AMD Radeon VII Review: RTX Killer or Flop?

[toooooot]

I just checked results on Techpowerup and then came here. You guys seem to have two different systems
On Techpowerup, Vega 7 lost in all games on most resolutions.

 

[Evernessince]

Look like another year with my 1080 ti...

 

[pcnthuziast]

Hot trash as expected.

 

[Toju Mikie]

I think the mistake here is that AMD marketed this as a "gaming" card instead of more suited to content creators. The high memory and bandwidth would be more suited to those applications. I don't think anyone here is surprised at the gaming performance. We knew what to expect.

Well, given that there are probably 500+ gamers for every content creator, AMD is pretty poor at choosing its target market- unless market share and profits aren't part of their "business" plan.

It's quite possible that AMD doesn't expect this card to sell many units. The bill of materials is quite high, mostly thanks to the HBM2. If they have priced this card lower, then they may be actually losing money. We have heard that not a lot of stock is being made for this card, which makes sense in this case. The upside being most or all of them should sell to the pros. The Radeon VII is a card which can render faster than even the Titan V in some tasks, which is a $3000 card, thanks to the VRAM, Titan V only having 12GB of HBM2 vs the Radeon VII's 16.
Navi is still coming and let's hope it is what gamers are looking for. If AMD doesn't deliver, then we can continue to expect to pay $350-$600, and even more, for "mid-range" graphics. Right now the best bang for buck is getting a used gtx 1070 for around $225. If AMD can at least match this, then we have a winner.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

The situation so dire now in the graphics cards industry I’m actually hoping Intel can shake things up with its discrete cards. This is a terrible update from AMD especially given the even worse power consumption. I have no need for new cards anytime soon owning a 1080Ti, but at this rate unless Navi is amazing or Intel shocks us, I’ll stick with Nvidia as much as that sucks.

 

[Steve]

I just checked results on Techpowerup and then came here. You guys seem to have two different systems
On Techpowerup, Vega 7 lost in all games on most resolutions.

Shame there isn't a 3rd or even 4th source you could check

 

[Potato Judge]

Well that's sad. Hopefully future drivers improves performance.

 

[Nightfire]

I just checked results on Techpowerup and then came here. You guys seem to have two different systems
On Techpowerup, Vega 7 lost in all games on most resolutions.

Out of the 21 games that TPU tested, one was Vulkan , 2 were dx12, 2 I was unsure, and the rest were dx11. That seems a bit unbalanced on 2019.

 

[Malakai2k]

Steve, I know you got nowhere with trying to overclock it but can you see if you can under volt your Radeon VII and see what it does? It should improve the power consumption and noise at the very least.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Ok I checked Anadtech's review and it paints a much better picture for Vega II, other than power draw and noise. What gives? It's not as bad as this review would have us believe. It's still a bit dear, but it's 16GB and it has massively better fp64 than any consumer Nvidia card. Maybe they should do an 8GB version too and we need custom cards, with better fans and thermal paste.

 

[Draconian]

"This is not great news for gamers wanting good value on high-end GPUs."

Sad face.

 

[Puiu]

I am sure stability issues will be resolved with future drivers.

However, I have to wonder what is the point of this release? AMD does not really seem to be staying competitive with this release in that temps are still high, power consumption is still high, and performance is not really worth the price.

Plus, I have to wonder what resources did this take away from Navi development?

IMO, AMD should avoid releasing crap just to make a claim that they are still in the game.

Navi is being developed together with Sony and MS for their consoles so money should not be a problem. This didn't take any serious R&D money from it since it is just a repurposed pro card.

This card is just a stopgap solution until they have something better. I doubt they'll get the performance crown in the next 2 years, but Navi should be good enough to compete with 2070/2080 and down.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Killer flop.
Let's begin:
-7nm
-THREE fans that look generic af.
-16GB HBM2 (costing half the cards' selling price)
-300W
-Dual 8-pin PCIe
-No Crossfire support from AMD drivers
-100C+ temps (junction)
-Throttles like hell
-LOUD!
-Barely competes with 2080 @ 4K
-Radeon Instinct rebrand
-$699
-Graphite Thermal pad
-Pathetic DX11 performance. Still.
-Gets trashed by RTX 2080 at anything lower than 4K
-NVIDIA cards have better features
-1TB of memory bandwidth gamers have NO use for
-Third party cards will be reference only
-Overclocking is completely broken

Radeon VII is over-engineered and under delivers. Just. Like. Vega did.


If Intel has a better GPU than AMD in 2020, who will AMD sell their GPU division to? That is the question.

