AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB Review
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Page 1:Introduction
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Page 2:Disassembly, Cooler & Interposer
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Page 3:Board Layout & Components
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Page 4:How We Tested AMD's Vega RX 56 8GB
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Page 5:Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DirectX 12)
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Page 6:Battlefield 1 (DirectX 12)
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Page 7:Doom (Vulkan)
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Page 8:Hitman (DirectX 12)
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Page 9:Metro: Last Light Redux (DirectX 11)
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Page 10:Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)
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Page 11:Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 11)
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Page 12:Tom Clancy’s The Division (DirectX 12)
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Page 13:Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III (DirectX 11)
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Page 14:The Witcher 3 (DirectX 11)
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Page 15:VR: Arizona Sunshine (DirectX 11)
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Page 16:VR: Chronos (DirectX 11)
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Page 17:VR: DiRT Rally (DirectX 11)
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Page 18:VR: Robo Recall (DirectX 11)
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Page 19:VR: Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope (DirectX 11)
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Page 20:Ethereum Mining
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Page 21:Power Consumption: Testing Eight Different Settings
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Page 22:Overclocking, Underclocking, Efficiency & Temperature
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Page 23:Fan Speed & Noise
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Page 24:Conclusion
Ethereum Mining
The latest version of Claymore’s Dual Ethereum AMD/Nvidia GPU Miner (v9.8) includes support for Radeon RX Vega, so that’s what we used for our mining benchmark.
All of the AMD cards run in ASM mode, which requires some fine-tuning using the -dcri command line option. Our Radeon R9 Fury X saw its hash rate peak at -dcri 85, while our Radeon R9 390X was optimal at -dcri 20. After experimenting with fine-tuning values on our Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 8GB, we saw slightly higher hash rates using the -asm 2 switch for alternative ASM kernel mode. Radeon RX Vega 64 didn’t seem to like being messed with as much; adjustments from the default -dcri 30 did little to affect performance in a positive way.
Perhaps the most glaring upset in our chart comes from GeForce GTX 1080, which underperforms the lower-end 1070. This is a known issue though, as the Ethereum base code fits the latency characteristics of GDDR5 better than GDDR5X. Both the 1080 Ti and Titan Xp get around that problem with a much wider 384-bit memory interface. So if you could build your card from Nvidia’s parts bin, it’d be a GP102 processor with a 384-bit bus equipped with 9 Gb/s GDDR5 overclocked to 10 Gb/s. If only it was that easy, right?
AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 56 achieves roughly 98% of Vega 64’s Ethereum mining performance at a lower price point while using less power. Although the card’s HBM2 operates at a ~15%-lower data rate, it must employ tighter timings in order to make up the difference so convincingly.
This is going to be bad news for gamers, but expect greater interest in Radeon RX Vega 56 from miners than RX Vega 64.
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- Introduction
- Disassembly, Cooler & Interposer
- Board Layout & Components
- How We Tested AMD's Vega RX 56 8GB
- Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DirectX 12)
- Battlefield 1 (DirectX 12)
- Doom (Vulkan)
- Hitman (DirectX 12)
- Metro: Last Light Redux (DirectX 11)
- Rise of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12)
- Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 11)
- Tom Clancy’s The Division (DirectX 12)
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III (DirectX 11)
- The Witcher 3 (DirectX 11)
- VR: Arizona Sunshine (DirectX 11)
- VR: Chronos (DirectX 11)
- VR: DiRT Rally (DirectX 11)
- VR: Robo Recall (DirectX 11)
- VR: Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope (DirectX 11)
- Ethereum Mining
- Power Consumption: Testing Eight Different Settings
- Overclocking, Underclocking, Efficiency & Temperature
- Fan Speed & Noise
- Conclusion
Good job AMD, hopefully next gen you can make more headway in power efficiency. But this is a good card, even beats the factory OC 1070.
