AMD Radeon VII evaluate: a real high-end different to Nvidia. And perhaps that’s sufficient

The new AMD Radeon VII is the primary high-end gaming GPU from the purple crew for the reason that RX Vega 64 landed with a boring thud on my desk again in the course of 2017, however it’s additionally the very first 7nm shopper card from any GPU producer on the planet. Think Nvidia has the monopoly on new graphical advances? Well, AMD nonetheless has a couple of methods up its sleeve…

There will certainly be some quite smug faces in AMD HQ proper now – not least within the advertising division, the place they’ll be rubbing their palms with glee on the multi-faceted identify they’ve give you for the Radeon VII graphics card. Those Roman numerals aren’t simply there to look all stylish, y’know. While the ‘Radeon 7’ translation does seek advice from the 7nm pleasure surrounding the brand new GPU’s manufacturing lithography, the Radeon VII additionally represents the second era of the Vega graphics structure. Hence the VII – model 2, Vega 2, and all that. Subtext, eh?

The first 7nm Vega GPUs, launched final 12 months, have been designed for the high-end skilled market, not players. The expensive Radeon Instinct vary of playing cards have been aimed purely at the intense pro-sumer with very deep pockets and we have been by no means certain whether or not AMD was ever going to deliver the second-gen Vega chips down into the gamer market both… there have been strong rumours that it wouldn’t.

But lastly right here it’s, with AMD’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, asserting the Radeon VII was all the time destined for a gaming desktop after her CES unveiling at first of the 12 months. And that was additionally the place she set out her stall for the brand new Radeon GPU: to tackle Nvidia’s RTX 2080, and even attempt to beat it.

So, how shut has AMD obtained with the Radeon VII? Can it stand toe-to-toe with the would possibly of Nvidia’s Turing GPU design, or do now we have one other case of historical past repeating the certified failures of the first-gen Vega playing cards?

AMD Radeon VII specs

The new 7nm Vega 20 GPU on the coronary heart of the Radeon VII is the star of the present, constructing on the onerous work AMD put into the outdated Vega design. It’s successfully the identical silicon as that used contained in the Radeon Instinct MI50, however with a couple of gamer-extraneous skilled accelerators disabled and with the absence of double precision processing.

Those non-gamecentric options are reserved for the more-expensive professional playing cards in order to not cannibalise gross sales of the pricier GPUs, however the underlying silicon is similar and which means it has all of its video reminiscence strapped onto the chip bundle. The Radeon VII is sticking with the super-expensive, however super-fast, second-gen excessive bandwidth reminiscence (HBM2). But this time round there’s an entire lot extra of it too. And it’s the 7nm die-shrink that’s the enabler right here.

The unique Vega 10 GPU used the 14nm FinFET manufacturing course of, and with the 2 generations of chip sat side-by-side you possibly can instantly see how a lot further area the shrink right down to TSCM’s 7nm node has afforded AMD. The smaller Vega GPU in the course of the bundle is now surrounded on all sides by 4 HBM2 reminiscence modules, providing a complete of 16GB VRAM capability. That’s greater than we’ve ever seen in any consumer-level graphics card. It might in all probability be thought-about overkill for the overwhelming majority of games round proper now, however it does appear to come back into play as we transfer into the Radeon VII’s 4K gaming efficiency.

The precise Vega 20 GPU is about 33% smaller than the Vega 10 chip – although the general bundle is just a little greater. Despite the die shrink there’s nonetheless the identical quantity of graphics silicon inside it, thought there are literally extra transistors in play; some 700 million extra.

Where the complete Vega 20 chip has 64 compute items (CUs), and due to this fact the identical 4,096 GCN cores, the Radeon VII really sports activities a barely minimize down model of the full-fat GPU. The first 7nm gaming GPU is delivery with 60 CUs and three,840 GCN cores – fewer than the RX Vega 64 had at launch.

There may be fewer cores, however the GPU as an entire is clocked a lot greater, with the Radeon VII delivery with a base clock virtually on the identical degree because the RX Vega 64’s unique enhance clock. This further GPU frequency is one other symptom of the 7nm die shrink; a course of node change which affords extra areal density for transistors, but additionally the dual advantages of decrease energy and due to this fact decrease thermals. That’s what has allowed AMD to essentially push the clock pace of the Radeon VII to its fullest. And that’s what it wanted to do to compete with its Nvidia rivals.

