AMD Radeon VII Review: RTX Killer or Flop?

[Tantor]

I love Techspot reviews but want to address their main criticisms, relative cost and noise.

The $699 cost is not a detriment but a bargain because you get three games worth at least $150. So the real cost is around $550. Most 2080s are usually considerably above $700. At $550, the Radeon VII is a better deal than the 2070.

Techspot noted high noise levels. But some reviewers mention that the fan curve can be easily modified to lower noise levels, with minimal effect on the card cooling. For example, IGN says:

"One other thing to note – this GPU ships with a really aggressive fan curve, making it super loud when running at full load. Again, echoes of Vega once again. However, the good news is it's totally unnecessary as the card has a lot of headroom and the cooling seems over-engineered. The card never got higher than 66C with the default fan curve in the Radeon Wattman software. I lowered the curve to the point where I could barely hear the GPU at all, and even then it never got hotter than 70C. I have no idea why the default fan speed is so high, but it's not necessary."

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/02/07/amd-radeon-vii-review-and-benchmarks

If this is true, then the Radeon VII becomes an excellent card.

Techspot also says the Radeon VII is "...nothing more than a stop gap to the now heavily delayed Navi."

Does that mean there will be a Navi card with better performance than Radeon VII? Or is Navi meant just for the lower end? Nobody seems to have any answers for that.

My main gripe is the lack of availability. You can't find Radeon VII for sale anywhere.

 

[m3tavision]

Newegg is listing them about every 6 hours it seems. But they get sold out almost before you can finish. Undervolting the R7 seems the way to go.

Navi is going to be about the Vega 64 level of performance, but use half the wattage and cost $199.

 

[Linux7055]

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.

I think 16gb is more than anyone will ever need for gaming. You don't know what the future holds, so you can't say we so much more vram in 4 years. As for today 6gb is enough even for 4K, just look at the 2060 keep pace with an 8gb gtx 1080 and vega 56 without a sweat on RE2, which is by far the most vram intensive game today. HBM2 memory is very expensive, if radeon vii had 8gb or 12gb, AMD can price it $100 less. IMO not a very smart investment for a brand that is desparate for market share. Radeon VII is another misfire from AMD.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Looks like my 2080Ti was the better choice.

What's AMD got to compete with the RTX TITAN ?

 

[Nightfire]

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!

If most games were actually dx12 today, the Radeon card would have looked ALOT better. Just look at HITMAN 2 That game does not even run dx12. Other games like BF5 run better on dx11 even in 2019.

 

[Nightfire]

Looks like my 2080Ti was the better choice.

What's AMD got to compete with the RTX TITAN ?

You can get off your PCMR high horse already. You look very immature. Is it really necessary for AMD to compete with the RTX 2080ti? The high end cards from AMD and NVIDIA have always been around $700 in today's money, ignoring the Titan abs dual gpu cards. AMD has done an ok job competing there, ignoring Vega64 LC, but still focused on the midrange more than anything.

Simply put,a $1200+ gpu is beyond high end and AMD really has nothing to gain by dumping resources into a card that could compete with this.

 

[Squid Surprise]

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.

Putting it in bold doesn’t make it true.... most games are NOT in dx12.... and while it’s not 2017 any more, I still want to play games made then... and the 2080 plays them better... along with everything else... for the same price!!

As for the poster who says that because of the game bundle, the cost of this card is really $550.... NO it isn’t! The 2080 also has bundles....and cost is cost...

Future proofing means I want my card to play future games at the same settings as the games I can play now.... and that doesn’t happen unless you buy the highest end cards... and even then, only for a couple of years...

 

[Sausagemeat]

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.

Putting it in bold doesn’t make it true.... most games are NOT in dx12.... and while it’s not 2017 any more, I still want to play games made then... and the 2080 plays them better... along with everything else... for the same price!!

As for the poster who says that because of the game bundle, the cost of this card is really $550.... NO it isn’t! The 2080 also has bundles....and cost is cost...

Future proofing means I want my card to play future games at the same settings as the games I can play now.... and that doesn’t happen unless you buy the highest end cards... and even then, only for a couple of years...

