AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Video Card Review: An Unexpected Alternative

However, the «seven» is just a signal that AMD does not give up, but the company is not yet ready to fight NVIDIA on all fronts. Radeon VII will go on sale at a recommended price of $699 and will compete with the GeForce RTX 2080. But the prospects for more affordable gaming video cards with Vega 20 chips of a «light» configuration (more precisely, cut down even more than Radeon VII, since it itself is not equipped with a fully functional GPU) is still questionable. The production of Radeon VII components — both the GPU and the HBM2 memory assemblies — is expensive, AMD will not receive large revenues from the sale of the flagship AMD and is unlikely to agree to lose money in order to replace the Radeon RX Vega 56 and Vega 64 as soon as possible. The first generation Vega chips will remain in service even after the release of Radeon VII, and AMD has no timely response to NVIDIA’s latest move yet.

Of course, we mean the GeForce RTX 2060. The first video cards based on Turing chips did not threaten the positions of the Radeon RX Vega, because the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti belong to a completely different class — both in terms of performance, and even more so in price. The GeForce RTX 2070 in games without ray tracing turned out to be only an accelerated analogue of the GeForce GTX 1080, and this is already a big problem for the Vega 64. But it was the GeForce RTX 2060 that became the really terrible enemy of both Vega models: at prices starting at $ 349, the younger Turing easily outperformed the Radeon in gaming tests The RX Vega 56, which cost at least $499 in early January, is too close in performance to the Vega 64 to still sell for $599.

The only thing left for AMD to do in such a situation was to go for a price cut. As a result, various modifications of the Radeon RX Vega 64 now occupy the same price gap as the GeForce RTX 2070, and the Vega 56 has come close to the GeForce RTX 2060. And here’s how this relates to the review topic: the reduction in the cost of the entire Vega family has not bypassed the Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid cooled. Moreover, among all varieties of Vega 64, the version with built-in LSS suddenly became one of the most attractive. Let’s see what makes him so good.

⇡#Specifications, prices

Since the manufacturers of discrete GPUs have mastered the 14/16 nm technology, AMD has not developed many new chips for video cards and is trying to use each one in several models of gaming accelerators. Not counting the Radeon RX Vega 64 Limited Edition, which differs from the black, reference Vega 64 only in a shiny metal case, the company has released five devices based on the Vega 10 GPU: the well-known Radeon RX Vega 56, Vega 64, two modifications of the Vega Frontier Edition ( boards equipped with 16 GB of RAM) — with an air cooler or CBO — and, finally, Vega 64 Liquid Cooled.

The Radeon RX Vega 64 LC has the highest clock speeds in its large family, with a GPU Boost Clock of 1677 MHz, while air-cooled reference Vega 64s are content with 1546 MHz. It is worth noting once again that the parameters indicated in the specifications of any Radeon RX Vega models bear little resemblance to the actual GPU frequencies. Although AMD and NVIDIA use common terminology, Boost Clock for GeForce graphics cards means the average frequency in typical tasks, while for Vega it means the maximum (also in typical tasks). And yet, no other modification of Vega 64, including the products of famous factory overclocking champions — PowerColor and SAPPHIRE, makes an application for such frequencies as the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC.

But we certainly believe in the tabular value of the power of the board, which is 345 W for the flagship Vega. It remains only to find out what magic allows the small radiator of the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC to dissipate an enormous amount of heat.

AMD initially considered the water-cooled Radeon RX Vega 64 as a proposition for enthusiasts willing to sacrifice a large amount of money for higher clock speeds: the base Vega 64 went on sale for a suggested price of $499, while the Vega 64 LC was priced at a good $200 more. But today’s market for high-performance graphics cards looks very different.

The lower limit of the price corridor for the Radeon RX Vega 64 is now around $399, while the GeForce RTX 2070 costs no less than $499. The last wave of discounts has not yet reached the Russian market, but in rubles Vega 64 has at least ceased to be more expensive than the RTX 2070. Depending on the specific modification, both devices are sold for $35-400. But most importantly, Vega 64 LC (39-48 thousand) is now in this range — the only video card with a pre-installed liquid cooling system that you can buy for that kind of money.

