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AMD's new Vega 64 GPU offers comparable performance at a similar price to Nvidia's GTX 1080, which was released over a year ago. But it does so while consuming a lot more power under load (over 100 Watts more). Vega 56, however, runs faster than the GTX 1070 at a slightly lower price:
So how does AMD fare? The answer to that is ultimately going to hinge on your option on power efficiency. But before we get too far, let's start with the Radeon RX Vega 64, AMD's flagship card. Previously we've been told that it would trade blows with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080, and indeed it does just that. At 3840x2160, the Vega 64 is on average neck-and-neck with the GeForce GTX 1080 in gaming performance, with the two cards routinely trading the lead, and AMD holding it more often. Of course the "anything but identical" principle applies here, as while the cards are equal on average, they can sometimes be quite far apart on individual games.
Unfortunately for AMD, their GTX 1080-like performance doesn't come cheap from a power perspective. The Vega 64 has a board power rating of 295W, and it lives up to that rating. Relative to the GeForce GTX 1080, we've seen power measurements at the wall anywhere between 110W and 150W higher than the GeForce GTX 1080, all for the same performance. Thankfully for AMD, buyers are focused on price and performance first and foremost (and in that order), so if all you're looking for is a fast AMD card at a reasonable price, the Vega 64 delivers where it needs to: it is a solid AMD counterpart to the GeForce GTX 1080. However if you care about the power consumption and the heat generated by your GPU, the Vega 64 is in a very rough spot.
On the other hand, the Radeon RX Vega 56 looks better for AMD, so it's easy to see why in recent days they have shifted their promotional efforts to the cheaper member of the RX Vega family. Though a step down from the RX Vega 64, the Vega 56 delivers around 90% of Vega 64's performance for 80% of the price. Furthermore, when compared head-to-head with the GeForce GTX 1070, its closest competition, the Vega 56 enjoys a small but none the less significant 8% performance advantage over its NVIDIA counterpart. Whereas the Vega 64 could only draw to a tie, the Vega 56 can win in its market segment.
[...] The one wildcard here with the RX Vega 56 is going to be where retail prices actually end up. AMD's $399 MSRP is rather aggressive, especially when GTX 1070 cards are retailing for closer to $449 due to cryptocurrency miner demand. If they can sustain that price, then Vega 56 is going to be real hot stuff, besting GTX 1070 in price and performance. Otherwise at GTX 1070-like prices it still has the performance advantage, but not the initiative on pricing. At any rate, this is a question we can't answer today; the Vega 56 won't be launching for another two weeks.
Both the Vega 64 and Vega 56 include 8 GB of HBM2 memory.
Also at Tom's Hardware.
Previously: AMD Unveils the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
AMD Launches the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56 Announced
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 14 2017, @10:47PM (3 children)
Seems like it would be a silly ploy. While power consumption might matter more to miners it's not like it's an uninteresting factor for gamers either, more power => more heat => more fans => more noise. I like my machines to be as quiet as possible really. I'd prefer to have passive cooling but if that isn't an option for a viable card then I want it to be as quiet as it possibly can be. That said as far as the high sound of these cards that might change with the other card makers start to make their version of the cards, they probably might not be able to do all that much about the power consumption tho unless they wanna run down-clocked cards and I don't think anyone will want to do that.
That said I did buy a few for the RX cards that came before this new batch so I don't see a personal reason to upgrade. I don't play any state of the art games or mine coins. I just needed something new and it seemed nice enough and the then new Radeon cards had really low power consumption compared to other cards.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday August 15 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
Not that I plan to get one either. I'm happy with my 1070 which I lucked out and bought in the price dip between the 1080ti coming out and miners suddenly discovering it and driving the prices back up.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday August 15 2017, @01:39AM (1 child)
Agreed.
I also had some time to check into the AMD vs NVidia for hashing ( 'cause I'm anal...). Looks like NVidia really closed the gap to the point where they are offering similar performance/watt. The AMD's still outperform (a small amount), but also suck more power.
http://wccftech.com/ethereum-mining-gpu-performance-roundup/ [wccftech.com]
When I was mining LTC in 2013, AMD had a clear lead. So much so NVidia wasn't worth mining on at all. Seems things have changed.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday August 15 2017, @01:27PM