Radeon RX Vega 56 vs GTX 1070 Review! The Best Vega In The Line-Up?

It's finally here! Rich takes a look at the star of the line-up - the Radeon RX Vega 56, stacking it up against GTX 1070, GTX 1080 and the top-tier liquid cooled Vega 64... and there are some surprising results.

[EhrgeizTV]

Had my Vega 56 a couple of weeks now and couldn't be happier. Doesn't produce the same heat that my 290X did and is super silent in comparison too. Really happy with it.

Only ran it at stock for the moment but looking at playing with the undervolting/overclocking soon.

[crusadehs]

I wonder how much people will still "like" the Vega 56 when the official MSRP gets bumped up $100 USD, not to mention retailers inflating prices on top of that..

[BudgetBuildsOfficial]

The main reason its better than the GTX1070 is because of Freesync, having a good monitor is half the battle when it comes to PC Gaming, and Freesync is arguably much cheaper than the G-Sync Alternatives. Atleast power saver mode makes VEGA an option to the majority now.

[Petersorg]

Awesome review Wichard! Actually the best one of the bunch I already watched on yt.

[brandoncasey]

The memory clock reduction of 56 vs the 64 was done entirely to create market segmentation and defend the 64's existence.  Without the artificial memory limitations in place the non-liquid cooled Vega 64 is less than 10% ahead,  a few disabled NCUs just don't make much of a difference.   This is the same thing we saw with the Fury/Fury X once modified bios where  introduced.  (this is true of Nvidia cards as well with the Titan/Ti cards and particularly this generation with the use of GDDR5 on the 1070 providing an easily way for NVidia to gimp it vs the 1080 at 1440p/4k). Memory bandwidth is the tool both companies rely on to nerf their  penultimate cards to protect the price premiums on their flagships.

[skitballesnorapa]

Good stuff Wichard! Really enjoy your content. Professional and always spot on with your conclusions. Pro tip. Try it undervolting for better thermals and performance(!)

[guy]

My opinion is that there should be a dynamic overclock feature where the card automatically overclocks when it suspects it will not be able to reach it's framerate target.

[tee_es_bee]

Nice combination of tested scenarios. Especially liked the power data. Keep up the good work!

[sheikhtashdeedahmed]

Three Words. THANK YOU RICHARD!

And ofc, Digital Foundry :)

These are videos, IN DEPTH, that many of us dream for reviewers to review!!

[_A.d.G_]

Great video! Eye opener!
And we are still talking about reference cards!
The fun has yet to come!

[therealpizzagirl]

AMD destroyed Intel with Zen, but Vega is such a disappointment :(

[giorx]

Great video! Keep up the good work there! We need to see reviews with Vega 56 and 64 underclocked to see if they deliver higher performance just by doing that while reducing power consumption, thermals and noise.

[marxman]

>Reference design beats 1070 easily and competes with 1080 at lower price.
>Community: LOL WHAT A FAILURE OF A LAUNCH LOL

I don't get it. Is this the next big step forward in GPUs? Hell no. Is it competitive with the current Nvidia offerings? Yes. While you will spend a few $ more on electricity running these behemoths, you'll also save money if you're buying new monitors, due to the G-Sync tax.

The only real issue is miners jacking up the price on these things and making them impossible to find for MSRP. That's hardly AMD's fault though.

[hdaviator]

One thing people have not mentioned is the cost savings of a freesync monitor vs gsync. If that is taken into account, the price of a vega card, is much cheaper compared to nvidia if you plan on getting a decent monitor along with the card, which you should.

[DaftBunny]

Hi guys, excellent analysis once again! Just one suggestion/question: can you add a Frostbite and Unreal Engine (4) game in your standard benchmark suite? They are widely adopted engines and thus the performance in those really does matter to a lot of gamers. That's why I really like that Crysis 3 is still tested, since the engine still stands strong. Maybe consider ditching Assassin's Creed for time saving. The Anvil engine is already demonstrated in Ghost Recon Wildlands as a later implementation. I think it would complete your suite of benchmarks nicely :)

[boodikaaki]

i hate it when some one compares two cards but shows other cards separating them. i stopped the video more than once just to see what is happening.
other than that thank you a lot. this is a great video i hope you grow more.

[Sharki]

Vega 56 seems more lucrative then vega 64 and gtx 1070

[lsdude]

Lol one year later, i got one for 300 bucks on amazon NEW, and the driver updates have given it the hard edge against the 1070, almost beating the 1080 in some titles.

[takwin]

Digital Foundry has the first and last word, as always. I appreciate the depth of their analysis of hardware, as well as their thoroughness.

[Traumglanz]

One thing to note. At $399 compared to a $499 1080, you might be spending more on power difference between those cards over a few years of usage than you save on your initial purchase. And the 1080 is without a doubt faster and avaible at around $500 on non-reference design coolers.

New freesync is still roughly $150 cheaper, so there is that. ;-)