You’re wasting your time. Everyone knows the Radeon 7 is worse value than the RTX equivalents. Reviewers are all saying it, the benchmarks confirm it. Everyone basically agrees except the loud minority that is the AMD defence league which includes our pal Metavision here. He and hard reset are very similar.

 

[ddferrari]

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.

"...in the future will be DX12 or Vulkan"

Ah, the old AMD Fanboi crystal ball is shining more brightly than ever HAHAHA. DX12 is mainly for people with weak CPUs. With a good CPU and good GPU, DX12 is irrelevant.

 

[ddferrari]

Newegg is listing them about every 6 hours it seems. But they get sold out almost before you can finish. Undervolting the R7 seems the way to go.

Navi is going to be about the Vega 64 level of performance, but use half the wattage and cost $199.

"Navi is going to be about the Vega 64 level of performance, but use half the wattage and cost $199."

HALF the wattage?? NAH. What's your source on this, anyway?

And why would I want Vega 64 performance in late 2019?? I thought you were all about the future, dude.

 

[ddferrari]

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.

Good points. Hey, I'm rooting for AMD, simply to bring GPU prices back to Earth. But calling the VII a 2080 slayer and labeling it as a gamer's GPU was a mistake. If it had been released two years ago it would be getting a lot more respect, but from a gaming perspective, it's sadly a weak 1080 Ti clone (almost) at the same price.

I hope that in the near future, 2080 Ti performance at a $500 price point is the norm.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Is it really necessary for AMD to compete with the RTX 2080ti?

#1 YES

#2 The second question is: what do they have to compete with the RTX TITAN?

 

[Nightfire]

#1 YES

#2 The second question is: what do they have to compete with the RTX TITAN?

If AMD launched a $1300 ultra high end card, nVidia would launch an $1800 Mega high end RTX 3080 ultra next year. Why? Because of their air-headed egotistical CEO. Then Nvidia's midrange would now be even higher.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

If AMD launched a $1300 ultra high end card, nVidia would launch an $1800 Mega high end RTX 3080 ultra next year. Why? Because of their air-headed egotistical CEO. Then Nvidia's midrange would now be even higher.

Oh well - CURB STOMP battle

 

[Angga B]

16GB of HBM2 is overkill and adding too much on the bill of materials. Unless that quantity is unavoidable in order to get the 4096 bit memory bus with 1 TB bandwidth then imho AMD would better issue 8GB version to be more competitive.

 

[Nishant Maitre]

Thanks for sharing such valuable information. Keep up the good work.

 

[m3tavision]

"Navi is going to be about the Vega 64 level of performance, but use half the wattage and cost $199."

HALF the wattage?? NAH. What's your source on this, anyway?

And why would I want Vega 64 performance in late 2019?? I thought you were all about the future, dude.

Why?
You sound confused. So I'll ask you; Why would anyone want less than V64 performance in early 2019? (2060?)

Correct Navi will have Vega64'esque performance at half the wattage and half the price. Navi will be a small chip, & Sumsung's 7nm process will have matured more, with more chips per wafer and higher yields, Navi will own the mainstream market for sub 4k Gaming @ $199.

Navi is for the 80% of gamers who don't need high-end $500+ gpu's, but want to upgrade from 1080p, to 1440p gaming, without taking out a loan.

 

[m3tavision]

Putting it in bold doesn’t make it true.... most games are NOT in dx12.... and while it’s not 2017 any more, I still want to play games made then... and the 2080 plays them better... along with everything else... for the same price!!

As for the poster who says that because of the game bundle, the cost of this card is really $550.... NO it isn’t! The 2080 also has bundles....and cost is cost...

Future proofing means I want my card to play future games at the same settings as the games I can play now.... and that doesn’t happen unless you buy the highest end cards... and even then, only for a couple of years...

LOL..

Nobody cares about YOU (your situation) specifically. But hanging your hat on what you would have done, verse what people are going to do, is hilarious.

