The RX Vega 56 Owners Thread

[Trivo]

@5t3v0 from what I've gathered flashing gives little to no actual performance gain. Yes you could increase HBM frequency by 100mhz with the extra 0.1v but on reddit/here I read that the actual gains when it comes to gaming are very very little. Not that it's any significant risk, but it's hardly worth the trouble if performance is what you're after.

With regards to your settings they seem all right, 180W is the max power draw at 0% power limit and on +50% it approaches 270 when overclocked to the max, with not a very conservative undervolt. My settings are with a significant undervold - so there is not any headroom for oc, so the clockspeeds are stock for all states. But the benefit is that even at +50% PL the card never draws more than 210-ish W for what feels like a miniscule fps loss.

About the fan curve I also edit the settings file but noticed that Wattman sometimes ignores my setting of 70% max fan speed and goes above it when it needs. In fact it often ignores my max clockspeed of 1592Mhz and goes some 50-60Mhz above that as well... Dunno maybe Wattman is just a UI to make us nice and placebo happy while the card does what it wants

 

[5t3v0]

@Trivo thanks for the reply and for confirming what I suspected was the case re flashing. Maximising performance is a certainly a goal with this card as I'm noticing it drop below 60 FPS on ultra in the more demanding new games, but finding the sweet spot between performance and power is more a challenging prospect than pushing it to its max. A lot of the time the card OC is not really necessary for my monitor as FPS in the DX11 and Vulcan games I've played with it, have way exceeded the monitor refresh rate. It seems the newer DX12 games are the ones that really test the card and benefit from the OC. I benchmarked it today with Gears 5 and average FPS was 68.7 with the OC profile and 60.3 on stock - that's a 12% improvement which is in line with The Division 2 DX12 results. I guess I really need 2 profiles for the card; a power efficient one for the less demanding titles and a max OC for the games that need the extra boost. I have done some playing about with a range of voltages and overclocks and got a really interesting performance-power curve using the Unigine Superposition benchmark:

Starting at 1662MHz, 975mv and 0% power limit, there is initially a linear increase in score with increasing voltage up to an optimum 1662MHz, 1025mv, 50% power limit (drawing 211W), after which the curve flattens off with increasing MHz and power, yielding smaller and smaller gains up to the thermal limit. I've set my profile at the max stable OC of 1672MHz, 1100mv and 50 power limit but when compared to the optimum power-performance OC of 1662MHz, 1025mv and 50% power limit, the performance gain is a measly 2% for a 20% increase in power. There's also a 300 rpm difference in fan speed. I really should dial it down shouldnt I?

Like you I've found Wattman to provide the illusion of control when in reality the core clock and fan speed override settings are just guides and ultimately the card BIOS decides. Core frequency although set to a target of 1672, boosts as high as 1710 but generally sits around 1640. The only setting that does what it says on the tin is the HBM2 frequency.

 

[gpuerrilla]

This is really good, certainly agree with the not needing to flash with modern drivers anyhow.

 

[Fairyfish]

New owner and first post in this forum.

Found one at discount here in Sweden for €240 and it got Samsung HBM memory.
What I found interesting was that my 2D in Windows are much sharper with this card then with my old 290X.

Will shop for a Ryzen setup when i found a discount somewhere as my FX is bottlenecking the GPU.

 

[dankeeys]

Hi folks. I'm a noob on this forum as you can see although I’m not new to PC hardware and overclocking. I am however a relatively recent owner of a Vega 56 having picked up a Sapphire Pulse from OCUK in sweet deal with 2 games in the AMD 50 year anniversary promotion in May. I have to say I’m really pleased with the card and reckon I must have lucked out on the silicon lottery as overclocking has been pretty successful.

My best stable OC using Wattman is 1672MHz target clock on the GPU core and 980MHz on the (Samsung) HBM2. I’m using 1100mv on the P7 voltage and a 50% power limit. Testing on the benchmark in The Division 2 using the DX12 render mode, I go from 54 fps on stock to 56 fps with the HBM2 OC only and to 58 fps with the GPU OC only. Combined GPU+HBM2 OCs give me 60 fps which is an 11% performance gain. Max temps are 68C on the GPU and 69C on the HBM2. The downside is that the peak power draw (using HWINFO) goes from 181W stock to 267W OC (+48%) and the max fan RPM goes from 1663 to a very audible 2398 on a custom fan profile (+44%). I can get higher target core clocks to run but the power draw and temps go a bit crazy and the card throttles back and FPS drops.