 

[Sausagemeat]

AMD are now consistently making worse value and performing cards than Nvidia. This one really should have released for less with only 8gb of RAM. Oh and a better cooling solution, all reviews I read are stating that this thing is loud as balls, which is hugely off putting.

I would love to see AMD sell Radeon to a better company than themselves.

 

[amghwk]

I think ATI (if not bought over by AMD) would have taken Radeons to much greater heights and would have been a much worthy opponent for Nvidia rather than AMD.

It's pathetic to keep reading about AMD apologetics blaming Nvidia for the underperformance of AMD.

I'm neither a fan of either nor a whiner . If Radeon had trounced Nvidia my next card would have been it.

 

[Nightfire]

I love how the armchair quarterbacks are trying to give multi billion dollar business decisions. ATi obviously sold for a reason. Things were not going great from a business perspective. This is independent of how much people here liked their older hardware.

 

[That Dude There]

The fact that you didn't include the 1080/1070/1060, and AMD's equivalent in the price/performance chart is silly.

 

[Squid Surprise]

The fact that you didn't include the 1080/1070/1060, and AMD's equivalent in the price/performance chart is silly.

Why would they do that? Please explain...

 

[GeforcerFX]

Thanks for the review Steve. I look at the VII the same way, just AMD reminding everyone there still working on cards, and being able to pull a first in front of there competition (first 7nm card) is always good for marketing. I would have dropped the 16gb down to 8gb and kept the price at $550-600 would have been a lot more appealing then. Hopefully with better drivers we see a closer gap between it and the RTX 2080. Will the 30 game benchmarks do 4K as well? Wondering how it stacks up to the RTX 2080 in that area.

 

[m3tavision]

Killer flop.
Let's begin:
-7nm
-THREE fans that look generic af.
-16GB HBM2 (costing half the cards' selling price)
-300W
-Dual 8-pin PCIe
-No Crossfire support from AMD drivers
-100C+ temps (junction)
-Throttles like hell
-LOUD!
-Barely competes with 2080 @ 4K
-Radeon Instinct rebrand
-$699
-Graphite Thermal pad
-Pathetic DX11 performance. Still.
-Gets trashed by RTX 2080 at anything lower than 4K
-NVIDIA cards have better features
-1TB of memory bandwidth gamers have NO use for
-Third party cards will be reference only
-Overclocking is completely broken

Radeon VII is over-engineered and under delivers. Just. Like. Vega did.


If Intel has a better GPU than AMD in 2020, who will AMD sell their GPU division to? That is the question.

Simple: Radeon Instinct Mi40 @ $699 ..!!

Exact same retail price as the RTX2080, but the Radeon 7 has TWICE the memory and TWICE the bandwidth and more than TWICE the compute. It also comes standard with FreeSync2.


The points you bring up are sourpuss statements, reflecting your inability to look forward, and purposely focused on old games, not ones entering the market now, or in the future (dx12). People have 8-core gaming rigs now, so dx11 is dead. To even mention it illustrates how butt-hurt you really are as a person.

Telling us how expensive HBM2 is, is a selling point. Because it is AMD that is eating the cost... the end-user/consumer/gamer is the one reaping the performance.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Simple: Radeon Instinct Mi40 @ $699 ..!!

Exact same retail price as the RTX2080, but the Radeon 7 has TWICE the memory and TWICE the bandwidth and more than TWICE the compute. It also comes standard with FreeSync2.


The points you bring up are sourpuss statements, reflecting your inability to look forward, and purposely focused on old games, not ones entering the market now, or in the future (dx12). People have 8-core gaming rigs now, so dx11 is dead. To even mention it illustrates how butt-hurt you really are as a person.

Telling us how expensive HBM2 is, is a selling point. Because it is AMD that is eating the cost... the end-user/consumer/gamer is the one reaping the performance.

Rebrandeon lives!

 

[Squid Surprise]

Simple: Radeon Instinct Mi40 @ $699 ..!!

Exact same retail price as the RTX2080, but the Radeon 7 has TWICE the memory and TWICE the bandwidth and more than TWICE the compute. It also comes standard with FreeSync2.


The points you bring up are sourpuss statements, reflecting your inability to look forward, and purposely focused on old games, not ones entering the market now, or in the future (dx12). People have 8-core gaming rigs now, so dx11 is dead. To even mention it illustrates how butt-hurt you really are as a person.

Telling us how expensive HBM2 is, is a selling point. Because it is AMD that is eating the cost... the end-user/consumer/gamer is the one reaping the performance.

