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The Radeon RX Vega 64 is AMD's newest flagship gaming graphics card, which is designed with extremer gamers in mind. It is built with an extensively redesigned and forward-thinking GPU architecture to deliver exhilarating performance in the newest DirectX 12 and Vulkan games. Crank up your graphics quality and bring out every detail at incredible resolutions, power the latest displays and play in lifelike HDR. Step up to next generation of immersive gaming and lose yourself in the greatest high-end gaming and virtual reality experiences. Plus, you can also tream your gameplay for the world, and record your highlights all at the same time with virtually no performance loss.
DirectX 12
DirectX 12 is a new, “console-like” graphics API from Microsoft that empowers game developers with more direct and obvious control of PC hardware. This direct or “explicit” control better exposes the hardware resources of AMD Radeon GPUs to yield higher hardware throughput and, ultimately, more performance for users. To put it simply: much more efficient hardware through smarter software! At the discretion of a game developer, this superior efficiency can be spent on higher framerates, lower latency (VR), lower power consumption, better image quality, or some calculated balance of all four. In any scenario, gamers stand to benefit greatly from choosing AMD hardware to run their favorite DirectX 12 game.
AMD FreeSync Technology
No stuttering. No tearing. Just gaming.
AMD FreeSync technology allows a compatible graphics card and monitor to dynamically change frame rates for the optimum display quality without tearing or stuttering.
FreeSync uses industry-standard displayPort Adaptive-Sync, eliminating screen tearing without all the usual lag and latency.
AMD XConnect Technology
Plug in and game on with AMD XConnect technology.
Now it’s easier than ever to connect and use an external Radeon graphics card. With AMD XConnect technology, external GPU enclosures configured with Radeon Graphics can easily connect and disconnect to a compatible ultrathin notebook or 2-in 1 over Thunderbolt 3 at any time, just like a USB flash drive—a first for external GPUs!
AMD Eyefinity Technology
Multidisplay technology for gaming, productivity and entertainment
Go beyond the boundaries of traditional PC displays. AMD Eyefinity technology expands the traditional limits of desktop computing by multiplying your screen area. With multiple monitors, games become more immersive, workstations become more useful and you become more productive (an average of 42% more productive according to one study).
Take your PC games to the next level of reality and immersion. Most modern games look great on three screens, and only AMD Radeon graphics offer you the ability to play across five screens for an eye-popping gaming experience. Other combinations and configurations with up to six screens work too.1 Create your dream display.
AMD Crossfire
Harness the power of multiple GPUs
AMD CrossFire technology is the ultimate multi-GPU performance gaming platform. Unlocking game-dominating power, AMD CrossFire harnesses the power of two or more discrete graphics cards working in parallel to dramatically improve gaming performance.1 AMD CrossFire technology ready graphics cards fit practically every budget. With the flexibility to combine two, three or four GPUs, AMD CrossFire technology is the perfect solution for those who demand extreme performance.
Introducing AMD LiquidVR
LiquidVR is an AMD initiative dedicated to making VR as comfortable and realistic as possible by creating and maintaining what’s known as “presence” — a state of immersive awareness where situations, objects, or characters within the virtual world seem “real.” Guided by close collaboration with key technology partners in the ecosystem, LiquidVR uses AMD’s GPU software and hardware sub-systems to tackle the common issues and pitfalls of achieving presence, such as reducing motion-to-photon latency to less than 10 milliseconds. This is a crucial step in addressing the common discomforts, such as motion sickness, that may occur when you turn your head in a virtual world and it takes even a few milliseconds too long for a new perspective to be shown.
Virtual Super Resolution
Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) is an AMD feature that is game and engine agnostic to simulate Super-Sampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA) in games that do not have native SSAA support. VSR can also be used in conjunction with other native in-game anti-aliasing for even more game graphics-setting control. VSR allows games to render at higher resolutions (up to 4K; see the ‘Virtual Super Resolution Support’ table, below) and then rescales them down to a lower native display resolution. Using this, you can get quality that rivals up to 4K, even on a 1080p display while playing your favorite games.
