AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Review - Review 2022

As a dominion, the top-end performers on the PC-component forepart become the most attending. In AMD's world in 2022, that'southward been processors such as the beastly Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and the Ryzen 7 1800X, as well as its long-awaited Radeon RX Vega 64 ($999.77 at Amazon) graphics card. But information technology's frequently the products one or ii steps down the stack that offering the better value, delivering most of the performance of the costliest video cards or processor fries, only at a much-reduced price.

Take, for instance, our favorite AMD Ryzen CPU of the moment, the Ryzen 5 1600X. We think it's the best value among the AMD Ryzen processors we've tested (11 so far this year!), in part considering it delivers the aforementioned clock speeds (3.6GHz to 4GHz stock) of the pinnacle-end mainstream AMD Ryzen 7 1800X. Its half-dozen cores are a slight downtick from the Ryzen vii 1800X's eight, but with that 25 percent downstep in concrete cores comes a well-nigh 50 per centum reduction in cost. When we wrote this, the Ryzen five 1600X was selling for almost $235, compared to well-nigh $460 for the Ryzen vii 1800X.

In many ways, the Radeon RX Vega 56 that nosotros're looking at hither occupies a similar spot in AMD'southward new-for-2017 lineup of Vega enthusiast-grade graphics cards. As its name implies, it has 56 compute units to the higher-end card's 64. And you get the same 8GB of high-bandwidth HBM2 memory running on the same "Vega 10" chip that powers the Vega 64. At its $399 MSRP, it is $100 less than the Vega 64.

In this cost range, $100 is a lot of coin when considering ane card versus some other, and the target carte on the Nvidia side, in the case of the Vega 56, is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 in its various forms. In a broader sense, the Vega 56 does a somewhat better task of outperforming that competing card than the Radeon RX Vega 64 does of besting its own Nvidia nemesis, the GeForce GTX 1080.

Of class, operation doesn't all swivel on compute units and memory allotments. Clock- and memory-speed differences make a difference, too, equally we'll come across in the Performance Testing section of this review later on. And it's likewise of import to annotation that the Vega 56 nevertheless faces the same power, oestrus, and efficiency deficits of the Vega compages in full general, although the disparities hither are less than with the Radeon RX Vega 64 card we tested. The Vega 56 is rated to 210 watts, while Nvidia rates the GTX 1070 at 150 watts. Annotation, though, that the way competing companies summate these kinds of things often differs. So don't take these watt differences as hard "apples-to-apples" numbers. Nonetheless, it'due south clear that Nvidia has an edge on the power/efficiency forepart.

All that being said, on the whole, nosotros'd say the Radeon RX Vega 56 is a better card value than the Vega 64 given its cost and intended usage: 1440p gaming, or 1080p games at loftier refresh rates. Similar the GTX 1070, though, it's just shy of a good pick for gaming at 4K (3,840x2,160) resolution. If you lot're aiming for 4K gaming, you'll definitely want something more than powerful than this card (at least a GTX 1080, or the Vega 64), unless you're happy to dial down some in-game detail settings to go along your resolution high.

Whether or not this card is a improve choice than the competing Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 in particular comes downward to details. So let's dig in and kickoff filtering through the finer points of AMD'south more-affordable new Vega carte du jour.

AMD Radeon Vega: A Quick Card Breakdown

Rather than rehash the full details of AMD'south new Vega line here, including the 3 cards and diverse optional "Radeon Pack" bundles, we're going to signal you to the review of the Radeon RX Vega 64 for the full rundown. Here, nosotros'll go over the specs of the Vega 56, and briefly touch on how they chronicle to the remainder of the cards in the line.

Hither's a chart of the principal specs of AMD's three new Vega cards, straight from AMD...

Note that the Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition, with its external radiator, is a bit of an oddball/outlier, because you tin't really buy it as a stand-alone card, but only in a bundle, which includes a pair of games and some discounts on other hardware for $699. (Again, see our review of the Vega 64 for farther details on the Radeon Packs.)

