Small, hot-cold sister: AMD RX Vega56 with efficiency test and VR

In the end, however, this remains the most exciting question of the day, because there has been little noticeable about a wide availability and above all stable software. So it can only get better. But what's left in the end ... Disassembly and radiator details Removing the top hee cover is easy. With a small Phillips screwdriver (PH1), the six small swivels that hold this cover can be turned out. After that, there is only one... Board layout The RX Vega56, RX Vega 64 and Vega Frontier Edition have the same board, 100% identical components and differ only in the soldered package, as well as a customized firmware. The length is, consider... Ethereum Mining The latest version of Claymore's Dual Ethereum AMD/NVIDIA GPU Miner (V8.9.8) provides support for the Radeon RX Vega, so what we use it for our mining benchmark. All AMD cards run in ASM mode, which is a fe... Dirt Rally (DirectX11) This game has a built-in benchmark and therefore offers absolutely reproducible conditions for each pass While the GeForce GTX 1080 never falls into ASW mode, except for a few dripped frames, the G... Foreword to gaming benchmarks On the following pages, we let the bars and curves speak for themselves and do without filling text. In return, and at the request of many readers, we have not only the overall overviews of all maps. Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Benchmarks in WQHD (2560 x 1440 Pixels) Benchmarks in Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) Power consumption, BIOS selection and presets AMD (as on the Radeon RX Vega64) also offers two BIOS variants on the Radeon RX Vega56 via switch, whose presets differ from each other. The Power Limit as long as you don't... Clock rates and corresponding gaming performance With Witcher 3 in Ultra HD, we are now testing the worst case at maximum load. Let's just start from the default setting on delivery and set the "Balanced" mode of the BIOS and the there... Fan speeds and operating noise ("volume") As we already know, AMD is trying to prioritize GPU temperatures. It should therefore be clear to everyone that this must be at the expense of fan speeds. First, let's look at the throughs. The RX Vega56 can be convincing in some areas, but not in others. The biggest shortcomings are the launch, which took place one year too late, the almost homeopathic availability of the Vega cards as a whole and the disproportionately high...

Board layout

The RX Vega56, RX Vega 64 and Vega Frontier Edition have the same board, 100% identical components and differ only in the soldered package, as well as a customized firmware. The length, if you look at the right side of the PCB, is only due to the radiator structure with the large radial fan. By a sensible shortening, it would be easy to achieve board sizes in the format of an R9 Nano.

AMD has therefore thought a bit about the division of the board, especially since the elimination of the external memory modules opens up new possibilities. Exactly in their place you now place the individual power supplies. We see an almost classic 6+1 phase design for GPU and memory, as well as other voltage converters for the respective partial voltages. We will go into all these things in more detail, because it is really interesting.

The two 8-pin connectors are each connected via a coil, which helps to smooth certain voltage peaks. However, we could not find larger capacitors here.

Power supply of the GPU

First of all, the focus is on the IR3521 from International Rectifier, a dual output digital multi-phase controller that can provide both the 6 phases for the GPU and 2 other phases, which we will talk about in a moment. But back to the GPU. After all, we count twelve voltage transformer circuits, not six. However, since only six real phases can be created, you can double each of these phases in order to divide the load into two converter circles. We suspect that this effort will not be done later with the slightly simpler XL version. for this, you either simply owe away the space for the second circle or simplify the board as such.

A total of six IR3598s are used for this so-called doubling, which are located on the back of the board (we remember). The actual voltage conversion of each of the twelve converter circuits is performed by an IRF6811 on the high side and an IRF6894 on the low-side, which also contains the required Schottky diode. Both are previously USED by AMD HEXFETs from International Rectifier. In the case of coils, AMD relies on encapsulated and front-soldered ferrite core coils. The inductance is slightly lower at 190 nH than the usual 220 nH for THE GPUs.

Power supply of the memory

As mentioned briefly, the IR35217 also provides one phase for storage. One phase is sufficient because the memory is much more adequate. The gate-driver CHL815 is back on the back of the board, while an NTMFD 4C85M from ON Semiconductor is used for voltage conversion. This dual N-Channel MOSFET realizes both the high and the low-side.

It is also interesting that AMD generally dispenses with all cup capacitors and only relies on flat SMD caps. The slightly lower capacity can be compensated by simply switching two of these caps in parallel and usually also using the back of the board. A sensible equalization of the thermal hotspots and a larger heat dissipation also have the nice side effect that you can also enter a temperature class lower and thus also save costs. The finance department is certainly equally pleased with this.

The coil is slightly larger this time with 220 nH. At 820 nH, on the other hand, the coils for the significantly slower clocking converters of the other partial voltages are even larger, which, however, also have to withstand significantly lower currents.

Other voltage converters

The production of VDDCI is not a big item in terms of performance, but it is important. It is used for GPU-internal level transition between the GPU and memory signals, something like the voltage between the memory and the GPU core on the I/O bus. In addition, two constant sources for 1.8V and 0.8 volts are shown.

Below the GPU you can also find the APL5620 from Anpec for the VPP. This ultra-low dropout chip generates the very low voltage for the Phase Locked Loop (PLL) range.

With the HC238A from ON Semiconductor as a de-multiplexer, the "mausekino" is realized for the LED bar, which shows the utilization of the power supply. Nice gimmick, but in intensity almost disturbing. Especially at night.