ASUS STRIX Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Graphics Card Review

ASUS STRIX Radeon RX Vega 64 The graphics card market is no stranger to new and innovative products, and it seems you can't go more than 6 months without the whole market being somewhat reinvented, with exciting new products and ideas to help push the market forward. Obviously, the main drive in this market is improved performance in the latest games, especially for consumers who want to get the most frames per second in the latest titles. Wait for VEGA The latest card from ASUS, if the Republic of Gamers STRIX RX Vega 64 8GB. I've been really looking forward to testing this card since it launched, but as the saying goes “Wait for VEGA”. Even us here at eTeknix had to join the queue with everyone else. Market demand for these cards is extremely high right now. Most cards are snapped up by Cryptocurrency Miners, and the rest mopped up by graphics card hungry gamers trying to find stock of any that haven't been nabbed by miners. Either way, we have it in the office today, and I can finally get it on our test bench. Features The card comes equipped with plenty of ASUS’s own technologies, such as Max Contact Technology, Wing-Blade IP5X fans, FanConnect II, RGB lighting and more. While not everyone is going to need all these features or care about them, they add to the overall value for money and hopefully to the performance too. MaxContact Technology that is 2X more contact with GPU for improved thermal transfer. Patented Wing-Blade IP5X-Certified Fans for maximum airflow and longer fan lifespan. ASUS FanConnect II equips with hybrid controlled fan headers for optimal system cooling. Industry Only Auto-Extreme Technology with Super Alloy Power II delivers premium quality and best reliability. ASUS Aura Sync RGB LED synchronization enables a gaming system personalization. VR-friendly HDMI ports let you enjoy VR experiences anytime without having to swap cables. GPU Tweak II with XSplit Gamecaster provides intuitive performance tweaking and real-time streaming. Of course, this being one of the latest AMD graphics cards it also offers many other features that are sure to appeal to gamers, such as AMD FreeSync and Radeon Chill. Furthermore, with it being one of the flagship cards for the ASUS range, it also comes with a powerful factory overclock, one of their high-end cooler designs to help it maintain it's performance for longer, 0 decibel technology for completely silent performance in Low load scenarios, and 12 + 1 Phase Super Alloy Power II hardware for added reliability. What ASUS Had to Say "ROG Strix RX VEGA64 gaming graphics cards are packed with exclusive ASUS technologies, including all-new MaxContact Technology that is 2X more contact with GPU for improved thermal transfer, and Patented Wing-Blade IP5X-Certified Fans for maximum airflow and longer fan lifespan. While ASUS FanConnect II features 4-pin, hybrid-controlled headers connected to system fans for optimal system cooling. ASUS Aura Sync RGB LED synchronization enables a gaming system personalization and VR-friendly HDMI ports let gamers easily enjoy immersive virtual reality experiences. ROG Strix RX VEGA64 also has GPU Tweak II with XSplit Gamecaster that provides intuitive performance tweaking and instant gameplay streaming." - ASUS A Closer Look The design of this graphics card is going to look familiar to anyone who is a fan of ASUS hardware. The huge heatsink design is some indication that this is a factory overclocked card and should deliver impressive cooling performance. Of course, that big cooler will help deal with the overclocking performance too. Using a three fan design, as well as an oversized heat sink, it should have no trouble taming the latest Radeon chipset. Of course, there's also a fantastic looking cooler design, with lots of aggressive lines, and integrated RGB lighting that's sure to appeal to the gaming market. Full Size Backplate The back of the card is treated with a full-size backplate. Again, this features some of those stylistic lines and shapes to match up with the rest of the aesthetics of the card. While it's not going to make the card perform any faster, one of my favourite features is the owl eye logo towards the rear of the card. Of course, it comes with built-in RGB lighting too, so the card looks great from above and below, regardless of which orientation you have it installed in your chassis. Display Connections Connectivity on this graphics card is good too, with a DVI Port, two DisplayPort connectors, and two HDMI connectors. I'm quite happy to see two HDMI ports, as most new graphics card only have one, and this will make it much easier for those hooking up a VR headset, which typically use HDMI. We already know the AMD Vega 64 graphics cards are quite power hungry, so it comes as no surprise that on a factory overclocked model such as this it will require two 8 pin power connectors. Hopefully, in our benchmarks will see all that power turned into some impressive performance. This card also features ASUS fan connect. By using these headers you can hook some of your system fans directly to the graphics card. This is a clever little feature, as instead of the graphics card spinning its own fans when it's hungry for air, it can spin up the connected chassis fans and deliver more fresh air to cool the graphics card. Testing & Methodology Please note that on 16/04/2017, the graphics cards featured in this review have are retested. The retesting was done to implement new changes in the way we review, the settings we use, the software required and more. We've also made some slight hardware changes to our test benches, and all games were updated, as has the OS, graphics drivers, etc. Of course, this would mean new results would not be a fair comparison to old. For your reference, the last review to feature our past results is found here. Here is the test system used for