Pros: Similar performance to GTX 1080 Excellent performance in DX 12 and Vulkan api titles Freesync Technology 1247mhz core clock and 1546mhz boost clock DPM7 shows potential top clock of 1630mhz 8gb HBM2 memory High Bandwidth Cache Controller PCB design and VRM setup is excellent Customizable power profiles Dual Bios GPU Tach LED’s Metal Backplate Wolfenstein ll and Prey game vouchers Drivers and software are easy to install and use
Cons: Stock blower style HSF is not capable of adequately cooling the GPU and HBM Loud and runs hot (stock cooler) Software buggy Consumes more power than GTX 1080 Price gouging Will throttle to 1401mhz (stock hsf) Slight coil whine with high frame rates 295W TDP Backplate does not actively cool components Other Thoughts (needed more space). I really wanted Vega to succeed, however I can’t really recommend the stock air cooled version for many reasons. My review extends to all stock Vega 64’s as they were all built by AMD (not just this Sapphire version). The stock cooler is so poor with the default fan profile that the card hits its thermal limits in less than a minute of full load, resulting in throttling and reduced performance. I tested this with Firestrike Stress Test, and with default out of the box settings, Vega 64 hit its thermal limit of 85C in under a minute, throttling to 1401mhz with a 2400rpm max fan speed! I was able to reduce throttling by raising the fan speed profile to 3500rpm manually and this kept the load temperatures below the target setting of 75C but it was loud at these speeds. Without throttling the card boosted to 1546mhz and sometimes hit it’s DPM 7 state of 1630mhz. At these frequencies the card performs very similarly to the stock GTX 1080. I know this because I swapped my GTX 1080 to Vega 64 in order to get the best out of my Nixeus 2560x1440 144hz IPS Freesync monitor. Once the fan speed is adjusted to avoid full load throttling, playing games with Freesync enabled is truly a delight. It’s difficult to explain unless you have tried adaptive sync, but games like BF1 and Prey look and run smoother and the overall experience is well worth the few fps that I may have lost swapping to Vega 64. Looping Firestrike becomes mesmerizing to watch without the usual frame tearing. Vega 64 can easily provide all the FPS I need for my monitor, I have no need for anything faster. My current build is Ryzen 5 1600X (at 4.0ghz), AsRock X370 Taichi, 16gb Corsair LPX PC 3200 DDR4, 1Tb Mushkin Reactor SSD and Vega 64. I wanted a change from my usual Intel/Nvidia builds and to be honest the change was prompted by some software or driver updates that resulted in stuttering in BF1 and Prey that I was not able to completely resolve. I do run a custom watercooling loop with a 360mm rad and a 240mm rad along with an Alphacool Eisblock XPX on my CPU and a shiny new EK Vega waterblock on my GPU and am very happy with the results. For me Vega 64 is as good a GPU as my old GTX 1080, however it does consume around 80W more under load that equates to an additional $2.30 or so on my annual power bill (calculated on 2 hours of game play per day and a 1kwh cost of 4 cents in Nevada)… Based on my testing Vega 64 (assuming it does not throttle runs faster than the GTX 1080 in DX12 and Vulkan based games by as much as 6-8% and 1-4% slower in Dx11 titles.
Overall Review: The cost of this card has spiked, making the value proposition poor at best. If this card actually hit market at $499 then I might be able to overlook the performance to power ratio, however I bought this stock card at $599, which hurt somewhat as the GTX 1080 is currently cheaper. I was going to buy Wolfenstein ll, so saved $60 with the game voucher and gave the Prey game code to my son, so all was not lost once I factored in the $120 worth of software that I did not have to pay for. But not everyone wants Wolfenstein or Prey though! The gpu is well behaved under water, the PCB is extremely well designed and the powerful VRM is likely one of the better stock manufactured VRM’s I’ve seen. I have no plans to overclock this video card, however I can now run the card without throttling at its maximum DMP7 clocks of 1630mhz while undervolting to 1080mV. Having said this, it was quite easy, even when air cooled to increase the power limit by 50%, setting memory at 1050mhz and adding 5% to core frequency, this would result in core frequency of 1712mhz under load. However the stock cooler would need to be set at a howling 4500rpm to keep temperatures below 85C. I don’t have to worry about fan noise as my load temps hit 58C maximum during looped benchmarks now that I have my waterblock installed. Running some Timespy tests with the Vega 64 at stock, the graphic score was 7069, after overclocking, the graphic score rose to 7820 which is a 10% improvement and peak sustained frequencies rose from 1630mhz to 1712mhz. I’m positive that more performance can be gained by further overclocking, but as I mentioned I’m not that bothered, I don’t believe that the additional power and heat are worth the extra fps. Installing the driver packages was simple, the new Crimson drivers are easy to use and update. Some of the clock reporting and power reporting in Wattman is not accurate, so I have been using Watt Tool to adjust clocks and voltages. Radeon Chill can help tame power in game, but only if your game is listed (currently I believe that 30 plus games are supported). I’m happy to report that AMD drivers are not the mess that they used to be. There are some bugs, but I am an early adopter and hopefully these will be fixed soon, along with some added optimizations that will make Vega 64 even better. Should you buy this card??? Not at any price over $499. Not if you want to keep the stock cooler. Not if you want better performance than GTX 1080. Not if you are don’t have Freesync monitor. The only real reason I can see for people to buy Vega 64 over the GTX 1080 is if you intend to pair it with a 1440p Freesync monitor for high refresh rate gaming like me. For me this is a good card, almost as fast as my GTX 1080 in DX 11 and older titles and slightly faster with modern api’s like DX12 and Vulkan. It’s not really power hungry in balanced mode compared to the GTX 1080, the difference is around 80W and now that I have undervolted it to 1080mV it’s about the same. The cost of additional power is not really a show stopper once you do the math, however the by-product of additional power is heat and this may be an issue for some. At a pinch you could keep the stock cooler, but the fan profile would need to be adjusted to 3500rpm in order to keep temperatures below 85C full load and this will increase the noise output. Paying $599 for this card with the stock hsf and then adding another $120 for an EK Waterblock takes the cost up to cheapest GTX 1080ti and the 1080ti card provides much more performance with a lower power draw. I don’t regret my purchase, I would have been happier if I could have purchased the card at its suggested MSRP of $499. If you are an AMD fanboy, then this card is a definite upgrade to Fury X and RX 580, however I would likely wait for an AIB to bring customized Vega 64’s to market with better HSF’s as the stock cooler is not great. If you have a freesync monitor, then this card will be an excellent choice, however, again I would likely wait for AIB’s to bring custom versions to market with better coolers. If like me you intend to replace the stock HSF with a waterblock, then the design of the PCB and strong VRM make this a good buy (assuming price goes down to MSRP). If you are not an AMD fanboy, or invested in Freesync, then a GTX 1080 will cost the same, or in some cases less than the Vega 64, and will be quieter, run cooler and use less power while providing the same level of performance. I have taken off 1 egg for the poor stock HSF and current cost to performance ratio, but this is more a reflection of AMD design and not a Sapphire specific issue.