AMD Radeon VII 16 GB review (updated) - Introduction

AMD Radeon VII (16GB)
Lousy and nothing new eh?

February 28th, 2019 - Article updated with overclocking results.

It has been quite a journey for AMD, but it is the year 2019 and right on schedule we can not have a taste of what the future will bring. The industry is ready with their new silicon wafer fabrication at 7nm. AMD isn't wasting any time, Ryzen 3000 which we can expect roughly in the Summer of 2019 is on track. NAVI is queued for a release this year, but the one 7nm based product that has been talked about for quite a while is what we all came and learned to know under codename VEGA20. The basis of the product that we test today is the VEGA64, but does have less shader processor enabled (3840). However with a die-shrink towards a 7nm fabricated package and 16GB of HBM2 the card is released in an aim to compete with the GeForce RTX 2080, will it be capable to do that? We can already tell you that the numbers will be interesting to see. The most important aspect, however, is pricing. AMD will be releasing Radeon VII at the pretty penny of 699 USD. That price is steep, yes. However, 7nm wafers and we can only assume low yields are expensive. Then there's a drop-off adding that HBM2 memory towards the GPU with that interposer. HBM2 memory by itself is expensive, and then AMD adds 16GB of it spread out over four 4GB packages. All fascinating facts, that do add up in price.

The new Radeon VII is basically an improved Vega 64, small fabrication process and more memory. However there is an advantage towards the smaller fabrication process, AMD is able to reach higher clock frequencies. The Boost clock of Radeon VII is 1750 MHz, however, if the conditions are right, the peak clock can run towards 1800 MHz. In our testing we found the GPU being very comfortable in the 1770 range, which is a proper value. Radeon VII, will offer you a comfortable 14.2 TFLOPs of single precision (fp32) game performance. Today we test the reference Radeon VII with that massive 16GB of HBM2 graphics memory, a lot has been said and spoken about it, and it's time to check whether or not it is worth your money.

Obviously, a reference card is just that, the board partners are able to offer their own revision of Radeon VII with customized PCBs, factory tweaks and efficient cooling solutions. Reference first though, Radeon VII, a GPU with 3840 stream processors. The GPU is clocked at a boost-able 1750~1800 MHz and has been fitted with 16GB of HBM2 graphics memory. 

Behold.. the AMD Radeon VII