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ASUS Radeon ROG RX Vega 64 STRIX 8GB review
Posted by: on: 09/25/2017 12:14 PM [
97 comment(s) ]
We review the ASUS Radeon ROG RX Vega 64 STRIX 8GB Gaming. ASUS finalized it's all custom product, we'll take you through the product, its architecture and the performance numbers. Will custom cooling make all the difference?
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tunejunky
Senior Member
Posts: 875
Senior Member
Posts: 875
Posted on: 09/07/2017 07:54 PM
i know folks have assembled into their pro/con camps. but a little plain talking fact will help (as much as it can...lol).
Vega is an unqualified success for AMD, a wtf moment for gamers.
these are not mutually exclusive statements.
AMD may or may not have aimed for miners, but more than miners use openCL.
and the real PC Master Race is workstation users anyway.
Nvidia is literally up against a wall (not from AMD) due to die size and chip yields for Volta. atm, Volta is not ready for mass market and it is unlikely it ever will be. what we will probably end up with is a new smaller die, instead of less perfect Volta chips with disabled functions.
AMD has already dealt with the issue of massive chip size and die yield - its called Ryzen (in all its flavours). Infinity Fabric is the answer and both Nvidia and Intel are spending tens of millions of R&D dollars to emulate it. that is not an opinion. anyone can read the trade blogs.
i know folks have assembled into their pro/con camps. but a little plain talking fact will help (as much as it can...lol).
Vega is an unqualified success for AMD, a wtf moment for gamers.
these are not mutually exclusive statements.
AMD may or may not have aimed for miners, but more than miners use openCL.
and the real PC Master Race is workstation users anyway.
Nvidia is literally up against a wall (not from AMD) due to die size and chip yields for Volta. atm, Volta is not ready for mass market and it is unlikely it ever will be. what we will probably end up with is a new smaller die, instead of less perfect Volta chips with disabled functions.
AMD has already dealt with the issue of massive chip size and die yield - its called Ryzen (in all its flavours). Infinity Fabric is the answer and both Nvidia and Intel are spending tens of millions of R&D dollars to emulate it. that is not an opinion. anyone can read the trade blogs.
Kaarme
Senior Member
Posts: 1561
Senior Member
Posts: 1561
Posted on: 09/07/2017 08:15 PM
Bankruptcy ? One of the worst trolling attempts in the history of hardware forums.
Chill a cycle, dude. It wasn't a trolling attempt in the first place, it was hyperbole joke. Nobody here is at the moment expecting AMD to go under and consequently there's no grounds for such trolling. Not that it would have even been the point of the post. The point was that AMD with its meager resources seems to be pushing the development in a far riskier way than Nvidia who could have spent the same money as a side project.
Don't get stuck on individual words. You might turn into a political journalist!
Bankruptcy ? One of the worst trolling attempts in the history of hardware forums.
Chill a cycle, dude. It wasn't a trolling attempt in the first place, it was hyperbole joke. Nobody here is at the moment expecting AMD to go under and consequently there's no grounds for such trolling. Not that it would have even been the point of the post. The point was that AMD with its meager resources seems to be pushing the development in a far riskier way than Nvidia who could have spent the same money as a side project.
Don't get stuck on individual words. You might turn into a political journalist!
vestibule
Senior Member
Posts: 197
Senior Member
Posts: 197
Posted on: 09/07/2017 08:18 PM
When I read the initial review I thought wft and scoffed.
When I read the initial review I thought wft and scoffed.
Evildead666
Senior Member
Posts: 1096
Senior Member
Posts: 1096
Posted on: 09/07/2017 08:39 PM
You say they're both noisy, so that's not a win there unfortunately, all that remains is any potential benefit in performance. How much extra performance have you got from watercooling vs your card when it was on air? I suppose it's best to compare overclocked on air vs overclocked on water, and Timespy Graphics Score would be a good comparison.
EDIT: in the Vega64 Guru3d review in the overclocking section they say of their results that in the "first segment of our test would run nicely at 1.7 GHz, but the second it hits a limiter it goes down fast to 1500 and 1600 MHz ranges". I suppose if you manage to maintain a stable/constant 1700Mhz with watercooling (don't know if you see that with yours) then this is 'only' 6% above the 1600Mhz seen in the air cooling - performance in games doesn't scale linearly with clockspeed, so I'm guessing you would see in the region of 4% improvement in gaming performance through watercooling. Is that far off?
