Expecting too much from Vega 64?

We know an orgy of synthetic GPU benchmarks has no bearing on the fact of a CPU bottleneck.

What was this thread about? Who cares dude my score went up by 11!!@1
It seemed pretty clear from the first few posts. For all the people wondering, the original question was why my Vega FE was performing WORSE than my trifire 7950's. This occurs in in ALL games.

I know my cpus are old. Yet if they are truly 100% bottlenecking the card, during gaming wouldn't the the framerates be the same as my prior GPU setup?

The overclock was more of a test to see in the card was throttling or if the bios was modded for mining since the card was purchased used. Running games with an overclock did increase FPS across the board. Typically GPU utilization will be at 100%, yet the CPU cores are only around 30% utilization. Doesn't that seem backward for a CPU bottleneck?
 
It seemed pretty clear from the first few posts. For all the people wondering, the original question was why my Vega FE was performing WORSE than my trifire 7950's. This occurs in in ALL games.

I know my cpus are old. Yet if they are truly 100% bottlenecking the card, during gaming wouldn't the the framerates be the same as my prior GPU setup?

The overclock was more of a test to see in the card was throttling or if the bios was modded for mining since the card was purchased used. Running games with an overclock did increase FPS across the board. Typically GPU utilization will be at 100%, yet the CPU cores are only around 30% utilization. Doesn't that seem backward for a CPU bottleneck?
I be super surprised if your not getting smoother game play and or way better min frame rates. The 3Gb vram limitation alone would give a crap load of stutter in a lot of newer games these days. the 20.2.2 driver are working very well for me if you hadn't tried a clean driver install lately.

FIRE STRIKE
SCORE 19982 with AMD Radeon RX Vega 64(1x) and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
Graphics Score 24104
Physics Score 20949
Combined Score 8497
 
I be super surprised if your not getting smoother game play and or way better min frame rates. The 3Gb vram limitation alone would give a crap load of stutter in a lot of newer games these days. the 20.2.2 driver are working very well for me if you hadn't tried a clean driver install lately.
That's why I'm confused. It's stuttering less because of the extra vram and no crossfire, but the average and peak fps is noticeably lower.

Currently the machine is running the 20.2.1 drivers. Did you see a difference between the two?
 
That's why I'm confused. It's stuttering less because of the extra vram and no crossfire, but the average and peak fps is noticeably lower.

Currently the machine is running the 20.2.1 drivers. Did you see a difference between the two?
i cant for sure say tbh.....i guess its been months since i last benched it. For what ever reason it jumped 1500 points since what was showing in my result history. (so that goes back a ways)
If i had to guess, I think you be pleasantly surprised with a 3800x or 3900x (only if you can use the extra cores) But i also see you have a pretty bad ass setup as is....who knows maybe a 2080 super is what ya need
 
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We know an orgy of synthetic GPU benchmarks has no bearing on the fact of a CPU bottleneck.

What was this thread about? Who cares dude my score went up by 11!!@1
Did you read what the original poster was concerned about, if his Vega FE not performing as expected? 3dMark in this case was best tool to use to determine if his particular Vega FE was performing on par. Mainly because the graphics tests are much less CPU/system limited then a typical game and can measure a particular GPU performance, a.k.a Vega FE. It turned out his Vega FE was doing fine and his system or CPU is the limiting factor.

The performance impact or improvement you can measure in 3dMark also carries over to many games as well so it is not a bad tool to use to test OC speeds and stability either. Within the right scope it can be a useful tool. Does it predict game performance accurately and consistently -> no. Using it to compare cards? Poor tool, but can give some useful information.
 
The performance impact or improvement you can measure in 3dMark also carries over to many games as well so it is not a bad tool to use to test OC speeds and stability either. Within the right scope it can be a useful tool. Does it predict game performance accurately and consistently -> no. Using it to compare cards? Poor tool, but can give some useful information.
This is a proper application of synthetic benchmarking :)
 
For Vega 64’s is there any native cool running settings? I’ve got the gigabyte Vega 64 and I’m trying to stuff in into the Silverstone RVZ03 and I’m worried it will run too warm but since the computer isn’t for me I don’t want to accidentally have unstable settings in place.
 
For Vega 64’s is there any native cool running settings? I’ve got the gigabyte Vega 64 and I’m trying to stuff in into the Silverstone RVZ03 and I’m worried it will run too warm but since the computer isn’t for me I don’t want to accidentally have unstable settings in place.
If a blower style card, not an issue, if so -> I would not put it in that case.
 
