Nvidia RTX 2060 for $350 or AMD Vega 64 for $370 on a mid-tier gaming machine?

Nvidia RTX 2060 for $350 or AMD Vega 64 for $370

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Archaea said:
gonna need more than that to make your point.
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Sorry I'd say more but then Kyle would ban me again if I say anything pro-NV. So you'll just have to make do with that response. BTW cheapest blower vega 64 I've found on Newegg is $400 vs $350 for an MSI dual fan rtx 2060.
 
5150Joker said:
Sorry I'd say more but then Kyle would ban me again if I say anything pro-NV. So you'll just have to make do with that response. BTW cheapest blower vega 64 I've found on Newegg is $400 vs $350 for an MSI dual fan rtx 2060.
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$370 for the PowerColor Vega 64 Reference card on Ebay through newegg's store presence as mentioned in the 3rd post in the thread.
(ugh I don't like Power Color as a company - their RMA service is downright fraudulent in my experience). But one reference card should be as good as the next when you boil away personal opinions.

If Kyle bans you for a sensible response in this thread he can ban me too -- since I asked for your thoughts on the matter. I don't know the history there, but so far it's remained civil in here.
 
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IdiotInCharge said:
Two points:

PUBG --> Nvidia - that's not a strike against AMD, it's a strike against the PUBG developers, but if that game is important, then that's that.
+100w --> Nvidia - in the same performance bracket, it's hard to recommend an AMD space heater, which they are so fond of building. AMD simply doesn't build higher end gaming cards, they build compute cards that are alright at gaming. You know, with extra power draw.

The 2GB VRAM difference is immaterial. Neither GPU is going to max out image quality, and you'd be splitting hairs to find a difference between the two. By the time the extra VRAM is actually needed, the GPUs in question will be struggling to keep up.

And that fracking AMD blower. Nvidia's very best blowers were okay; AMD never came close. If you can't get one with a multi-fan cooler, don't bother.
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Check out timestamp 4:42 on the video in post 30.
Vega ran PubG HORRIBLY at launch, but it looks like they've fixed that with the Adrenaline drivers.

Yes on the power draw/heat
agreed on the 2GB difference 6 vs. 8 -that's not of my concern when games like Hunt Showdown, which have the best graphics I've seen uses 2GB of VRAM. I've not seen any of my games at 3440x1440 even come close to 8GB of RAM, I don't think I've even seen 6GBs used on my 1080TI.

yes - NVidia's blowers are better. My 1080TI founders editions with reference blowers used for mining were significantly quieter than the Vega 56 and 64's with the blowers.
Blower coolers need to be retired, or made double size so they don't have to spin up to hair dryer levels.

still 15-20% performance at the same pricepoint is 15-20% performance.
 
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V64 is a another league from a 2060 lol, absolutely a no brainer and more VRAM for future. Drivers for AMD are as good if not better than Nvidia often now, plus you can undervolt.
Mine runs cool and quiet on a stock blower with an undervolt... enough said. Usually I hate blowers.
 
Archaea said:
Keep in mind both cards are overclocked for that vid comparison.

The Vega 64's default clock speed is 1247MHz and boost clock is 1546MHz.
They are running it at 1700Mhz in that test. (a 9% overclock - which yes is probably more of a liquid cooled speed range since Vega 64 doesn't easily overclock on air)

The RTX 2060's default clock speed is 1365MHz base clock with a boost clock speed of 1680MHz
They are running it at 2050MHz. (a 22% overclock - Is this typical and obtainable for FE 2060s - I don't know)

I'd be happy to lock at a stock to stock comparison, but I haven't found one - at least that is using the newest Adrenalin drivers. Most of the site comparisons seem to be using VEGA launch, or older Catalyst drivers, and the Vega 64 has come a long way since launch.


Looks like quite a few people are able to undervolt and hit mid 1600 MHz range on the reference Vega 64.
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With an undervolt and a quiet fan mine runs 1.6GHz range without touching anything but volts... drivers and wattman/software have come a damn long way since black screens on a 6970... enough said.

Montu said:
I would never buy that horrible blower version of the Vega. Why even offer something like that to a family member? You must not like him. Because the Vega you seem to be selecting totally sucks I have no other choice but to pick the 2060.
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You should actually try use one first before shitting on the ref blower..... it's much, much quieter than my 7970 ref and with an undervolt is not much louder than my 290X DCUII... which is very quiet as it is. Quieter still would be putting a Morpheus or modding a Arctic onto it.

