As I have been talking about for the last few weeks, AMD has just launched their next-generation 7nm GPU: the Vega for the consumers called the Radeon VII. I wasn’t sure whether the VII stood for Vega II or 7 and it turns out it stands for 7 (the roman numerical 7). This was one of the last projects of Mike Rayfield as I discussed in my exclusive almost a month back.
AMD’s Radeon VII Is Faster Than NVIDIA’s RTX 2080 – 60 Compute Units and 16 GB of HBM (memory) for 13.8 TFLOPs of Compute
I must admit that I did assume the VII would stand for Vega II but it actually stands for 7. All that said, this is a much-awaited comeback from AMD in the high-performance gaming market and the Radeon VII rocks 3840 stream processors capable of handling up to 1.8GHz in clock rates. This puts its theoretical compute capabilities at a solid 13.8 TFLOPs. The power requirement will remain the same as its predecessor.
The Radeon VII reference design rocks three fans on the shroud and looks like a beefed up Vega GPU. This is the 7nm Vega revealed at Computex last year, customized for the gaming/prosumer market. As far as performance goes, it looks like this is going to be an absolute beast because the rumors I heard last night was accurate.
Just heard a rumor from someone on the ground that AMD Vega II will beat 2080 in DX 12. ?
— Usman Pirzada (@usmanpirzada) January 8, 2019
Three games were tested including Battlefield V and Farcry 5 at 4K with maxed out settings and the Radeon VII beats out (according to the company’s first-party benchmarks) the NVIDIA RTX 2080 in all APIs with the highest margin in Vulkan.
Built to unleash performance, enable extreme gaming, and drive the most demanding 3D rendering, video editing and compute applications, key features of the AMD Radeon VII graphics card include:
- Exceptional capabilities: The Radeon VII graphics card is built upon 7nm process technology, delivering higher gaming performance than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card. Equipped with 60 compute units/3840 stream processors running at up to 1.8GHz and 16GB of ultra-fast HBM2 memory (second-generation High-Bandwidth Memory), the Radeon VII graphics card enables high-performance gaming and ultra-high quality visuals. Ground-breaking 1 TB/s memory bandwidth and a 4,096-bit memory interface pave the way for ultra-high resolution textures, hyper-realistic settings, and life-like characters.
- Enabling real-time 3D and compute applications: The Radeon VII graphics card delivers the performance required for demanding 3D rendering and video editing applications, and next-generation compute workloads. It provides up to 27 percent higher performance in the popular open source 3D creation application Blender, up to 27 percent higher performance in the professional video editing, color correction and visual effects application DaVinci Resolve 15, and up to 62 percent higher performance in the OpenCL LuxMark compute benchmark compared to the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card.
- Extreme gaming performance: The AMD Radeon VII graphics card delivers exceptional performance in DirectX 12- and Vulkan-based games, including up to 35 percent higher performance in Battlefield V, and up to 42 percent higher performance in Strange Brigade, compared to the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card. It also delivers up to 25 percent higher performance in the widely popular esports title, Fortnite.
- Smooth gaming with Radeon FreeSync: With the high speeds of today’s graphics cards, framerates often exceed the monitor refresh rate, causing stuttering and tearing. With AMD Radeon FreeSync technology, the popular, standards-based adaptive sync technology supported by more than 550 gaming monitors, gamers can experience smooth gameplay at every level. In addition, AMD Radeon FreeSync 2 HDR technology offers more than 2X better brightness and color volume compared to sRGB.
- Unparalleled experiences with AMD Radeon software: AMD Radeon Software features Day-0 game driver support and up-to-the-minute game optimizations for performance enhancements. Gamers can effortlessly capture, stream and share their memorable moments and clutch victories with Radeon ReLive; monitor performance and PC system info, and socialize with the AMD Link application, and fine-tune a range of settings to fit their needs with Radeon WattMan technology.
AMD’s Radeon VII graphics card is the first consumer AMD GPU to net a solid 60 fps in maxed out 4k settings in Battlefield V and Farcry 5 and if these titles are any indication of the larger set, the company finally has a competitive 4K graphics card.
AMD has priced the graphics card very competitively at $699 and confirms that availability will be from February 7th (ie almost a month later). Its official folks, the company has (soft) launched the world’s first 7nm gaming GPU. The pricing would also put pressure on NVIDIA’s RTX lineup which has a typical MSRP of $799. The event is still going on and this article will be updated with more info as it becomes available.
