra, my benchmark was 69 fps average. Very little CPU activity on my 4 GHz 1800x (32%). I guess I should not be surprised on a canned bench though. That's with my 1940 MHz/1200 MHz RAM OC on Radeon VII.

 

[Alcolawl]

Okay, so on 1440p Ultra, my benchmark was 69 fps average. Very little CPU activity on my 4 GHz 1800x (32%). I guess I should not be surprised on a canned bench though. That's with my 1940 MHz/1200 MHz RAM OC on Radeon VII.

Hmm. That seems quite low, tbh. Are you using DX12? My 2600X/Radevon VII at stock settings achieved 79 FPS Average in the same benchmark at the same resolution. CPU Usage was 48%. And that was with the old drivers (19.4.3).

 

[DrMrLordX]

Are you using DX12?

Um, I think so? Not sure why my run was so slow. It could have something to do with a browser window being open in the background (but I doubt it). I'll try it at stock settings and see what happens.

edit: reran with card @ stock settings, and I got 64 fps average. Either this is a driver problem, or my 1800x is just showing its age. Either that your your Eiscool is changing your card's boost pattern @ stock just by keeping it cooler, which is possible. I would say I would put this card on water and rerun the bench, but at that point, I'll be on Matisse.

 

[EXCellR8]

Raise the power limit? What PSU are you running?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Raise the power limit? What PSU are you running?

I'm at 0% power limit currently. I have a 750W EVGA P2 so power is not an issue.

Given that I hit hotspot temps of 98C already running The Division 2, I'm not eagre to raise the power limits anyway. I think it's just an issue of the stock cooler holding back what the card can do.

 

[EXCellR8]

Yikes, that's pretty toasty... any way you could improve your case's ambient temps? I've found that running a fan so that air flows over the back plate can be somewhat beneficial. I don't think that it would allow you to raise the PL any though if you're already hitting those temps. I don't remember but were you one of the users who already returned the first card you received?

 

[c3hammer]

What motherboard/cpu combo's are you guys using with the VII?

I've been really working on this one and been seeing that most or all of the poor performance issues with the VII are in conjunction with X399 mobo's. On the UserBenchmark site, all the low relative performance scores of the VII is coming from folks with my combo. All the high relative benchmarks are on Ryzen 7 and i9's with the Radeon VII.

Pretty sure I need some new drivers before I'm going to see my Radeon VII truly come alive.

Cheers, Pete

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yikes, that's pretty toasty... any way you could improve your case's ambient temps?

Negative. It's a Rosewill Thor V2 with all the case fans running at max. It has a lot of airflow. I guess I could try even more airflow with faster, louder fans but I doubt it would help much. I'm prolly just gonna have to put this card under water.

I don't remember but were you one of the users who already returned the first card you received?

Nah mine is a launch day card that's still running just fine. I didn't even update the vBIOS.

What motherboard/cpu combo's are you guys using with the VII?

X370 Taichi + R7 1800x @ 4.0 GHz.

 

[Alcolawl]

edit: reran with card @ stock settings, and I got 64 fps average. Either this is a driver problem, or my 1800x is just showing its age. Either that your your Eiscool is changing your card's boost pattern @ stock just by keeping it cooler, which is possible. I would say I would put this card on water and rerun the bench, but at that point, I'll be on Matisse.

Definitely make sure you're running DX12, I don't remember if it's enabled by default but my gut says no. It's definitely good for at least a 10 FPS boost in the benchmark (and more in-game, beleive it or not). The 79 FPS I got was with the stock cooler. The Division does seem to be a bit of a CPU intensive game, but I'm not sure if I would peg this on your CPU. Something weird is happening here. Either DX12 isn't enabled (It's in the Video settings menu, not Graphics), a driver issue, or there's some program tomfoolery in the background.

 

[EXCellR8]

This is certainly a card that should have been offered with AIO cooling, like the Frontier and Vega 64. To me, if a card is overheating after a fresh driver install and without tampering with settings, the cooling is simply inadequate. Makes me think that AMD/RTG doesn't do a whole lot of real world simulation testing... and I suppose they don't have to but a product should work 100% out of the box and any setbacks should only be experienced by the enthusiasts wanting to squeeze out more performance.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Definitely make sure you're running DX12,

Oops I wasn't in DX12. I'll rerun it when I get the chance . . .

edit: DX12 got me 80 fps with the overclock. Nice. Let's see if it starts crashing more now. Though with the latest patch, it seems to like crashing anyway.