So, to get to the point of my post which is to ask you experienced 56 owners out there whether I should be happy with my lot and ignore the greedy niggle that I could do better, or should I consider flashing the BIOS and squeeze every ounce of performance out of it? From reading the forums, it seems the only benefit to be gained from flashing the BIOS is to enable the higher Vega 64 HBM2 voltage and push the frequency up to ~1100MHz. As I’m already on 980MHz and assuming linear scaling, that would only give me c. +1 fps in The Division 2. Is that gain worth invalidating my warranty for? Are there any other benefits from flashing like increased GPU core OC, lower core voltage or unlocked CUs? I’ve not seen much evidence of that. Is there a consensus on the best 64 BIOS for the Sapphire Pulse? Seems to be a lot of conflicting views.

Does flashing the BIOS prevent using the zero RPM workaround on the fan profile? For this OC I have had to edit the Wattman profile XML to add 0 RPM and have to load to the profile twice to activate it in Wattman. I then have the AMD settings app starting up in windowed mode automatically with every PC start to ensure the profile loads. It’s not ideal but it works. Will this still work after flashing though?

If I opt not to flash, should I be concerned about running this high a power draw 24x7? Not from the lecky bill point of view (I pay that) but for the longevity of the card? I hope not to have to replace it until 2021.

Sorry that’s a long first post and a lot of questions.

I should also have said that I game at 1440p @ 75Hz.

Thanks

Be happy and then some at those overclocks, then try to dial a few things back mate. I got the same card as you B Grade for £200.00 Samsung memory also. My overclock is 1637MHz core and 945MHz memory. Anything over 1600MHz core has logarithmic diminishing returns. My core overlock is running with 1010 MV on P7 and 17% power limit. At the MV and power limit you are at I would be mindful of your Core hotspot temp and VRM temps.

 

[gpuerrilla]

New owner and first post in this forum.

Found one at discount here in Sweden for €240 and it got Samsung HBM memory.
What I found interesting was that my 2D in Windows are much sharper with this card then with my old 290X.

Will shop for a Ryzen setup when i found a discount somewhere as my FX is bottlenecking the GPU.

I done this move as I couldnt see the FX machine lasting much longer, got the vega in black friday sales.

 

[5t3v0]

@dankeeys, that is an impressive core OC for such a low voltage & power limit. My VRM & hotspot temps at 1672MHz/1100mv/50% are 82C and 84C respectively after a few runs of The Division 2 benchmark. What's considered too high for these cards? I've been working on the basis of keeping below 90C which is what I was hitting before I changed the fan profile but have become a bit uncomfortable with the heat and power draw after several months of running this OC. I tested dialling back to 1652MHz/1025mv/50% which drops all temps by 5C and power draw by 45W (to 222W peak) with only a corresponding reduction of 1 FPS in The Division 2 (60 to 59). That's a 17% reduction in power and 7% reduction in temps for a 2% drop in performance. That's the sort of sacrifice I can live with but I'm sure there's a better sweet spot I've not found yet. I guess I'm just going to have to keep tweaking

 

[dankeeys]

@dankeeys, that is an impressive core OC for such a low voltage & power limit. My VRM & hotspot temps at 1672MHz/1100mv/50% are 82C and 84C respectively after a few runs of The Division 2 benchmark. What's considered too high for these cards? I've been working on the basis of keeping below 90C which is what I was hitting before I changed the fan profile but have become a bit uncomfortable with the heat and power draw after several months of running this OC. I tested dialling back to 1652MHz/1025mv/50% which drops all temps by 5C and power draw by 45W (to 222W peak) with only a corresponding reduction of 1 FPS in The Division 2 (60 to 59). That's a 17% reduction in power and 7% reduction in temps for a 2% drop in performance. That's the sort of sacrifice I can live with but I'm sure there's a better sweet spot I've not found yet. I guess I'm just going to have to keep tweaking

