PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 Red Devil Available Soon, Overclocked, £590

[Raevenlord]

It seems our wait for custom editions of AMD's RX Vega graphics cards is coming to an end. "Better late than never" is what they always say; however, AMD and its AIB partners have to know that this kind of wait can sap customer enthusiasm for a product. It's not enough that customers waited around two years for Vega to come to fruition; we've also had to wait some additional months (not weeks), for an actual custom-design graphics card. Vega's exotic design with HBM2 memory means that these graphics cards' availability would fall prey not only to Vega GPU yields, but also to HBM2 memory availability.

Additionally, Vega has been vulnerable to packaging of HBM2 and the GPU as well, with various factories providing different levels of quality in the finished product. This introduced some unexpected variance in the finished products - making the creation of cooling designs that could cope with all the design discrepancies more difficult.





That slight introduction aside, it seems that PowerColor's Red Devil RX Vega 64 is coming to customers' hands soon, with a factory overclock that almost equals the Liquid edition AMD introduced in Vega's launch - the PowerColor Red Devil should deliver stable 1607 MHz clocks against the Liquid Cooled edition's 1677 MHz. To cool Vega's renowned power-hungry chops, and limit instances of throttling under heavy thermal loads, the graphics card has been engineered with a triple-slot, triple-fan cooling solutions, and also features a triple-BIOS implementation. The PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 Red Devil should be in stores early December - but it's already up for pre-orders over at Overclockers.uk for a steep £590. here's hoping this isn't just a launch promotion as well...

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Super interested...until I saw the price. $600, sure, not £590.

 

[Therion_I]

£590 is very disappointing. Even the likes of Amazon has 1080s dipping into the sub £500 bracket. Wipes out a big chunk of the savings you'd make getting a freesync monitor.

 

[SortOfGrim]

£590 or €666

 

[RejZoR]

AORUS GTX 1080 for 572€. Just 100€ difference...

 

[londiste]

4 slot cooler and carefully edited out power plugs - what was it, three of those?
60 MHz overclock over reference...

AORUS GTX 1080 for 572€. Just 100€ difference...

Proper 1080Ti-s start at £670 on the same site. £80/90€ difference towards that.

Edit:
As far as Vega goes, based on my time with Vega 64 reference, thermal throttling really is not that big of an issue. It is the easiest problem to solve anyway. Power and voltage limits are far more restrictive.

 

[medi01]

Are you guys comparing MSRP to street price?

 

[Crustybeaver]

Unless you own or plan on buying a FreeSync monitor, what reason would you have for choosing to buy an RX Vega 64 card?

 

[Therion_I]

Are you guys comparing MSRP to street price?

No, £590 for this custom vega was from a fairly typical UK e-tailor.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Unless you own or plan on buying a FreeSync monitor, what reason would you have for choosing to buy an RX Vega 64 card?

Over Nvidia you mean? well you could make the same argument/question the other way around by replacing FreeSync with Gsync.

 

[iO]

Powercolor already said that this is not the MSRP but 'complete nonsense'.

 

[Crustybeaver]

Over Nvidia you mean? well you could make the same argument/question the other way around by replacing FreeSync with Gsync.

Considering that Nvidia cards offer better price to performance gains over the Vega 64 how would it be the same argument? Sure FreeSync is cheaper when compared to G-Sync, but it's also inferior tech. My question remains, what reasons would you have for buying a Vega 64 over an Nvidia card other than wanting a FreeSync monitor?

 

[nguyen]

Considering that Nvidia cards offer better price to performance gains over the Vega 64 how would it be the same argument? Sure FreeSync is cheaper when compared to G-Sync, but it's also inferior tech. My question remains, what reasons would you have for buying a Vega 64 over an Nvidia card other than wanting a FreeSync monitor?

yes the answer is "mining", also winter is coming so...

 

[Vya Domus]

Super interested...until I saw the price. $600, sure, not £590.

What can you do , currency is a bitch.

 

[cucker tarlson]

What can you do , currency is a bitch.

AMD claims msrp $499 on a $599 card -> fanboys blame currency.

This is so good it just has to be fattening.

 

[GhostRyder]

Considering that Nvidia cards offer better price to performance gains over the Vega 64 how would it be the same argument? Sure FreeSync is cheaper when compared to G-Sync, but it's also inferior tech. My question remains, what reasons would you have for buying a Vega 64 over an Nvidia card other than wanting a FreeSync monitor?

Freesync is not "Inferior Tech" when compared to G-Sync. Multiple sites have already concluded they are the same at the end of the day with only minor differences (Not to mention I have a monitor each with the tech). The only thing that G-sync has above Freesync is that on many (If not most monitors) the range for the Sync is bigger though normally that involves dipping into the range of poor performance anyways.