So you're telling me that I should be purchasing this card "for the future" - since it costs the same as the 2080 and performs worse... but it will perform better "later"....

So why don't I simply wait and buy Navi when it comes out? Why the heck would I purchase an AMD stopgap card when it is outperformed in the present by its competition and will be outperformed in the future by its parent company?

Oh... and while "in the future", DX11 might be dead.... it isn't RIGHT NOW, which is when I'd be hoping to play some games

Edit: To anyone who read my first post in this thread... FOUND ONE!!

 

[m3tavision]

So you're telling me that I should be purchasing this card "for the future" - since it costs the same as the 2080 and performs worse... but it will perform better "later"....

So why don't I simply wait and buy Navi when it comes out? Why the heck would I purchase an AMD stopgap card when it is outperformed in the present by its competition and will be outperformed in the future by its parent company?

Oh... and while "in the future", DX11 might be dead.... it isn't RIGHT NOW, which is when I'd be hoping to play some games

Edit: To anyone who read my first post in this thread... FOUND ONE!!

Who buys a $699+ Video card to play last year's games?
Matter of fact, both the RTX2080(which I own) and the Radeon 7 both come with bundled games, that are just now being released.

And in the future, if you focus on DX11, then you are a lost. Because all worth-while game in the future will drop under DX12/Async style APIs and others, such as Vulkan, etc.

Obviously, you are being a muppet, cauz you know most people are not buying a $699 GPU to throw away next year, and will most likely keep them 4+ years. Where 1TB of bandwidth and 16GB of memory are still going to benefit your games in 2023 & far beyond.


Also, asking people what you should do and why you personally should buy/upgrade to a Radeon 7, without telling us why you need to upgrade... is not a rebuttal. I would have no reason to know why, or anyone else would want to. Unless they tell us their story and invite us to help them decide.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Who buys a $699+ Video card to play last year's games?
Matter of fact, both the RTX2080(which I own) and the Radeon 7 both come with bundled games, that are just now being released.

And in the future, if you focus on DX11, then you are a lost. Because all worth-while game in the future will drop under DX12/Async style APIs and others, such as Vulkan, etc.

Obviously, you are being a muppet, cauz you know most people are not buying a $699 GPU to throw away next year, and will most likely keep them 4+ years. Where 1TB of bandwidth and 16GB of memory are still going to benefit your games in 2023 & far beyond.


Also, asking people what you should do and why you personally should buy/upgrade to a Radeon 7, without telling us why you need to upgrade... is not a rebuttal. I would have no reason to know why, or anyone else would want to. Unless they tell us their story and invite us to help them decide.

Actually, a lot of people.... cause the majority of games are still in dx11... and if I’m paying $700, I better be able to play ANYTHING!

And if you’re paying $700, you don’t want to be getting less performance than the competition’s card, in the hope that it will be better in the future.

I was being sarcastic at first, but now I believe I’ve found one of those AMD fanboys.... do you know HardReset?

Anyone spending big money “for the future” is a fool.... the tech world has been geared that way for a LONG time... no matter how much you spend, there will always be something better and faster in a year or 2....

You spend big money for NOW - and hope that it will remain usable for your needs for a few years... gambling that it will get BETTER as time goes on is a pipe dream.

 

[m3tavision]

Actually, a lot of people.... cause the majority of games are still in dx11... and if I’m paying $700, I better be able to play ANYTHING!

And if you’re paying $700, you don’t want to be getting less performance than the competition’s card, in the hope that it will be better in the future.

I was being sarcastic at first, but now I believe I’ve found one of those AMD fanboys.... do you know HardReset?

Anyone spending big money “for the future” is a fool.... the tech world has been geared that way for a LONG time... no matter how much you spend, there will always be something better and faster in a year or 2....

You spend big money for NOW - and hope that it will remain usable for your needs for a few years... gambling that it will get BETTER as time goes on is a pipe dream.

NO, most are DX12.

Stop living in the damn past. Most games in 2019 and in the future will be DX12 or Vulkan, etc. You seem to be a few years behind the rest of the world in your reality bubble. It is 2nd month of 2019 bro, not 2017!

Ahhh… "future proofing" means against the Games coming out, not against the hardware that comes out after your purchase (lol). You are giving yourself away here and it seems you are still trying to SELL cards, instead off look at the benefits each offer the gamer/und-user.

Lastly, I own a shinny new RTX 2080 and I am not an AMD fanboy. You are confusing my rebuttal, as your confirmation bias.