Now mate,

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/202082/202082

The above lists max temps and volts etc for the card. I spent a good week or so fine tuning my overclock on this card. I tested on Superposition and Heaven over and over until I was stable, then tested the likes of the Witcher 3 and Metro Exodus. I found I could get stable at higher clocks on the benchmarks, but those two games in particular would still crash; I subsequently dialled back. At my current settings my memory runs in all game at the full 945 MHz I set it to, the 1637 MHz overclock on the core typically runs from circa 1590 MHz to 1625 MHz depending on the game. My volts are State 1 900mV, State 2 950mV, State 3 960mV, State 4 970mV, State 5 980mV, State 6 1010mV & State 7 1010mV. My fan curve is set to a maximum of 60% (2225rpm). Killing it with a Furmark stress test I max out at GPU temp 64 degrees c, hotspot 88, mem 71, gpu vrm 80, soc vrm 81, mem vrm 78, 210 watts total draw. I do however run in an open chassis with a water cooled 2500k running at 4.9GHz with an 850w custom cooled corsair PSU so I have little in the way of heat other than from my GPU.

Respectfully and pertinent to your previous comment... I would not be comfortable with 84 degrees c hot spot just running Division 2 benchmarks, nor with your 50 % power limit or the watts you are consuming; again just running the aforementioned benchmark. I ran Furmark at your settings and my card pulled 270 watts. I stopped it after less than 30 seconds before my card started throttling. The cooling on this card is good for no more than circa 210 watts at full fan rpm.

Not telling you how to suck eggs mate and with complete respect, I would suggest starting again from scratch. Set your card +2% core o/c in Global wattman, set your HBM to 940Mhz and set your state 6 and 7 core mV's +20 to mine. Set your fan speed to 70% max at 70 degrees c and work from there. Install CPU-Z and Furmark, run Furmark until you are happy with all the max temps CPU shows. At that point you can be happy with your thermals and power draw. Move on to Heaven and Superposition next and work on fine tuning up or down on your overclocks, then move to a few demanding games to further fine tune. Install MSI afterburner and set the on screen display so you can see your core clock, memory speed etc.

Don't bother flashing a 64 bios and remember that anything over 1600 MHz core on this GPU makes little to no difference


Good luck

 

[dankeeys]

Well yes 2200g is a bit quicker, but not much in it.

Also they don't test CPU heavy games except Hitman, which would see greater drops

If the results can be trusted...

Metro Exodus – R3 2200G @ 3.9GHz 75FPS AVG, 49FPS 1% low – i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz 69FPS AVG, 45FPS low.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider 79FPS and 49FPS vs 70FPS and 41FPS.

Nice find mate, after those 2 games the rest can pretty much be dispensed with regarding benchmarking CPU's. My 2500k @ 4.9GHz is gonna stay with me a little longer.



Thanks Andrew

 

[dankeeys]

Is any one nice enough to loan me a 1st Gen AM4 CPU so I can update the bios on a B-350 motherboard? I will pay postage both ways, any trust issues I dont mind paying a deposit via internet banking.

 

[gpuerrilla]

I feel your pain @dankeeys , I sent mine back to OcUK to do this - if I had known I would have phoned them to do it before shipping it out.

 

[dankeeys]

I feel your pain @dankeeys , I sent mine back to OcUK to do this - if I had known I would have phoned them to do it before shipping it out.

Yea Scan do the bios upgrade for £10.00...i found my B-350 Mortar behind my recycle bin, some dick head courier left it there no address etc..musta been there for weeks, I asked a few neighbours, no takers so I kept it. Rang a local computer shop today, they want £40.00.

I have boxes of old (ish) tech, a GTX 970, a couple of old motherboards, 2 x HD 7970's, a third 7970 is in my media server lol...in excess of 100 metres of cat 7a cable, 3 decent laptops all with ssds in them, several 2tb mechanical drives...the list goes on lol. A trade for a AM4 CPU is more than welcome lol

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

Is any one nice enough to loan me a 1st Gen AM4 CPU so I can update the bios on a B-350 motherboard? I will pay postage both ways, any trust issues I dont mind paying a deposit via internet banking.