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Though it needs to be stated the 1,800MHz ‘peak engine speed’ AMD has been touting feels just a little deceptive given the enhance clock is definitely rated at 1,750MHz. AMD has stated the 1,800MHz determine is barely one thing it’s seen when utilizing content material creation apps, and never one thing you’ll expertise throughout gaming workloads. Indeed, for essentially the most half I’ve been seeing a normal clock pace of round 1,710MHz throughout my testing.

You do additionally get all the identical Vega function goodness as with the unique design. So you could have entry to all of the Rapid Packed Math you can want, in addition to the High Bandwidth Cache Controller which promised a lot when paired with the HBM2. As has change into a well-recognized chorus with graphics card firms introducing further GPU options, nevertheless, there are nonetheless comparatively few games that truly benefit from both Vega-exclusive options, and few, if any, on the horizon.

AMD Radeon VII benchmarks

AMD Radeon VII efficiency

But all of the specs on the planet are for naught with out straight line gaming efficiency and right here AMD has created the quickest shopper graphics card to ever come out of the purple crew’s Texan stables. The Radeon VII simply outstrips its RX Vega 64 progenitor, with the earlier era of AMD GPU unable to deal with both the bigger framebuffer or the a lot greater clock pace of the brand new card.

That’s precisely what you’d have hoped for, however the true battle is towards Nvidia’s prime GPUs. A face-off with the RTX 2080 is the place Dr. Lisa Su pitched the Radeon VII when it was first unveiled at CES in January. Now, don’t get me improper, its relative efficiency in contrast with the Turing competitor is essential, however the way it performs in contrast with the last-gen GTX 1080 Ti is nearly a fairer comparability. Both are purestrain rasterised rendering gaming playing cards, and right here it’s largely excellent news for AMD – it has managed to create a GPU able to taking up the best gaming graphics card Nvidia comprised of its Pascal structure. Mostly.

Across our benchmarking suite we’re an virtually 50/50 cut up between the Radeon VII taking the body price lead and the GTX 1080 Ti displaying a better degree of gaming efficiency. But the mere incontrovertible fact that AMD is ready to put up some appreciable wins over the Nvidia card exhibits it truly is competing at a really excessive degree.

The benchmark cut up isn’t such excellent news for AMD with regards to its relative efficiency towards the RTX 2080, nevertheless. There it’s extra closely weighted in the direction of the Nvidia Turing GPU, however once more there are nonetheless some important AMD wins. The Battlefield V efficiency is well essentially the most stand out end result, particularly at 4K the place that 16GB of high-bandwidth reminiscence actually involves the fore.

At the highest 4K Ultra settings the Radeon VII is 25% sooner than the competing RTX 2080, posting efficiency virtually competing with the far costlier RTX 2080 Ti.

And Battlefield V is a title which has been held up because the poster-child for the Turing era of graphics playing cards. Admittedly that’s extra due to its help for real-time ray tracing in its hybrid strategy to rendered reflections, however having the AMD card displaying such a efficiency lead in conventional phrases remains to be an essential touchstone for the purple crew.

Outside of that, nevertheless, it’s solely Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and infrequently Far Cry 5, which supply every other wins for AMD, with Shadow of the Tomb Raider (apparently one other former RTX promo title) displaying a degree of efficiency parity with the Turing GPU.

It is price declaring that our benchmark comparisons are with a Founders Edition of the RTX 2080 card, and as such it homes a costlier, manufacturing facility overclocked GPU. That stated, there are variations of the RTX 2080 available for effectively the same price as the MSRP of the Radeon VII. And, as I’m penning this pre-launch, we solely have that MSRP to go on – given the rumours of low stock numbers it wouldn’t be shocking to see costs of the Radeon VII exceeding the urged $699 (£650) pricing across the card’s launch.

The Radeon VII does present the products with regards to the temperature and thermal efficiency of the brand new 7nm GPU. The peak GPU temperature we measured throughout our testing confirmed the brand new Vega chip solely hitting 74°C, a far cry from the 87°C the unique, lower-clocked, RX Vega 64 presents. Though its triple fan array is simply as loud because the blower-style cooler on the unique Vega, which implies it’s VERY LOUD.

During a PCGamesN workplace flooring assembly, not-that-near the check rig, it was very noticeable individuals have been elevating their voices to compete with the Radeon VII whereas it was pushing a couple of million pixels and a bunch of polygons round. I simply pretended somebody was hoovering downstairs… y’know, NDAs and all that.

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The Founders Edition RTX 2080 remains to be a few levels cooler at peak, and just a little quieter too, however can also be a costlier GPU with that holy Nvidia Turing shroud wrapped round the cardboard.

