AMD Radeon VII Video Card Review @ [H]

Great review, as always guys! I am trying to get my WC'ing rigged up so we can see how it does until EK gets their full cover blocks out. I spoke with them yesterday, and was given a pretty decent time frame for when I will have mine in hand! Until then, we are going to cool the die and HBM, and possibly the main VRM if I can get this Koolance block to work. Can't wait to see what 2Ghz+ (if I get lucky silicon wise) looks like!
 
It is all about how long you think you have a use for the video card. If you know you can use it the next 3 years without to much of a comprise on settings it might not be that bad.

I always go for 3 years. The card has earned its asking price by then and you grow to love it as it gently drifts from 'wow this thing is fast' to 'come on old girl you can do it'.
 
Great review, as always guys! I am trying to get my WC'ing rigged up so we can see how it does until EK gets their full cover blocks out. I spoke with them yesterday, and was given a pretty decent time frame for when I will have mine in hand! Until then, we are going to cool the die and HBM, and possibly the main VRM if I can get this Koolance block to work. Can't wait to see what 2Ghz+ (if I get lucky silicon wise) looks like!

I think this card might really shine in a watercooling setup.
 
I always go for 3 years. The card has earned its asking price by then and you grow to love it as it gently drifts from 'wow this thing is fast' to 'come on old girl you can do it'.

If you get 3 years out of this card, then the price of it is not bad at all.
 
Thanks fellas, good read and a fair awarding of a silver. Im looking forward to a followup once drivers have matured and perhaps a block is built for this card. My V64 loves life under a waterblock. Im betting that those clocks even out a little once under water. 2000/1200 would give some sweet performance as long as temps stay in check!
 
I will be interested to see how it performs after AMD dials in the drivers like they always do after some time. It's nice to see AMD produce something competitive again, regardless of the mentioned shortcomings of heat, noise and such.

I am betting that in 6 months, the Radeon VII will be beating the 2080 in most of these benchmarks. I think in the long run it's a better buy.
 
Normally most sites test GPUs using most powerful CPU so that it is GPU limited & not CPU limited

Are you asking the [H] team to test GPUs using both high performing Intel CPU & multi-core AMD CPU ?

I don't mind reading more reviews & looking at more charts :)
To test a new GPU out, using the fastest gaming type setup where the CPU is least limiting would be best. Using slower gaming CPU’s maybe covered separately in another type review for CPU comparison sakes. Now I would be interested to see if DX12 is more affected by the number of cores, on various games except there are probably more interesting reviews to be had.
 
I think this card might really shine in a water cooling setup.

I am going that route for sure, just updated the other hardware but still need new case to accommodate cooling on GFX too.
I think i will go for 2 loops this time as the planned case should have no problem supporting that.

And ! By the time i buy a new GFX if its this one the blocks will be out, unless i am lucky with NAVI, but i somehow don't think those will be for sale in June / July.
 
I am going that route for sure, just updated the other hardware but still need new case to accommodate cooling on GFX too.
I think i will go for 2 loops this time as the planned case should have no problem supporting that.

And ! By the time i buy a new GFX if its this one the blocks will be out, unless i am lucky with NAVI, but i somehow don't think those will be for sale in June / July.

Unfortunately the rumors say October for Navi release now.
 
Definitive review as always. Can always wait for the best!
Very balanced. Very pro.
That's why your the best I guess.
Keep up the good work.
 
If Vega is anything to go by then the limit prolly isn't that much beyond what you get on air before hitting a wall where your scaling goes sour pretty fast.

One of the nice things about water, including just using a closed-loop cooler, is that the core can run at full speed without throttling while noise is kept comparably lower. That alone would be a pretty big boon to the Radeon VII, likely the same way it is for the Vega 64 Liquid Cooled.
 
I think the feature sets and strength makes this card seem like a more niche buy, none of the raytracing stuff for basically the same price. I saw some videos saying the 16gb of vram really helps 4k video rendering and makes it a better card to do so than the 2080, so maybe if you do 4k video stuff a lot and game occasionally and want to keep this card for longer than 1-2 years than its a pretty good buy right now?
 
I've found the sweet spot on my card is 1950 core/1175 mem at 1051mv (actual core hovers arpind 1905 in games). It's certainly stable at higher volts amd speed, but temps are holding it back. Watercooling would, IMO, really allow this card to open up.

I can undervolt at stock clocks all the way down to 947mv without any stability issues it seems (only tested a few hours, games). Major improvements in temps and noise.

Runs rock solid in games (AC Odyssey, Metro, BF1) for me so far.

Also, I see what Kyle was saying about the noise. It's loud above 3000rpm, but the sound signature is somehow less offensive than other "loud" cards I've owned e.g. 290x, gtx 480, 1080 ti blower
 
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Has anyone seen any info on a water cooled vega? Even if it was kraken style/diy ish...
 
Nice clocks harmattan . For some reason, my Vegas never OCed that high. I had a slight OC for testing but I don't think it was doing much.

Have a VII card coming on Monday, hopefully there will be more headroom like on your card.
 
October for Navi release now.

Yeah, i cant wait that long, i have a issue with money burning holes in my pants, and i am running out of pants with working pockets.