It might be worth calling around local computer stores and asking if they'll flash the motherboard. Otherwise a second hand 1600/1700 for £50-£80, would also offer you very decent performance, only 20% less than a 3600/3700, in any games requiring 6cores and if there comes a time 8 cores the 1700 will come in handy. You you can sell off the 1600/1700 and upgrade when the 2700/3600/3700 goes on sale. And given the 2600/1700 have gone down as low as £110 - when Ryzen 4000s come out that will probably happen again with this generation parts.

 

[dankeeys]

It might be worth calling around local computer stores and asking if they'll flash the motherboard. Otherwise a second hand 1600/1700 for £50-£80, would also offer you very decent performance, only 20% less than a 3600/3700, in any games requiring 6cores and if there comes a time 8 cores the 1700 will come in handy. You you can sell off the 1600/1700 and upgrade when the 2700/3600/3700 goes on sale. And given the 2600/1700 have gone down as low as £110 - when Ryzen 4000s come out that will probably happen again with this generation parts.

I rang a local shop, they said £40 to flash, circa the same price as the cheapest AM4 CPU. Being mindful I am looking to upgrade my 2500k system overclocked to 4.9GHz, a 1600/1700 will more than likely be a downgrade?



I never sell anything either, so if I bought a CPU just to upgrade a motherboard bios it would just end up on a shelf or in a drawer. I will probably just end up building a full Ryzen 3600 system from the ground up. Overclocking current gen Ryzen, particularly the 3600 seems utterly pointless pertinent to gaming performance. My custom water loop will end up in a box, and buying expensive motherboards becomes pointless.

 

[MyBrainz]

..

Just order something cheap off the rainforest then send it back after flashing

 

[5t3v0]

@dankeeys - Thanks for the further info and recommendations. I have done a lot of benching and stability testing already with Unigene Superposition and Furmark although this was to find the maximum stable OC with modest undervolts rather than the most power efficient OC possible. I've included screenshots of the results below which show what you'd expect really - increasing performance, power and temperate as voltage and power limit increase up to a ceiling at around 270W. Like you had found, not all of the OCs that were stable in Superposition and Furmark were game stable which was how I narrowed it down to where I am now. So I get the need for managing the thermals but there's a lot of variance in opinion out there about what's good and bad for this card. According to the BIOS limits in that link you shared, the hotspot temp limit is 105C so I'm well within that and the power consumption is below the 280W Sapphire spec (https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-rx-vega56-8g-hbm2). Where did you read that the cooling on this card is only good up to 210W? The 1 thing that concerns me most about my current overclock, more than the power and temperature, is the fan speed which is peaking at 90%. It's just too loud. I think I need to pick a fan speed I am comfortable with and work back from there to find the best stable OC that doesnt cook the chip. I'll try your settings and see how I get on although I suspect it wont be stable that dialled back. I'm running a core i5 9600k @ 5GHz with a Noctua NH-D14 air cooler inside a Meshify C with 2 additional Noctua 140mm case fans - airflow is good but it wont be as cool as your setup. Will probably be next week now before I get chance to look at this again - I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[dankeeys]

@dankeeys - Thanks for the further info and recommendations. I have done a lot of benching and stability testing already with Unigene Superposition and Furmark although this was to find the maximum stable OC with modest undervolts rather than the most power efficient OC possible. I've included screenshots of the results below which show what you'd expect really - increasing performance, power and temperate as voltage and power limit increase up to a ceiling at around 270W. Like you had found, not all of the OCs that were stable in Superposition and Furmark were game stable which was how I narrowed it down to where I am now. So I get the need for managing the thermals but there's a lot of variance in opinion out there about what's good and bad for this card. According to the BIOS limits in that link you shared, the hotspot temp limit is 105C so I'm well within that and the power consumption is below the 280W Sapphire spec (https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-rx-vega56-8g-hbm2). Where did you read that the cooling on this card is only good up to 210W? The 1 thing that concerns me most about my current overclock, more than the power and temperature, is the fan speed which is peaking at 90%. It's just too loud. I think I need to pick a fan speed I am comfortable with and work back from there to find the best stable OC that doesnt cook the chip. I'll try your settings and see how I get on although I suspect it wont be stable that dialled back. I'm running a core i5 9600k @ 5GHz with a Noctua NH-D14 air cooler inside a Meshify C with 2 additional Noctua 140mm case fans - airflow is good but it wont be as cool as your setup. Will probably be next week now before I get chance to look at this again - I'll let you know how I get on.

