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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HollyDOL - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
Thank you, I already did. Not everywhere is cheap electricity.Gigaplex - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
A little over $30 per year extra. I tend to upgrade on a 3 year cadence. That's around $100 extra I can use to bump up to the Nvidia card.Outlander_04 - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
The highest cost for electricity I can see in the US is 26 cents per kilowatt hour.The difference in gaming power consumption is 0.078 Kilowatts hour Meaning it would take 12.8 hours to burn that extra kW/H
Two hours of full load gaming every day adds up to 730 hours a year means 57 kW/H's extra for a total cost of $14.82 per year .
In states with electricity cost of 10 cents kW/H the difference is about $5.70 a year
You might have to save a bit longer than you expect .
Yojimbo - Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - link
Why did you assume he was interested in the 1070/Vega 56? Comparing the 1080 FE with the Vega 64 air cooled, the difference is .150 kilowatts. At your same assumption of 2 hours a day and 26 cents a kilowatt-hour it comes to $28.50 a year, right in line with his estimate. It's not a stretch to think he would game more than 730 hours a year, either.Outlander_04 - Thursday, August 17, 2017 - link
The BF1 power consumption difference between Vega 64 and the 1080 FE is 0.08 kW/H.Not sure where you get your numbers from , but it is not this review .
The numbers are essentially the same as I suggested above . 0.078 vs 0.080 .
Less than $6 a year in states with lower utility costs and as much as $15 a year in Hawaii .
Yes you could game more than 14 hours a week . Its also not a stretch to think you might game a lot less . What was your point?
HollyDOL - Friday, August 18, 2017 - link
I don't know where you look, but 1080 FE system is taking 310W, Vega 64 then 459W, which is 149W for no gain whatsoever.Outlander_04 - Friday, August 18, 2017 - link
379 vs 459 watts for the 1080 fe vs Vega 64.delta is 0.08 kW/H
Those figures are right here in this review on the gaming power consumption chart.
HollyDOL - Saturday, August 19, 2017 - link
Lol man, you need to reread that chart. 379W is 1080Ti FE, not 1080FE.FourEyedGeek - Tuesday, August 22, 2017 - link
What if you live in a hot part of the world? Extra heat equals extra throttling, during the summer I reduce my OCs due to this. Slap on the air conditioning and it'll run a bit extra too to compensate costing more.I'd look at undervolting if possible a VEGA 56
ET - Tuesday, August 15, 2017 - link
So Vega 72 yet to come? Page 2 says that there are 6 CU arrays of 3 CU's each. That's 18 CU's, with only 16 enabled in Vegz 64.