all graphics card reviews (pictured above) and game performance analysis: Graphics Card Test System Motherboard – Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 Processor – Intel Core i7 5960X at stock with Turbo enabled RAM – Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2666 MHz Graphics Card – Varies per review CPU Cooler – Noctua NH-D15S Power Supply – Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W Main Storage Drive – Toshiba OCZ VX500 500GB Chassis – Lian Li T80 Open Air Test Bench Operating System – Windows 10 64-bit Additional Hardware "Killawatt” style electricity usage meter wall plug Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Games Throughout the testing procedure, we always use demanding presets which stress graphics cards to reasonable limits. However, in the interest of fairness, any technology which favours either AMD or NVIDIA is disabled. More specifically, this refers to PhysX, Hairworks and similar technologies. Additionally, we also disable all forms of AA, including FXAA, to gauge performance levels which aren't impacted by sophisticated AA. Theoretically, we could have employed FXAA because it only has a minor impact on the frame-rate, but many users strongly dislike the hazy image this causes. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, graphics card power usage set to optimised or balance, and the system power mode set to High Performance. Some benchmarks may feature more cards, this is due to some tests being older or newer than others, and being used in other game specific feature tests we have conducted, so you'll find all relevant cards included in each chart as we add or remove new and old tests. Selecting strenuous presets especially at higher resolutions can cause hitching and other performance problems on graphics cards with lower amounts of video memory. For example, Rise of the Tomb Raider's Very High textures requires 4GB of RAM to maintain a smooth frame-rate. In theory, we could run the benchmarks at the High setting, but this defeats the purpose of high-end graphics cards which are designed to cope with the absolute best graphics on the market. Furthermore, the notion of enthusiast cards sporting less than 4GB memory has become less of an issue. Of course, whenever we're tackling more affordable GPUs, the settings will be altered accordingly and detailed for clarity. Identical settings are used for all resolutions, 1080, 1440, 2160, and 1440 Ultrawide unless otherwise stated. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Graphics Settings For this game, we use the Very High preset, with some small changes to increase the Texture Filtering, turn off the AA, and all V-Sync settings. Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirectX 12: On VSync: Off Anti-aliasing: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Sun Soft Shadows: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Dynamic Foliage: High Ambient Occlusion: On Specular Reflection Quality: Normal Vignette Blur: On Motion Blur: On Bloom: On Tesselations: On Screen Space Reflections: On Lens Flares: On Screen Effects: On Film Grain: On Rise of the Tomb Raider Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Fullscreen: On Exclusive Fullscreen: Off DirectX 12: On MSAA: Off VSync: Off Texture Quality: Very High Texture Filtering: 16x Anisotropic Shadow Quality: Very High Ambient Occlusion: Very High Contact Hardening Shadows: On Parallax Occlusion Mapping: High Depth of Field: Very High Level of Detail: Very High Volumetric Lighting: On Screenspace Reflections: On Temporal Anti-Aliasing: Disabled Motion Blur: On Sharpen: On Bloom: On Lens Flares: On Cloth Physics: On Subsurface Scattering: On Chromatic Aberration: On Tesselations: On Far Cry Primal Graphics Settings Graphics Quality: Custom HD Textures: On Textures: Very High Shadow: Ultra Post FX: High Geometry: Ultra Terrain: Very High Water: Very High Environment: High Anti-Aliasing: Off Volumetric Fog: Very High Motion Blur: On Ghost Recon: Wildlands Graphics Settings Preset: Custom Antialiasing: Off Ambient Occlusion: SSBC Draw Distance: Very High Level of Detail: Ultra Texture Quality: Ultra Anisotropic Filtering: 16 Shadow Quality: Ultra Terrain Quality: Ultra Vegetation Quality: Ultra Turf Effects: Off Motion Blur: On Iron Sights DOF: On High-Quality DOF: On Bloom: On God Raws: Enhanced Subsurface Scattering: On Lens Flare: On Long-Range Shadows: Ultra Software 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark Time Spy Unique Superposition Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Rise of the Tomb Raider Far Cry Primal Ghost Recon: Wildlands CPU-ID HWMonitor TechPowerUp GPU-Z Noise Everyone has a reasonable noise level preference when it comes to comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC Decibel meter from one meter above our open air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Power Consumption With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become energy efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components of a desktop system so having a capable graphics card is crucial to keeping power bills under control. Power is tied to heat, so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system, meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and NVIDIA have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock, so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming essential to maximise performance. We take power readings during idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 25%, 50%, and 99% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Temperatures The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when selecting a graphics cards. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are critical. Lower temperatures are always better, and with AMD and NVIDIA opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account, it is important that graphics card vendors use high-performance cooling solutions to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching critical temperatures are now in the past, but the importance of low temperatures remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity, and lower fan speeds. We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. 3DMark The VEGA 64 gets off to a strong start, falling just behind the GTX 1080 G1 Gaming for the main score, and slightly ahead of it for graphics score at 1080p. It's the same story in 1440p and in the DX12 benchmark Time Spy. Things get really interesting at 4K though, where the VEGA 64 pulls slightly ahead of the GTX 1080 G1 Gaming. Unigine Superposition Moving over to Unigine, the GTX 1080 is pulling way ahead, but the VEGA 64 is having no issues beating the GTX 1070, especially at 4K. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided The scores here are all over the place! At 1080p the VEGA 64 set the highest ever average frame rate, then it's between the 1080 and the 1080 Ti at 1440p. Then amazingly it's up there with the 1080 Ti at 4K. Rise of the Tomb Raider At over 130 FPS at 1080p, this is a good score, putting it between the GTX 1070 and 1080 again. Unfortunately, that's exactly where it stays. Don't get me wrong, that's a great score, I was just hoping to see it pull ahead at 4K again. Far Cry Primal Like clockwork, the card is bang in the middle of that GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 again. I should point out that is a heavily overclocked GTX 1070 and 1080, not refference, but so is the VEGA too. Ghost Recon: Wildlands I was hoping for something more ambitious again, after some promising benchmarks in the Tomb Raider. The Vega is pretty much in the middle of those two Nvidia cards yet again. Not a bad place to be, between two of the most popular gaming GPUs on the market today, but my reviews are more fun to write when there is a little more variety to the figures. Probably more fun to read too, ammarite? Acoustic, Thermal and Power Testing Acoustic Performance It comes as no surprise that the VEGA 64 is completely silent while idle, as it has a zero RPM mode. That's great news for day to day work. However, while gaming, it's still pretty competitive, with a max dBa of just 44, which is not too shabby. Thermal Performance that card does run noticeably hotter than most though, but this is an unfortunate side effect we've come to expect of AMD GPUs over the years; all the more reason for the STRIX's aftermarket cooler. Power Usage Performance was obviously between the 1070 and 1080 aftermarket cards, but the power draw is a fair bit higher, using more than Fury X and less than 1080 Ti. That is a shame, and something we hope will improve in future models. Final Thoughts Price Much like most GPUs right now, the stock is pretty baron. Nailing down a proper retail price is not easy, although any other models that are in stock vary from £600 to around £650. You can pick up a powerful Strix GTX 1070 for around £488, while a Strix 1080 is around £630. That puts the VEGA 64 in a tight spot, as the GTX 1070 is better value for money, and the price is close to the slightly more expensive, albeit slightly faster GTX 1080. In terms of performance, it's priced about right, but with limited stock, the Nvidia cards are obviously going to be a tempting alternative for many. Overview There's a lot to love about this card, it's certainly one of the greatest AMD graphics cards ever seen, and that's no bad thing. If you're a die-hard fan of the Red Team, this is what you'll be wanting to spend your money on. Does it beat what Nvidia has to offer? That's hard to answer, as it both does, and it doesn't at the same time. It was never going to beat the 1080 Ti, which costs a lot more money, and simply has it beaten in terms of cores and speed, so that's no big shock. Then again, it wasn't designed to either. This card has its heart set on hitting the GTX 1070 and 1080 where it hurts, and for the most part, it has done that. It's close to the GTX 1080 in terms of performance, and it's a bit cheaper. It's faster than the GTX 1070, but a fair bit more expensive, and there lies the problem. Value Without a doubt, market prices for this card are meant to be lower than they are. There's no reason why this shouldn't be cheaper than the GTX 1070, and it would be amazing value. That's likely due to extremely high demand due to mining, and gamers, fighting for what few are left in stock. The sooner we see about £100 knocked off the price, the better. Added Value FreeSync 2 is a welcome feature on AMD cards. It's true that FreeSync monitors are a heck of a lot cheaper than G-Sync models, which is great for consumers. Of course, the latest Radeon ReLive software is superb, and you get Enhanced Sync, Radeon Chill, Frame Rate Targeting Control, Custom Resolutions, Game Streaming and more. These are all great tools for any gamer. Aesthetics I love the ASUS cooler designs, they're some of the best around. The huge three fan cooler has presence that's sure to look impressive in any system. The card is a hot beast already, but I think ASUS has done a solid job of keeping that under control. The inclusion of some RGB lighting is nice, giving it some unique customisation options, and the added backplate is sure to keep many happy, as well as help prevent GPU droop. Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC2l9JKMq8Y Pros Great gaming performance Works great at 4K Fantastic build quality RGB lighting Factory overclocked One click overclocking (ASUS Software) Fantastic overall design Cons Finding stock at the right price is a nightmare Neutral Power requirements and temperatures could be lower. "The ASUS Strix Vega 64 is the best AMD graphics card we've ever tested. For fans of the red team, it's a solid investment that's great for gaming at all resolutions, if you can find one at the right price of course."