My mistake regarding the 210 watt max cooling, that was what i worked out for my card with my overclocks at 60% fan speed

 

[dankeeys]

@dankeeys - Thanks for the further info and recommendations. I have done a lot of benching and stability testing already with Unigene Superposition and Furmark although this was to find the maximum stable OC with modest undervolts rather than the most power efficient OC possible. I've included screenshots of the results below which show what you'd expect really - increasing performance, power and temperate as voltage and power limit increase up to a ceiling at around 270W. Like you had found, not all of the OCs that were stable in Superposition and Furmark were game stable which was how I narrowed it down to where I am now. So I get the need for managing the thermals but there's a lot of variance in opinion out there about what's good and bad for this card. According to the BIOS limits in that link you shared, the hotspot temp limit is 105C so I'm well within that and the power consumption is below the 280W Sapphire spec (https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-rx-vega56-8g-hbm2). Where did you read that the cooling on this card is only good up to 210W? The 1 thing that concerns me most about my current overclock, more than the power and temperature, is the fan speed which is peaking at 90%. It's just too loud. I think I need to pick a fan speed I am comfortable with and work back from there to find the best stable OC that doesnt cook the chip. I'll try your settings and see how I get on although I suspect it wont be stable that dialled back. I'm running a core i5 9600k @ 5GHz with a Noctua NH-D14 air cooler inside a Meshify C with 2 additional Noctua 140mm case fans - airflow is good but it wont be as cool as your setup. Will probably be next week now before I get chance to look at this again - I'll let you know how I get on.

Just think how quiet and cool your GPU would be clocked to circa 1620 MHz core, low mV, quiet fan. It might cost 2 frames per second

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

I rang a local shop, they said £40 to flash, circa the same price as the cheapest AM4 CPU. Being mindful I am looking to upgrade my 2500k system overclocked to 4.9GHz, a 1600/1700 will more than likely be a downgrade?

I never sell anything either, so if I bought a CPU just to upgrade a motherboard bios it would just end up on a shelf or in a drawer. I will probably just end up building a full Ryzen 3600 system from the ground up. Overclocking current gen Ryzen, particularly the 3600 seems utterly pointless pertinent to gaming performance. My custom water loop will end up in a box, and buying expensive motherboards becomes pointless.

It really depends on the games you play and your needs

For me the problem with a quadcore like the 2500k is the frame drops in modern open world games, where you get the framrates dropping into the 30s or even stuttering in some titles and you won't get that problem with a 1600/1700. So Hitman 1 and 2, Just Cause 3, Watch Dogs 2, AC Origins/Odyssey. If you don't have games where frame rate dips are an issue, like none CPU intensive stuff like racing games, then you probably don't need an upgrade really.

I actually upgraded to a Vega 56 because of this problem thinking my RX 580 and it's 4gb of RAM was at fault, when in reality it was my quadcore processor. The 2600 gave me a big upgrade from my quadcore 2200g. Some games and some parts of games you won't notice the upgrade, there's part of both Hitman games where the FPS is high, but then when the scene is busy it drops through the roof.

Depending on your socket an upgrade to a second hand I7 with multi threading like a 3770k may garner a decent upgrade for a few years

I don't think you'd regret getting a 3600 system either though

 

[dankeeys]

It really depends on the games you play and your needs

For me the problem with a quadcore like the 2500k is the frame drops in modern open world games, where you get the framrates dropping into the 30s or even stuttering in some titles and you won't get that problem with a 1600/1700. So Hitman 1 and 2, Just Cause 3, Watch Dogs 2, AC Origins/Odyssey. If you don't have games where frame rate dips are an issue, like none CPU intensive stuff like racing games, then you probably don't need an upgrade really.

I actually upgraded to a Vega 56 because of this problem thinking my RX 580 and it's 4gb of RAM was at fault, when in reality it was my quadcore processor. The 2600 gave me a big upgrade from my quadcore 2200g. Some games and some parts of games you won't notice the upgrade, there's part of both Hitman games where the FPS is high, but then when the scene is busy it drops through the roof.

Depending on your socket an upgrade to a second hand I7 with multi threading like a 3770k may garner a decent upgrade for a few years

I don't think you'd regret getting a 3600 system either though

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.