In the Superposition Test I can see the GPU MHz in realtime.
At the best, I hit 1675MHz, and dipped to 1666MHz. At 44°C Max temp at the end of the run.
I did manage to get it above that, but it failed in one of the later tests.
Lowering the voltage to 1170mV/+5%OC GPU HBM@1100MHz, 1000mV was the sweet spot for me.
Any higher, and the clock would go down, any lower and it would fail. i.e. Lock up the PC.
I have rebooted god knows how many times doing the voltage/OC tests.
edit : The HBM made more of a difference, in a way, where the GPU clock is more pure FPS.
You say they're both noisy, so that's not a win there unfortunately, all that remains is any potential benefit in performance. How much extra performance have you got from watercooling vs your card when it was on air? I suppose it's best to compare overclocked on air vs overclocked on water, and Timespy Graphics Score would be a good comparison.
EDIT: in the Vega64 Guru3d review in the overclocking section they say of their results that in the "first segment of our test would run nicely at 1.7 GHz, but the second it hits a limiter it goes down fast to 1500 and 1600 MHz ranges". I suppose if you manage to maintain a stable/constant 1700Mhz with watercooling (don't know if you see that with yours) then this is 'only' 6% above the 1600Mhz seen in the air cooling - performance in games doesn't scale linearly with clockspeed, so I'm guessing you would see in the region of 4% improvement in gaming performance through watercooling. Is that far off?
In the Superposition Test I can see the GPU MHz in realtime.
At the best, I hit 1675MHz, and dipped to 1666MHz. At 44°C Max temp at the end of the run.
I did manage to get it above that, but it failed in one of the later tests.
Lowering the voltage to 1170mV/+5%OC GPU HBM@1100MHz, 1000mV was the sweet spot for me.
Any higher, and the clock would go down, any lower and it would fail. i.e. Lock up the PC.
I have rebooted god knows how many times doing the voltage/OC tests.
edit : The HBM made more of a difference, in a way, where the GPU clock is more pure FPS.
Robbo9999
Senior Member
Posts: 1289
Senior Member
Posts: 1289
Posted on: 09/07/2017 08:47 PM
In the Superposition Test I can see the GPU MHz in realtime.
At the best, I hit 1675MHz, and dipped to 1666MHz. At 44°C Max temp at the end of the run.
I did manage to get it above that, but it failed in one of the later tests.
Lowering the voltage to 1170mV/+5%OC GPU HBM@1100MHz, 1000mV was the sweet spot for me.
Any higher, and the clock would go down, any lower and it would fail. i.e. Lock up the PC.
I have rebooted god knows how many times doing the voltage/OC tests.
edit : The HBM made more of a difference, in a way, where the GPU clock is more pure FPS.
Ok, so you're not gonna show the difference between your air cooled performance & your now watercooled performance. From what I've read water cooling doesn't really significantly increase performance of Vega64, I'd be surprised if it's more than 4% performance difference between air cooled overclocked vs watercooled overclocked in game fps.
EDIT: although you do say you're hovering at least at 1666Mhz, and the Guru3D overclocking part of the Vega64 review showed overclocked on air dropping to about 1600Mhz, so that's only about a 4% increase in boost clock, so gaming performance increase of water cooling would be less than 4%. (Just some suppositions based on what you've told me so far).
EDIT 2: if you're not getting much performance increase from watercooling, then why don't you go in the opposite direction & instead let the temperatures climb a bit higher, and instead turn down your fan speeds, at least that way you end up with one of the benefits - quieter than a stock Vega64 air cooled card. You may as well get at least one practical advantage!
In the Superposition Test I can see the GPU MHz in realtime.
At the best, I hit 1675MHz, and dipped to 1666MHz. At 44°C Max temp at the end of the run.
I did manage to get it above that, but it failed in one of the later tests.
Lowering the voltage to 1170mV/+5%OC GPU HBM@1100MHz, 1000mV was the sweet spot for me.
Any higher, and the clock would go down, any lower and it would fail. i.e. Lock up the PC.
I have rebooted god knows how many times doing the voltage/OC tests.
edit : The HBM made more of a difference, in a way, where the GPU clock is more pure FPS.