Only compared to the air-cooled Vega 64 that we tested and reviewed, the Vega 56 sticks reasonably close to its higher-end sibling—at least on paper. Information technology has 87 per centum of the Stream Processors and near 85 percent of the memory bandwidth of the college-end air-cooled Vega 64. And the Boost GPU clock, which should exist close to the average real-earth performance when gaming, according to AMD, only differs by virtually five pct between the two cards.

As noted up tiptop, AMD rates the board power for the Vega 56 at 210 watts. That's a drop of shut to 30 percentage compared to the Vega 64. But Nvidia rates its GTX 1070 at merely 150 watts. In the The states, where power rates are relatively low, that'southward non going to make much of a difference in your electric bill (unless, perchance, you're using the card for 24/7 coin mining). But the college ability ratings of the AMD cards mean more heat output, and so generally a chip more fan noise, too.

Though the board-ability ratings may non be apples-to-apples comparisons, Nvidia's and AMD's power-supply recommendations are. The recommended minimum power supply (PSU) for the Radeon RX Vega 56 is 650 watts, compared to Nvidia's recommendation of at to the lowest degree a 500-watt PSU for the competing GTX 1070. If y'all're building a organization from scratch, or your existing ability supply isn't upward to the task, opting for the Vega 56 may mean springing for a slightly more expensive PSU.

The ability differences translate to the supplementary power connectors on Vega 56, likewise, which we'll get to in the side by side section.

AMD Radeon Vega 56: The Specifics

In terms of dimensions and exterior blueprint, the stock versions of the Vega 64 and the Vega 56 that AMD sent our fashion for review are effectively identical—to the betoken that we wouldn't have been able to tell them apart without the pocket-sized green sticker on their backplates. That's not necessarily a bad matter, as the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 await virtually the aforementioned, too, and all these cards are near ten.5 inches long.

Here's a look at the Radeon RX Vega 64 next to the Radeon RX Vega 56. If you tin can tell the divergence, yous've got a amend eye than we exercise.

Unlike the Vega 64, the Vega 56 only comes in basic-black (at least until board partners such as Asus and PowerColor launch custom variants). The plastic shroud and single-fan blower libation (which pushes warm air out the back of the menu) is similar to what AMD has been using on its reference designs for years. There is a metallic backplate hither, as well equally on the RX Vega 64, but aside from the light-upward "RADEON" logo on the peak thin border, the AMD carte has no flashy flourishes or busy design elements similar the angled metal shell on Nvidia's competing GeForce GTX x-serial cards.

The AMD and Nvidia cards in this class are effectively identical, though, in size. The GTX 1080, GTX 1070, Radeon RX Vega 64, and RX Vega 56 are all dual-width cards, occupying two expansion slots (as are nearly all cards to a higher place the lowest-end options, these days).

Considering of the previously mentioned ability-rating differences, though, at that place are major differences in the ability requirements of the two cards. The GTX 1070 Founders Edition has a single eight-pin auxiliary ability connector, and Nvidia recommends a minimum 500-watt ability supply for a system running that card. AMD's Radeon RX Vega 56 requires a pair of eight-pin power connectors, and published specs say you'll need a 650-watt power supply, at minimum, for a system based around that card. So make sure the PSU you own or are considering buying has plenty power leads and meets the wattage minimum.

Every bit for ports, on the Vega 56 y'all get a trio of DisplayPort 1.iv connectors and a single HDMI two.0 port, just like on the Vega 64. Different with the GTX 1070, the Vega 56 has no DVI connectors. If y'all take an older monitor, you'll demand an adapter or a converter cable.

Of course, the port option, card length, and cooling apparatus could all alter if yous opt for a non-stock version of the bill of fare from one of AMD'southward partners. So be sure the specific card you're considering has what yous need earlier buying.

