The AMD Radeon VII Review: An Unexpected Shot At The High-End
by Nate Oh on February 7, 2019 9:00 AM ESTBenchmarking Testbed Setup
To preface, because of the SMU changes mentioned earlier, no third party utilities can read Radeon VII data, though patches are expected shortly. AIB partner tools such as MSI Afterburner should presumably launch with support. Otherwise, Radeon Wattman was the only monitoring tool possible, except we observed that the performance metric log recording and overlay sometimes caused issues with games.
On that note, a large factor in this review was the instability of press drivers. Known issues include being unable to downclock HBM2 on the Radeon VII, which AMD clarified was a bug introduced in Adrenalin 2019 19.2.1, or system crashes when the Wattman voltage curve is set to a single min/max point. There are also issues with DX11 game crashes, which we also ran into early on, that AMD is also looking at.
For these reasons, we won't have Radeon VII clockspeed or overclocking data for this review. To put simply, these types of issues are mildly concerning; while Vega 20 is new to gamers, it is not new to drivers, and if Radeon VII was indeed always in the plan, then game stability should have been a priority. Despite being a bit of a prosumer card, the Radeon VII is still the new flagship gaming card. There's no indication that these are more than simply teething issues, but it does seem to lend a little credence to the idea that Radeon VII was launched as soon as feasibly possible.
| Test Setup | |||||
| CPU | Intel Core i7-7820X @ 4.3GHz | ||||
| Motherboard | Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 7 (F9g) | ||||
| PSU | Corsair AX860i | ||||
| Storage | OCZ Toshiba RD400 (1TB) | ||||
| Memory | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 4 x 8GB (16-18-18-38) |
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| Case | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition | ||||
| Monitor | LG 27UD68P-B | ||||
| Video Cards | AMD Radeon VII AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (Air) AMD Radeon R9 Fury X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti |
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| Video Drivers | NVIDIA Release 417.71 AMD Radeon Software 18.50 Press |
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| OS | Windows 10 x64 Pro (1803) Spectre and Meltdown Patched |
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Thanks to Corsair, we were able to get a replacement for our AX860i. While the plan was to utilize Corsair Link as an additional datapoint for power consumption, for the reasons mentioned above it was not feasible for this time. On that note, power consumption figures will differ for earlier GPU 2018 Bench data.
In the same vein, for Ashes, GTA V, F1 2018, and Shadow of War, we've updated some of the benchmark automation and data processing steps, so results may vary at the 1080p mark compared to previous GPU 2018 data.
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Oxford Guy - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
This card is a turkey for gamers. AMD fixed the noise level problem with Fury X and now we're getting less value than we did then. It's too loud."Also new to this card and something AMD will be keen to call out is their triple-fan cooler, replacing the warmly received blower on the Radeon RX Vega 64/56 cards."
Is the sarcasm really necessary? If you're going to mention the cooler thing why not point out just how far AMD has regressed in terms of noise. Remember Fury X, a card that is nice under load?
"Vega 20 has nothing on paper to push for its viability at consumer prices. And yet thanks to a fortunate confluence of factors, here we are."
Oh please:
Fiji: 596 mm2 for $650. Vega 10 495 mm2 for $500. Vega 20 331 mm2 for $700.
Anandtech says it's all so shocking that Vega 20 is available to consumers at all. Eyeroll. No. For $700, AMD could have put that extra die area to more use and given us 8 GB of VRAM. But that would involve doing the impossible and making a GPU that is attractive to gamers, not just peddling low-end Polaris rehashes indefinitely.
Consumers aren't getting the best value here. They're getting leftovers just as they did with Bulldozer/Piledriver — parts that were targeted at the server market first and not consumers. At least with Vega 20, though, there is some competitiveness, although this is mainly because Nvidia is artificially crippling the value of the GPU market with its inflated pricing strategy. That is what monopolies do, of course. Look at how long Intel was able to coast with Sandy-level performance.
"At 3.5 TLFLOPS of theoretical FP64 performance, the Radeon VII is in a league of its own for the price. There simply aren’t any other current-generation cards priced below $2000 that even attempt to address the matter."
That's marvelous for the people who are able to care about FP64, unlike gamers.
This is what happens when there isn't enough competition in a market. Gamers get the choice of two shafts: Turing and Vega.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Oh, yes... and the "console".At least the Switch is a real console. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about awful low-end PCs being falsely called consoles, which has been the practice since Jaguar became an (unfortunate) thing.
Korguz - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
like in a previous post of yours.. are you forgetting that the xbox and xbox 360 were also, " low end " pc's that your are claiming ?? the switch is a real console ?? ha.. the nintendo switch, is based off of the Tegra SoC's from nvidia... in a way.. " still " a low end PC......Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
The reason the Switch qualifies as a console is that it does something differently vis-à-vis the x86 gaming PC platform. It has a different form factor and related functionality. Artificial software walled gardens do not truly differentiate Sony and MS's low-end PCs from the PC gaming market. They are merely anti-consumer kludge that people have chosen to prop up with their cash.Merely having an x86 processor does not make something equivalent to an x86 PC. The Switch is clearly not the same thing as a low-end PC box like a Jaguar-based rubbish console. I am not particularly enamored with the Switch but at least Nintendo is offering something different to better justify its approach.
Korguz - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
this sounds more like your own personal opinion and nothing more.. for some reason you hate the current consoles, and seems like there is NO reason for your hate...nintendo has offered something different for a console since the 1st Wii, and honestly, look where it has gotten them... the xbox and playstation platforms outsold the nintendo systems, up to the switch, which has out sold the other 2.. but the games them selves on the nintendo systems.. are lacking..
Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
"this sounds more like your own personal opinion and nothing more.. for some reason you hate the current consoles, and seems like there is NO reason for your hate..."Ad hominem isn't a rebuttal.
Korguz - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
still just sounds like your personal opinion, regardlessHorzaG - Sunday, February 10, 2019 - link
Pointing out that (according to the poster) you're just expressing your opinion and "hate" without reasoning isn't an Ad hominem, you used the term incorrectly earlier in this thread also. Pretty embarrassing to be simultaneously so conceited and so wrong."You should never listen to a word Oxford Guy has to say because he's a frothing fanboy whose posts reek of desperation and are probably indicative of an inability to get laid"
That's an Ad hominem.
Korguz - Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - link
and saying this :" You should never listen to a word Oxford Guy has to say because he's a frothing fanboy whose posts reek of desperation and are probably indicative of an inability to get laid "
about someone.. doesnt prove your point any better...
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - link
"Pretty embarrassing to be simultaneously so conceited and so wrong."It must be.