The RX Vega 56 Owners Thread

MG42Maniac · 28 Feb 2019 at 19:04

Got my Sapphire Pulse, had a quick play and she seems stable at 1010mv 1625/900. It seems to bench faster than the Vega 64 I sent back last week due to coilwhine(!?). It is still a way behind my 1080Ti but that is fine with me because it cost me £450 vs £230 (after selling games). Genuinely a great performer for the price.

$ilent · 28 Feb 2019 at 19:20

MG42Maniac said:
Got my Sapphire Pulse, had a quick play and she seems stable at 1010mv 1625/900. It seems to bench faster than the Vega 64 I sent back last week due to coilwhine(!?). It is still a way behind my 1080Ti but that is fine with me because it cost me £450 vs £230 (after selling games). Genuinely a great performer for the price.

Nice one! Im well chuffed with mine too!

Of note though, a question to all Vega 56 owners. Ive set the following in wattman:

P6 - 1612/1000mv (set as minimum)
P7 - 1632/1000mv (set as maximum)
Memory - 950/1000mv

At idle the gpu core sits at 1662mhz and 1.00v, however during gaming it drops to ~1600mhz and 0.96v. Im guessing the voltage lowering is down to vdrop, but I dont understand why the gpu is sitting higher at idle? wattman and gpuz both show cpu core idling at 1662mhz. During games dropping to 1600mhz is fine by me as ive been advised to expect anything up to 30mhz reduction on gpuz vs what wattman should be set at.

TIA!

Leebone · 28 Feb 2019 at 20:21

I Have just picked up an Msi Vega 56 airboost! Would anybody care to share their best settings with me for a cooler faster but still quiet card? Thank you

fastwunz · 28 Feb 2019 at 20:46

Steampunk said:
It's part of the AMD driver package. Look at the control panel under gaming -> global settings.

It does "just work", but by default the card is set to generate maximum frames. That's either causing capacitors to vibrate on the card, or it's likely an interaction with your PSU. It will likely get better over time as things wear in, but it's probably caused by high power draw as your card generates hundreds or thousands of frames per second on static loading screens or benchmarks.

Enabling Chill or FRTC will lower power usage, heat, and fan noise, while still generating the frames your monitor can handle.

Ok the noise is frankly awful - I know it’s not right - my wife just told me to turn the machine off as she could hear it from the other side of the house. It’s properly terrible.

Dud card - it’s going back

stepea · 28 Feb 2019 at 20:47

Picked up a MSI Vega 56, just realised my PSU is old and not up to the job. anyone recommend a PSU that would be fine with this graphics card.

Relentless81 · 28 Feb 2019 at 21:50

Hi

My Sapphire Pulse is hitting 73C during gaming in a Meshify C, its at standard settings at the moment, is that quite high as it seems so to me?

Thanks

$ilent · 28 Feb 2019 at 22:12

Relentless81 said:
Hi

My Sapphire Pulse is hitting 73C during gaming in a Meshify C, its at standard settings at the moment, is that quite high as it seems so to me?

Thanks

73c Not too bad. Depends what your fan speed and gpu vcore is.

stepea said:
Picked up a MSI Vega 56, just realised my PSU is old and not up to the job. anyone recommend a PSU that would be fine with this graphics card.

Depends entirely on the rest of your pc parts as to what psu to get. That being said I'd recommend either an evga supernova G3 or seasonic X range.

555BUK · 28 Feb 2019 at 22:14

Relentless81 said:
Hi

My Sapphire Pulse is hitting 73C during gaming in a Meshify C, its at standard settings at the moment, is that quite high as it seems so to me?

Thanks

That's normal on stock 1200mv settings for a reference-type cooled card. Open Waterman, drop P6 and P7 volts down to 1050mv, and watch the temps and fan noise drop.

Relentless81 · 28 Feb 2019 at 22:22

555BUK said:
That's normal on stock 1200mv settings for a reference-type cooled card. Open Waterman, drop P6 and P7 volts down to 1050mv, and watch the temps and fan noise drop.

Tried it but just sat at 70/71C while running Heaven

Only seemed to be hitting 1350 according to wattman too

Edit - think I lost the lottery on this one, upped the power limit 25% and dropped P6 and 7 to 1050 and its hitting stock boost clocks and +70c under load

555BUK · 28 Feb 2019 at 22:52

Set power-limt to +50% (it will only be used if needed to sustain MHz), leave clocks at default, lower P6 & P7 to 1000mv and 1050mv respectuively.

If the card starts getting too hot it will drop MHz, but with 1000mv on P6 it should sustain P6 frequency or slightly higher. The problem is more-likely the cooler than the GPU itself. You could even try dropping volts to 950mv.