⇡#Design

Until now, a large part of all Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics cards that are on sale is a reference model that is manufactured by SAPPHIRE. AMD was prepared for the fact that the partners would not soon start producing devices of the original design, and decided not to save on the design of reference samples. As a result, the Radeon RX Vega 56 and Vega 64 received a printed circuit board with a suitably powerful voltage regulator and a fairly efficient cooler, consisting of a heatsink with an evaporation chamber and a radial fan.

The Radeon Vega 64 LC has a lot in common with the regular Vega 64 reference card, but already in appearance and workmanship it is noticeable that this is a product of a higher level. The printed circuit board and cooling system components are enclosed in a solid metal box, with the entire front of the case made from a single thick sheet of aluminum. AMD took over the love of metal from NVIDIA, but, unlike the Founders Edition video cards, the design of the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC is dominated by right angles, and the surface has a rough texture. The few elements of the case made of plastic are the Radeon inscription and a transparent red corner: when the board receives power, they glow brightly.

Changing the air cooler to the LSS had almost no effect on the dimensions of the device, although the case was made a couple of millimeters longer and wider than the standard reference model in order to hide the edge of the printed circuit board at the junction of metal plates.

But of course, the most interesting thing about the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC is the device of the liquid cooling system. This is not the first time that water has found its way into red video cards: after the Radeon R9 295X2, Radeon R9 Fury X, and then the Radeon Pro Duo based on two Fiji chips, AMD has gained enough experience to design a truly high-quality and durable solution. Indeed, everything is very well thought out in the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC.

CoolerMaster components are custom-made by CoolerMaster — it does not sell anything like this in retail. The system works as follows. The liquid from the external radiator first enters the pump with an integrated water block — the copper base of this part is pressed against the GPU chips and HBM2 memory assemblies. But the metal frame, under which almost the entire area of ​​the printed circuit board is hidden, except for the GPU substrate and power connectors, is also part of the cooling circuit: on the outside, a U-shaped cover is mounted on it, under which liquid heated by the GPU flows from the pump.

This is what the water cooling scheme of such a powerful video card as the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC should look like, because the VRM components here also need enhanced heat dissipation. But FETs, drivers, capacitors, and chokes are capable of operating at higher temperatures than GPUs and HBM2 chips, so the latter were given priority.

A typical factory-filled coolant system (CLLC — Closed Loop Liquid Cooler), which is installed on central processors, is designed for a service life of about five years. Due to the fact that the coolant gradually escapes from the circuit through the pores of the connecting hoses and is replaced by air, the internal lubricant dries up in the pump — and the mechanics quickly wear out. To prevent this problem, AMD and CoolerMaster use hoses with an internal Teflon coating (be careful with bends!), and most importantly, they integrated a reservoir with a supply of liquid into the LSS — this is a plastic box that occupies the right side of the space under the casing. The tank is connected by a single tube to the pump inlet, and on the other side it has an air valve — this way the slow loss of coolant from the main circuit is compensated.

The cooling ring closes a compact radiator with a single 120 mm fan. Although the Vega 64 LC has some serious heat dissipation, AMD did not make the heatsink thicker than the Radeon R9 Fury X (38mm). In addition, he got rid of the expansion cavity, which sometimes complicates installation in the seats for case fans, because there is already a separate reservoir under the video card cover. But the fan is the same Nidec Servo product, which is well known under the Scythe Gentle Typhoon brand. The variant for Fury X and Vega 64 LC (D1225C12B7ZP) has a ring connecting the blades and can be accelerated up to 3000 rpm. But at a speed of rotation within 1200 rpm, which Vega 64 LC is enough even under heavy load, it is almost inaudible.

