AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 8 GB

[B-Real]

"Fine wine" is such a lame myth people need to get sober and realize that the mythical performance increase over time will be minimal and will not allow AMD GPUs to move a tier higher.

That 50% average 100% minimum fps increase seems a dream, yeah. But the raw facts say the Vega56 is overall a bit faster card than the 1070. With a sync monitor, it's an absolute winner. And with the drivers in the coming weeks and months, a ~10% performance increase without HBCC doesn't seem impossible if you check the RX480 now and then reviews.


"And given how well AMDs big GPU oced in the past, I wouldnt expect vega 56 to keep up with the 1070 OC to OC."

Not everyone is using OC on cards, btw.

 

[Fluffmeister]

No $200 adaptive sync tax, solid lead in most moder games.
Averages are misleading, thanks to games like Civ 4 or Fallout.

It's was clear that was their selling point, being slower and all.

Buy Vega and enjoy it, it was never going to be a Nv killer you Captain Tom and gang had hoped for.

 

[KainXS]

Well we should wait for that HBCC fps increases, but yeah, absolutely, that was a failed marketing.

The "wait" was one of the problems with this launch. Every single time when faced with the reality of its performance the defense has been well wait for this, wait for that.

No . . . . . just no.

You will be waiting for so long that by the time its optimized the next Geforce series will come out and then you will say wait for Navi.

 

[bug]

So no miracle last minute software optimizations or hardware tweaks and the FE was actually a good indicator of the overall performance? Who would have thought?

Also, the 300W this burns through in games is nearly twice the 160W of a GTX 1080. I mean, TDP may not be all that important, but come on...

 

[chaosmassive]

So another meh graphics card from AMD that only matches the performance of the year old GTX 1080 with lots of power draw and noise, especially irritating coil whine. I'll pass. Also, dunno why they bother with that expensive HBM, when GDDR5X does just fine.

Let's hope AMD can finally leapfrog NVIDIA sometime not too long in the future and give us some competition.

Hard to find a compelling reason to pick this over the GTX 1080, packed math support may pay dividends down the line, but with Volta on the horizon threatening to bring even more performance per watt gains over Pascal it's gonna be an uphill fight regardless.

Vega 56 does seem the better balanced product.

The hype train has crashed spectacularly.

I'm not surprised at all but I'm extremely dumbfounded as to why AMD tried to mock Volta while Vega RX 64 cannot even reach the performance level of the 18 months old GTX 1080. And its mining performance is not what AMD fans have been expecting - a pair of RX470 will be a lot faster and cheaper (and have a better ROI).

In short, Vega has turned out to be a huge dud.

We all wanted a healthy competition but NVIDIA now has to compete only against itself. Darn.

Let's just close this page of Radeon Graphics and expect AMD to step up its game with Navi.

Nice review. Vega is not the impressive product that Ryzen is, that's for sure. AMD just can't seem to figure out this power consumption issue. Terrible on these cards.

Told ya

despite all spotlights given on top of Vega, performance leak that show it still trade blow with GTX 1080 is big turnoff

Well, more often than not the actual real world performance wont stray far from what we've seen in leaked benchmark (esp Vega FE benchmark flying around).
Maybe 10~15% deviation from what we already know, feel free to correct me if I am wrong though.

card equiped with HBM2 memory and still on par with GTX 1080 its not funny at all

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The "wait" was one of the problems with this launch. Every single time when faced with the reality of its performance the defense has been well wait for this, wait for that.

No . . . . . just no.

You will be waiting until for so long that by the time its optimized the next Geforce series will come out and then you will say wait for Navi.

Always Massive Delays strikes again.

Like you said, it doesnt matter if AMD finally delivers after two years, because nvidia left them in the dust.

It's a purely formal matter , for gaming all they have to do is make it clear that they are not out of the game. That's all Vega is , a reminder they are still active in the high end gaming market. Trust me Vega is for the datacenter.

Where quadro and tesla would slaughter it in efficiency, or outright performance if we are talking vega 56.

Vega may show they are not "out of the game" but it also clearly shows they are not on the ball either.

 

[medi01]

HBCC, TBR, DX12, Vulkan, mantle, windows 10, crossfire, there is always something people think will make AMD super fast.

Just recalculate perf summary, removing weirdo games like Civ 4 or Fallout and think again.

t was never going to be a Nv killer you Captain Tom and gang had hoped for.

It would be so cool if you wouldn't put words in my mouth, whoever that guy, with whom you are mistaking me is.

being slower and all

Vega 56 ($399) is faster than 1070, Vega 64 Air ($499) is on par with 1080

 

[Champ]

Impressive from an amd standpoint, but power consumption too high. This full throttle is equal to 2 1080s. I rather have 2 1080s

 

[_Flare]

Thank you very much for the review, with all Power-Settings tested.
Really interesting how the 2nd Bios on power-saving is only 5-8% slower with a third of the consumption cut off.

And where a GTX1080 is way faster the +100W doesn´t give enough value for the exploding wattage.

Great job W1zzard

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Just recalculate perf summary, removing weirdo games like Civ 4 or Fallout and think again.

O rly? I could remove a few games and recalculate showing VEGA is universally slower then the 1070. it would be just as disingenuous as what you just wrote.

 

[Vya Domus]

Where quadro and tesla would slaughter it in efficiency, or outright performance if we are talking vega 56.

If you think datacenters care only about power consumption you are wrong , they care about the overall cost.