Ok, so you're not gonna show the difference between your air cooled performance & your now watercooled performance. From what I've read water cooling doesn't really significantly increase performance of Vega64, I'd be surprised if it's more than 4% performance difference between air cooled overclocked vs watercooled overclocked in game fps.
EDIT: although you do say you're hovering at least at 1666Mhz, and the Guru3D overclocking part of the Vega64 review showed overclocked on air dropping to about 1600Mhz, so that's only about a 4% increase in boost clock, so gaming performance increase of water cooling would be less than 4%. (Just some suppositions based on what you've told me so far).
EDIT 2: if you're not getting much performance increase from watercooling, then why don't you go in the opposite direction & instead let the temperatures climb a bit higher, and instead turn down your fan speeds, at least that way you end up with one of the benefits - quieter than a stock Vega64 air cooled card. You may as well get at least one practical advantage!
WeSbO
Senior Member
Posts: 169
Senior Member
Posts: 169
Posted on: 09/07/2017 08:54 PM
What I find especially interesting about this is that still suggests their cooler isn't a whole lot better than the reference cooler. In fact it's arguably worse, since the fans seem to consume more power. Think of it in this way: if the BIOS was the same as the reference and the overall performance, thermals, and noise levels remained roughly the same, that suggests their heatsink is no better than the reference. That means whatever improvements they make in the BIOS could be applied to any other card, including the reference. So, why wouldn't anyone just go for the reference card (or any other 3rd party OEM) and just tweak clocks and voltages themselves?
No wonder Asus wanted this article taken down. Either way, that's nice they're sending a replacement. I personally would've been fine with just updating the BIOS but a new card is nice.
Hilbert:
If you're allowed to keep the original review sample, you should try replacing its BIOS with the one from the replacement card. From there, you could do Crossfire tests!
^^ This
I would've expected the cooler to work way better than it did on a Vanilla 64 bios compared to the ref blower card, I would've expected to at least maintain boosts for longer yielding noticeable better performance overall.
Either that AMD ref design blower cooler is the best one ever made or something went terribly wrong with the ASUS cooler!
What I find especially interesting about this is that still suggests their cooler isn't a whole lot better than the reference cooler. In fact it's arguably worse, since the fans seem to consume more power. Think of it in this way: if the BIOS was the same as the reference and the overall performance, thermals, and noise levels remained roughly the same, that suggests their heatsink is no better than the reference. That means whatever improvements they make in the BIOS could be applied to any other card, including the reference. So, why wouldn't anyone just go for the reference card (or any other 3rd party OEM) and just tweak clocks and voltages themselves?
No wonder Asus wanted this article taken down. Either way, that's nice they're sending a replacement. I personally would've been fine with just updating the BIOS but a new card is nice.
Hilbert:
If you're allowed to keep the original review sample, you should try replacing its BIOS with the one from the replacement card. From there, you could do Crossfire tests!
^^ This
I would've expected the cooler to work way better than it did on a Vanilla 64 bios compared to the ref blower card, I would've expected to at least maintain boosts for longer yielding noticeable better performance overall.
Either that AMD ref design blower cooler is the best one ever made or something went terribly wrong with the ASUS cooler!
Evildead666
Senior Member
Posts: 1096
Senior Member
Posts: 1096
Posted on: 09/07/2017 09:07 PM
Ok, so you're not gonna show the difference between your air cooled performance & your now watercooled performance. From what I've read water cooling doesn't really significantly increase performance of Vega64, I'd be surprised if it's more than 4% performance difference between air cooled overclocked vs watercooled overclocked in game fps.
EDIT: although you do say you're hovering at least at 1666Mhz, and the Guru3D overclocking part of the Vega64 review showed overclocked on air dropping to about 1600Mhz, so that's only about a 4% increase in boost clock, so gaming performance increase of water cooling would be less than 4%. (Just some suppositions based on what you've told me so far).
EDIT 2: if you're not getting much performance increase from watercooling, then why don't you go in the opposite direction & instead let the temperatures climb a bit higher, and instead turn down your fan speeds, at least that way you end up with one of the benefits - quieter than a stock Vega64 air cooled card. You may as well get at least one practical advantage!
I can't show you aircooled performance, because it was never aircooled.
