Home Gaming AMD is back in the top-end fight with three fast Vega graphics cards

AMD is back in the top-end fight with three fast Vega graphics cards

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AMD reveals Vega 64 cards 2

AMD has been incredibly content with catering to a market Nvidia has had a foot in for years now. The budget PC hardware space is where the majority of the market spends their money, but it does make the race at the top fairly boring. Nvidia has been knocking things out of the park there for years, but uncontested thanks to a lack of push from AMD. That all changes next month, as AMD prepares to launch their Vega GPUs that will compete with Nvidia’s best.

AMD has unveiled specifications for their three top range Vega cards, named simply Vega 56 and Vega 64. The numerals refer to the number of compute units each of the cards have, with the two variants of the Vega 64 leading the charge for AMD. Both cards feature greatly increased clock speeds and overhauled architecture, pushing computation to 13.7 terraflops and bundling that with 8GB of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM2).

AMD explained in a press briefing that they’ve really done a lot of work with Vega to make it stand out as much more than a boost in power. Buzz terms pointed towards improvements in memory bandwidth, which is twice as wide per pin than previous AMD efforts. They’re also promising twice the throughput per cycle again compared to previous iterations, which doesn’t say much at all considering AMD’s complacency in the high-end market for such a long time.

Cherry picked benchmarks also didn’t give a clear indication of a wide range of performance metrics, but did at least confirm some competition against Nvidia. AMD showcased how the Vega 64 would outpace a GTX 1080 in minimum framerates across nine tests, all running at ultra-wide 1440p. There’s something to be said about the lack of full 4K benchmarking data, but that should all come to light when the cards launch on August 14th.

The oddity here is pricing. The slower Vega 56 will launch for $399, while the air-cooled Vega 64 will start at $499. The water-cooled (and therefore more favourable overclocking card) won’t be sold alone. Instead, AMD is relegating the card to a bundle – pricing it at $699 and including two games and a bunch of discounts on other items. If you’re looking for just the card though, you’re out of luck.

August will be big for AMD, with Vega launching just days after the Threadripper CPUs that have been making so much noise in the past few weeks.

Last Updated: July 31, 2017

8 Comments

  1. Keen for those benchmarks later on in the month but from a glance not that impressed as to supposed to the hype.

    Reply

  2. Original Heretic

    July 31, 2017 at 13:30

    “Threadripper”?! Sounds like a horrible fart gone wrong.

    Reply

    • Dresden

      July 31, 2017 at 14:24

      Or like the antagonist in an awesome movie about farts!

      Reply

      • miaau

        July 31, 2017 at 16:06

        Prequel to the Emoji movie, I fear

        Reply

  3. Admiral Chief

    July 31, 2017 at 13:46

    ROOI SPAN!

    Reply

  4. Viper_ZA

    July 31, 2017 at 14:42

    Meh, a bit underwhelming is an understatement… 🙁

    Reply

  5. HairyEwok

    July 31, 2017 at 14:58

    The TDP on these cards are high though, 300W and 375W is nothing to scoff at.

    Reply

  6. Deceased

    August 1, 2017 at 11:25

    I’ve been waiting for this – I’ve seen the specs of the Vega Professional card – and that thing seems beast O.o

    Reply

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