The RX Vega 56 Owners Thread

[dankeeys]

I had the time to read a few pages of comments / questions pertinent to overclocking Vega 56, seen a few people with the Pulse card. If you guys would give me a bit of leeway if I sound like a bit of a know it all, and be mindful I have spent days upon days overclocking and benchmarking mine I would be grateful...In my opinion the following a hard facts:

1. Don't bother flashing to a Vega 64, if you have Samsung HBM you may be able to overclock beyond circa 950GHz to circa 1000GHz. BUT the bios increases the voltage through the bios to allow furthering the HBM overclock, it adds heat to everything. You will lose an HDMI display port (I think?), your max core clock will probably reduce due to the extra temps and power usage etc. You might also break your GPU. Overclocked to 1600MHz core and 940 to 950MHz HBM with enough cooling to avoid throttling and you will be within circa 1% to 4% of a stock Vega 64. Vega 64's overclock poorly so even both overclocked a 64 might onlyclose the gap by a percent or 2.
   
   
2. Anything beyond 1600Mhz core and 940MHz HBM, becomes nothing more than a *****ng contest. I have benchmarked my card up to 1720GHz core and 945MHz HBM, its error of margin results.
   
   
3. The blower cards are useless and the expensive ASUS Strix cards are overkill and massively overpriced. Get the Pulse, mine was £200 quick from OC's, customer return with 3 months warranty.
   

Have a read through my previous posts on this thread guys, something might help someone. I have posted a few screen shots of my low volt overclock settings previous and talked a bit about the card in different details.


Happy to chat or help anyone further if I can.

Dan

 

[MyBrainz]

Anything beyond 1600Mhz core and 940MHz HBM, becomes nothing more than a *****ng contest. I have benchmarked my card up to 1720GHz core and 945MHz HBM, its error of margin results.

This is BS, i get huge gains going from 1600 to 1702, you must have a bad overclocker. Guess you need to not judge all Vega 56 cards on your one Vega 56

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

I am already mindful of your above points mate, but happy to see someone else with an actual understanding Frame rate drops / stutters in game like you mentioned are only an issue with something of a lack of understanding pertinent to the architecture of old Sandy Bridge quad cores like mine. Dropping one or two settings from ultra / max etc applicable to physics settings in games makes a world of difference, and I can never see a difference visually. Don't forget my 2500K is overclocked to 4.9GHz so that puts it on a whole new level to a stock CPU. I have been considering buying a second hand 2600K or 2700K, the 3770K as your suggestion would however, and IMO be a waste of money. Second hand prices and stock settings the 3770K represents a circa 30% cost premium against a 2600K or 2700K , gaming performance is identical. Incorporating my custom water cooling loop, a 2500K, 2600K or 2700K would outperform any of the 3000' K CPU's. 2000'K's have a soldered heat spreader, big reason my 2500K overclocked to 4.9GHz. 3000'K's have a cheap “TIM”, they run way hotter and overclock much lower, 4.3GHz / 4.4GHz is about the best they do even on a custom water loop. Upgrading to a 2600k or 2700K might be my best choice, glad you said the same...BUT, if it does not overclock past say 4.5GHz it will actually be a downgrade in certain games. I usually demote my gaming PC's to my under staircase media sever, but my gaming system in question has a temperamental motherboard that beeps unknown error codes once or twice upon start up requiring the odd hard reset on the PSU switch. My media sever is set for wake on lan from the TV, laptops, phones etc. My gaming system would be no good. It will either be retired to the front room hidden in an alcove cupboard as an occasional gaming PC for entertaining drunk friends, or be thrown away. TBH I was like this with my Q6600 / ASUS Maximus Formula system, the 2500K was night and day upgrade tbh, I should just bite the bullet I think. The Q6600 is now my media sever underclocked and undervolted to 1.6GHz, 12 TB internal storage, with 12 TB USB 3 external backup.