Printed circuit board

All reference versions of Vega accelerators, be it Vega 56, Vega 64 or Vega 64 LC, are based on the same printed circuit board. With the Vega 10 GPU and two HBM2 memory stacks bound together by a silicon substrate, there is plenty of free space on the front of the PCB. The manufacturer could shorten the PCB, as is done in the Radeon R9 Fury X, so that the Vega 64 LC becomes the same compact device, but then the coolant reservoir would have to be abandoned, and in standard Vega modifications, the dimensions are still determined by the air cooling system.

The lion’s share of the textolite area is occupied by VRM. The voltage regulator consists of thirteen phases — a dozen for the GPU and one for the HBM2 chips. To simplify the control logic in the GPU power circuit and get by with an eight-phase PWM controller (International Rectifier IR35217), AMD uses dual FET drivers — one chip per pair of MOSFETs.

Additional power is supplied to the board through two eight-pin connectors. Together with the power lines of the PCI Express slot, they provide the board with a nominal power of 375 watts. This number usually says nothing about real power consumption, but not in the case of the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC, as we will soon see. The LEDs next to the power connectors form a red indicator bar that displays the GPU load. Using the DIP switch, for which a hole is made in the shield on the back of the PCB, you can turn off the LEDs or change their color to blue.

No high-performance AMD-based graphics card is complete without a backup UEFI chip, but for Vega, this is not just insurance in case of unsuccessful flashing: the second copy of the firmware limits the power, and therefore the frequencies, and heat of the GPU.

⇡#Test stand, testing methodology

Test bench configuration
CPU	Intel Core i7-5960X @ 4 GHz (100 MHz × 40) constant frequency
Motherboard	ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME
RAM	Corsair Vengeance LPX, 2133 MHz, 4 × 4 GB
ROM	Intel SSD 760p, 1024 GB
Power Supply	Corsair AX1200i 1200W
CPU cooling system	Thermalright Archon
Frame	CoolerMaster Test Bench V1.0
Monitor	NEC EA244UHD
Operating system	Windows 10 Pro x64
AMD GPU software
All video cards	AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.1.1 (Tesselation: Use application settings)
NVIDIA GPU software
All video cards	NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 417.71

Synthetic 3D Graphics Benchmarks
Test	API	Permission	Full screen anti-aliasing
3D Mark Fire Strike 1.1	DirectX 11 (feature level 11_0)	1920×1080	Off
3DMark Fire Strike 1.1 Extreme		2560×1440
3DMark Fire Strike 1.1 Ultra		3840×2160
3D Mark Time Spy 1.1	DirectX 12 (feature level 11_0)	2560×1440
3DMark Time Spy Extreme 1.1		3840×2160

Game tests
Game (in order of release date)	API	Settings, test method	Full screen anti-aliasing
			1920×1080 / 2560×1440	3840×2160
gta v	DirectX 11	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark	MSAA 4x + FXAA + Reflection MSAA 4x	Off
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	DirectX 11	Max. quality. OCAT, location Caer Morhen	TAA + HairWorks AA 4x
Tom Clancy’s The Division	DirectX 12	Max. quality, HFTS off Built-in benchmark	SMAA 1x Ultra + TAA: Supersampling	TAA: Stabilization
DOOM	Vulkan	Max. quality. OCAT, Mission Foundry	TSSAA 8TX	Off
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided	DirectX 12	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark	MSAA 4x
Battlefield 1	DirectX 12	Max. quality. OCAT, the start of the Over the Top mission	TAA
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation	Vulkan	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark	MSAA 4x + TAA 4x
Total War: WARHAMMER II, built-in benchmark	DirectX 12	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark (Battle Benchmark)	MSAA 4x
Far Cry 5	DirectX 11	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark	TAA
F1 2018	DirectX 11	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark	TAA
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	DirectX 12	Max. quality. Built-in benchmark	SMAA 4x

