The AMD Radeon VII Review: An Unexpected Shot At The High-End
by Nate Oh on February 7, 2019 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V (DX11)
Now a truly venerable title, GTA V is a veteran of past game suites that is still graphically demanding as they come. As an older DX11 title, it provides a glimpse into the graphically intensive games of yesteryear that don't incorporate the latest features. Originally released for consoles in 2013, the PC port came with a slew of graphical enhancements and options. Just as importantly, GTA V includes a rather intensive and informative built-in benchmark, somewhat uncommon in open-world games.
The settings are identical to its previous appearances, which are custom as GTA V does not have presets. To recap, a "Very High" quality is used, where all primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, except grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced rendering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but not increasing the view distance any further.
We've updated some of the benchmark automation and data processing steps, so results may vary at the 1080p mark compared to previous data.
GTA V is another game where the Radeon VII starts off on the back foot. Its 38% 4K performance improvement over the RX Vega 64 is outstanding and nothing to be scoffed at, but even this jump isn't enough to draw even with the GTX 1080 Ti FE and RTX 2080. Ultimately, it lands somewhere in between the reference RTX 2070 and RTX 2080.
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just4U - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
It's not a turkey at all.. it beats a Vega64 for around 30% ads 2x the ram (which is not really utilized yet) has a 3 fan design with Amd's top end shroud/block takes less power, runs cooler, and has the same characteristics which means Amd was generous on power so undervolting it without appreciable performance losses will be easy enough to do as will overclocking.For me that's a winner. I have blower 1080s and their very loud if I let them or run things at stock (i undervolt there to..) and I've seen how loud the Vega56/64 blowers can be.. this with the 3 fans? pfft.. way quieter.
Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
I think you should look at the data in this review because your analysis is way off.ballsystemlord - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
They are sold out! All the online retailers I checked have no Radeon VIIs! Unless you go to ebay and pay way too much.Oxford Guy - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Overpriced underbaked vaporware? Never-coulda-happen.It's an ugly time to be a "serious" PC gamer.
ballsystemlord - Friday, February 15, 2019 - link
Well, it's been a week. They came into stock for about 5min.LogitechFan - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
amdumb defense force in full denial mode, sorry, we can't hear you over the 55db noise level of the radeon VII ;)))))))))rukufe - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
If you want to play with AI, you need tensorflow, and for a "server" card, at this price, it doesn't not makes sense to not support tensorflow. AI is everywhere today. this card is obsolete.gsalkin - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
So is this too little too late? I'm bewildered that even at 7nm this card is pulling 300W of power and generating insane noise.It's also unfortunate that the rumor of 128 ROPs was bunk. These cards definitely have an imbalance in the CU to ROP ratio. Nvidia Titan Xp had 96 ROPs strapped to 3840 SPs but AMD is shipping a max of 64?
Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
"It's also unfortunate that the rumor of 128 ROPs was bunk."That rumor typifies the irrational thinking that plagues the gaming community. AMD isn't going to make the effort of changing the Instinct GPU to better suit gamers. It isn't and it hasn't.
dr.denton - Saturday, February 9, 2019 - link
I wonder, do people actually read and comprehend these articles? By now it should be obvious to everyone, that VII is not and was never supposed to be AMD's next generation of GPU. In fact, they always denied that Vega 7nm would make it into the consumer market - and for very good reason: they had Navi for that. Now that Navi is delayed, they need something for people to talk about - and talk about it we do.