OP beward of non-ref Vegas... especially V56 as they do not always have samsung HBM. Vega is memory bandwidth limited so you want to be able to squeeze as much as you can out of the ram if you are OCing. Sammy HBM is fastest and is guaranteed on the reference V64 and I believe V56.
 
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Krenum said:
Its funny to hear someone talking this way about an Nvidia card, when people for years made fun of that same example when people talked about AMD cards, "Just wait" Drivers & software will improve. :rolleyes:
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People make arguments to justify their purchase. Since Nvidia sells more cards than AMD generally, you will hear majority making arguments to justify their Nvidia purchase.

I am firmly implanted in both camps. I thought 2060 would be a better fit for what OP is playing now.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Another power draw league, certainly!
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It has superior performance and more power draw to go with it. 2060 cannot even touch it when OCd with unlimited power draw, plus when V64 is undervolted it's not much difference... I don't see any reason to go for the inferior 2060. It's in a different league of performance full stop and you will not recoup the cost difference in power bills over lifetime of the card unless you play games 24/7 for a few years lol.
 
Boil said:
How about a factory liquid cooled Vega 64 from PowerColor...?!?
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That's a good price, but I think the subject for another thread and budget point.
Vega 64 LC for $500 vs. RX2070 for $480. Ha.

Probably get similar responses to what we see here?.?.


I had a Vega 64 LC for a couple months after launch, and then sold it for a 1080TI. The 1080TI was significantly faster across the board, and at the time the drivers were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better. Vega launch drivers were horrible - honest talk -- absolutely horrible... This is first party experience I'm talking. Here's my old FS thread: https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-three-rx-vegas-fair-prices.1946097/ where I did a full reveal of frustration on my Vega experience to the potential buyers.
I've no doubt they've fixed the drivers and the experience is nice, now. My Fury X experience was as good as anything I've had Nvidia and I originally bought them about the same point in their lifecycle as Vega is now.
 
I was thinking about this exact same upgrade, but I can't deal with a blower card like that I just flat out can't do it. I've had my Fury Nitro for a few years now and I can't stand the damn thing any longer. The performance for the price I got it at is unbelievable(250 bucks), but I can't take the noise anymore. I don't know if I've just gotten more irritable the last few years but the thing is driving me bonkers. I'd have to buy a non-reference Vega, and at that point I'm spending too much cash. Right now I'm basically just keeping my eyes peeled for some kind of discount on a vega card that isn't a blower or a 2060. But I'm honestly thinking I'll leave the performance just so my PC doesn't annoy me.
 
Decko87 said:
I was thinking about this exact same upgrade, but I can't deal with a blower card like that I just flat out can't do it. I've had my Fury Nitro for a few years now and I can't stand the damn thing any longer. The performance for the price I got it at is unbelievable(250 bucks), but I can't take the noise anymore. I don't know if I've just gotten more irritable the last few years but the thing is driving me bonkers. I'd have to buy a non-reference Vega, and at that point I'm spending too much cash. Right now I'm basically just keeping my eyes peeled for some kind of discount on a vega card that isn't a blower or a 2060. But I'm honestly thinking I'll leave the performance just so my PC doesn't annoy me.
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Fury Nitro is a blower card?

I thought those were all aftermarket fans?
 
Fellows I just happened upon what I think is a pretty good deal in the FS:Trade section.

TahoeDust was selling a new EVGA FTW 1080 (replacement for an RMA) for $350.
https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-bnib-evga-1080-ftw-gaming-rma-replacement.1976025/#post-1044052076

That's the same performance as the Vega 64 we have been discussing and none of the fan noise/heat concerns. I told him I wanted it. He got back with me quick, and so that's the new direction.

Thanks for you help fellows - sorry to pull the rug out from under you all and go a completely different route than we've been discussing, but I think this will work out better for him still in his budgeted pricepoint. Here's hoping the 1080 works with the MSI 34" freesync implementation!
 
2060 would have been better buy. Equivalent performance with RTX/DLSS potential and better compute performance.
 
_chesebert_ said:
2060 would have been better buy. Equivalent performance with RTX/DLSS potential and better compute performance.
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Better compute than....?

The Vega is the undoubted leader in raw compute; that's what AMD does with GPUs. And the OP is working on picking up a 1080, which is generally faster than both the Vega and the 2060 that were being considered initially.
 
Archaea said:
Fury Nitro is a blower card?

I thought those were all aftermarket fans?
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Yeah you're right it is, I'd just imagine a blower style card that uses a lot of power would be even louder. I didn't word my post correctly, the Fury Nitro is already loud enough that I can no longer tolerate it, a blower style AMD card with not so great thermals just doesn't sound ideal if I'm tired of one of their prior generation aftermarket cards. Don't get me wrong, performance per dollar of the Fury Nitro was excellent for a few years, but I'm ready to move on.
 