You certainly know the archetecture better than myself, and I presume you know how much of a boost overclocking gives. The extra threads are what will give you a decent bump, however I'd still strongly consider the Ryzen 1600 with your B350 board, these videos compare the 1600 vs 2500k vs 2600k. While the 1600 isn't massive upgrade in all games, in the ones it is it will be very noticable. It just depends if you want to spend the extra

Here's the Ryzen 2600 (only about 10% faster than 1600) vs 2600k

Going forward those extra cores/threads will give your system more longevity. But the choice is yours, you'll need to spend extra getting 16gb of dual channel DDR4, but that's halved in the last year so it's a good time to buy. You might prefer to spend less now and do a bigger upgrade in a couple of years

 

[Kei]

This is BS, i get huge gains going from 1600 to 1702, you must have a bad overclocker. Guess you need to not judge all Vega 56 cards on your one Vega 56

I guess it entirely depends on how far you can clock the memory. If he can only get to a maximum of 945, more core clock isn't necessarily going to net as much. My bog standard powercolor card took the vega 64 bios which allowed me to clock my HBM all the way up to 1200 which net bigger gains than just upping the core. My day to day clocks are 1650/1100 at 1100mV +50% PL.

 

[SpudMaster]

I guess it entirely depends on how far you can clock the memory. If he can only get to a maximum of 945, more core clock isn't necessarily going to net as much. My bog standard powercolor card took the vega 64 bios which allowed me to clock my HBM all the way up to 1200 which net bigger gains than just upping the core. My day to day clocks are 1650/1100 at 1100mV +50% PL.

I run my V56 day to day at 1630/1100mhz with the V64 bios and it gets me massive performance increases over the standard V56 bios.

The only point from Dankeeys that I agree with is number 3, blowers are a pretty rubbish.

 

[dankeeys]

This is BS, i get huge gains going from 1600 to 1702, you must have a bad overclocker. Guess you need to not judge all Vega 56 cards on your one Vega 56

I don't judge all Vega 56 cards on my one Vega 56 mate, nor do I call out other peoples comments as"BS". Your comment provides zero validation to your critique. Good for you if you get "huge gains going from 1600 to 1702MHz on your core". People on the forum are asking valid questions and seeking advise on overclocking their cards. The questions are not enthusiast level, and I have spent my time offering free advice. That's the end of it, If you disagree, by all means disagree; provide a contrary retort with evidence to back it up. Don't throw insults.

 

[dankeeys]

I run my V56 day to day at 1630/1100mhz with the V64 bios and it gets me massive performance increases over the standard V56 bios.

The only point from Dankeeys that I agree with is number 3, blowers are a pretty rubbish.

I appreciate some Vega 56 cards can overclock well on a Vega 64 bios, the point I was trying to make is more often than not most do not. If you do not have samsung memory then you can forget even flashing for the most part. Even with samsung memory like I have, it's no guarantee of high overclocks post flash. However fair play to you and others who attain high HBM overclocks post bios flash.

 

[dankeeys]

You certainly know the archetecture better than myself, and I presume you know how much of a boost overclocking gives. The extra threads are what will give you a decent bump, however I'd still strongly consider the Ryzen 1600 with your B350 board, these videos compare the 1600 vs 2500k vs 2600k. While the 1600 isn't massive upgrade in all games, in the ones it is it will be very noticable. It just depends if you want to spend the extra

Here's the Ryzen 2600 (only about 10% faster than 1600) vs 2600k

Going forward those extra cores/threads will give your system more longevity. But the choice is yours, you'll need to spend extra getting 16gb of dual channel DDR4, but that's halved in the last year so it's a good time to buy. You might prefer to spend less now and do a bigger upgrade in a couple of years

Glad of the “to and fro” we are having on this subject mate, a good debate results in good decisions. The fact however, that I will have to update the B-350 motherboard bios with either a throw away CPU or pay a local shop a similar cost to enable support for the latest gen Ryzen CPU's makes it a not starter to be honest. I played Kingdom Come Deliverance for a few hours this afternoon, and to be honest I think I might be jumping the gun somewhat. My CPU maxes out at circa 90% load in only the most heavily and involved populated / battle areas with my GPU hovering close to 100% whilst mostly only clocking at circa 1500MHz. Obviously I have no in game benchmark results to offer, but 1920 x 1200 High settings with CPU physics settings to medium and motion blur to off, I get as close to the steady 60FPS I want.