Its a cool looking card, but as usual a bit tardy to the party on multiple fronts (IE Vega being late to adequately challenge the 1080/1070 and now being late months after launch). I think Radeon needs to take a strong look at itself and rework their marketing and strategies on their cards in general. I think they could start by just forgoing much on the reference model front and just handing it to OEM's early to let them have these cards on ready on launch day and then let them come out at the same time.

 

[Vya Domus]

AMD claims msrp $499 on a $599 card -> fanboys blame currency.

This is so good it just has to be fattening.

Keep living in your fairy land where MSRP in one currency gets converted directly into the equivalent all around the globe and where added taxes don't exist.

But no , it's AMD .Those pieces of shit

What a bloody joke your comment is , I can't even take you seriously.

 

[Patriot]

AMD claims msrp $499 on a $599 card -> fanboys blame currency.

This is so good it just has to be fattening.

Newegg sold 700+ vega64s for $465ea. last week. We are back around msrp... the mining craze has dipped.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Keep living in your fairy land where MSRP in one currency gets converted directly into the equivalent all around the globe and where added taxes don't exist.

But no , it's AMD .Those pieces of shit

What a bloody joke your comment is , I can't even take you seriously.

I'll laugh at my own comment myself when I see this one be priced at the same levels as custom GTX 1080s in my country.

 

[Crustybeaver]

yes the answer is "mining", also winter is coming so...

Good points, shame AMD marketed them as gaming cards.

 

[eidairaman1]

Freesync is not "Inferior Tech" when compared to G-Sync. Multiple sites have already concluded they are the same at the end of the day with only minor differences (Not to mention I have a monitor each with the tech). The only thing that G-sync has above Freesync is that on many (If not most monitors) the range for the Sync is bigger though normally that involves dipping into the range of poor performance anyways.

Its a cool looking card, but as usual a bit tardy to the party on multiple fronts (IE Vega being late to adequately challenge the 1080/1070 and now being late months after launch). I think Radeon needs to take a strong look at itself and rework their marketing and strategies on their cards in general. I think they could start by just forgoing much on the reference model front and just handing it to OEM's early to let them have these cards on ready on launch day and then let them come out at the same time.

Crustybeaver is just another troll...

 

[Crustybeaver]

Crustybeaver is just another troll...

Well sort of yes. However regarding the Sync debate, FreeSync used to be inferior when it was only enabled in certain framerate ranges, that has since been rectified with LFC. However LFC is not available with all FreeSync monitors.

Trolling or not I'm yet to hear a valid reason why one would choose a Vega 64 over the competition for gaming.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well sort of yes. However regarding the Sync debate, FreeSync used to be inferior when it was only enabled in certain framerate ranges, that has since been rectified with LFC. However LFC is not available with all FreeSync monitors.

Trolling or not I'm yet to hear a valid reason why one would choose a Vega 64 over the competition for gaming.

Sorry your bias shows, many have given an answer, however you're too blind paying the nvidia tax to see. You'd be great buddies with notb.

By the way welcome to the ignore list.

 

[Kanan]

Well sort of yes. However regarding the Sync debate, FreeSync used to be inferior when it was only enabled in certain framerate ranges, that has since been rectified with LFC. However LFC is not available with all FreeSync monitors.

Trolling or not I'm yet to hear a valid reason why one would choose a Vega 64 over the competition for gaming.

Let's make a simple math calculation, every idiot can understand:

GTX 1080 500 bucks + 700 bucks for a Gsync monitor. That's 1200 bucks.

Vega 64 custom (eg this one) 600 bucks + 500 bucks for a Freesync monitor = 1100 bucks.

And Vega 64 custom is faster too and new games/DX12 games show better scaling on Vega than on Pascal architecture. This is all fact btw, yes the price difference between Gsync and Freesync too.

The only downside to buying Radeon is power consumption as always. If you don't care about that, it's a fairly easy decision. Another possibility is, if someone doesn't care about Freesync/Gsync, then it's basically 500 vs. 600 on the GPU, that's to be decided on the games he plays. If he plays games where AMD is showing better performance it's Vega, if not, then 1080. I'm gonna admit, without the Freesync / Gsync price difference, AMD is looking pretty much bad atm. you have to be a fan to buy AMD if you're not going for Freesync, unless you bet on future performance, which is always a gamble. IMO, Vega 64 is better long term and Freesync is the better product compared to Gsync, due to prices. That said, I'm a 1080 owner myself.

 

[londiste]

Based on specs, that custom Vega 64 will not be noticeably faster than reference ones. A reference Vega 64 is struggling to keep up with GTX1080.
DX12/Vulkan/new games doing better on Vega is largely wishful thinking. There are a few highly optimized examples (Wolfenstein II, that utilizes Vega-specific features) but by and large Vega 64 is neck to neck with GTX1080.