Performance Testing

As nosotros've mentioned in other recent video bill of fare reviews, things are in flux these days when it comes to testing graphics cards, because two fundamental technologies—despite being bachelor in some class for more than a year now—are proving difficult to test definitively.

The first of these is DirectX 12 (DX12). DX12 is just now starting to become common in AAA titles, though at that place are still relatively few real-world benchmarks for it. Still, DX12 will likely be the standard graphics API in the hereafter, and this card was designed to last for, at the very least, a few years. So it's important to know if a card can handle DX12 well before ownership. Nosotros tested the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 with the newest DX12-capable games nosotros had on hand, including Hitman (the 2022 edition), Rising of the Tomb Raider, and Tom Clancy: The Sectionalization, likewise as Futuremark's DX12 criterion, 3DMark Time Spy. Nosotros tested a agglomeration of games using DirectX xi, likewise, because that API will nonetheless be in wide utilize for the foreseeable future as well.

The second technology that's a little tricky to test, at present, is support for virtual reality. At this writing, at that place are two major competing VR headsets, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, with more than coming to market shortly, and it's difficult to establish a lone exam that is applicable to all VR scenarios. At the moment, nosotros're using Futuremark's new VRMark test to measure VR capability. It consists of an "Orange Room" exam designed to measure a carte du jour's power to handle today's games, and a "Blueish Room" examination for theoretical extremely demanding futurity titles. The Blue Room test is so tough, no card we've tested to engagement gets a passing class in information technology. So, for the moment, we'll simply report Orangish Room results. At the moment, baseline VR support for those headsets starts with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060. On the AMD side of things, it is the AMD Radeon RX 480, or that card'south successors, the Radeon RX 580 and Radeon RX 570. Therefore, the Vega 56 should exist more than adequate for today's VR experiences with the two leading headsets.

As noted earlier, AMD is aiming the Radeon RX Vega 56 straight at Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070, while the Radeon RX Vega 64 is targeting the GeForce GTX 1080. It seems that the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti will remain in a league of its own for the time being. Nosotros factored those three competing cards into our operation charts below. Bated from those cards, nosotros also included the GeForce GTX 1060 and AMD Radeon RX 580 and Radeon RX 480 to testify what stepping upwardly over more mainstream offerings to the Vega 56 will get y'all in terms of higher frame rates. And to run into how AMD has progressed since 2022, we also included the previous-generation high-terminate AMD Radeon R9 Fury 10.

Nosotros started off our testing with Futuremark'south 2022 version of 3DMark, specifically the suite'due south Burn Strike Ultra subtest. Fire Strike is a constructed test designed to measure overall gaming operation, and the Ultra version of information technology is meant to simulate the stresses of game graphics rendering at 4K.

In our kickoff test, the Vega 56 finished about 3 percent ahead of the GeForce GTX 1070. It besides bested AMD's 2022 flagship card, the R9 Fury X, by almost 6 pct. The Vega 56 is by and large meant to compete with the 1070, every bit demonstrated by the GeForce GTX 1080's commanding 20 per centum advantage over information technology. The GTX 1080 and Vega 64 also cost about $100 more.

We besides tested the cards with the bottom 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme subtest, which tests a card at a less-demanding 2,560x1,440 resolution.

The gap between the Vega 56 and GTX 1070 held at nigh 3 per centum at the lower resolution, which is a practiced sign for AMD. The Vega 56 likewise one time again bested the R9 Fury Ten, this fourth dimension by well-nigh x percent.

Tomb Raider (2013)

Let'south kickoff our game testing with some older games. Here, we fired up the 2022 reboot of the classic title Tomb Raider, testing at the highest detail preset ("Ultimate") and iii resolutions.

In our get-go real-globe criterion, nosotros see GTX 1070 convincingly trounce the Vega 56 at 1080p and 1440p, while maintaining a slimmer 4fps lead at 4K. The Vega 56 did maintain its edge over the older Radeon R9 Fury X hither, although the two cards nearly tied at 4K.

