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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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.