General purpose computing, video encoding/decoding
Program		Settings
		AMD	NVIDIA
CompuBench 2.0	Ocean Surface Simulation	—
	N-Body Simulation 1024K	—
Lux Mark 3.1	Hotel Lobby (Complex Benchmark)	—
SiSoftware Sandra Titanium (2018) 2018.8.28.26	GPGPU Scientific Analysis	OpenCL, FP16/FP32

We measure the power of video cards separately from the CPU and other PC components. For this, a PCI Express x16 hard riser is used, in which the +12 V and ground lines coming from the motherboard are broken and brought to a separate six-pin power connector. The Corsair AX1200i power supply unit, using the Corsair LINK 4 utility, allows you to register the total current passing through the auxiliary power connectors of the video card and the riser, with a period of 1 s, and the power is calculated by multiplying the current value by the voltage value of 12 V at each point in time.

As a test load, FurMark is used with the most aggressive settings (3840 × 2160 resolution, MSAA 8x) and Crysis 3 (maximum graphics quality, 3840 × 2160 resolution, MSAA 4x). Power measurements are taken after the graphics card has warmed up, when the GPU temperature and clock speeds have stabilized. Also during the test using MSI Afterburner software, we register a number of other variables: clock speed, voltage and temperature of the GPU, rotational speed of the cooling fans.

⇡#Test participants

The following video cards took part in performance testing:

⇡#Clock speeds, power consumption, temperature, overclocking

The limiting frequency for which the Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled GPU is designed is 1750 MHz. In real computing tasks, the GPU does not even come close to such values, however, the extended thermal package of Vega 10 under the LSS allows you to keep the frequencies at 1606 MHz under continuous load. Whatever one may say, this is 124 MHz more than the frequencies of the reference Vega 64 samples equipped with a «turbine» cooler, and partner video cards with open cooling systems in the normal mode are not capable of such auto-overclocking.

At these high frequencies, the Vega 10 GPU operates far beyond its most energy-efficient range, and every extra megahertz comes at the price of a significant increase in power. As measured by FurMark, the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC’s power consumption limit is around 382W, which is roughly equivalent to the combined rating of two eight-pin power connectors and a PCI Express slot. Even in games, the device’s appetites are 95W more than the standard Vega 64.

As experiments with overclocking Vega 56 and Vega 64 “in the air” have shown more than once, only a massive 2.5- or three-slot cooler with high-speed fans can cope with such a monstrous load, but the LSS is incomparably more efficient. Thanks to water cooling, GPU temperatures on the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC board are 15-17 °C cooler than the standard version of Vega 64, while the fan does not spin above 1200 rpm.

Video adapter	Settings	GPU clock frequency, MHz			GPU supply voltage, V			Fan speed, rpm (% of max.)	Fan speed 2, rpm (% of max.)
		Avg.	Max.	Limit	Avg.	Max.	Limit	Avg.	Avg.
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (1630/1890 MHz, 8 GB)	WattMan: Balanced	1482	1482	1630	1.037	1.037	1,250	2405 (50%)	ND
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750/1890MHz, 8GB), -200mV vCore	-200 mV vCore	1589	1589	1750	1.056	1.056	1,250	938 (29%)	ND
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750/1890 MHz, 8 GB)	WattMan: Balanced	1606	1615	1750	1.105	1.218	1,250	1119 (34%)	ND
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750/2250 MHz, 8 GB), +50% TDP	+50% TDP, 100% RPM	1699	1699	1750	1.193	1.193	1,250	2909 (89%)	ND
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 FE (1607/10008 MHz, 8 GB)		1697	1785	1911	0.920	0.993	1.243	2194 (55%)	ND
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FE (1480/11010 MHz, 11 GB)		1329	1329	1911	1,000	1,000	1.243	2021 (42%)	ND
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 FE (1365/14000 MHz, 6 GB)		1845	1845	1995	1.006	1.006	1.243	1849 (50%)	1847 (50%)
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 OC (1410/14000 MHz, 8 GB)		1950	1950	2040	1.037	1.037	1.243	1697 (51%)	1695 (51%)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 FE (1515/14000 MHz, 8 GB)		1879	1890	1995	1.010	1.018	1.243	1765 (48%)	1765 (48%)

Note: all parameters are measured in Crysis 3 (maximum graphics quality, 3840 × 2160, MSAA 4x) after GPU warm-up.