Sleeping Dogs

Next, we rolled out the very demanding real-globe gaming benchmark test built into the older title Sleeping Dogs...

Once again, the Vega 56 lost to the GTX 1070 at lower resolutions; this time by 26fps at 1080p and 16fps at 1440p, with a smaller three.5fps deficit at 4K. The Radeon R9 Fury X also edged out the Vega 56 at all 3 resolutions here. This test definitely wasn't the Radeon RX Vega 56's finest hour.

Bioshock Infinite

The title Bioshock Infinite isn't overly demanding, but information technology's a popular one with stellar good looks. In its congenital-in criterion program, we set the graphics level to the highest preset (Ultra+DDOF)...

This title was the first real-world victory for the Vega 56 over its rival GTX 1070, and information technology impressively even bested the GeForce GTX 1080 at 1080p. Even so, it was non a total victory for the newer carte du jour, since the Radeon R9 Fury X managed to edge out the Vega 56 at 1440p and 4K.

Hitman: Absolution

Next up was Hitman: Absolution, which is an aging game but still pretty hard on a video card. The 8x MSAA we utilize is an especially harsh setting.

Hitman: Absolution was non kind to either Vega card, as the GeForce GTX 1060 was able to keep footstep with both of them, while the GTX 1070 stomped them both at all iii resolutions. The Radeon R9 Fury Ten also managed to beat both Vega cards at 1080p and 1440p. These results were rather unusual, and so we attempted reinstalling the drivers for the Vega 56 to correct any potential problems. Nonetheless, this didn't alter the numbers, and the results were consistent across many runs of this test.

Since these results are well out of sync with all the other test results we got, nosotros're chalking them upwards to an anomaly with this particular title. Hopefully a future patch fixes the functioning with this game. Merely y'all shouldn't be overly concerned with these results when because this card for purchase, unless for some reason you intend to spend lots of time playing this 2022-era title.

Far Cry Primal

Next, we moved to a more recent game, released in 2022. Ubisoft'due south latest open up-globe first-person hunting game is 1 of the most demanding titles nosotros use, thanks to its lush foliage, detailed shadows, and otherwise incredible environments. We'll commencement past taking a look at the Ultra Preset test...

The Vega 56 performed much amend on this test, slightly outpacing the GTX 1070 at the ii higher exam resolutions. It besides managed to edge out the Radeon R9 Fury X at all three test resolutions.

Tom Clancy's The Division

Our latest DirectX 12-supporting game-criterion add-on is Ubisoft'south popular tertiary-person open-world RPG shooter. Information technology's fix in a near-future New York Urban center in the midst of a pandemic. We use the Ultra preset at each test resolution.

Here we saw the Vega 56 outpace the GTX 1070 at all 3 resolutions, although by just 4fps at 1440p and 2fps at 4K. AMD'due south bottom Vega carte likewise bested the Radeon R9 Fury 10 at all 3 resolutions by slightly larger margins.

Ascent of the Tomb Raider

Lara Croft rises over again in the early 2022 iteration of Square Enix's long-running action franchise. As our hero works to unfold an ancient mystery (and reveal the secret to immortality) ahead of the aboriginal and deadly Guild of Trinity, she traipses through a slew of complex atmospheric environments, from arid tombs to the frigid Siberian wilderness. A dynamic weather condition system and Lara's wind-tousled pilus add to the game's visual complication. We're using the Very High preset here, under DX12...

Here nosotros have some other hotly contested round of testing. The GTX 1070 edged out the Vega 56 at all three resolutions, but by just a few frames in each case. The Vega 56 beat the Radeon R9 Fury X at all resolutions, although at 4K information technology's close enough to call a tie.

Hitman (2016)

The newest game in the Hitman franchise finds Agent 47 turning over a new leaf, and embarking on a journey of self-discovery as a teacher at a schoolhouse for underprivileged children. Simply kidding, of grade; he kills loads of people in this ane, just similar the rest. It does offer gorgeous graphics in both DX11 and DX12 varieties, though.