Seems hilarious you are hanging on to dx11 and old games, but will soon be cheerleading for Nvidia as the move into async compute, etc. And nobody is downloading old steam games just to replay them with their new video card... there are just too many new games and not enough time to play them, let alone 3 year old titles.

You & Sausage are salesmen, not gamers.

 

[Squid Surprise]

LOL..

Nobody cares about YOU (your situation) specifically. But hanging your hat on what you would have done, verse what people are going to do, is hilarious.

Seems hilarious you are hanging on to dx11 and old games, but will soon be cheerleading for Nvidia as the move into async compute, etc. And nobody is downloading old steam games just to replay them with their new video card... there are just too many new games and not enough time to play them, let alone 3 year old titles.

You & Sausage are salesmen, not gamers.

Wow... I think we found the AMD fanboy... I'm not giving you "my" reasons for a card... I was giving EVERYONE'S! I already have a GPU... and it's not the 2080 or the Radeon... I agree, no one cares about my specific reasons... I suspect everyone else who read my posts understood... but I guess you're a bit special

As for me being a salesman - WOW - just WOW! This is pretty obvious for gamers... the Radeon card performs slightly worse than the 2080 and costs the same. Future performance cannot be assessed since it is IN THE FUTURE. Anyone who posts that the Radeon is the better buy is the salesman - at this price, the 2080 sells itself.

 

[Sausagemeat]

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.

You are an absolute AMD fanboy. If you weren’t you would agree with the general consusus amongst reviewers that the Radeon 7 is not as good a buy for a gamer as an RTX2080.

 

[pcnthuziast]

Serious question here, who will be buy this card and why?

 

[Malakai2k]

If you need FP64 and bulk memory and memory bandwidth the this might be suitable for you. If you just want to play games then find an extra $20, that gets you a 2080 here in AU, the icing on the cake is that you can use freesync monitors with the 2080 now.

 

[Nocturne]

16GB of HBM2 is overkill and adding too much on the bill of materials. Unless that quantity is unavoidable in order to get the 4096 bit memory bus with 1 TB bandwidth then imho AMD would better issue 8GB version to be more competitive.

nVidia 760 4gb comes to mind the GPU isn't strong enough to the point that when 1tb of memory bandwidth is ideal, in other words when the memory matters the GPU won't be strong enough and you will be losing frames due to the lack of power and get a mass stutterfest. The 760 would go to about 3.7gb and then you would get fps degredation and stutters from the GPU, memory bandwidth isn't an end all be all unless you are doing very specific workloads.

 

[Nightfire]

nVidia 760 4gb comes to mind the GPU isn't strong enough to the point that when 1tb of memory bandwidth is ideal, in other words when the memory matters the GPU won't be strong enough and you will be losing frames due to the lack of power and get a mass stutterfest. The 760 would go to about 3.7gb and then you would get fps degredation and stutters from the GPU, memory bandwidth isn't an end all be all unless you are doing very specific workloads.

What in the world are you talking about? 4 GB in a GTX 760 is an overkill.

Bandwidth, a completely separate issue, affects games differently depending on engine and API.

 

[skline00]

I bought a Radeon VII to replace a GTX1080 in my 2700x rig. I already own a GTX1080TI for my 5960x rig.

When this article was written, the Radeon VII had the original BIOS and original drivers. Since then the BIOS has been updated to allow for better Overclocking and the Drivers have improved.

The GTX1080TI is faster in synthetic benchmarks. However, the gap has really shrunk from the Vega56/64 days.

Moreover, with 16g HBM2 memory the Rad VII is now in the league with the 1080TI in the memory department.

Obviously, at present, the availability of Rad VIIs is virtually nil (I was VERY lucky to snag an Asrock Rad VII that popped up on the Newegg website @ 10 days ago). Hopefully, after the Chinese new year break, the pipeline will start to fill up.

Price wise, it's competitive to the GTX2080 (the 1080TI is still way up there - goodness, I bought my 1080TI OC Gigabyte with attached waterblock for @$850 and they are going for 1200-1300-CRAZY)

With time, the Rad VII should mature and be a solid high end AMD card.

It looks like Navi will be at a lower point to fight it out with the GTX 1660TI.