The AMD Radeon VII Review: An Unexpected Shot At The High-End
by Nate Oh on February 7, 2019 9:00 AM ESTBenchmarking Testbed Setup
To preface, because of the SMU changes mentioned earlier, no third party utilities can read Radeon VII data, though patches are expected shortly. AIB partner tools such as MSI Afterburner should presumably launch with support. Otherwise, Radeon Wattman was the only monitoring tool possible, except we observed that the performance metric log recording and overlay sometimes caused issues with games.
On that note, a large factor in this review was the instability of press drivers. Known issues include being unable to downclock HBM2 on the Radeon VII, which AMD clarified was a bug introduced in Adrenalin 2019 19.2.1, or system crashes when the Wattman voltage curve is set to a single min/max point. There are also issues with DX11 game crashes, which we also ran into early on, that AMD is also looking at.
For these reasons, we won't have Radeon VII clockspeed or overclocking data for this review. To put simply, these types of issues are mildly concerning; while Vega 20 is new to gamers, it is not new to drivers, and if Radeon VII was indeed always in the plan, then game stability should have been a priority. Despite being a bit of a prosumer card, the Radeon VII is still the new flagship gaming card. There's no indication that these are more than simply teething issues, but it does seem to lend a little credence to the idea that Radeon VII was launched as soon as feasibly possible.
| Test Setup | |||||
| CPU | Intel Core i7-7820X @ 4.3GHz | ||||
| Motherboard | Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 7 (F9g) | ||||
| PSU | Corsair AX860i | ||||
| Storage | OCZ Toshiba RD400 (1TB) | ||||
| Memory | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 4 x 8GB (16-18-18-38) |
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| Case | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition | ||||
| Monitor | LG 27UD68P-B | ||||
| Video Cards | AMD Radeon VII AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (Air) AMD Radeon R9 Fury X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti |
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| Video Drivers | NVIDIA Release 417.71 AMD Radeon Software 18.50 Press |
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| OS | Windows 10 x64 Pro (1803) Spectre and Meltdown Patched |
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Thanks to Corsair, we were able to get a replacement for our AX860i. While the plan was to utilize Corsair Link as an additional datapoint for power consumption, for the reasons mentioned above it was not feasible for this time. On that note, power consumption figures will differ for earlier GPU 2018 Bench data.
In the same vein, for Ashes, GTA V, F1 2018, and Shadow of War, we've updated some of the benchmark automation and data processing steps, so results may vary at the 1080p mark compared to previous GPU 2018 data.
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just4U - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
Your just looking for reasons to not like it.. It's a awesome card according to reviews. Is it a 2080ti killer? No. (..shrug) Maybe it might force some pricing down though so you can get one of those.. maybe. For me the 2080ti is 2x the price of the 1080s I own... and I'll not pay that for a video card unless I am in a business setting that requires it.Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
"It's a awesome card according to reviews."I read this review. Its noise-to-performance ratio is pathetic in comparison with the 2080 and the Fury X. Full stop.
If you're going to argue at least do something beyond trotting out the lamest dodge technique there is: the ad hominem fallacy.
eva02langley - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
It doesn't "sux". It is just not disruptive enough for Nvidia fans to expect a price cut on RTX, which is pissing off mroe Nvidia fans than AMD ones it seems.The performances in games are okay, and the compute is really strong. If it is cheaper, it is a better buy. At the same price, I will go Nvidia.
However in Canada, the 2080 RTX is 50-100$ more expensive for blower style cards... with similar accoustics and worst temps.
Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
"If it is cheaper, it is a better buy. At the same price, I will go Nvidia. However in Canada, the 2080 RTX is 50-100$ more expensive for blower style cards... with similar accoustics and worst temps."Tu quoque = some blower models are loud, too.
$50-$100 is a very low price tag for one's hearing, comfort, and ability to enjoy audio whilst gaming and/or using the card for other intensive purposes.
Holliday75 - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
I couldn't give two shits about noise. I wear headphones. I've never paid any attention to it on any product I buy.Oxford Guy - Friday, February 8, 2019 - link
1) Headphones don't negate all noise. Not even the combination of earplugs and headphones designed to absorb noise (and not produce audio) will get rid of noise. It still comes through. One can blast the audio at a higher volume and damage one's hearing to try to cover up noise but that is why the iPod/iPhone younger generations are facing epidemic levels of hearing damage.2) Headphones, as a requirement, are a limitation of the product's functionality.
Firstly, they become uncomfortable. Secondly, they tend to aggravate tinnitus for people with it. Thirdly, they are an extra expense. Fourthly, some have good speaker systems they want to make us of. Etc.
Why advocate limiting one's possibilities for basically the same price, when compared with other, more flexible, products? It's silly. You're gaining nothing and losing potential usefulness.
The only way the headphones point works much in your favor is if the same thing is required of Nvidia's GPU. Otherwise, it's merely you stating that you are a subset of the use cases for this GPU that isn't affected by the noise problem. A subset is not the entirety by any means.
Deaf folks don't have to worry about noise, too. Does that mean they should attempt to dismiss noise problems for everyone else?
LarsBars - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
I wish you guys would add Vega 64 liquid to the spec chart comparison: 1700MHz, 13.7 TFLOPs...Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Unfortunately that's not a card we have. AMD didn't widely sample that one.PeachNCream - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Only $699? This is a midrange GPU in much the same way the $750 monitor was a midrange screen. By recent Anandtech standards, the price does not warrant any mention of high-end. Come on people, we need some consistency on the use of these terms!All teasing about the writing aside, it is nice to see a bit of competition. The Radeon VII is way out of my interest range as a product (it has 8x more VRAM than my daily use laptop has system RAM) but I hope it causes a Red and Green slapfest and brings prices down across all graphics cards. Maybe I'm being too optimistic though.
Korguz - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
peachncream... maybe not in your books.. but this is not a midrange card... maybe high end midrange :-)um seems all you have are notebooks... your not in the market for a discrete card ;-)
your laptop only has 2 gigs of ram ?? wow....