Fifty-fifty though DX11 and DX12 look effectively the aforementioned in this benchmark, in our experience, we decided to utilize the DX12 setting only here, because no matter how much you're spending, you're going to want to know how well your new card will perform on the latest settings.

In another close contest, the GTX 1070 once again edged out the Vega 56 at all three test resolutions, but again, just barely. Indeed, as with many of our exam games, y'all'd need to run a controlled criterion session to make out the deviation. The Radeon R9 Fury X was right backside the Vega 56 at 1440p, and it managed to edge out the newer card at 4K, despite having one-half the high-bandwidth retention.

This is the offset Futuremark 3DMark exam using DirectX 12. Per the developers, "With its pure DirectX 12 engine, congenital from the ground up to back up new features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is an ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards."

Back to synthetic benchmarks for our last DX12 test, and we essentially have a necktie between the Vega 56 and the GTX 1070, with less than a percentage-betoken difference between the two. The Radeon R9 Fury X trailed the Vega 56 hither by most 7 percentage, indicating AMD'due south newer architecture is better suited to the newer API—which we'd expect.

From the maker of 3DMark comes its commencement VR benchmark. No headset is required to run the trial, if you'd like to test your own rig before jumping into a VR-headset investment.

VR has high hardware requirements, so this test is designed to show overall capability for VR. As we mentioned earlier on, we ran the Orange Room subtest.

This time, the GTX 1070 scored about 6 percent higher than the Vega 56, while the Vega 56 in turn finished near 18 per centum higher than the R9 Fury 10. Still, since the baseline for VR on the AMD side of things is the RX 480 or the newer RX 580 and 570, the Vega 56 should exist able to handle current VR games easily, as well as those of the near time to come.

Conclusion

In the end, we're left feeling much the same style about the Radeon RX Vega 56 equally we did most the college-stop Vega 64. This lesser Vega bill of fare did a somewhat ameliorate job trading jabs with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 in our tests than the Vega 64 did confronting the GTX 1080. Just the two cards were shut plenty to call it a necktie on raw performance—particularly if you lot have a particular monitor in mind that favors 1 visitor'southward menu or the other (FreeSync for AMD, or G-Sync for Nvidia).

Across that, while the Vega 56 has the same power/efficiency issues compared to current-generation Nvidia cards as the Vega 64 does, the differences with this carte are less drastic. Simply know that you notwithstanding may need a college-wattage power supply if y'all opt for a Vega over a GTX 1070. There's a 150-watt disparity in suggested minimum power supplies for the two cards. AMD's cards are definitely power-hungrier.

A possible big X-cistron hither for some small subset of buyers could exist the "Radeon Red Pack" bundle that AMD is offering around the Vega 56. The Radeon Ruby Pack is a $100-uptick option (it costs $499) versus buying the card lone ($399), and it can certainly sweeten the deal. With the Ruby Pack, yous get two free games (Casualty, and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, in the United States), a $200 discount on the 34-inch ultrawide Samsung CF791 FreeSync monitor ($986.41 at Amazon) , and $100 off certain Ryzen 7 processors and motherboards, bought together. You need to purchase whatever of this hardware from the same retailer that sells yous the Red Pack, and at the aforementioned time in the same purchase.

If you were considering a high-end monitor and a new AMD-based PC build from the ground up, $300 in hardware savings, plus well-nigh $120 in free games, means the Radeon RX Vega 56 buy (in its bundle course) technically could more than pay for itself. Merely just be certain to store carefully. Because (a) you'll demand to make all those purchases at the same fourth dimension of buy to get the discounts, and (b) if the monitor, CPU, or motherboard (or any combination of those three) wind upwardly being cheaper somewhere other than where you purchase the bundle, that seemingly sweetness Red Pack could leave you with some sour-apple tree aftertaste if you don't do your research before clicking the buy button.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/graphics-cards/17224/amd-radeon-rx-vega-56-review

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