I don't have a PC setup where I can really stuff an aircooled card in it, and I had the block ready, so i just went with it.
I set the overclock to 5%, only had it running a week, and have seen that people can set a target clock.
Not tried that yet, but I dont expect it to do better than what I have tried so far.
The Liquid BIOS has a higher TDP allowed, which might allow 1700+ stable, we'll see.
edit: 3DMark had my GPU at 1697MHz (1630MHz in brackets)
edit2: Noise isnt a problem, 5m long DP cable, USB cable and PS2 cable Other side of door. Out of mind and the speakers. 
Ok, so you're not gonna show the difference between your air cooled performance & your now watercooled performance. From what I've read water cooling doesn't really significantly increase performance of Vega64, I'd be surprised if it's more than 4% performance difference between air cooled overclocked vs watercooled overclocked in game fps.
EDIT: although you do say you're hovering at least at 1666Mhz, and the Guru3D overclocking part of the Vega64 review showed overclocked on air dropping to about 1600Mhz, so that's only about a 4% increase in boost clock, so gaming performance increase of water cooling would be less than 4%. (Just some suppositions based on what you've told me so far).
EDIT 2: if you're not getting much performance increase from watercooling, then why don't you go in the opposite direction & instead let the temperatures climb a bit higher, and instead turn down your fan speeds, at least that way you end up with one of the benefits - quieter than a stock Vega64 air cooled card. You may as well get at least one practical advantage!
I can't show you aircooled performance, because it was never aircooled.
I don't have a PC setup where I can really stuff an aircooled card in it, and I had the block ready, so i just went with it.
I set the overclock to 5%, only had it running a week, and have seen that people can set a target clock.
Not tried that yet, but I dont expect it to do better than what I have tried so far.
The Liquid BIOS has a higher TDP allowed, which might allow 1700+ stable, we'll see.
edit: 3DMark had my GPU at 1697MHz (1630MHz in brackets)
edit2: Noise isnt a problem, 5m long DP cable, USB cable and PS2 cable
Other side of door. Out of mind and the speakers.
Robbo9999
Senior Member
Posts: 1289
Senior Member
Posts: 1289
Posted on: 09/07/2017 09:33 PM
I can't show you aircooled performance, because it was never aircooled.
I don't have a PC setup where I can really stuff an aircooled card in it, and I had the block ready, so i just went with it.
I set the overclock to 5%, only had it running a week, and have seen that people can set a target clock.
Not tried that yet, but I dont expect it to do better than what I have tried so far.
The Liquid BIOS has a higher TDP allowed, which might allow 1700+ stable, we'll see.
edit: 3DMark had my GPU at 1697MHz (1630MHz in brackets)
edit2: Noise isnt a problem, 5m long DP cable, USB cable and PS2 cable Other side of door. Out of mind and the speakers.
Ok, I understand, that's why you couldn't show me the difference in performance. Well it's good that you can keep your PC in a separate room! Ha, but joking aside, one good thing about your card, I imagine it will stand the test of time better than a GTX 1080 - not by much, but a little I predict. I'm still not a convert to the idea that it's worth watercooling these Vega's from a performance perspective, but if you can reduce the god-awful noise of the reference Vega64 then that's a pluspoint, but given the cost & hassle it might be better to get an aircooled 3rd party card instead - although this review that got taken down wasn't that promising!
I can't show you aircooled performance, because it was never aircooled.
I don't have a PC setup where I can really stuff an aircooled card in it, and I had the block ready, so i just went with it.
I set the overclock to 5%, only had it running a week, and have seen that people can set a target clock.
Not tried that yet, but I dont expect it to do better than what I have tried so far.
The Liquid BIOS has a higher TDP allowed, which might allow 1700+ stable, we'll see.
edit: 3DMark had my GPU at 1697MHz (1630MHz in brackets)
edit2: Noise isnt a problem, 5m long DP cable, USB cable and PS2 cable
Other side of door. Out of mind and the speakers. Ok, I understand, that's why you couldn't show me the difference in performance. Well it's good that you can keep your PC in a separate room! Ha, but joking aside, one good thing about your card, I imagine it will stand the test of time better than a GTX 1080 - not by much, but a little I predict. I'm still not a convert to the idea that it's worth watercooling these Vega's from a performance perspective, but if you can reduce the god-awful noise of the reference Vega64 then that's a pluspoint, but given the cost & hassle it might be better to get an aircooled 3rd party card instead - although this review that got taken down wasn't that promising!
