AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition performance review hits the web

Posted on Friday, June 30 2017 @ 23:44 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
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PC Perspective published its full review over here. The conclusion remains the same, the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition delivers gaming performance between the one-year old GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1080 cards.

All this despite fancy HBM2 and a die size of 564mm² (excl. the memory stacks), whereas the GeForce GTX 1080 uses the cheaper GDDR5X and has a die size of just 314mm². Also worrying is that the card uses a lot more power, the GTX 1080 has a power draw of around 180W whereas the Vega Frontier Edition consumes close to 300W!

OK, we know this is not a gaming card but still the results are pretty bad and we know NVIDIA's workstation cards game well so everything really points to the Vega architecture being not what it was cracked up to be.

AMD promised the RX Vega gaming cards will offer better gaming performance but without a miracle this isn't looking good at all. Remember this is not a product that's been rushed to the market, AMD delayed Vega for over half a year so that makes it all the less likely that the poor performance here is the result of some flukes or poor optimization.

There was a rumor earlier this week that the RX Vega cards will have excellent price/performance. As I feared when I read the rumor, the good price/performance will have to come from pricing it low enough to lure customers away from NVIDIA's GeForce lineup. Instead of healthy competition AMD is once again delivering what is shaping up to be a marketing disaster. No wonder AMD didn't send any samples to the tech media.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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