SAPPHIRE Launches Their RX Vega Nitro+ Series of graphics Cards

[Raevenlord]

After aeons of waiting, one of AMD's foremost AIB partners, Sapphire, has come out with a fully custom edition of AMD's RX Vega flagship graphics cards. The new RX Vega 64 Nitro+ and RX Vega56 Nitro+ graphics cards bring Sapphire's engineering to the RX Vega table, offering much better thermal, acoustic, and performance characteristics than AMD's air-based reference models.

The Sapphire RX Vega Nitro+ series of graphics cards feature a triple-fan, 2.5 slot design and a whopping 3x 8-pin power delivery system - and yes, you read that right, this applies to both the Vega 64 and Vega 56 models. The increased thermal headroom provided by the substantial cooling solution, and the beefed-up power delivery system, mean Sapphire are shipping these graphics cards with a hefty 12-14% base-clock increase over AMD's reference models, making these the fastest (in frequency) factory-overclocked RX Vega graphics cards money can buy. The cards also ship with dual-BIOS, a fan header for either a side-panel or front-panel fan whose speed you want to be under the graphics' card control, and a VGA support plate - a smart move by Sapphire, considering the RX Vega 64 Nitro+ comes in at almost 1.6 kg.



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[P4-630]

3x8 pin power....

 

[dj-electric]

Kitguru already has a review up

 

[the54thvoid]

If it's above £600 it's terrible. Here's hoping RTG can make the next iteration of their gfx cards with a cheaper BOM. Vega has sorely disappointed.

 

[Sasqui]

If it's above £600 it's terrible. Here's hoping RTG can make the next iteration of their gfx cards with a cheaper BOM. Vega has sorely disappointed.

Based on supply and price volatility, it sure has. Otherwise, I'm in love with my Vega 64 that I managed to find at retail

Kitguru already has a review up

So does Toms (disclaimer - I did NOT go to Tom's and find it, I got a pop up and took the bait lol)... Interesting thing is the stock Vega 64 beat it in some games but not others, pretty odd

 

[Fluffmeister]

Hexus have a review up too:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/113198-sapphire-radeon-rx-vega-64-nitro/

Good looking card but massively overpriced (£650) compared to it's competition, there are loads of nice custom GTX 1080 options for less than £500 now. Hell for a few quid more you can grab a 1080 Ti.

 

[Divide Overflow]

When I needed to replace my monitors at the beginning of the year, I really wish I hadn't gone with FreeSync ones.
The price, power consumption and scarcity issues of Vega have made it very difficult to embrace. I'll still look to find one of these *somewhere*, just dreading how much I'll have to throw down for it when it's actually available.

 

[Assimilator]

Hexus have a review up too:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/113198-sapphire-radeon-rx-vega-64-nitro/

Good looking card but massively overpriced (£650) compared to it's competition, there are loads of nice custom GTX 1080 options for less than £500 now. Hell for a few quid more you can grab a 1080 Ti.

So Sapphire designed an awesome third-party card and cooler... and the GPU on it can't clock any higher than single digit percentages? Pathetic. Absolutely, objectively, pathetic.

No wonder these third-party designs are taking so long to come out - the guys building them are trying whatever they can to polish the turd that is Vega to the point where a non-reference design makes any sense, but they simply cannot do it because the chip is just plain bad. And then they price it at a point far beyond where it makes sense anyway... I guess they figured "hey, the only people who would shell out for this garbage are the die-hard AMD fanboys who complain about $ 3,000 compute cards that can actually overclock, so we might as well charge them whatever we want".

AMD partners that design their own cards (e.g. Sapphire and XFX) are going to end up sitting on basically all of their non-reference Vega inventory, which will ultimately result in those cars being shredded, and copious amounts of red ink in said companies' books. I'm predicting some "consolidations" from those companies in the next 6 months.

I wonder if consumer Volta/Ampere will land soon enough to deliver the knockout punch to RTG, or if Navi really is the messiah its fans are hoping for. Because if it ain't, RTG is done competing in the high-end consumer space.

 

[cdawall]

Hexus have a review up too:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/113198-sapphire-radeon-rx-vega-64-nitro/

Good looking card but massively overpriced (£650) compared to it's competition, there are loads of nice custom GTX 1080 options for less than £500 now. Hell for a few quid more you can grab a 1080 Ti.

So it is priced like everything else vega based right now because they are cryptosluts

 

[CheapMeat]

Aside from actual performance, I have to say, I really like the PCB design, the IC/SMD choices and even the extra fan header for DIY additions. No doubt it's pricey and not worth it but still, I like the effort.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So it is priced like everything else vega based right now because they are cryptosluts

Wow, we agree on something. Setting aside the over-inflated pricing, there seems to be a problem with how Sapphire is setting up this card. The reviews show that the card is stable, but runs only as good or worse(?!?) than a stock V64. Something is janky.

 

[eidairaman1]

Looks nice, looks like my current card, I wont be upgrading.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Looks nice, looks like my current card, I wont be upgrading.

Based on the raw numbers, it wouldn't really be an upgrade.

