AMD Radeon VII VRAM & Anti-Aliasing Benchmarks vs. RTX 2080

We benchmarked high resolutions and anti-aliasing on the Radeon VII versus the RTX 2080, looking into whether it can regain performance.

Note: Firstrike footage is mixed-up -- the lava monster is GT2, the lava tunnel is GT1. The tests are unaffected, just mixed-up footage in editing. Sorry for the confusion!

The Radeon VII should produce interesting performance characteristics with higher resolutions, like 5K & 8K, and may also be able to swing performance back with higher anti-aliasing. We're still researching this, but consider this first publication just an academic exercise on the capabilities of Radeon VII versus the RTX 2080 under extreme (read: unplayable) scenarios.

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Testing, Editorial: Steve Burke
Video: Andrew Coleman

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[vossli]

sweet. Great choice for 8k gaming at 5 fps

[jordibt]

Theoretical is the best kind of better.

[TheUncleshady]

This card would be physically impossible to buy if Cryptos were still hot

[heretolevitateme]

AMD: "Here's a compute card that kinda games, since our new stuff wasn't quite ready yet."

[NANOTECHYT]

RTX 2080 scales better with AA. Radeon VII scales better with more shaders. Thats what I got from this video based on GT1 and GT2 from Firestrike vs Superposition.

[wiggetywut]

Hey man, look into the content creation benefits of the card. I know you have mentioned the possibility before, but I know some people working with 4k 8k footage who say this card is saving their lives as of Friday. The extra buffer makes it all possible. Even the $1100 12G Titan X has its limitations and will error out in Premier. So its this or the $2500 24G Titan RTX. Granted, I know this is Gamers Nexus so of course we want it to be able to game, right? But for those doing both, this is a Godsend.


Look at how many Titan X are for sale on ebay since Thursday. This is the untold story of team green, I bet every single one of those are content creators who need more buffer.

[darchandarchan]

radeon vii is not the gpu we wanted, but the gpu we deserved.
People were buying geforces over the radeons, even when radeons weren’t worse. Now get what we deserved

[KingHalbatorix]

Radeon viis as of january 2020 can be found new unused for as low as $500. This is an absolutely god tier deal for non-gaming applications. The closest you can get to 16GB of HBM2 memory is from an old crusty used Titan going for $900 used on ebay. Maybe a dossapointing card for gaming at launch, but in 2020 it's the absolute best price to performance deal for content creation.

[shubhamspatil]

Here in India Vega VII is priced the same as RTX 2070.

[faffabout]

Would like to see frame time consistencies at 4K comparisons, seems like in all the tests accept tomb raider the Radeon has much higher .1 and 1 percent lows, which make me wonder if it’s a more consistent frame rate, which makes for a better experience

[RealGengarTV]

Apparently, according to digital foundry, the huge amount of VRAM is fantastic at rendering video in certain scenarios

[DDuke]

Awesome video again GN, you guys are killing it with the nitty gritty details. Very precise and well put together. We all appreciate your effort for these videos

[torusbrane]

I love seeing data like this. I do this kind of stuff by myself with older hardware. It’s cool to match and compare just to see what certain HW will do. I’ve always loved and bought Nvidia, but I’ve never had anything against AMD. And now, they’re doing some things that are unexpected from a consumer standpoint, making for a more even and healthier competition in this market. I love the fact that I could sit there and stare at the number between a 2080 and a VII, and feel this undecided. Love it.

[Moon-Haa]

It may not make too much sense, but you could test the Radeon VII against a Titan RTX, on FireStrike, on the same situation where the RTX 2080 becomes memory capped. Since the Titan RTX have more VRAM and more memory bandwith, it should close the gap on GT2, althrough it also could gain performance due to it's better core compared to RTX 2080.

[Exotic_Tofu]

The presentation of this stuff was so on point. Love the little timer bar on each slide haha.

[richmeisterradio]

I am actually really hapoy we are back to this kind of testing. I remember back when crysis 3 was the go to benchmark for 4k. The 780ti and 290x generation of cards. Playing games "potentially" at 4k haha. Love it.

[saminavy]

Love your work, keep it up. Everyone *Loves* you

[ericviana]

As a researcher myself, I really appreciate the statistical methods you're using for analysis. The use of standard deviations to really determine if the differences are likely to be significant a lot. Much love Tech Jesus <3

[honk_tm]

is it just me or youtube really does butcher 1080p quality lately? i feel like watching 480p

[insainbassist]

Even if this isn't useful for most people in the real world, it was still interesting to see how much you had to push the resolution and AA to exhaust the frame buffer. I'm glad you took the time to do this.