Some 'Other Guys' (Namer Gexus?) were experimenting on under-volting and clock-boosting with interesting results. It's not like you guys don't have enough to do, already, but an Under-Volt-Off Smack Down between AMD and nVidia might be fun for readers ...
https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/44084-amd-radeon-rx-vega-56-und-vega-64-im-undervolting-test.html&edit-text=
Yeah Tom's Hardware does objective reviewing. If there are faults with something, they will call them out like the inferior VR performance over the 1070. This is not the National Inquirer of tech review sites like WCCTF. There are more things to consider than raw FPS performance and that's what we expect to see in an honest objective review.
Guru3D's conclusion with caveats:
"For PC gaming I can certainly recommend Radeon RX Vega 56. It is a proper and good performance level that it offers, priced right. It's a bit above average wattage [consumption] compared to the competitions product in the same performance bracket. However much more decent compared to Vega 64."
Tom's conclusion with caveats:
"Even when we compare it to EVGA’s overclocked GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming 8GB (there are no Founders Edition cards left to buy), Vega 56 consistently matches or beats it. [snip] But until we see some of those forward-looking features exposed for gamers to enjoy, Vega 56’s success will largely depend on its price relative to GeForce GTX 1070."
^^And that's the truth. If prices of the AIB cards coming are closer to the GTX 1080, then it can't be considered a better value. This is not AMD's fault of course, but that's just the reality of the situation. You can't sugar coat it, you can't hide it, and you can't spin it. Real money is real money. We've already seen this with the RX 64 prices getting close to GTX 1080 Ti territory.
With that said, I am glad to see Nvidia get direct competition from AMD again in the high end segment since Fury even though it's a year and four months late to the party. In this case, the reference RX 56 even bests an AIB Strix GTX 1070 variant in most non-VR games. That's promising for what's going to come with their AIB variants. The question now is what's looming on the horizon in an Nvidia response with Volta. We'll find out in the coming months.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/109078-asus-radeon-rx-vega-64-strix-gaming/
Will any gamers buy this card ... will any gamers GET to buy this card? Hot, hungry, noisy and expensive due to the crypto currency mining craze was not what this happy R290 owner had in mind.
BTW:
You can undervolt it a little bit, but you have also to analyze the frame times! Only fps are saying simply nothing about the picture quality. With all this ups and downs you get a horrible, micro-stuttering result. About this effect I wrote a few times.
You're ignoring the Titan XP because it isn't really a consumer gaming card right? And the 1080 ti, because...reasons? There's an outside chance of taking the value crown. I'd go with that, assuming everyone in this thread who wants one is able to buy one today for <$400.
1080p benches for CPU without 1440p and 2160p counterparts just for example. This is manipulation that can drive sales.
Guy number 1: Check benches on Toms: "Oh Ryzen sux, I am not buying it for my next 1440p system".
Guy number 2: Check benches on kitguru: "Oh Ryzen is offering the same gaming experience at 4k than Intel... and they kick Intel butt all over the place in multi-threaded application... I am buying it for my next 1440p system".
See, I just proved you wrong.
This card is the strongest miner at the cheapest MSRP. It will sell really well... unfortunately for gamers.
I was wondering when you'd show up complaining. I guess you missed the Guru3D article of this GPU earlier this month and their generally SAME conclusions. Provide evidence to back up your assertions every time there's a single negative comment on a review of an AMD product that Tom's is biased against AMD. You cannot and you know you cannot.
And your 1080p benchmark argument is a fail, because EVERY major tech review website uses 1080p as a CPU gaming benchmark. This is not new either. You can go back TEN YEARS on Tom's Hardware, Guru3D, and others who ran a 1280x1024 CPU gaming benchmark resolution when the high end resolutions were the 2K of the time 1600x1200 and 4K of the time 1920x1080. The other reason your 1080p argument is a fail is because there are a lot of gamers out there with 144Hz 1080p monitors. The rest of your comment is just hypothetical nonsense with no statistical data to back it up, and you know it.
Isn't there a better way to measure the sweet spot that a "bulge"?
I'd be interested in seeing benchmark comparisons between a 1070 and a Vega 56 both OC'd to their max stable frequencies with the same temperature caps. Something tells me the 1070 will win by a long shot every time. I honestly wish AMD would put out something to get really excited about, but it looks like they just gave up and went with the brute force approach.