Not a blower style. It’s the dual fan one.
all you can do is try it...personally i feel a blower one while being loud as hell would actually work better. (since it throws all the heat out the back quite well) it will work but it not going to hold record boost numbers do to the heat build up if i had to guess. Some minor voltage tweaks might be enough to keep it from getting overly hot.
 
Not a blower style. It’s the dual fan one.
Just be advised that AMD GPU power ratings are just for the GPM not the HBM, fans, VRM inefficiencies etc. Look at this power report at AnAndTech, 1080 total system power 310w while total system power with Vega 64 454w:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-and-56-review/19.
I don't see how that case would have good air flow or sufficient air flow for a fan cooled card. That is not even OCing, I pulled easily from the card over 400w with a mild OC. All that heat will heat everything inside that computer, M.2 drives, CPU, ram you name it. Vega 64 are also rather sensitive to temperature particulary the HBM2, higher the temperature the much less frequency it can do. You can try it but I doubt it will be problem free. Sorry, just my opinion and experience.
 
It's sitting at right around 1600Mhz on the core, 1125Mhz on the RAM and about 75C at full load.


This was a fresh install of windows, the 7950's were never installed under windows 10. I DDU'ed the drivers the other night when when I installed adrenalin 2020 as well with barely any change.


That's what I'm wondering. I know my CPU's are older, but they aren't even close to being fully utilized. I'm not expecting ludicrous performance, just not worse than what I had before. Under gaming loads the GPU will be at 100% use. The few CPU cores that are being used by the game will be around 50%, maybe with a single core getting around 75%. That's pretty far from being the biggest bottleneck in my book.

Why I'm finding this strange is that it's across the board, every game has suffered. It's almost like new vega card has less computing power than the three cards it replaced.

Your cpu doesn’t need to be fully utilized to have a cpu bottleneck. If you have a quad core and a game can only use one core you’ll see ~25% utilization. And the way the task scheduler works in windows, task manager makes it look like each core is just barely being utilized, when in fact what is actually happening is the scheduler Is constantly switching which core is doing the processing extremely quickly and the graphical representation is marginal load on all cores. But You are in fact maxing out each core for the short time the process is running on it.
 
Just be advised that AMD GPU power ratings are just for the GPM not the HBM, fans, VRM inefficiencies etc. Look at this power report at AnAndTech, 1080 total system power 310w while total system power with Vega 64 454w:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-and-56-review/19.
I don't see how that case would have good air flow or sufficient air flow for a fan cooled card. That is not even OCing, I pulled easily from the card over 400w with a mild OC. All that heat will heat everything inside that computer, M.2 drives, CPU, ram you name it. Vega 64 are also rather sensitive to temperature particulary the HBM2, higher the temperature the much less frequency it can do. You can try it but I doubt it will be problem free. Sorry, just my opinion and experience.
Nah thanks for the 2 cents. I’m just working with what I got at this point. It will be in that case hopefully I can keep temps low enough. Preliminary testing seems alright I don’t have official number yet. I have both fans over the GPU and I think that’s helping.
 
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I am pretty sure the latest drivers no longer carry optimization for Vega 64, AMD has this bad habit of neglecting older gpus in newer drivers , unless the release notes specifically mention it. I would try a driver just before the release of Radeon VII.
 
I can't stand the layout and that I these newer drivers. Makes it more of a hassle to undervolt and overclock IMO. I like the layout for Wattman like in 18.7.1 so I need to find the latest possible driver that still has that layout lol
 
I am pretty sure the latest drivers no longer carry optimization for Vega 64, AMD has this bad habit of neglecting older gpus in newer drivers , unless the release notes specifically mention it. I would try a driver just before the release of Radeon VII.
Actually AMD has a better track record than nvidia regarding older GPUs.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2001-doom-eternal-older-gpu-test/

I've seen this several times if only because AMD refreshes its chipsets more often than introducing new gpus.
 