In normal mode, the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC supplies a fairly high voltage to the graphics core — up to 1.218 V with a maximum allowable 1.25 V. Based on this data, you can go two ways: either overclock the video card by increasing the available GPU power, or moderate it power consumption due to undervolting, while maintaining operating frequencies if possible. Let’s start with the second option.

It turned out that our Vega 64 LC was stable even when the GPU supply voltage, corresponding to the top three positions of the clock frequency, was reduced by 0.2 V (although in reality it only drops by 0.049 V). In modern video cards, clock frequencies and GPU voltage are closely related, they can only be adjusted separately within narrow limits, so as a result of undervolting, the GPU frequency under load dropped by 17 MHz, but the power was reduced by 39 watts. This practically does not affect the temperature, since the AMD PowerTune automation still focuses on the target value of 65 ° C, but the rotational speed of the LSS fan has dropped to 938 rpm.

If, on the contrary, there is a task to increase performance at any cost, then it is worth raising the power reserve by 50% — and now the GPU frequency under load does not fall below 1699 MHz. Let’s see if the Radeon VII is capable of this! It is not surprising that overclocking the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC loses the remnants of its already low energy efficiency: even in the gaming test, the actual power of the video card increased by 80 W (up to 379 W), and under load FurMark passed the 600 W mark (moreover, this average, not peak value). It’s amazing that UEFI and the Radeon Vega 64 LC voltage regulator allow this mode to work at all, and this is hardly acceptable for permanent operation. The cooling system does not care: at high fan speeds, the temperature of the overclocked GPU is even lower than without overclocking in normal mode — we take our hats off to CoolerMaster engineers. Cables and additional power connectors will have a hard time, and the VRM of the video card raises concerns: field-effect transistors in the GPU piping are always taken with a current margin, and here they are cooled by liquid, but passive components and PCB tracks can be a weak link. Unlike Vega 56 and accelerators based on Polaris chips, in which the frequency potential is often limited by the VRM power, overclocking of the flagship Vega is not combined with undervolting. Attempting to slightly lower the GPU voltage of our Radeon RX Vega 64 LC instance not only does not help overclocking, but also leads to a loss of stability at higher frequencies.

A good compromise between the speed and power of the video card is undervolting the GPU while overclocking the RAM. Most Vega 64 models can significantly speed up RAM due to the fact that they mainly use Samsung’s HBM2 chips. On the contrary, most Vega 56 builds use Hynix memory, which cannot cope with such high frequencies. However, HBM2 requires intensive cooling even in normal mode, so the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC is out of competition here too: we managed to increase the effective RAM frequency from 1890 to 2250 MHz, which means an almost 20% increase in bandwidth.

The tests of the 3DMark package are very sensitive to the clock speeds of video cards and fit perfectly with the Graphics Core Next architecture. Here, the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC scored 6% more than the «airy» Vega 64 model. As for NVIDIA graphics cards of a similar performance level, AMD does not need LSS to beat the GeForce GTX 1080 in «synthetics». Radeon RX Vega 64 LC only consolidated previous achievements with a 10% lead over the rival.

At the same time, the clash with the senior accelerator of the Pascal family and NVIDIA’s new products on Turing chips ended not in favor of the top Vega even in synthetic tests. Until Radeon VII appeared on sale, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, like the comparable GeForce RTX 2080 in terms of speed, is too tough for AMD devices — these video cards have gone ahead by 16 and 24% in 3DMark points. Even the GeForce RTX 2070 outperforms the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC by 7%.

