ASUS is launching two new factory overclocked graphics cards with all of the RGB in the form of the ROG Strix RX Vega 64 and ROG Strix RX Vega 56. Measuring 11.73" x 2.58" x 2.07" these graphics cards are beastly 2.5 slot designs with large triple fan coolers. On the outside, the graphics cards have a black shroud with RGB LEDs around the fans, on the Strix side logo, and the ROG backplate logo. Asus is using a massive heatsink that is divided into two aluminum fin stacks that connect to a copper baseplate using five heatpipes each. The baseplate is reportedly 10% flatter for improved contact with the GPU. There are three fans to push air over the heatsinks that are of the dust resistant Wing-Blade variety.
The cards have two 8-pin PCI-E power connectors feeding ASUS' Super Alloy Power II VRMs. Other connectors include hybrid fan headers for system fans and an Aurora Sync RGB LED header. Display outputs are "VR Ready" and include two HDMI, two DisplayPort, and a single DVI output.
While ASUS has not yet revealed clockspeeds on the RX Vega 56 card, eTeknix has gotten their hands on the ROG Strix RX Vega 64 graphics card and figured out the clocks for that card. Specifically, the Vega 64 card clocks its 4096 GPU cores at 1298 MHz base and 1590 MHz boost. The site further lists the memory clockspeed at 945 MHz which doesn't appear to be overclocked as it matches the referece Vega 64 HBM2 clocks of 1890 MHz. Users can use the GPU Tweak II software to push the card further on their own though.
ASUS has not yet revealed pricing or exact availability dates but expect them to sell out fast and over MSRP when they do surface thanks to the resurgance of GPU mining! With that said it is promising that we are finally seeing factory overclocked cards being announced!
Also read:
I honestly don’t think
I honestly don’t think AMD/Patners deserve anymore press until an AIB card can actually be purchased. We already knew Asus was going to be making Strix versions 2 montha ago.
The Vega 10 base die design,
The Vega 10 base die design, similar to the GP100 base die design, is a professional compute/AI design first and a gaming SKU as way of getting rid of and Vega 10 dies that do not make the top bin for the professional markets.
Nvidia has more base die designs like its GP102, and GP104, GP106, and GP108 based die designs that have more ROPs and can get higher FPS metrics. GP102 tops out at 3840:240:96, Shader Cores:TMUs:ROPs and it’s those ROPs that get the FPS wins and the GP102-350 variant is used for the GTX 1080Ti and that gets 3584:224:88, Shader Cores:TMUs:ROPs.
Vega 10 tops out at 4096:256:64, Shader Cores:TMUs:ROPs for the Vega 64 and 3584:224:64, Shader Cores:TMUs:ROPs for the Vega 56. The Vega 56 has the same TMU count as the GTX 1080Ti and the same number of ROPs as the GTX 1080(64) but the Nvidia GPUs can be clocked higher so maybe Vega can be refreshed on GF’s 12nm and get higher closks but AMD needs a new Vega Base die design that has more than 64 ROPs tops or Nvidia will keep getting those FPS wins.
AMD needs at least 96 available ROPs to give to gaming or Nvidia can keep Pascal ahead in FPS and not need to bring out any new Volta designs unless Nvidia gets a stock of not so performant Volta dies that do not make the grade to be used in any of Nvidia’s professional products. And Nvidia is building up stocks of Volta dies of all bins currently but AMD is giving Nvidia little reasons to currently go past its Pascal base die designs.
Now Vega 10 for compute is a beast that has 4096 shader cores tops to work with and even Vega 56 has a better texture fill rate than the GTX 1080 and is close to the GTX 1080Ti’s texture fill rate. Vega 56’s slower clocks keep it from matching the GTX1080Ti in the Gtexel/s fill rate metric.
So Nvidia wins the ROP game with higher Pixel fill rates and more ROPs to push out more FPS. Vega 56 if its clocks can get a little higher may just be able to give the GTX 1080 some serious competition at 12nm but AMD nees a new Vega base die design that is more ROP heavy or Nvidia’s GP102 at 96 ROPs tops will keep Nvidia on top.
Well the Miners Like those high shader counts more than they like any Pixel Fill Rates. So AMD has a place to get rid of those non performant for professional workloads and more energy inefficient Vega 10 dies to the miners and gamers. And the really good Vega 10 dies are going towards the Radeon Pro WX 9100s and Radeon Instinct MI25s.
AMD really is a CPU company more than it is a GPU company like ATI was so little reason to be all about gaming when Epyc alone can get AMD back in the middle $90 stock price range if AMD can get back that 1/4 of the server CPU market that it had around 2005 amd any Professional GPU sales will just be icing on the cake. Also the GPU compute/AI market may get 10 time larger than any consumer gaming market for GPU hardware sales/revenue potential so GPU prices are not going to go so low anymore like thay used to go.