Just be advised that AMD GPU power ratings are just for the GPM not the HBM, fans, VRM inefficiencies etc. Look at this power report at AnAndTech, 1080 total system power 310w while total system power with Vega 64 454w:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-and-56-review/19.
I don't see how that case would have good air flow or sufficient air flow for a fan cooled card. That is not even OCing, I pulled easily from the card over 400w with a mild OC. All that heat will heat everything inside that computer, M.2 drives, CPU, ram you name it. Vega 64 are also rather sensitive to temperature particulary the HBM2, higher the temperature the much less frequency it can do. You can try it but I doubt it will be problem free. Sorry, just my opinion and experience.
After a lot of trial and error I reached some decent temps for the use of the card. Running Ark at 60fps mostly high medium settings at 1080p I'm getting mid 70C temps on the cpu and gpu with no throttling after 5+hrs. I did have to relocate the SSD away from the GPU to on top of the psu mount with some double sided tape. This was with running the silverstone slims that come with the case both over the card and running a big shurikan 3 fan as an exhaust on the outside of the case(over the CPU). I also replaced the Big ShurikaN 3 fan witha. Noctua industrial 120 pwm in pull configuration. Nothing breaks 80C or throttles which is all I could ask for. BUT I seem to be having some stability issues with the 650W TX650m from corsair(maybe). Static on the light switch on the same wall causes an unresponsive black screen ending in hard reset (even with cyber power UPS). Static shock to the television also causes this. I reset plugs for everything and am a bit at a loss. I can stress the system under prime 95 and Heaven for 8hrs no problem but touch a light switch and Boom. Thanks for the info you provided. Although I am still having some trouble your input helped me think up strategies for pushing through. Also of note the vega 64 dual fan from gigabyte doesnt fit at all with the supplied brackets. I had to get some speaker wire and tie a trucker knot to hold it in place against half of the bracket.
 
. BUT I seem to be having some stability issues with the 650W TX650m from corsair(maybe). Static on the light switch on the same wall causes an unresponsive black screen ending in hard reset (even with cyber power UPS). Static shock to the television also causes this. I reset plugs for everything and am a bit at a loss

Faulty wiring (grounding/bonding) going on in your house it does sound like
 
For Vega 64’s is there any native cool running settings? I’ve got the gigabyte Vega 64 and I’m trying to stuff in into the Silverstone RVZ03 and I’m worried it will run too warm but since the computer isn’t for me I don’t want to accidentally have unstable settings in place.

My Sapphire Nitro+ Vega 64 (3 fans) is undervolted and runs higher frequencies than stock volts because temps run lower. Although I don't game, I do run DC projects that use GPUs and some of those are more intense than most games. And I run 24/7.

Depending on what I'm trying to accomplish and which project I'm running, I set my HBM to 1000 MHz @ 1000mv. I set my core to dynamic Frequency (1632) with 1000mv to 1050mv with a 10% to 20% power limit depending on project. Highest temp for HotSpot never goes above 72/73c and usually in the 60s. My fans are set to manual with 1750min and 3000max RPM (this card's fans are quiet IMO). Max temp set for 85c max with a 70c target.
 
After a lot of trial and error I reached some decent temps for the use of the card. Running Ark at 60fps mostly high medium settings at 1080p I'm getting mid 70C temps on the cpu and gpu with no throttling after 5+hrs. I did have to relocate the SSD away from the GPU to on top of the psu mount with some double sided tape. This was with running the silverstone slims that come with the case both over the card and running a big shurikan 3 fan as an exhaust on the outside of the case(over the CPU). I also replaced the Big ShurikaN 3 fan witha. Noctua industrial 120 pwm in pull configuration. Nothing breaks 80C or throttles which is all I could ask for. BUT I seem to be having some stability issues with the 650W TX650m from corsair(maybe). Static on the light switch on the same wall causes an unresponsive black screen ending in hard reset (even with cyber power UPS). Static shock to the television also causes this. I reset plugs for everything and am a bit at a loss. I can stress the system under prime 95 and Heaven for 8hrs no problem but touch a light switch and Boom. Thanks for the info you provided. Although I am still having some trouble your input helped me think up strategies for pushing through. Also of note the vega 64 dual fan from gigabyte doesnt fit at all with the supplied brackets. I had to get some speaker wire and tie a trucker knot to hold it in place against half of the bracket.
What also works extremely well for gaming is Radeon Chill, set the high frame rate to just under or at your monitor refresh rate. The GPU will not be rendering frames that cannot ever be displayed or partially through tearing (wasted power and heat). When you are not moving etc. it will allow your GPU to cool down. For me it has zero negative gameplay experience affect but does reduce noise/waste of power/heat.