Decko87 said:
Yeah you're right it is, I'd just imagine a blower style card that uses a lot of power would be even louder. I didn't word my post correctly, the Fury Nitro is already loud enough that I can no longer tolerate it, a blower style AMD card with not so great thermals just doesn't sound ideal if I'm tired of one of their prior generation aftermarket cards. Don't get me wrong, performance per dollar of the Fury Nitro was excellent for a few years, but I'm ready to move on.
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My Vega cards with blowers were obnoxious to me too. My buddy said he didn't care about the noise when I warned him about it, but I wondered for how long. Perhaps the undervolt would work as others have suggested, for a single card, but I know from my crypto mining experience that even undervolted they are still too loud in my opinion. 2 Vega 56's mining, undervolted were louder than 8, 1080TI founder editions mining on my mining racks. That was silly.

The EVGA I bought will be silent under load, and that's appreciated!
I had another friend who was all in on AMD, and bought a Vega after having 1080TI. He sold it in just a few weeks because the blower was so obnoxious. He said WHY DO THEY STILL MAKE CARDS LIKE THIS?. He then bought a Vega 64 from Sapphire. The best air cooled Vega there is with the nice aftermarket fan setup and blue lighting scheme --- but ultimately he sold it and went back to a 1080TI because the performance wasn't there for his 38" Ultrawide 3840x1600. Ha he bought and sold all those cards losing money and time with each transaction. All those things were running around in my head while we are discussing options in this thread, and so yeah the 1080 EVGA with the silent fan setup wins this battle. Glad I happened upon that ad that fit into this build perfectly. Thanks for the feedback.
 
_chesebert_ said:
2060 would have been better buy. Equivalent performance with RTX/DLSS potential and better compute performance.
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nah

look at benchmarks of 2060 vs.1080.
https://videocardz.com/79505/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-pricing-and-performance-leaked
upload_2019-1-26_1-43-34.png



6.5 TF on the 2060 vs. 8.9 TF on the 1080
6GB VRAM on 2060 vs 8GB VRAM on the 1080
Ray Tracing by all accounts is too far out of reach on the 2060, 2070, and even 2080 at any thing over 1080p with current games. My friends monitor is ~ 3x more pixels than 1080P. So that's a non-starter.
DLSS is only a bullet point at this point. I don't buy GPU's on unproven promises and lofty hopes. I buy it on current performance. I learned that lesson LONG LONG ago with my Diamond Viper s2000 and the several broken promises of lacking performance and missing features.

+ this particular 1080 is pretty much best of breed in the EVGA FTW 1080 series. (save perhaps the Kingpin or watercooled models) Fantastic inaudible coolers that actually turn off the fans when at the desktop, fantastic warranty and support. EVGA is my first choice for graphics cards. I think this was a solid choice for this machine.
 
I waited myself but I understand now that 8Gb of memory is the red line as 6Gb will never cut it , if 4Gb was the standard that been reached already then why even think it and why is Nvidia selling it if AMD had already moved to 8Gb models of mid range cards.

As to say your out of vram if you plan to play Wolfenstein II highest settings just in 1080p with that RTX 2060... as the 144hz thing .. we want 4K not 2K power as refresh rate was never the issue and more of a G=Sync thing to me.
 
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alucard01 said:
Vega 56, 8GB HBM2 or Vega 64 8GB, HBM2.
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Read post 24 in this thread.

If you can handle the noise and heat, the Vega 64 is the superior card. It has faster clocks most Vega 56 can’t quite hit, and it has extra processor cores over the Vega 56.
 
crazycrave said:
I waited myself but I understand now that 8Gb of memory is the red line as 6Gb will never cut it , if 4Gb was the standard that been reached already then why even think it and why is Nvidia selling it if AMD had already moved to 8Gb models of mid range cards.
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Jeez. There is no 'standard'. There is no 'red line'. It's all dependent on individual use case and tolerances, and for 99.9999% of those, 6GB is excessive. AMD did 8GB (as did Nvidia on others) because the only smaller choice was 4GB. Nvidia did 3GB and 6GB on these, just like AMD has done before on other cards.
 
Archaea said:
I was thinking Vega 64 because of the native support for Freesync, and it's a bit faster generally than the 2060.