Evildead666
Senior Member
Posts: 1096
Senior Member
Posts: 1096
Posted on: 09/07/2017 09:39 PM
Its always worth watercooling.
For one the VRMs are nice and cool, so low consumption, but on Nvidia GPU's, they will clock to the Max themselves.
From what I have seen, they will clock as high as they can, automatically. Cool them enough, and they will fly.
Once you have a watercooling setup, its like a monitor, you keep it a few generations, so it sort of pays for itself.
If you then get the ref card and WB for a few gens.
With AMD, this gen, its almost the same. Almost.
Ok, I understand, that's why you couldn't show me the difference in performance. Well it's good that you can keep your PC in a separate room! Ha, but joking aside, one good thing about your card, I imagine it will stand the test of time better than a GTX 1080 - not by much, but a little I predict. I'm still not a convert to the idea that it's worth watercooling these Vega's from a performance perspective, but if you can reduce the god-awful noise of the reference Vega64 then that's a pluspoint, but given the cost & hassle it might be better to get an aircooled 3rd party card instead - although this review that got taken down wasn't that promising!
Its always worth watercooling.
For one the VRMs are nice and cool, so low consumption, but on Nvidia GPU's, they will clock to the Max themselves.
From what I have seen, they will clock as high as they can, automatically. Cool them enough, and they will fly.
Once you have a watercooling setup, its like a monitor, you keep it a few generations, so it sort of pays for itself.
If you then get the ref card and WB
for a few gens.With AMD, this gen, its almost the same. Almost.
Robbo9999
Senior Member
Posts: 1289
Senior Member
Posts: 1289
Posted on: 09/07/2017 09:58 PM
Its always worth watercooling.
For one the VRMs are nice and cool, so low consumption, but on Nvidia GPU's, they will clock to the Max themselves.
From what I have seen, they will clock as high as they can, automatically. Cool them enough, and they will fly.
Once you have a watercooling setup, its like a monitor, you keep it a few generations, so it sort of pays for itself.
If you then get the ref card and WB for a few gens.
With AMD, this gen, its almost the same. Almost.
Well, it's good that you can keep the watercooling setup for a few generations, that's something for sure.
With Pascal you're right that they lower clockspeed as the temperature increases. I've got a GTX 1070 and I know my max stable overclock is a maximum boost of 2113Mhz, and it will drop to 2075Mhz stable/consistent clock during long gaming sessions in most games, so I'm only missing out on 2% clockspeed and probably something like 1% performance by not going with watercooling - that's the small performance difference between 2113Mhz and 2075Mhz. So, for Pascal it's not really worth watercooling from a performance perspective either.
(Small aside: in my signature you can see it's at 2050Mhz, but that's the stable/consistent boost I see without added voltage, so not my max overclock, that's just the one I game with most of the time.)
Its always worth watercooling.
For one the VRMs are nice and cool, so low consumption, but on Nvidia GPU's, they will clock to the Max themselves.
From what I have seen, they will clock as high as they can, automatically. Cool them enough, and they will fly.
Once you have a watercooling setup, its like a monitor, you keep it a few generations, so it sort of pays for itself.
If you then get the ref card and WB
for a few gens.With AMD, this gen, its almost the same. Almost.
Well, it's good that you can keep the watercooling setup for a few generations, that's something for sure.
With Pascal you're right that they lower clockspeed as the temperature increases. I've got a GTX 1070 and I know my max stable overclock is a maximum boost of 2113Mhz, and it will drop to 2075Mhz stable/consistent clock during long gaming sessions in most games, so I'm only missing out on 2% clockspeed and probably something like 1% performance by not going with watercooling - that's the small performance difference between 2113Mhz and 2075Mhz. So, for Pascal it's not really worth watercooling from a performance perspective either.