Now that is interesting on the static electricity, that does indeed sounds like a faulty ground on your electrical system. You could get rid of it using a power/line conditioner:
https://www.amazon.com/Line-Conditioners/b?ie=UTF8&node=10967061
Better yet, get an electrician to check your ground or add another ground rod for your system:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/ERICO-5-8-in-x-8-ft-Copper-Ground-Rod-615880UPC/202195738
Easy to install and wire to your electrical box ground lug(s)
 
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Now that is interesting on the static electricity, that does indeed sounds like a faulty ground on your electrical system. You could get rid of it using a power/line conditioner:
https://www.amazon.com/Line-Conditioners/b?ie=UTF8&node=10967061
Better yet, get an electrician to check your ground or add another ground rod for your system:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/ERICO-5-8-in-x-8-ft-Copper-Ground-Rod-615880UPC/202195738
Easy to install and wire to your electrical box ground lug(s)
I certainly hope he doesn't have an ancient outdated 2 wire romex (lacking a ground wire) run thru his house as well, where people just use the neutral as a bonding/ground wire :eek:
 
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One can buy a cheap outlet tester which could identfy a ground issue.
 
My brother had a Vega 64 FE and that thing was a furnace. It definitely throttled until he manually adjusted the fan curve and watched his temps. My Sapphire Nitro+ is overclocked and 50% power limit increase and stays at a chilly 65-67C. The stock blowers are just not good at keeping temps down without crazy rpm.
 
My brother had a Vega 64 FE and that thing was a furnace. It definitely throttled until he manually adjusted the fan curve and watched his temps. My Sapphire Nitro+ is overclocked and 50% power limit increase and stays at a chilly 65-67C. The stock blowers are just not good at keeping temps down without crazy rpm.
Yes, the card remains rather quiet with the stock blower curve at the loss of performance. For professional apps such as 3d Modeling, Cad etc. where you need momentary high performance it does very good, gaming wise you do need to adjust the fan curve which for intensive GPU games can give about a 4% increase in performance just from that -> with some noise. Undervolt even more performance. Increasing the HBM memory speed with some higher power target you will be pushing over 10% performance. Those who have the water cooled versions can really push it 20% or better in performance over stock in general while keeping it somewhat quiet, the liquid cooled versions have excellent cooling capability. Power wise they can become rather ridiculous when pushed.
 
Has any conclusion been made here? Was the Vega64 fps in fact low for this card or were they in proper range and the tri-fire 7950 just gave faster fps?
 
If you like CX then I would upgrade to a pair of RX 570 8GB /4Gb .. lead (slot 1) needs to be the 8Gb model and I ran 2nd card in 3rd slot as I have x58 3way Sli and it allows almost 2 inch's of air gap between the cards with no need of CX ribbon as Polaris is advanced Cross Fire and scaling if supported is almost 90% or better and I played some 4K with them … last time I ran Fire Strike the pair was netting almost 26,000 gpu score with my Xeon X5660 clocked at 4.5Ghz .

Also used prices would be cheap for two as I like to play with them from time to time ,
 
What also works extremely well for gaming is Radeon Chill, set the high frame rate to just under or at your monitor refresh rate. The GPU will not be rendering frames that cannot ever be displayed or partially through tearing (wasted power and heat). When you are not moving etc. it will allow your GPU to cool down. For me it has zero negative gameplay experience affect but does reduce noise/waste of power/heat.

Now that is interesting on the static electricity, that does indeed sounds like a faulty ground on your electrical system. You could get rid of it using a power/line conditioner:
https://www.amazon.com/Line-Conditioners/b?ie=UTF8&node=10967061
Better yet, get an electrician to check your ground or add another ground rod for your system:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/ERICO-5-8-in-x-8-ft-Copper-Ground-Rod-615880UPC/202195738
Easy to install and wire to your electrical box ground lug(s)
Thanks for the ideas! I'm looking into the grounding and I've got a multimeter to check for continuity and resistance at least (this SHOULD give me a good idea of grounding. I was using Radeon Chill but it wasn't doing me any good as far as tearing was concerned (really bad tearing for some reason) so I switched it off as well as amd sync (not freesync. TV not capable) and ran fixed vsync. I'm not too worried about temps anyway since the card isnt throttling(although it was with other fan orientations).
 
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I certainly hope he doesn't have an ancient outdated 2 wire romex (lacking a ground wire) run thru his house as well, where people just use the neutral as a bonding/ground wire :eek:
It is true three conductor wire through the house(at least at the breaker box and behind every outlet and switch I've been in)
 
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