However my brother thinks it's a no brainer to go for the 2060 because of Nvidia's better reputation with GPU drivers and being that it's a new product they may yet be able to wring additional performance out of the card + potential for DLSS support or low settings of ray tracing. I'm second guessing myself now on the video card selection. I originally told him he should just buy a used 1080TI for $500, but that much money apparently isn't in the budget.

Vega 64 for $370
https://www.ebay.com/itm/PowerColor...h=item591ccc8a73:g:eQ8AAOSwHIlZ0Oi9:rk:1:pf:0

All the RTX 2060 cards are $350-$370 and they have better coolers/would be quieter than the blower on the Vega 64. (not to mention they use half the power - which is only of concern because of heat/noise generation)
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IMHO, AMD drivers are leaps & bounds better than nvidia these days.
I had a recent issue putting an RX580 into an HP workstation machine. It pulled too much power for the OEM power supply. OEM power supply had proprietary mounting holes so couldn't replace it with something "standard". In AMD Drivers I simply cap the power usage in a GUI slider & the problem was FIXED with no real noticeable performance difference. Another option - CAP FPS.

Nvidia drivers? Didn't see anything....

I have 3 RX 580s, 3 RX 570s, 2 1070s and a 1080, as well as 2 freesync 144hz monitors (TN & VA), and 1 g-sync 144hz (IPS). I have a linux box with the GTX 1080 (where is my freesync option for linux???) and a win10 box with 2 1070s, a win10 box with a 580. Next build is a 580 on linux. I've got most of the "possibilities" covered & have toyed with all my setups. I am not a fanboy of either. Having tried all of this, I say "go amd".

Only reason I wouldn't go AMD is maybe if you already have a g-sync monitor, you play a game that has an unresolved AMD bug, or you are going to add another card to your already-nvidia setup for SLI.

A few pro tips: Newegg has had vega56 for $299 via ebay purchase if you want to save some $$. You can also frequently find frontier edition with 16GB ram on ebay used for around $370-$420.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
/dev/null said:
Is that part of the drivers or written by Nvidia?
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Does it matter?

I'm going to assume you're going to say yes, so you can make your AMD argument. So I'll go ahead and state the truth: it doesn't matter. Afterburner is the de-facto tool for running Nvidia GPUs in non-stock configurations, which is what you're doing in your AMD example. It also works with AMD GPUs!
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Does it matter?

I'm going to assume you're going to say yes, so you can make your AMD argument. So I'll go ahead and state the truth: it doesn't matter. Afterburner is the de-facto tool for running Nvidia GPUs in non-stock configurations, which is what you're doing in your AMD example. It also works with AMD GPUs!
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I'd prefer something officially supported, unless Nvidia has an API for all the parameters that afterburner uses. I'm happy to check it out if that is the case. Does it work under Linux as well?

AMD has the GUI on one side & officially supported kernel parameters in Linux as well.
 
/dev/null said:
I'd prefer something officially supported, unless Nvidia has an API for all the parameters that afterburner uses. I'm happy to check it out if that is the case. Does it work under Linux as well?

AMD has the GUI on one side & officially supported kernel parameters in Linux as well.
Click to expand...

Afterburner is by MSI which is a AIB manufacturer. I’d call that supported. Using it has no affect on warranty.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Jeez. There is no 'standard'. There is no 'red line'. It's all dependent on individual use case and tolerances, and for 99.9999% of those, 6GB is excessive. AMD did 8GB (as did Nvidia on others) because the only smaller choice was 4GB. Nvidia did 3GB and 6GB on these, just like AMD has done before on other cards.
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Resident Evil 2 says your wrong if you want all of the game just in 1080p as Texture 3 Level is the Red line from the game itself as 7.41Gb of vram needed to go there as I will make you a video showing it expert,
 
IdiotInCharge said:
My God, I wouldn't want to be in the same room!

:ROFLMAO:
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Pretty sure the 2060 will have some voltage limitations like the others but it'd be quite funny to see. I'm going to see how much power someone managed to get a Vega to suck down too lol... god damn they have bigger power circuits than the 2080Ti lmao!
 
This is level 3 textures and playing with the settings it will go all the way to needing Vega 7 and that 16Gb to max this game out it DX 12 1080p ..

 
IdiotInCharge said:
Better compute than....?

The Vega is the undoubted leader in raw compute; that's what AMD does with GPUs. And the OP is working on picking up a 1080, which is generally faster than both the Vega and the 2060 that were being considered initially.
Click to expand...
Was referencing 1080. Vega is undisputed compute champ among the choices, but suffers in some popular titles. I would pick Vega in general. However it does suffer in some games I play compared to Nvidia, AC, Ff Xv etc
 
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