Have I not been clear : currently the only competitor for Radeon Instinct MI25 is the P100 ( that is a tad weaker) a card that is 5-10 grand. Nvidia will come out with Volta soon , but the question is how much cheaper they'll be in order to be worth it. V100 with it's Tensor Cores look nice , but here's the catch : 4x V100s cost 70 000$. Ouch.

 

[medi01]

Impressive from an amd standpoint, but power consumption too high. This full throttle is equal to 2 1080s. I rather have 2 1080s

You think it's wise to compare stock card power consumption with OCed card's power consumption?

It's bad, but not as bad as people draw it, one could basically cut one third of power, by reducing perf by about 10%

O rly? I could remove a few games and recalculate showing VEGA is universally slower then the 1070. it would be just as disingenuous as what you just wrote.

Civ and Fallout results are not just "games", these are games with outlandish results.

 

[Prima.Vera]

AMD....Ouch!

1. Power consumption...Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!
2. Price. Meh. They cost as nVidia's counterparts, while consuming almost double and performance fluctuating... The VEGA 56 would have been a great deal if priced 50$ less.
3. Performance. Same or lower than 1 years old cards... Meh.

 

[Frick]

In short, Vega has turned out to be a huge dud.

Arguably the Vega 56 is a good card for the price tho.

 

[Steevo]

Great review, does tile based rendering work?

Just as I predicted it's going to be mostly miners that buy this card, and I'm sure AND is fine with that as they can provide a mediocre set of drivers for a sold out product and keep moving forward.

 

[Fluffmeister]

It would be so cool if you wouldn't put words in my mouth, whoever that guy, with whom you are mistaking me is.

Vega 56 ($399) is faster than 1070, Vega 64 Air ($499) is on par with 1080

I said the Vega 56 was a compelling choice, no need to get your knickers in a twist defending your fave brand.

Go Vega and enjoy, now off to Mindfactory!

 

[B-Real]

So no miracle last minute software optimizations or hardware tweaks and the FE was actually a good indicator of the overall performance? Who would have thought?

Also, the 300W this burns through in games is nearly twice the 160W of a GTX 1080. I mean, TDP may not be all that important, but come on...

GTX 1080 draws 166W. Balanced mode (so not OC) with 2nd BIOS draws 262W from Vega64. So it's not 160-300, But nearly 170-260. Which is still a huge difference, but much less than your numbers.

AMD....Ouch!

1. Power consumption...Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!
2. Price. Meh. They cost as nVidia's counterparts, while consuming almost double and performance fluctuating... The VEGA 56 would have been a great deal if priced 50$ less.
3. Performance. Same or lower than 1 years old cards... Meh.

1. No, they dont consume almost double. Based on more reviews, 1070 and Vega56 gaming power consumption is between 50 and 70 Watts. That is more like 40-50% more power than 100%, as you say. For 1080 and Vega64, that is 166 and 262, which is around 60%. Still, not 100%.

2. Vega56 performs better based on all game average than the 1070. Vega64 even with balanced mode performs better than the 1080. So overall, both are a bit better than their NV counterparts. And not same or lower...

 

[_Flare]

the value of an "average" gets better with "more data/information"

i´m still stunned by the 300W-move by AMD, there is no single game where it can takeover the GTX1080 by any meaningfull step with +100W wasted.
in the games with a generally nvidia advantage, the +100W is wasted, too.
and in games where AMD has general-advantage or plenty FPS, it doesn´t make any sense, too.

for the 5-8% gain with +100W extra, its kind killing an ant with a big hammer.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Thanks for the review @W1zzard. AMD cleverly positioned the card with the right price point 2nd place performance with the usual lower price. Where are the arguments with "new not-yet-optimized drivers"? I'd like to see this card reviewed under water without thermal pads but instead with real TIM.

I expect to retail pricing to be $200+ higher on day one. If I can get this card for $499, that would leave room for a 2nd card or a TR/R7 build with it.

 

[okidna]

Vega is not the gaming card people wanted , but it's the compute card AMD needs.

 

[xkm1948]

So overall ~20% performance increases from FuryX to Vega64 meltdown mode. Meh.

Feels like a major failure to me. 290X to FuryX had better improvement performance wise.

Also where is that magical shader discard or whatever stuff? Was that what loads of people claming is going to boost Vega bu HUGE percentage? And the gaming performance is pretty much on par with Vega FE. So much for "not a gaming card"

Calling @RejZoR, your card has arrived. Since mining performance is bad price should be OK.

 

[Sybaris_Caesar]

I wish AMD did more to improve on UE4 titles. Work more closer with EPIC.

 

[buggalugs]

So no miracle last minute software optimizations or hardware tweaks and the FE was actually a good indicator of the overall performance? Who would have thought?

Also, the 300W this burns through in games is nearly twice the 160W of a GTX 1080. I mean, TDP may not be all that important, but come on...

I have to agree. I could live with the performance level, but not when it consumes nearly twice the power of the competitor.

Its not good enough AMD, after all this time. Theres no point having all these new features if your card draws double the power for the same performance.

 

[warup89]

I was a AMD fanboy, then I grew up. I realized Im a customer and I want whoever gives best performance, thus went to Nvidia this time and very happy with it.

Amazing to see people all over the net defending this card like there's no tomorrow, the power draw alone makes it a subpar card for the general customer, plus the price will go up due to mining.

To each their own...

 

[EarthDog]

Oh, please, get back to earth.

Fine... it trades punches with or barely beats a card released 444 days ago... all the while using a lot more power and being noisier.

Trust me Vega is for the datacenter.

Interesting spin.....

Let us know when FP16 is worth its weight for consumers...another item too far ahead of its time.