(Small aside: in my signature you can see it's at 2050Mhz, but that's the stable/consistent boost I see without added voltage, so not my max overclock, that's just the one I game with most of the time.)
waltc3
Senior Member
Posts: 996
Senior Member
Posts: 996
Posted on: 09/08/2017 01:55 AM
AMD yet again charging ahead and blazing trails... Can't help but think that there must be a big difference in routine frame rate performance for Asus to ask you to take down a review just for a bios swap. Be interesting to see what difference it might be! (I wouldn't think much--but if so, why bother asking you to take down the first one?) I think AMD needs to include some custom applications just to demonstrate the stuff their Vega architecture does so much better/faster than Polaris and GF1080, etc. Frame rate comparisons have become so boring of late as there's hardly any difference at all between cards @ 2560x1440 resolutions and up--would love to see the IHVs start putting out little apps again that demonstrate the power of their architectures that it will be awhile before game devs tap into...!
And I always come away amused when people with GF1080 SLI systems start bitching about AMD's power consumption. Now, *that's* funny--to hear people with 1k-watt PSU's or greater talk negatively about power consumption....
AMD yet again charging ahead and blazing trails...
Can't help but think that there must be a big difference in routine frame rate performance for Asus to ask you to take down a review just for a bios swap. Be interesting to see what difference it might be! (I wouldn't think much--but if so, why bother asking you to take down the first one?) I think AMD needs to include some custom applications just to demonstrate the stuff their Vega architecture does so much better/faster than Polaris and GF1080, etc. Frame rate comparisons have become so boring of late as there's hardly any difference at all between cards @ 2560x1440 resolutions and up--would love to see the IHVs start putting out little apps again that demonstrate the power of their architectures that it will be awhile before game devs tap into...! And I always come away amused when people with GF1080 SLI systems start bitching about AMD's power consumption. Now, *that's* funny--to hear people with 1k-watt PSU's or greater talk negatively about power consumption....
Agonist
Senior Member
Posts: 2726
Senior Member
Posts: 2726
Posted on: 09/08/2017 03:02 AM
No matter what, Vega is still a decent upgrade for me.
Has more Vram. I dont leave my pc on 24/7 or play it 40hrs a week. So screw the but it consumes to much power crap.
No matter what, Vega is still a decent upgrade for me.
Has more Vram. I dont leave my pc on 24/7 or play it 40hrs a week. So screw the but it consumes to much power crap.
Ryu5uzaku
Senior Member
Posts: 6760
Senior Member
Posts: 6760
Posted on: 09/08/2017 09:17 AM
For Freesync I'd go to V56 and undervolt maybe, but even isn't the V56 more power hungry compared to 1070? Problem is: I have freesync disabled because my motherboard freaks out. Also, with enhanced sync it's not like I need freesync anymore.
It would be ok if it didn't sip much more power than the 1080Ti just to be at 1080 performance.
Also, If I wanted to buy a V56/64 at MSRP I wouldn't be able to.
Yes the 56 is more power hungry. With undervolt and HBM overclock it drops some 40-50w in power use (close to 1070 aftermarket power usage) and gains performance around 8-10%. With core oc and undervolt you get to +- power usage but get to vega 64 level of performance.
Of course the prices are not right at the moment. No point buying Vega 64 if it costs around 1080 ti or for 56 around 1080.
If the prices were MSRP both cards actually would make sense.
For Freesync I'd go to V56 and undervolt maybe, but even isn't the V56 more power hungry compared to 1070? Problem is: I have freesync disabled because my motherboard freaks out. Also, with enhanced sync it's not like I need freesync anymore.
It would be ok if it didn't sip much more power than the 1080Ti just to be at 1080 performance.
Also, If I wanted to buy a V56/64 at MSRP I wouldn't be able to.
Yes the 56 is more power hungry. With undervolt and HBM overclock it drops some 40-50w in power use (close to 1070 aftermarket power usage) and gains performance around 8-10%. With core oc and undervolt you get to +- power usage but get to vega 64 level of performance.
Of course the prices are not right at the moment. No point buying Vega 64 if it costs around 1080 ti or for 56 around 1080.
If the prices were MSRP both cards actually would make sense.
morrk
Member
Posts: 23
Member
Posts: 23
Posted on: 09/08/2017 11:19 AM
Well I'm over the moon with Vega, totally exceeded my expectations.
Took a £381 56, flashed with 64 bios. Undervolted, overclocked, and currently have a firestrike GPU score sitting in the middle of a 1080 and a ti. Not bad for £381
The card is drawing ~220w during benchmark, GPU and HBM hitting mid 70 degrees with the stock cooler.
