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 ESTPower, Temperature, & Noise
Moving on from performance metrics, we’ll touch upon power, temperature, and noise. This is also normally where we’d discuss voltages, but as Vega is a new chip on a new architecture, nothing seems to read Vega 64 and 56 correctly.
In terms of average game clockspeeds, neither card maintains its boost specification at 100% with prolonged usage. Vega 64 tends to stay closer to its boost clocks, which is in line with its additional power overhead and higher temperature target over Vega 56.
| Radeon RX Vega Average Clockspeeds | ||
| Radeon RX Vega 64 Air | Radeon RX Vega 56 | |
| Boost Clocks |
1546MHz
|
1471MHz
|
| Max Boost (DPM7) |
1630MHz
|
1590MHz
|
| Battlefield 1 |
1512MHz
|
1337MHz
|
| Ashes: Escalation |
1542MHz
|
1354MHz
|
| DOOM |
1479MHz
|
1334MHz
|
| Ghost Recon: Wildlands |
1547MHz
|
1388MHz
|
| Dawn of War III |
1526MHz
|
1335MHz
|
| Deus Ex: Mankind Divided |
1498MHz
|
1348MHz
|
| GTA V |
1557MHz
|
1404MHz
|
| F1 2016 |
1526MHz
|
1394MHz
|
| FurMark |
1230MHz
HBM2: 868MHz |
1099MHz
HBM2: 773MHz |
With games, the HBM2 clocks ramp up and stay at their highest clock state. Expectedly, the strains of FurMark cause the cards to oscillate memory clocks: between 945MHz and 800MHZ for Vega 64, and between 800MHz and 700MHz for Vega 56. On that note, HBM2 comes with an idle power state (167MHz), an improvement on Fiji's HBM1 single power state. Unfortunately, the direct power savings are a little obscured since, as we will soon see, Vega 10 is a particularly power hungry chip.
As mentioned earlier, we used the default out-of-the-box configuration for power: Balanced, with the corresponding 220W GPU power limit. And under load, Vega needs power badly.
The performance of both Vega cards comes at a significant power cost. For the RX 500 series, we mused that load consumption is where AMD paid the piper. Here, the piper has taken AMD to the cleaners. In Battlefield 1, Vega 64 consumes 150W more system-wide power than the GTX 1080, its direct competitor. To be clear, additional power draw is expected, since Vega 64 is larger in both shader count (4096 vs. 2560) and die size (486mm2 vs. 314mm2) to the GTX 1080. But in that sense, when compared with the 1080 Ti, powered by the 471mm2 GP102, Vega 64 still consumes more power.
As for Vega 64's cut-down sibling, Vega 56's lower temperature target, lower clocks, and lower board power make its consumption look much more reasonable, although it is still well above the 1070.
In any case, the cooling solutions are able to do the job without severe effects on temperature and noise. As far as blowers go, RX Vega 64 and 56 are comparable to the 1080 Ti FE blower.
Not Graphed: Temperature of the actual Vega (Star): 9329C
Noise-testing equipment and methodology differ from past results, with a more sensitive noise meter and closer distance to the graphics card. Readings were also taken with an open case. As such, the noise levels may appear higher than expected.
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Makaveli - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...Air cooled Vega 64 for $839 CAD I don't think so.
When you can pay $659 CAD for the 1080?
I prefer AMD cards over NV but even I'm not dumb enough to do this.
$180 extra for the same performance and must higher heat output.
mapesdhs - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
That was exactly my point, real pricing is way out of whack for the Vega64 to make any sense atm. Can you check, is it possible to buy a 1080 Ti for the same price as the cheapest Vega64/Liquid? This is the case in the UK, where the 64/Liquid is basically 700 UKP, same as a Palit Jetstream 1080 Ti.Makaveli - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
@mapesdhsLiquid Vega 64 is $979 CAD
1080 TI air is in the $924-$984 CAD.
Liquid 1080 Ti's are in the $1,014-$1,099 range.
And the 1080 Ti will still be faster and using less power....
zodiacfml - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
AMD is truly an underdog. Fighting Nvidia and Intel at the same time but I could see that they are doing their best based on their designs. Their unique position is what made them successful in gaming consoles. Can't wait to see the performance of Raven Ridge parts.Frenetic Pony - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
Regarding FP16 game use, Devs are already using it because it's supported on the PS4 Pro. While the specific "Checkerboard" rendering used in Mass Effect Andromeda and Battlefield 1 are PS4 Pro only due to hardware oddities, it still uses FP16 optimizations. And since both PS4 and Xbox One have FP16 register capabilities it's an easy target for optimization there, and easy to bring over to PC.Frankly I'd expect it to be adopted fairly quickly. Register pressure alone is reason enough for high end games to call for explicit FP16 where applicable, and porting such to the PC is relatively easy.
BaroMetric - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
Vega is already sold out and the bundles on newegg require you buy gpu, cpu, mobo etc. You can't just pay the extra hundred dollars you actually have to purchase the other components. Which is not what we were lead to believeAzix - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
need to include clock speed profiles. should be basic information reviewers include nowadays. put performance in context. This is nearly useless without it.Ryan Smith - Friday, August 18, 2017 - link
Ask and you shall receive. Check the power/temp/noise page.=)HollyDOL - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
It was all good... until I reached power consumption/noise part of the review.Outlander_04 - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
Now go and work out what that extra power will cost you if you game 2 hours a day for a year.The answer is NOTHING if you heat your house with a thermostat controlling temps,
And a very small amount if you don't.
Now go turn off a couple of lights. You know you want to.