The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 & RX Vega 56 Review: Vega Burning Bright
by Ryan Smith & Nate Oh on August 14, 2017 9:00 AM ESTThe 2017 GPU Benchmark Suite & the Test
Paired with our RX Vega 64 and 56 review is a new benchmark suite and new testbed. The 2017 GPU suite features new games, as well as new compute and synthetic benchmarks.
Games-wise, we have kept Grand Theft Auto V and Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. Joining them is Battlefield 1, DOOM, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, F1 2016, and Total War: Warhammer. All-in-all, these games span multiple genres, differing graphics workloads, and contemporary APIs, with a nod towards modern and relatively intensive games. Additionally, we have retired the venerable Crysis 3 as our mainline power-testing game in favor of Battlefield 1.
| AnandTech GPU Bench 2017 Game List | ||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API(s) | |
| Battlefield 1 | FPS | Oct. 2016 | DX11 (DX12) |
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| Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation | RTS | Mar. 2016 | DX12 (DX11) |
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| DOOM (2016) | FPS | May 2016 | Vulkan (OpenGL 4.5) |
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| Ghost Recon Wildlands | FPS/3PS | Mar. 2017 | DX11 | |
| Dawn of War III | RTS | Apr. 2017 | DX11 | |
| Deus Ex: Mankind Divided | RPG/Action/Stealth | Aug. 2016 | DX11 (DX12) |
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| Grand Theft Auto V | Action/Open world | Apr. 2015 | DX11 | |
| F1 2016 | Racing | Aug. 2016 | DX11 | |
| Total War: Warhammer | TBS/Real-time tactics | May 2016 | DX11 + DX12 | |
In terms of data collection, measurements were gathered either using built-in benchmark tools or with AMD's open-source Open Capture and Analytics Tool (OCAT), which is itself powered by Intel's PresentMon. 99th percentiles were obtained or calculated in a similar fashion: OCAT natively obtains 99th percentiles, GTA V's built-in benchmark include 99th percentiles, and both Ashes: Escalation and Total War: Warhammer's built-in benchmark outputs raw frame time data. Dawn of War III continutes to suffer from its misconfigured built-in benchmark calculations and so its native data cannot be used. In general, we prefer 99th percentiles over minimums, as they more accurately represent the gaming experience and filter out outliers that may not even be true results of the graphics card.
We are continuing to use the best API for a given card when given a choice. As before, we use DirectX 12 for Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, being natively designed for that API. For DOOM (2016), using Vulkan is an improvement to OpenGL 4.5 across the board, and for those not in-the-know, Vulkan is roughly comparable to OpenGL in the same way DX12 is to DX11. We also stick to DX11 for Battlefield 1, with the persistent DX12 performance issues in mind, and similar reasoning follows with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where DX12 did not appear to give the best performance for RX Vega.
In the same vein, we have used DX12 for Total War: Warhammer when testing AMD cards, but we are still sussing out the exact effects on the Vega cards. With Vega running Total War: Warhammer, neither API seems to be absolutely better performing than the other, and we are continuing to investigate.
2017 GPU Compute and Synthetics
We have also updated our compute and synthetics suites, which are now as follows:
- Compute: Blender 2.79 - BlenchMark
- Compute: CompuBench 2.0 – Level Set Segmentation 256
- Compute: CompuBench 2.0 – N-Body Simulation 1024K
- Compute: CompuBench 2.0 – Optical Flow
- Compute: Folding @ Home Single Precision
- Compute: Geekbench 4 – GPU Compute – Total Score
- Synthetics: TessMark, Image Set 4, 64x Tessellation
- Synthetics: VRMark Orange
- Synthetics: Beyond3D Suite – Pixel Fillrate
- Synthetics: Beyond3D Suite – Integer Texture Fillrate (INT8)
- Synthetics: Beyond3D Suite – Floating Point Texture Fillrate (FP32)
Testing with Vega
Testing was done with default configurations with respect to the High-Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC) and BIOS/power profiles. By default, HBCC is disabled in Radeon Software. As for power profiles, both Vega 64 and 56 come with primary and secondary VBIOS modes, each having three profiles in WattMan: Power Saver, Balanced, and Turbo. By default, both cards use the primary VBIOS' Balanced power profile.
| GPU Power Limits for RX Vega Power Profiles | ||||
| Radeon RX Vega 64 Air | Radeon RX Vega 56 | |||
| Primary VBIOS | Secondary VBIOS | Primary VBIOS | Secondary VBIOS | |
| Power Saver | 165W | 150W | 150W | 135W |
| Balanced | 220W | 200W | 165W | 150W |
| Turbo | 253W | 230W | 190W | 173W |
A small switch on the cards can be toggled away from the PCIe bracket for the lower power secondary VBIOS. In Radeon WattMan, a slider permits switching between Power Saver, Balanced, Turbo, and Custom performance profiles. In total, each card has six different power profiles to choose from. RX Vega 64 Liquid has its own set of six profiles as well, ranging from 165W to 303W. We don't expect Turbo mode to significantly change results: for Turbo vs. Balanced, AMD themselves cited a performance increase of about 2% at 4K.