Footnote, any one playing Kingdom who is not already aware, open the console and input “r_BatchType = 1” (minus quotes). CryEngine subdues AMD GPU core clock frequencies for a reason beyond my education. This command increases GPU core clock in game, netting increased frame rates.

 

[dankeeys]

I guess it entirely depends on how far you can clock the memory. If he can only get to a maximum of 945, more core clock isn't necessarily going to net as much. My bog standard powercolor card took the vega 64 bios which allowed me to clock my HBM all the way up to 1200 which net bigger gains than just upping the core. My day to day clocks are 1650/1100 at 1100mV +50% PL.

Tried tomb raider benchmark. Hows these results? @high but blur off and low hair on my 3570k at 4.4ghz



1440p 75hz.

Then this at highest preset.

I have just done a benchmark mate, high game settings with nothing changed @ 1920 x 1080. I5 2500K @4.9GHz water cooled (so no throttling). Vega 56 @ 1637MHz core / 945MHz HBM. 1010mV core with 15% power limit. Apologies in advance for my delivery of data but I just wrote it down on a pen and paper notepad. Average FPS 84 FPS



FPS /CPU Game /CPU Render/ GPU

min /92/ 59/ 79

max/ 228/ 305/ 218

avg/ 137/ 98/ 107

95%/ 101/ 62/ 82

 

[MyBrainz]

Your comment provides zero validation to your critique.

1590/950

SCORE 19 317 with AMD Radeon RX Vega 56(1x) and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

Graphics Score - 22 543

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/20097437

1702/950

SCORE 20 954 with AMD Radeon RX Vega 56(1x) and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

Graphics Score - 24 567

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/19910596

 

[dankeeys]

1590/950

SCORE 19 317 with AMD Radeon RX Vega 56(1x) and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

Graphics Score - 22 543

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/20097437

1702/950

SCORE 20 954 with AMD Radeon RX Vega 56(1x) and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

Graphics Score - 24 567

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/19910596

See that's something that creates a worthwhile debate. . Care to run a shadow of the tomb raider benchmark at 1920 x 1080 high settings with your best overclock?

 

[MyBrainz]

See that's something that creates a worthwhile debate. . Care to run a shadow of the tomb raider benchmark at 1920 x 1080 high settings with your best overclock?

I only did 1 run on that and have since uninstalled it, i did the settings from the OcUK benchmark thread ( https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-bench-thread.18832183/ ) which is maxed out and my 1080p score was 58fps.

Think i was clocked at 1652/950 for this run.

Spoiler

 

[dankeeys]

I only did 1 run on that and have since uninstalled it, i did the settings from the OcUK benchmark thread ( https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-bench-thread.18832183/ ) which is maxed out and my 1080p score was 58fps.

Think i was clocked at 1652/950 for this run.

Spoiler

So, keeping my retort to friendly banter mate, your 1652/950 overclock is quite similar to my "BS"? (take the joke as friendly banter). Whats the highest stable you have managed running games 24/7 would you say?

 

[dankeeys]

@MyBrains

I have just run a superposition benchmark, default 1080p medium settings. Score 14878, gpu clocked at 1702/945 50% power with 1200 mV core. GPU-z recorded a max core boost of 1703MHz and a stupid 280 watt power draw. My card might overclock nearly as good as yours, it might even overclock better; does it matter? Fact is, is that level of stress, heat and noise worth a few percent on benchmarks or an error of margin of frames per second in games? I took screen pics on my phone, happy to upload if u want?