 

[cdawall]

Wow, we agree on something. Setting aside the over-inflated pricing, there seems to be a problem with how Sapphire is setting up this card. The reviews show that the card is stable, but runs only as good or worse(?!?) than a stock V64. Something is janky.

Just wait they will release one without outputs and the same cooler tagged as a mining edition. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they are making much more on the crypto side vs consumers.

 

[HD64G]

No matter what anyone says about Vega in general, the 56 model is worth of $450 or a bit more, as with some trial it gets very close to stock 64 and 1080 depending on the game when consuming even less than stock. These Nitro coolers are great also for whoever has the space in his case. Vega 64 is only for computing tasks though mainly due to its high consumption for the performance, even tweaked. ROP number or BM2 bandwidth, something is the bottleneck there and the engineers designed it are in big fault imho. Or, 14nm was a very bad process for high clocks and that shows when Vega 64 gives 44MH/s in ethereum mining and 1950H/s in monero mining when consuming 150-160W tuned for efficiency. That is close to Pascal efficiency. Future will show the cause of that failure in efficiency when Vega is clocked high as the APUs incoming will be optimised for efficiency. As for the price, mining is inflating it clearly. Even RX5x0s are inflated in price, even when being in stock. And Vega are much more profitable atm.

 

[RejZoR]

If it didn't take so bloody long, I'd probably own one because I like the AMD's software side more. Sapphire yet again proves they are one of the best Radeon card makers. As for Vega, everyone raging about its efficiency, Vega is VERY efficient. It just wasn't meant to be really clocked so high, but they had to in order to compete with the high end. But a Vega at reasonable clocks which are mostly seen in APU's, it'll probably destroy pretty much everything else. And that's really where biggest money is turning around. Drawing parallels between both is like those idiots who refused to buy Pirelli tires for their road cars because Pirelli had some issues in F1 at the time.

 

[cucker tarlson]

If it didn't take so bloody long, I'd probably own one because I like the AMD's software side more. Sapphire yet again proves they are one of the best Radeon card makers. As for Vega, everyone raging about its efficiency, Vega is VERY efficient. It just wasn't meant to be really clocked so high, but they had to in order to compete with the high end. But a Vega at reasonable clocks which are mostly seen in APU's, it'll probably destroy pretty much everything else. And that's really where biggest money is turning around. Drawing parallels between both is like those idiots who refused to buy Pirelli tires for their road cars because Pirelli had some issues in F1 at the time.

Yes but if you clock pascal lower its efficiency improves too, so that's a dumb point. My 1080 is able to clock to 1770MHz at 0.8v 65% power limit, while stock is 1970 at 1.06v 100%.

 

[dj-electric]

Besides giving SAPPHIRE a good hard clapping, at probably being the best of taming the beast and proving they are the ultimate Radeon card maker, there's nothing more here.
If 18 months ago people could have told me "pay the same amount of money, but get a card that consumes 100W more" what would you think my answer would be.

 

[INSTG8R]

Beautiful as always Sapphire. I would love a 56 but you have priced these things out of reason....

 

[Dux]

AMD has to pull off a miracle with Navi architecture to catch up with Nvidia. Both in performance and power efficiency.

 

[RejZoR]

I'd take it just for the sake of software. I never thought I'd say this, but NVIDIA's is just an absolute turd, visually and functionally. I have no clue why people praise their software so much. It's neither pleasing to look at with it's prehistoric WinXP design, it has been buggy and glitchy in exact same spots since I had 6600GT freaking decade ago and tons of their features are utterly broken.

 

[SIGSEGV]

even the reference card is almost nonexistent, I don't give too much hope to get this one.

 

[HD64G]

even the reference card is almost nonexistent, I don't give too much hope to get this one.

Reference Vega gpus aren't made any more in order to be enough chips available for the AIBs to make the custom ones as this Nitro. That is known for over a week now.

As for the efficiency increase by tuning being the same for both Vega and nVidia gpus, in Vega's case you will get MORE performance for LESS power draw when tuned properly. While for nVidia you LOSE performance when you lower the consumption. So, while Vega isn't well optimised from AMD and has more potential than in stock settings, nVidia is very close to optimal efficiency already. Big difference imho due to their R&D money available. I wonder how many times is that needed to be explained...

 

[lexluthermiester]

Just wait they will release one without outputs and the same cooler tagged as a mining edition. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they are making much more on the crypto side vs consumers.

That would be a good thing, IMO.

What I find interesting about the benchmarks seen with this card is that there seems very little OC "wiggle" room. The stock cards have some OC headroom, so is AMD keeping the best binned dies for themselves and handing off the rest to the AIB's? That's how it seems. Maybe I'm missing a variable in this equation..

 

[cucker tarlson]

Reference Vega gpus aren't made any more in order to be enough chips available for the AIBs to make the custom ones as this Nitro. That is known for over a week now.

As for the efficiency increase by tuning being the same for both Vega and nVidia gpus, in Vega's case you will get MORE performance for LESS power draw when tuned properly. While for nVidia you LOSE performance when you lower the consumption. So, while Vega isn't well optimised from AMD and has more potential than in stock settings, nVidia is very close to optimal efficiency already. Big difference imho due to their R&D money available. I wonder how many times is that needed to be explained...

lol what ? more performance ? proof ?