It's so easy to fix these cards, once the OEM's get the cooling improved, and sort out the voltages, for the bottom, and top end I think the 56 v 1070 / 64 v 1080 will soon become 56 v 1080 and 64 v ti
Well I'm over the moon with Vega, totally exceeded my expectations.
Took a £381 56, flashed with 64 bios. Undervolted, overclocked, and currently have a firestrike GPU score sitting in the middle of a 1080 and a ti. Not bad for £381
The card is drawing ~220w during benchmark, GPU and HBM hitting mid 70 degrees with the stock cooler.
It's so easy to fix these cards, once the OEM's get the cooling improved, and sort out the voltages, for the bottom, and top end I think the 56 v 1070 / 64 v 1080 will soon become 56 v 1080 and 64 v ti
DLD
Senior Member
Posts: 805
Senior Member
Posts: 805
Posted on: 09/08/2017 01:45 PM
Hilbert, will it be a NEW BIOS only (with which you will flash the EXISTING card) or the new card, altogether? Why do I ask? Because I smell a fraud here (from the Asus's side). If they promissed to send you a new CARD, that'll confirm my suspicion ...
Hilbert, will it be a NEW BIOS only (with which you will flash the EXISTING card) or the new card, altogether? Why do I ask? Because I smell a fraud here (from the Asus's side). If they promissed to send you a new CARD, that'll confirm my suspicion ...
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone
Posts: 35730
Don Vito Corleone
Posts: 35730
Posted on: 09/08/2017 02:37 PM
No, I am awaiting a new BIOS. Interesting fact though, after re-assembling it for the component photo-shoot I applied a drop of new TIM. The card runs 3 degrees cooler and is definitely more silent. I will re-examine and re-test everything once the final BIOS arrives.
Hilbert, will it be a NEW BIOS only (with which you will flash the EXISTING card) or the new card, altogether? Why do I ask? Because I smell a fraud here (from the Asus's side). If they promissed to send you a new CARD, that'll confirm my suspicion ...
No, I am awaiting a new BIOS. Interesting fact though, after re-assembling it for the component photo-shoot I applied a drop of new TIM. The card runs 3 degrees cooler and is definitely more silent. I will re-examine and re-test everything once the final BIOS arrives.
Agent-A01
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Posted on: 09/08/2017 05:22 PM
That's one thing I've always wondered.
Why don't reviewerss apply new tim across the board because I've seen how bad a poor factory application of TIM can cause poor results.
Example MSI gaming x card review has high temps, people say its a garbage cooler when the issue was the factory TIM application.
I've had stock cards drop 10c easy from reapplying paste.
No, I am awaiting a new BIOS. Interesting fact though, after re-assembling it for the component photo-shoot I applied a drop of new TIM. The card runs 3 degrees cooler and is definitely more silent. I will re-examine and re-test everything once the final BIOS arrives.
That's one thing I've always wondered.
Why don't reviewerss apply new tim across the board because I've seen how bad a poor factory application of TIM can cause poor results.
Example MSI gaming x card review has high temps, people say its a garbage cooler when the issue was the factory TIM application.
I've had stock cards drop 10c easy from reapplying paste.
AcidSnow
Senior Member
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Senior Member
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Posted on: 09/08/2017 06:03 PM
I looked at the review yesterday, and was like "this doesn't seem very unique."
I looked at the review yesterday, and was like "this doesn't seem very unique."
Hilbert Hagedoorn
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Don Vito Corleone
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Posted on: 09/08/2017 06:15 PM
That's one thing I've always wondered.
Why don't reviewerss apply new tim across the board because I've seen how bad a poor factory application of TIM can cause poor results.
Example MSI gaming x card review has high temps, people say its a garbage cooler when the issue was the factory TIM application.
I've had stock cards drop 10c easy from reapplying paste.
Obviously we test as the product is provided, e.g. the final product as you buy it in the stores. Next to that, removing the cooler and changing TIM void warranty. not something I pro-actively would like to evangelize on the website. But yes, it sometimes is amazing what a drop of proper TIM can do in temps.
That's one thing I've always wondered.
Why don't reviewerss apply new tim across the board because I've seen how bad a poor factory application of TIM can cause poor results.