The New 2017 GPU Skylake-X Testbed
Last, but certainly not least, we have a new testbed running these benchmarks and games. For that reason, historical results cannot be directly compared with the results in this review.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-7820X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 7 |
| Power Supply: | Corsair AX860i |
| Hard Disk: | OCZ Toshiba RD400 (1TB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 4 x 8GB (16-18-18-38) |
| Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
| Monitor: | LG 27UD68P-B |
| Video Cards: | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (Air Cooled) AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 AMD Radeon RX 580 AMD Radeon R9 Fury X NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 384.65 AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2 (for non-Vega cards) AMD Radeon Software Crimson Press Beta 17.30.1051 |
| OS: | Windows 10 Pro (Creators Update) |
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BOBOSTRUMF - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
well, I was expected lower performance compared to a geforce 1080 so this is one of the few plusses. Now NVIDIA only has to bump the base clocks for the Geforce 1080 while still consuming less power. Competition is great but this is not the best product from AMD, on 14nm the gains should be much higher. Fortunately AMD is great now on CPU's and that will hopefully bring income that should be invested in GPU research.Good luck AMD
mapesdhs - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
NV doesn't have to do anything as long as retail pricing has the 1080 so much cheaper. I look foward to seeing how the 56 fares.webdoctors - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
It looks like the 1080 MSRP is actually less! Other sites mentioning the initial price included a $100 rebate which has expired :( and the new MSRP has taken effect....https://pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-rx-vega-rebates
mdriftmeyer - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
Remember your last paragraph after the game engines adopt AMD's architecture and features, of which they have committed themselves in doing, and already partially in development. When that happens I look forward to you asking what the hell went wrong at Nvidia.Yojimbo - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
The whole "game engines will adopt AMD's architecture" thesis was made when the Xbox One and PS4 were released in 2013. Since then, AMD's market share among PC gamers has declined considerably and NVIDIA seems to be doing just fine in terms of features and performance in relevant game engines. The XBox One and PS4 architectures account for a significant percentage of total software sales. Vega architecture will account for a minuscule percentage. So why would the thesis hold true for Vega when it didn't hold true for Sea Islands?Besides, NVIDIA has had packed FP16 capability since 2015 with the Tegra X1. They also have it in their big GP100 and GV100 GPUs. They can relatively easily implement it in consumer GeForce GPUs whenever they feel it is appropriate. And within 3 months of doing so they will have more FP16-enabled gaming GPUs in the market than Vega will represent over its entire lifespan.
Yojimbo - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
That means the Nintendo Switch is FP16 capable, by the way.mapesdhs - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
Good points, and an extra gazillion for reminding me of an awesome movie. 8)stockolicious - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
"the Xbox One and PS4 were released in 2013. Since then, AMD's market share among PC gamers has declined considerably "The problem AMD had was they could not play to their advantage - which was having a CPU and GPU. The CPU was so aweful that nobody used them to game (or very few) now that Ryzen is here and successful they will gain GPU share even though their top cards dont beat Nvida. This is called "Attach Rate" - when a person buys a Computer with an AMD CPU the get an AMD GPU 55% of the time vs 25% of the time with an Intel CPU. AMD had the same issue with their APU - the CPU side was so bad that nobody cared to build designs around them but now with Raven Ridge coming Ryzen/Vega they will do very well there as well.
Yojimbo - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
I wouldn't expect bulldozer (or whatever their latest pre-zen architecture was called) attach rates to hold true for Ryzen. There were probably a significant percentage of AMD fans accounting for bulldozer sales. If Ryzen is a lot more successful (and by all accounts it looks like it will be), then only a small percentage of Ryzen sales will be by die hard AMD fans. Most will be by people looking to get the best value. Then you can expect attach rates for AMD GPUs with Ryzen CPUs to be significantly lower than with bulldozer.nwarawa - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
*yawn* Wake me up when the prices return to normal levels. I've had my eye on a few nice'n'cheap freesync monitors for awhile now, but missed my chance at an affordable RX470/570.Make a Vega 48 -3GB card (still enough RAM for 1080P for me, but should shoo-off the miners) for around $250, and I'll probably bite. And get that power consumption under control while you're at it. I'll undervolt it either way.