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...

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 allows fine-tuning with the command-line option-dcri. We use the default value of 30 for our benchmarks. The measured power is roughly at the level of an R9 FuryX and only slightly above that of the R9 390X.

Preliminary remarks on the VR benchmarks

We have already detailed the test setup and methodology in the basic article FCAT VR: GPU And CPU Performance in Virtual Reality. So if you want to know more about it, you should start with this article in order to better understand the test sequence and the individual results.

VR: Arizona Sunshine (DirectX 11)

Our Frame Times chart shows fairly consistent performance during our 150-second benchmark in Arizona Sunshine.

The frame rate shows a similar picture, with the RX Veg64 also performing worse than the smaller sister. However, the GeForce GTX 1070 is now behind in the absolute values. However, all cards still manage the 90fps hurdle with flying colours.

While the GeForce GTX 1080 achieves the lowest (so best) values here, the Radeon RX Vega56 is slightly better than the GeForce GTX 1070 in the race and the Radeon RX Vega 64 is surprisingly only ranked at the end of the field.

VR: Chronos (DirectX 11)

Chronos of the highest quality is also a hard bone for today's high-end graphics hardware. It is a game based on the UE4, although this environment is traditionally more the Nvidia cards.

The GeForce GTX 1080 spends only a short bit of our 80-second benchmark in ASW mode, while the rest of the frames have been rerendered. TheGeForce GTX 1070 is a little more dependent on the synthesized frames for a smooth experience, but it manages at least again and again to create new frames as soon as a little air is created.

The Radeon RX Vega 64 starts the benchmark as desired by consistently generating new frames, but it no longer recovers from the very scene that first forces Nvidia's cards into ASW mode. However, the RX Vega56 is already too weak to even leave the 1:1 ratio of real re-rendered to synthesized frames.

An unlimited frame rate of over 45 FPS shows that the RX Vega56 has at least some power reserves to maintain its ratio from a real to a synthesized frame. We have seen slow maps, such as the Radeon RX 470, which often require two synthesized frames for any real one. This is not good and it also means that the Radeon RX Vega56 in Chronos is significantly slower than a GeForce GTX 1070.