The situation can only be saved by overclocking, which is given to Vega video cards at the cost of a catastrophic increase in power. The increased frequencies of the GPU and RAM provided the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC with an additional 9% points and a coveted draw with the GeForce RTX 2070.

⇡#Game tests (1920×1080, 2560×1440)

Gaming benchmarks react differently not only to the architectural features of NVIDIA and AMD chips, but also to the characteristics of individual models within the same video card family. Thus, the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC on average only 6-8% exceeds the standard Vega 64 in terms of frame rate, but in Shadow of the Tomb Raider — oddly enough, one of the most uncomfortable games for the GCN architecture in our test methodology — the difference reaches 11–14%.

When it comes to standard Radeon RX Vega 64 vs. GeForce GTX 1080, most games favor AMD, but GTA V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and The Witcher 3 score so heavily in NVIDIA’s favour, that GeForce GTX still outperforms the median. 1080. But thanks to the factory overclocking of the Vega 10 chip under LSS, the advantage is again on the side of the «reds»: the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC outperforms the GeForce GTX 1080 by 4-6%.

The GeForce RTX 2070 separates from the GeForce GTX 1080, and hence the standard Vega 64, a significant distance that the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC cannot overcome: the RTX 2070 is 7-8% faster. But in this case, again, we need to make allowances for individual games in which NVIDIA’s victory is predetermined. If you do not take into account GTA V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3, then we can state a draw between the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC and the GeForce RTX 2070 in 1080p mode, and at 1440p the distance between them is only 3% in the average change frequency frames.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080 are out of reach for the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC: the results of the first are 16-21, and the second are 19-26% higher. Whatever one may say, in gaming tests AMD has nothing to oppose to older NVIDIA accelerators.

Overclocking the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC at a screen resolution of less than 4K increases FPS by an average of 7% — in this case, the AMD accelerator is almost as good as the GeForce RTX 2070.

⇡#Game tests (3840×2160)

In 2160p mode, Vega 10-class GPUs are protected from the notorious CPU dependence, and performance scales well with clock speeds. Swapping the Radeon RX Vega 64’s air-cooled system for LFS increased average frame rates by 8%, but games that were particularly sensitive to AMD’s factory overclocking at lower resolutions benefit even more at 4K. So, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the difference between the standard Vega 64 and Vega 64 LC is no less than 19%.

GeForce GTX 1080 at this screen resolution is pulled to the bottom by a relatively narrow, 256-bit memory bus. Even taking into account the results in games that are problematic for the GCN architecture, the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC is 10% faster, and without them, it is 15% faster.

The GeForce RTX 2070, on the other hand, is no worse equipped for 4K tests than the Vega 64. As a result, the balance of power between this model and the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC has not changed much: the NVIDIA graphics card leads by a margin of 7%, but if not take into account GTA V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3, then we can talk about an average difference of only 4%.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080 still dominate the AMD accelerators: the advantage of these video cards over the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC is 21 and 24% in frame rates in the aggregate gaming tests, not to mention the notorious trinity of GTA V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 3.

In 2160p mode, overclocking the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC has the biggest impact on performance: on average, the frame rate increased by 10% — already enough to defeat the GeForce RTX 2070. But in some games (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and DOOM), there is an increase at 13-14% FPS.

⇡#General purpose computing

When it comes to accelerators of the Radeon RX Vega family, you can not ignore the computing tasks that are not related to 3D gaming graphics. In tests of general-purpose calculations, everything is extremely simple — there were no rivals equal in speed to the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (and the regular version of Vega 64) for the same money. Among all AMD rivals, only the GeForce RTX 2080 coped with the flagship Vega, and even then only in a single test — LuxMark. The Turing architecture is unrivaled in ray tracing rendering even when the application does not use the RT cores of the GPU.