But this GFX will also do just fine as i am only on a 1080p monitor, so running that at 144 Hz should be fine.
I am glad no one make games i like or i think i would have given that VR stuff a try, so for starters i will make do with improved video editing powers, and then maybe grab a 4K/60 camera to make the computer work for all the money i spent on it.
Will be fun to give GFX overclocking a go, i never really bothered with that back in my OC days, but on a wim i did crank my TR up with 500 MHZ on all 12 cores, my previous CPU never saw any OC so i am a little rusty.

It is a bit "wild" i think that 3 almost 80 mm fans have to ramp up to +3000 RPM to do the job.
 
I'm a buyer at $599. But the content creating benefits may push me up to full price. Meet me in the middle AMD and I'll swing for one.
 
Kyle and Brent, Thank you for the review.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to click the Newegg button and an Asrock Radeon VII was available so I snagged it to replace my GTX 1080 in my 2700X rig. I had both the 2700x and the GTX 1080 liquid cooled but changed to GTX1080 back (It was a Founder's Edition).
EK will apparently make a block in the next few months for the Radeon VII so I'll see if it is worth liquid cooling.

I ran a few benchmarks with my 2700X/GTX1080 combo so I'll rerun them when the GTX 1080 is replaced by the Radeon VII.

Navi is probably a long way off, especially a high end one to eclipse the Radeon VII.

I also own a 5960x (OCd to 4.4) GTX1080TI combo with both being custom watercooled so now a good comparison can be made between 2700x/Radeon VII and 5960x/GTX1080TI.

I applaud Nvidia for starting the ray tracing release but this Radeon VII really intrigues me, despite a number of reviews that bashed it.

I'll keep the readers of this forum posted when it arrives this upcoming Wednesday.
 
wonder if the put less ram and same type nvidia uses, and make a gaming card at less price. if they could keep the same performance, and drop the price quite a bit would let them sell alot of cards. what u guys think?
 
wonder if the put less ram and same type nvidia uses, and make a gaming card at less price. if they could keep the same performance, and drop the price quite a bit would let them sell alot of cards. what u guys think?
They need HBM to keep the performance.
 
I saw that, but a number of questions from the thread were not mentioned in that interview, so I had assumed a separate article was still pending for them. But thanks anyway.
I saw that, but a number of questions from the thread were not mentioned in that interview, so I had assumed a separate article was still pending for them. But thanks anyway.
You should assume those questions did not get answered since they were not included in the interview.
 
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Kyle - Out of curiosity what kind of units/volume would you consider a production worthy release? I am not sure what kind of volume AMD plans to have on vii, but currently finding everything is either out of stock or selling for well over the asking price. IMO overall global units shipped should be part of the consideration when comparing it against similar priced card.
 
Kyle - Out of curiosity what kind of units/volume would you consider a production worthy release? I am not sure what kind of volume AMD plans to have on vii, but currently finding everything is either out of stock or selling for well over the asking price. IMO overall global units shipped should be part of the consideration when comparing it against similar priced card.
From what I can gather from multiple sources, since AMD will not share the number directly, it seems to be many times more than the "5000" reported.
 
I was disappointed to not see any productivity evaluation in the review, considering the Dual nature of the card and
it being based on a "professional" card. 3d, Video, Handbreak numbers.

Is that something that will be covered in the future review???
 
I was disappointed to not see any productivity evaluation in the review, considering the Dual nature of the card and
it being based on a "professional" card. 3d, Video, Handbreak numbers.

Is that something that will be covered in the future review???
No.
 
Hi Kyle,
thanks for the review. One question about your problems on the x399 mainboard.
I am having a Radeon VII running on an x399 Taichi board and I have from time to time signal loss. When it occurs it is periodically until I restart the PC.
It seems not related to video card temperature or usage. Is that the problem you experienced?

What happens is that the screen goes black sometimes showing a grey screen with color noise briefly.
I have recorded that behavior here:

I am on Adrenalin 19.2.2 but had that also on 19.2.1, that problem occurs on two different monitors who were connected via HDMI.

An answer would be really appreciated because I am not sure if this is a defective card or that x399 instability issue the driver mentioned.
 
Hi Kyle,
thanks for the review. One question about your problems on the x399 mainboard.
I am having a Radeon VII running on an x399 Taichi board and I have from time to time signal loss. When it occurs it is periodically until I restart the PC.
It seems not related to video card temperature or usage. Is that the problem you experienced?

What happens is that the screen goes black sometimes showing a grey screen with color noise briefly.
I have recorded that behavior here:

I am on Adrenalin 19.2.2 but had that also on 19.2.1, that problem occurs on two different monitors who were connected via HDMI.

An answer would be really appreciated because I am not sure if this is a defective card or that x399 instability issue the driver mentioned.

That is not what mine was doing. That looks like your display turning on and off.
 
Its loosing the signal, I deactivated HDCP for now and hope that this is causing the issues.
I originally notized the problem on my 4k HDR OLED which I thought might a problem of 4k hdr in combination with HDCP, but now I noticed it also happens on my 1080p 26" monitor with DVI input via HDMI->DVI Adapter.
The card is otherwise fine, so I hope its kind of a driver issue but I seem to be the only one with that issue.

Probably best to get in contact with AMD suport then.
 
Vote to have this thread pinned? I'm trying to remember the last time a review on a major release wasn't pinned but i'm coming up empty.
 
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