Temps @ 70-deg are fine.

jebidia · 28 Feb 2019 at 23:49

Just installed my Pulse Vega 56. Nice improvement in gaming over my GTX 970. Need to get used to Wattman trying out some voltage, but the fans on this card seem to be extremely loud?

fastwunz · 1 Mar 2019 at 06:16

jebidia said:
Just installed my Pulse Vega 56. Nice improvement in gaming over my GTX 970. Need to get used to Wattman trying out some voltage, but the fans on this card seem to be extremely loud?

I would rather have loud fans than the coil whine I’m getting with my new pulse that is capable of shattering windows.

stepea · 1 Mar 2019 at 06:33

$ilent said:
73c Not too bad. Depends what your fan speed and gpu vcore is.

Depends entirely on the rest of your pc parts as to what psu to get. That being said I'd recommend either an evga supernova G3 or seasonic X range.

My build

MSI B450 TOMAHAWK
AMD Ryzen 5 2600
2 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB 3000MHz DDR4

Relentless81 · 1 Mar 2019 at 06:57

555BUK said:
Set power-limt to +50% (it will only be used if needed to sustain MHz), leave clocks at default, lower P6 & P7 to 1000mv and 1050mv respectuively.

If the card starts getting too hot it will drop MHz, but with 1000mv on P6 it should sustain P6 frequency or slightly higher. The problem is more-likely the cooler than the GPU itself. You could even try dropping volts to 950mv.

Temps @ 70-deg are fine.

Ok thanks I'll try it tonight when I get home, the card is a pulse and I thought the cooler was meant to be good and I'm sure I have seen other posts quoting 60 under load plus the fans are quite loud too and the fact it's an air flow case just doesn't add up

jebidia · 1 Mar 2019 at 09:02

fastwunz said:
I would rather have loud fans than the coil whine I’m getting with my new pulse that is capable of shattering windows.

Coil while can sometimes go away, I certainly can't hear it over the volume of the fans. It
seems they ramp up to 1810rpm regardless of the speed curve I set in wattman.

fastwunz · 1 Mar 2019 at 11:30

jebidia said:
Coil while can sometimes go away, I certainly can't hear it over the volume of the fans. It
seems they ramp up to 1810rpm regardless of the speed curve I set in wattman.

This is true but I loaded up Wolfenstein The New Colossus and every time you moved the mouse it made different pitches of squeeling noises - same with Dishonoured 2 - look left and it’s ‘reeeeeeewwweeewweeeee’ - look right and it’s ‘skeeeeweeeskweee’

Genuinely so loud that it could be heard over the fans and the speakers - never known a card like it.

I’ve sent it back today for a refund via a DPD pick up shop - ocuk said it was probs quickest to send it back and refund it - then order a new one than go through the whole RMA process.

I’m really gutted actually - the frames I was getting were absolutely brilliant - got it comfy at 1000v, 1650 clock and 900 memory before I just couldn’t take any more blumin screeeching. I honestly can’t emphasise how loud it was at times. Dreadful. I desperately hope the replacement card is not afflicted

eeii · 1 Mar 2019 at 12:10

stepea said:
My build

MSI B450 TOMAHAWK
AMD Ryzen 5 2600
2 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB 3000MHz DDR4

With vega I would go with EVGA all day long I had to replace a seasonic in the past which had terrible coil whine. So far I've built 3 systems with EVGA power supplies and vega graphics cards no coil whine. I understand superflower make EVGA power supplies as well so you should be ok with those. For Vega 56 I would not go lower than 700 watts.

fastwunz · 1 Mar 2019 at 12:26

eeii said:
With vega I would go with EVGA all day long I had to replace a seasonic in the past which had terrible coil whine. So far I've built 3 systems with EVGA power supplies and vega graphics cards no coil whine. I understand superflower make EVGA power supplies as well so you should be ok with those. For Vega 56 I would not go lower than 700 watts.

I’ve got a 650w antec truepower modular 80 Gold. I really expect it should be enough - hope I’m right

Zernath · 1 Mar 2019 at 12:51

fastwunz said:
I’ve got a 650w antec truepower modular 80 Gold. I really expect it should be enough - hope I’m right

I'm running my MSI Vega 56 on a 500w, and it's fine. No issues whatsoever, I just won't do any crazy overclocking until I can bothered to change out the PSU. Your 650w is more than enough.

jebidia · 1 Mar 2019 at 14:18

For whatever reason, I didn't have the latest Radeon drivers installed, despite downloading from the website. I did manage to get the card running a bit cooler and quieter with the old drivers, but with the new ones the fans have finally stopped spinning.

With the Pulse card, I've located the bios switch, but it doesn't mention in the manual which position is which? Can anyone shed some light?

I'm also running a 520W Seasonic 80+ Bronze PSU (gpu impulse buy, lol). I've seen conflicting reports about PSU sizes, but for now I would prefer to not upgrade. Am I risking my system?
I'm not planning on doing anything but undervolting it for the time being to be honest.