 

[MyBrainz]

@dankeeys The point of the high OC is for the benchmark threads for most people, my fully stable gaming day to day clocks are 1652/950 with 1050mv on the core. I only run the 17xx core clocks for bench scores.

I also have a profile for the 1 volt dream with a 1625 core clock.

As soon as the Red Devil 5700XT price drops to a reasonable figure i'll be getting one and selling this V56.

I'll never run the core at 1200mv though, thats just way too much heat.

Im having more fun overclocking my CPU lately, much more fun

Maybe i'll flash one of the V56 vBIOS's to a 64 if i get bored, can always flash it back before i sell it.

Guess i like tinkering with stuff

Edit, btw if you're not benchmarking with max settings well, you're doing it wrong

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/links-to-benches-owners-threads.18774374/

 

[dankeeys]

@MyBrains

Just ran a few shadow of the tomb raider benchmarks, same game settings as my previous benchmark several comments ago. Being mindful that my 2500K @ 4.9GHz does hit 100% in a small yet appreciable amount of the overall benchmark. My aforementioned benchmark with my GPU at 1637MHz/945 vs 1707MHz/945 STILL returned the same average frames per second of 84 vs 83. Minimum and maximum frames per second spread over the game engines headers also being within error of margin. I agree with you regarding Vega 56 overclocking and performance to a certain extent, however it has a point where the gains are not worth the cost. That is circa 1600MHZ, maybe 1620MHz at a push on the core IMO with under 1050mV. The memory by the looks of a few comments on here can reach to 1200MHz, that is the minority rather than the majority.

 

[dankeeys]

@dankeeys The point of the high OC is for the benchmark threads for most people, my fully stable gaming day to day clocks are 1652/950 with 1050mv on the core. I only run the 17xx core clocks for bench scores.

I also have a profile for the 1 volt dream with a 1625 core clock.

As soon as the Red Devil 5700XT price drops to a reasonable figure i'll be getting one and selling this V56.

I'll never run the core at 1200mv though, thats just way too much heat.

Im having more fun overclocking my CPU lately, much more fun

Maybe i'll flash one of the V56 vBIOS's to a 64 if i get bored, can always flash it back before i sell it.

Guess i like tinkering with stuff

Edit, btw if you're not benchmarking with max settings well, you're doing it wrong

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/links-to-benches-owners-threads.18774374/

I have a custom water loop cooling a 2500K running at 4.9GHz with 1.40 vcore running through it, has kept me running for 2 years, bought second hand. If thats not max settings I dunno what is

 

[MyBrainz]

Was talking about the game settings being maxed out

 

[Kei]

I don't have shadow of the tomb raider to test with. Done most of the main benches that there are threads for on here though. My system doesn't run the standard versions of 3dmark well at all as it seems to run like crap on a 1920x threadripper. The combined test in firestrike is so bad, it drags the score down significantly. (I have to run it in game mode which halves the number of cores) It also reports my 56 as being a 64 due to the bios change.

Firestrike
Score 19301, GPU Vega56 @1721/1075, GFX Score 24516, Physics Score 18673, Combined Score 7585, CPU RZ1920X @4.0, Kei, Post No.1570 - Link Drivers 17.11.2

Timespy
Score 8075, GPU Vega56 @1727/1185, GFX Score 7936, CPU Score 8971, CPU 1920X @4.175, Post No.1329, Kei - Link Drivers 18.5.1

Unigene superposition
Score 4966, GPU Vega56 @1709/1090, Min FPS 27.07, Avg FPS 37.15, CPU 1920X @4.0, Post No.0519, Kei - Link Drivers 17.11.2

These are my everyday settings for my watercooled V56.

 

[dankeeys]

Was talking about the game settings being maxed out

My HBM is only at 945MHz, but thats my daily gaming settings. Having a custom loop I have toyed with the idea of adding a GPU to it. I'm bloody close just on air.

https://ibb.co/9bBfG83