⇡#Results of all graphics tests

3DMark (Graphics Score)
	Permission	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (1630 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 2250 MHz, 8GB), +50% TDP	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (1607 / 10008 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (1480 / 11010 MHz, 11 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 FE (1365 / 14000 MHz, 6 GB)	ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 OC (1410 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 FE (151 5 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)
fire strike	1920×1080	23 263	24 868	26 519	22 019	27 492	19 493	23 939	27 772
Fire Strike Extreme	2560×1440	10 805	11 437	12 562	10 414	13 476	9003	11 390	13 054
Fire Strike Ultra	3840×2160	5473	5 816	6400	5079	6 643	4 168	5 573	6 472
time spy	2560×1440	7 225	7677	8 201	7 193	9 165	7466	9 395	10 870
Time Spy Extreme	3840×2160	3450	3 653	3 987	3304	4 330	3400	4 380	5020
Max.			+7%	+17%	−0%	+27%	+3%	+30%	+50%
Avg.			+6%	+15%	−4%	+23%	−11%	+13%	+31%
Min.			+6%	+14%	−7%	+18%	−24%	+2%	+18%

1920×1080
	Full screen anti-aliasing	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (1630 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 2250 MHz, 8GB), +50% TDP	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (1607 / 10008 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (1480 / 11010 MHz, 11 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 FE (1365 / 14000 MHz, 6 GB)	ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 OC (1410 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 FE (1515 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation	MSAA 4x + TAA 4x	42	45	50	40	53	36	46	52
Battlefield 1	TAA	131	140	151	124	145	124	144	147
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided	MSAA 4x	41	43	48	40	52	36	46	52
DOOM	TSSAA 8TX	200	200	200	200	200	200	200	200
F1 2018	TAA	123	129	137	115	148	113	139	158
Far Cry 5	TAA	one hundred	101	103	103	109	98	106	110
gta v	MSAA 4x + FXAA + Reflection MSAA 4x	69	73	78	84	94	77	85	93
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	SMAA 4x	55	61	64	64	74	56	69	82
Tom Clancy’s The Division	SMAA 1x Ultra + TAA: Supersampling	86	94	101	82	108	71	90	107
Total War: WARHAMMER II	MSAA 4x	39	41	44	36	47	33	41	46
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	TAA + HairWorks AA 4x	80	87	93	93	120	87	105	128
Max.			+11%	+17%	+21%	+50%	+10%	+31%	+60%
Avg.			+6%	+13%	+2%	+23%	−5%	+13%	+26%
Min.			+0%	+0%	−8%	+0%	−17%	+0%	+0%

2560×1440
	Full screen anti-aliasing	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (1630 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 2250 MHz, 8GB), +50% TDP	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (1607 / 10008 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (1480 / 11010 MHz, 11 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 FE (1365 / 14000 MHz, 6 GB)	ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 OC (1410 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 FE (1515 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation	MSAA 4x + TAA 4x	35	37	42	33	43	thirty	37	44
Battlefield 1	TAA	104	111	119	94	119	93	113	128
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided	MSAA 4x	25	28	31	26	34	23	thirty	35
DOOM	TSSAA 8TX	154	155	155	152	196	147	187	196
F1 2018	TAA	91	97	105	88	116	84	105	122
Far Cry 5	TAA	85	87	93	79	96	72	88	99
gta v	MSAA 4x + FXAA + Reflection MSAA 4x	51	55	59	66	79	57	69	80
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	SMAA 4x	36	41	44	41	49	37	47	57
Tom Clancy’s The Division	SMAA 1x Ultra + TAA: Supersampling	61	67	72	59	77	51	62	76
Total War: WARHAMMER II	MSAA 4x	26	28	thirty	25	33	23	29	33
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	TAA + HairWorks AA 4x	62	67	71	68	90	65	80	96
Max.			+14%	+24%	+30%	+56%	+13%	+36%	+58%
Avg.			+8%	+15%	+2%	+30%	−6%	+17%	+35%
Min.			+1%	+1%	−10%	+13%	−16%	+2%	+16%