Example MSI gaming x card review has high temps, people say its a garbage cooler when the issue was the factory TIM application.
I've had stock cards drop 10c easy from reapplying paste.
Obviously we test as the product is provided, e.g. the final product as you buy it in the stores. Next to that, removing the cooler and changing TIM void warranty. not something I pro-actively would like to evangelize on the website. But yes, it sometimes is amazing what a drop of proper TIM can do in temps.
pharma
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Posted on: 09/21/2017 02:00 AM
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/719vy7/no-new-bios-coming-for-asus-strix-vega-64-oc/
Sampsa Kurri from io-tech.fi have been asking for asus when new bios should come out. Yesterday evening after 2 weeks of wait they gave him answer that there is not going to be new bios. So now he got green light to publish review with the bios that came with the card. I included some first results from forum and i will update with more results later.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/719vy7/no-new-bios-coming-for-asus-strix-vega-64-oc/
INSTG8R
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Posted on: 09/21/2017 03:50 AM
Well that’s disappointing.
Well that’s disappointing.
SHS
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Senior Member
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Posted on: 09/25/2017 02:34 PM
Only water cooling will make a different
I was hoping the Vega with aftermarket coolers would be better
Only water cooling will make a different
Robbo9999
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Senior Member
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Posted on: 09/25/2017 05:00 PM
Well thanks for the 25th September update Hilbert: that Asus haven't sent through a new vBIOS. I think it's shady & looks really poor that Asus said they included the wrong vBIOS on the card so you would pull the review and then not providing you with a new vBIOS - it smacks of desperation on their part. I don't really understand how they've got themselves into this mess, they've really not handled it well from a PR perspective. At least we know that this review is now representative of the final product - like you say, they're probably not gonna ever supply you with a new vBIOS.
Well thanks for the 25th September update Hilbert: that Asus haven't sent through a new vBIOS. I think it's shady & looks really poor that Asus said they included the wrong vBIOS on the card so you would pull the review and then not providing you with a new vBIOS - it smacks of desperation on their part. I don't really understand how they've got themselves into this mess, they've really not handled it well from a PR perspective. At least we know that this review is now representative of the final product - like you say, they're probably not gonna ever supply you with a new vBIOS.
holler
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Senior Member
Posts: 217
Posted on: 09/25/2017 05:13 PM
how can this be consider "final retail" if Asus specifically said the BIOS is not the latest? Considering none of the other manufacturers have their custom Vega boards out yet, I can only assume at this point this a pre production sample. Vega was just released why is everyone so surprised by this? oh yea, bias....
how can this be consider "final retail" if Asus specifically said the BIOS is not the latest? Considering none of the other manufacturers have their custom Vega boards out yet, I can only assume at this point this a pre production sample. Vega was just released why is everyone so surprised by this? oh yea, bias....
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I am already hitting the "power wall" with the standard BIOS.
An extra 50W on the TDP might help it go over 1700MHz, I hope. I don't care about power consumption, its a gaming PC first and foremost, FPS for the win.
The watercooling is specifically to remove temperature from the list of possible problems. Its not really quieter, since all the fans are at 12V.
With the TDP thse cards have, pushing them is going to require watercooling. All of the add-in manufacturers are going to do multi-fan heatsinks, which will dump all that heat into the inside of the case.
At least the turbine cards dumped the heat outside of the case ASAP. I actually prefer them to the aftermarket GPU air coolers.
You say they're both noisy, so that's not a win there unfortunately, all that remains is any potential benefit in performance. How much extra performance have you got from watercooling vs your card when it was on air? I suppose it's best to compare overclocked on air vs overclocked on water, and Timespy Graphics Score would be a good comparison.
EDIT: in the Vega64 Guru3d review in the overclocking section they say of their results that in the "first segment of our test would run nicely at 1.7 GHz, but the second it hits a limiter it goes down fast to 1500 and 1600 MHz ranges". I suppose if you manage to maintain a stable/constant 1700Mhz with watercooling (don't know if you see that with yours) then this is 'only' 6% above the 1600Mhz seen in the air cooling - performance in games doesn't scale linearly with clockspeed, so I'm guessing you would see in the region of 4% improvement in gaming performance through watercooling. Is that far off?