But the 7nm Vega silicon is evidently much less energy hungry than the remainder of the competing playing cards we’ve examined it towards, and that’s a rarity for AMD. The purple crew has clocked the Radeon VII as excessive because it dares with a purpose to compete with the RTX 2080, however has performed so with out demanding an enormous quantity of energy from the wall socket. It attracts 19% much less energy than the bigger Vega 10 GPU, whereas having greater clocks and extra transistors packed into its smaller die area.

AMD Radeon VII verdict

The “world’s first 7nm gaming GPU” could also be a pleasant moniker for the Radeon VII’s advertising materials, however it’s not going to be the AMD card to seize that elusive “world’s fastest graphics card” mantle from Nvidia. The reality it may well genuinely stand toe-to-toe with the inexperienced crew’s RTX 2080 in a rasterised rendering problem, nevertheless, remains to be spectacular. Mostly.

There it’s once more. Every time I write one thing optimistic about AMD’s Radeon VII I hear that little Newt voice behind my head whisper: largely. For the AMD devoted the stable relative efficiency in contrast with the RTX 2080 will likely be sufficient for them. It’s basically the identical value, and you may say that on common it performs about the identical too. Sometimes it’s sooner than an RTX 2080 and typically it lags method behind.

More uncommon are the instances the place the efficiency is equal, nevertheless, which is perhaps just a little odd. While you possibly can maintain up the 25% efficiency win at 4K in Battlefield V, you possibly can’t ignore the actual fact it’s 46% slower than the RTX 2080 in Assassin’s Creed Origins at 1080p. The schizophrenic nature of the AMD/Nvidia efficiency delta then is hard to parse.

But that general efficiency would usually be a trigger for celebration for everybody – lastly getting real competitors on the high-end of the graphics game can solely profit the tip consumer – however there are two issues which nonetheless give me trigger for pause as an alternative.

The first is that, when you might not be satisfied by the early RTX function help in launched games, there’s nonetheless some promise the RTX 2080 can provide one thing completely different and thrilling sooner or later. It’s a bizarre state of affairs the place Nvidia’s counting on the superb wine strategy and never AMD.

With the AMD Radeon VII, nevertheless, there isn’t actually anyplace it may well go. It’s successfully clocked as excessive as AMD dares, it may well’t danger unlocking all of the cores within the full-fat Vega 20 GPU or else wreck gross sales of its skilled playing cards, and it’s trying more and more unlikely that Rapid Packed Math or the HBCC are going to be extensively utilized in PC gaming any time quickly.

Price drops will likely be difficult too, what with the large quantity of costly HBM2 sitting inside that Vega 20 bundle. Reports counsel it’d make up as a lot as half the price of the Radeon VII, so any value minimize will devour AMD’s margins.

It’s a pure rasterised rendering card – a extremely good one – however it has little else to supply. Just just like the GTX 1080 Ti… and that’s my second subject with the Radeon VII. One of the issues I’ve with the RTX 2080 is that it solely nearly tops the last-gen Pascal card, whereas retaining the identical prohibitive value. Were it not for the promise of the Turing shader, DLSS, and DXR real-time ray tracing help it could be an virtually irrelevant launch.

And the Radeon VII doesn’t have any of Turing’s potential. So, in the long run it simply sort of seems to be prefer it’s taken AMD two years – and the costly mixture of 7nm die shrink and HBM2 framebuffer – to match the very best of Nvidia’s final era of graphics playing cards. And even then it’s hardly what you’d name a dominating efficiency.

The actual optimistic right here although is the Radeon VII exhibits the 7nm die shrink actually does present AMD a variety of assist in the graphics division. The Vega 20 isn’t that completely different from the Vega 10, architecturally talking, and I didn’t suppose we’d see RTX 2080 or GTX 1080 Ti efficiency successfully simply from a die shrink. If AMD’s Navi have been simply to be a 7nm model of Polaris it might nonetheless be the premise for a improbable mainstream graphics card vary. But with the architectural enhancements we’re hoping for from Navi it might properly find yourself being one thing quite particular, and for an amazing many extra of us than a $699 GPU could be.

But nonetheless, again to at the moment and we’ve lastly obtained a great-looking, real high-end AMD Radeon graphics card for players, and one which deservedly bears the title too. For an amazing many individuals – y’know those, the serial Nvidia-haters – that will likely be all they want. It’s not revolutionary, it’s not the world’s quickest GPU, however it’s in all probability sufficient.