3840×2160
	Full screen anti-aliasing	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (1630 / 1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750/1890 MHz, 8 GB)	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 LC (1750 / 2250 MHz, 8GB), +50% TDP	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (1607 / 10008 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (1480 / 11010 MHz, 11 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 FE (1365 / 14000 MHz, 6 GB)	ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 OC (1410 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 FE (1515 / 14000 MHz, 8 GB)
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation	Off	47	53	57	43	56	40	49	55
Battlefield 1		63	68	75	56	75	58	72	81
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided		29	32	36	28	37	25	32	38
DOOM		81	80	91	84	108	79	105	112
F1 2018		57	61	67	54	74	53	67	79
Far Cry 5		48	50	56	44	57	40	51	58
gta v		48	50	54	54	71	47	58	69
Shadow of the Tomb Raider		32	38	42	32	43	28	39	47
Tom Clancy’s The Division	TAA: Stabilization	35	39	43	34	44	29	37	46
Total War: WARHAMMER II	Off	23	24	26	21	28	20	24	28
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt		40	43	46	46	62	43	54	63
Max.			+19%	+31%	+15%	+55%	+8%	+35%	+58%
Avg.			+8%	+19%	−2%	+30%	−9%	+15%	+34%
Min.			−1%	+12%	−11%	+19%	−17%	+4%	+17%

⇡#findings

Whatever one may say, the accelerators of the Radeon RX Vega family have not been able to restore AMD’s former confidence in the fight against NVIDIA in the high-performance graphics card market. Until Radeon VII based on second-generation Vega silicon is available, Vega 64 Liquid Cooled is the best that Radeon Technologies Group engineers have to offer gamers, and at the same time the clearest example of why the GCN architecture in its current form did not live up to the hopes of red fans. commands.

From a performance standpoint, there are no complaints about the Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled. Thanks to water cooling, the far from modest potential of the Vega 10 chip was fully revealed. When the GPU runs at a clock frequency of over 1600 MHz, gaming performance increases by 7-8% compared to the standard version of Vega 64 — enough to defeat the GeForce GTX 1080 went to Vega 64 LC without the slightest difficulty. It is possible, albeit with reservations, to recognize it as an equal rival for the GeForce RTX 2070.

The weakness of the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC, as you might guess, is in power consumption. To operate at such frequencies, the Vega 10 GPU requires a high supply voltage and develops a monstrous power — at the level of 380 watts under heavy load. It’s hard to say why the power efficiency of AMD chips has suffered so much over the years. Whether the best minds of the company involved in processor circuitry were drawn by the Ryzen team, or the Graphics Core Next architecture itself is already repeating the ridiculous history of Bulldozer in central processors and needs to be completely replaced, but it is the current generation “red” GPUs that suffer the most from power consumption problems. .

However, we remembered the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC on the eve of the release of Radeon VII not at all in order to once again step on AMD’s sore spot. After all, there is good news: under pressure from the GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, prices for all Vega accelerators collapsed, including liquid-cooled models. Now the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC costs no more than the quality versions of the GeForce GTX 1080 and RTX 2070 equipped with air coolers.

Of course, among these titles, the future belongs to the RTX 2070, but while ray tracing and DLSS have not received massive support from game developers, buyers of hardware for $ 600 have other requests, including aesthetics, reliability and cooling of the device are not the last ones. It’s not easy to find an analogue of the system that AMD and CoolerMaster created among ready-made liquid cooling kits (at least for the difference in price between the standard Vega 64 and LC), it is amazingly efficient, quiet and designed for years of service. The build quality and design of the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC is also top notch.

It is worth recalling another advantage of the Radeon RX Vega 64 LC. Vega 10 is still one of the best processors for general purpose computing. In many tasks of this kind, the Radeon RX Vega 64, even without LSS, is superior to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and at least not inferior to the GeForce RTX 2080. So it turns out that the best situation for buying a flagship video card of the Vega family has developed right now, when the Radeon brand is going through hard times . However, we advise you to wait a little longer — the release of Radeon VII may provoke another round of discounts.