Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB OC Edition Review: High-End Graphics With Flair

[FormatC]

Asus' take on the Radeon RX Vega 64 shows good build quality, high performance, and attractive looks. But can the ROG Strix card compel gamers to spend big at a time when AMD's flagship needs to sell for less than the GeForce GTX 1080?

Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB OC Edition Review: High-End Graphics With Flair : Read more

 

[darkchazz]

"Missing a thermal pad between PCB and backplate"


My Strix GTX 1080 I got in July 2016 also has missing several thermal pads on the GDDR5X modules. Many others reported this issue too and I suppose they still haven't fixed it at the production line.

 

[Kaziel]

I just bought one for USD599 on June 6th and waiting for all the parts to arrive. I really hope it'll be okay in an NZXT H500 with the 2x stock fans as exhaust and 2x Noctua NF-A14 as intake.

Do you guys think that my EVGA SuperNova 650 P2 will be able to handle an overclocked R5 2600x and this Asus Strix Vega 64?

 

[milkod2001]

@KAZIEL
That depends how many other components you also plan to connect: Sound Cards, HDDs, Blue Ray Players, etc, ect but i think it would be OK with 1 SSD and 1 HDD.

 

[Martell1977]

It would have been interesting for Tom's to make the modification of adding the thermal pads and show how much of a difference it would really make. I wonder if ASUS felt it was a acceptable trade off between looks and functionality.

 

[Kaziel]

@KAZIEL
That depends how many other components you also plan to connect: Sound Cards, HDDs, Blue Ray Players, etc, ect but i think it would be OK with 1 SSD and 1 HDD.

Still waiting on parts to arrive.

CPU: R5 2600x
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12S, 3x 120 Fans and 2x 140 Fans
Motherboard: Asus Strix x470-F
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB 3466 C16 (2x 8gb)
GPU: Asus Strix RX Vega 64
Storage: Samsung Evo 860 (250gb) and Seagate 2TB Barracuda (7200 RPM 64MB Cache)

Planning on just letting Ryzen Master auto overclock the 2600x. For the Vega 64 I plan to do the widely suggested undervolt, +50% power, and overclock HBM2. I have used the calculators and they basically say it's fine, but then again I left everything at stock. Not sure what the values are yet for going about overclocking the two parts so unsure what to put in the calculator.

 

[Guest]

Wow it matches my FTW 1080 2 years later at 40% more cost. Quality Job AMD!

 

[tokeylokey66]

Kek
Price had went down a little but still a complete joke of a price. More power and heat than 1080 , cost more, released later. Sry Amd you better figure out better marketing and sale strategies or do better in the tech side of things preferably both.

 

[alextheblue]

Wow there's commenters that still don't have a clue about the impact of mining, which lingers on Vega to this day.

 

[zodiacfml]

Where the undervolting benchmarks if it is mentioned that it is better for overclocking and the mentioned poor exhaust vents?

I think the critique for most of the Vega 64s are the large PCBs. It deserves smaller PCBs such as found in the Vega 56s to improve cooling.

 

[bit_user]

...

Nice review, but some Far Cry 5 benchmark would've been nice.

Newegg now has this card for $599, which I think is pretty close to MSRP.

 

[bit_user]

Wow it matches my FTW 1080 2 years later at 40% more cost. Quality Job AMD!

Due to market irregularities, it's only fair to compare today's pricing, not whatever you managed to pay for your card.

The cheapest 1080 FTW on newegg is currently $550, after MIR. Compared to that, this card is only 9% more expensive. I take no issue with complaints about Vega's under-performance, so long as they're accurate.

 

[Martell1977]

Wow it matches my FTW 1080 2 years later at 40% more cost. Quality Job AMD!

Due to market irregularities, it's only fair to compare today's pricing, not whatever you managed to pay for your card.

The cheapest 1080 FTW on newegg is currently $550, after MIR. Compared to that, this card is only 9% more expensive. I take no issue with complaints about Vega's under-performance, so long as they're accurate.

And it doesn't under-perform compared to the 1080, they are about equal. It's just the extra resources take more energy to run, but doesn't translate to more frames for gamers.

AMD needs to, at least for now, disable power hungry resources (even if only by a driver update) that don't show any benefit to gamers on their consumer cards and let them remain on data center cards. That should help thermals and power consumption. However, I don't know how integrated they are and if this is possible without gimping the cards.

 

[CaptainTom]

I understand that Vega is a "unique" architecture when it comes to overclocking, but I still can't believe how bad "tech journalists" are at overclocking/tweaking Vega...

 

[Gurg]

MSI 1080ti Armor Overclocked is $749-$20 rebate on NewEgg.

 

[blinnbanir32]

While I do not own this card I do have 2 Vega 64s in crossfire. I will say the biggest problem with Vega AIB and perhaps more components in today's world is how fast these are being produced in factories to keep up with demand. I was getting random shutdowns and blue screens after 2 days of having my Array, I decided to pull the shroud off the Gigabyte card and all I saw was the essence of thermal paste. I put some Noctua NHT1 on the chip and HBM and I have not had a shutdown or blue screen since. I am going to do the same with my Sapphire card this weekend.

 

[Rexer]

Had the good fortune to buy a Sapphire Vega 64 reference card back in early November '17 for $499. Had just a few shutdowns overclocking. Most of the time, I keep mild clocks. Other than that, it been a decent card. Puts out a lot heat. Common AMD signature. Exploring ekwb watercooling kits for it. Like a good squirrel, I'm gathering all the nuts on it. So far, the reviews look pretty good.