 

[Alcolawl]

Oops I wasn't in DX12. I'll rerun it when I get the chance . . .

edit: DX12 got me 80 fps with the overclock. Nice. Let's see if it starts crashing more now. Though with the latest patch, it seems to like crashing anyway.

A much better result! Glad we got that sorted. As for the crashing, I haven't been able to play a whole lot since the patch because I'm on vacation, but I've found that The Division 2 is extremely sensitive to overclocks and memory instability. I've had to bump the core voltage on my GPU up about 15mV to get it stable and prior to the patch, I had severe CTD issues that I eventually linked to memory instability. Had to loosen up the timings some. It'd go all through the night with 0 errors on a variety of memory tests but randomly crash to desktop while playing. Perhaps that's worth investigating on your end? Idk, just grabbing at straws, here.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@Alcolawl

It was rock solid stable before the latest patch. Now it's kinda . . . ehh. I'll tinker around with it, see if I can isolate the problem. It seems GPU related though.

 

[amenx]

Retested 3 months later:

Had to insert this late edit: the 2080 tested is not the same as in the original review. Its an OC'd, expensive Gigabyte Aorus that cost more than the FE. The Aorus boost clock = 1890mhz. The FE = 1800mhz. So his results are skewed.

 

[lightmanek]

Yes, it would be nice to add performance bars from old review where applicable.
Anyway, without tweaking or improving cooling, not much has changed. There are improvements in few games and overclocking is now working correctly, but my card spends most time underclocked as this makes it silent.
Once I get my planned WC setup, I will push it a bit more without creating unnecessary noise.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@guskline brought up an interesting issue I wanted to ask about here to other users who have put their Radeon VII under water:

Did you have any problems with your block making proper contact with the GPU and HBM2 stacks?

I'm thinking about putting mine under water using an EK copper + acetal block. If I use a thermal pad similar to the one used with the stock cooler, I expect I won't have any major problems. I would prefer to use liquid metal for better performance if possible, but if I can't get decent contact then temps could go to hell, requiring a remount or maybe a shim.

I've already contacted EK asking them about the issue, but I haven't yet gotten a response.

 

[AshlayW]

Hi this is like my first post so please don't hate me. ;-; i have really bad anxiety.

I have done the Kraken mod on my Radeon VII and used TG Kryonaut with "painting" application method spread over the die and using an Asetek 49mm thick 120mm AIO and the results are great 75-80 hot spot under 100% load in games at 1800mhz, in my hot room in summer and 1,1V which my stock voltage is 1.13v, my Radeon VII doesn't overclock very well at all in fact it cannot break 1900 Mhz at all even with the 1.2V set in WattMan but it is cool and quiet now and performance is great at stock for my 4K monitor.

An issue with latest driver: Hardware acceleration in Discord causes HBM2 to stick to 350 MHz and jump to 800 Mhz and back again in video games with Discord open. I think this is a known issue. I stopped using Discord and the problem went away.

Can someone tell me if it is likely Radeon VII will get PCIE-4.0 support with X570 launch, I know GPU does support it, but do you think the PCB does?

Thanks

 

[Alcolawl]

Alphacool Eiswolf Update

On May 13th, I received an email from Alphacool support informing me of the possibility that my Eiswolf AIO for my Radeon VII may be defective. I was already aware of this because of a thread on Reddit and I'm assuming that the email was just a blanket email sent to every customer that bought one. The email instructed me to remove the cooler and await further instructions. I had no problems with my cooler, no damage, nothing. It's now been three weeks and I have not heard back from Alphacool. I've seen in other discussions around the internet, that some people have corresponded with Alphacool support and asked for a replacement or refund. A full refund, including return shipping, was usually offered. I figured that I'd hear from Alphacool in the weeks after receiving the intial email but as I stated before, that's not been the case. Today I decided to reach out to them and ask. Perhaps I got lucky with a good batch? Who knows? But upon sending my email to support (info@alphacool.com) it bounced back because their mailbox is full. Fucking what??

Can someone tell me if it is likely Radeon VII will get PCIE-4.0 support with X570 launch, I know GPU does support it, but do you think the PCB does?

Someone else might be able to give you a more definitive answer but I believe that it's capable of PCI-E 4.0 because it's basically a rebranded Radeon VII. But, unless you're aware of something I'm not, I really don't see that making any difference at all, at least in terms of performance or bandwidth because the card can't even saturate PCI-E 3.0.