The RX Vega 56 Owners Thread

T.Kay · 16 Oct 2017 at 13:42

Gpu usage is much lower when using high hbm clocks for me. When using 1100mhz I get 50-80% usage vs 80-100% when using 900mhz. Turning on Hbcc seems to make the problem worse.

Vince · 16 Oct 2017 at 13:44

Illuminist said:
I will try this on mine also and come back with the results.
Also the childishness in me giggled when you said leave state 5 cocks.. lol

You know what I didn't even notice that but I should point out that if you have cocks in state 5 it is without a doubt recommended to leave them well alone unless of course you are that way inclined

State 5 is clearly up there with nursing a semi.

One thing you should be aware of is (as above) clocks on HBM jumping around down to 800 - If this happens one of two things is going wrong, not enough voltage or too much heat. I tuned specifically for what my card is capable over many many hours of poking about. You may need more or less voltage to hit the same clocks

T.Kay · 16 Oct 2017 at 17:55

Illuminist said:
TLDR// 64 bios on 56 didn't work correctly only in benchmarks, in games the 56 bios was much faster.

Just gone back to the 56 bios, there is something terribly wrong with the 64 one.
In benchmarks the 64bios and 1100 /1700 blah blah settings, gets me a gigantic score on all the different benchmarks, but in games themselves the card shows the right settings in rivatuner monitor on screen. clock and hbm settings all correct, but the FPS is very low. I try the benchmarks again and all is powerful and 24,000 graphics score on 3dmark firestike.
Back to a game and the settings are real but the same thing happens, on Battlegrounds i am 1080p very low everything and getting 40-50fps. On wildlands very low preset 1080p i get 33 fps I don't get it at all. I DDU and reinstall the drivers, i tried different 64 bios's nothing worked.

Went back to the 56 bios and ran Battlegrounds on 4k very low all, apart from ultra textures and im getting 60-80fps ( 935 hbm and 1655 core.)
on wildlands 1440p ultra settings is 90 fps +
Don't know if anyone else has this problem, but i'm leaving this here in hopes either someone can help or to let people know that have the same problem that the 56 bios will be better, and you HAVEN'T destroyed your card like i thought I did

What Cpu do you have I can only get 45 fps on Ultra in the Wildlands benchmark.

SpudMaster · 16 Oct 2017 at 19:30

Illuminist said:
I was using the 17.9.1 driver also as any of the others would do weird stuff whe OC ing.

I'm using the Sapphire 64 bios as I've got a Sapphire card. Though it shouldn't really matter which you use in theory.

I didn't try the 17.9.2 or 3 drivers but with the 17.10s the boosting was erratic. After some reboots the card wouldn't boost properly, only to 800mhz. After other reboots it would boost like normal on the 17.9.1 drivers but spike higher than was set for state 7 and cause a crash. Eg. I set state 7 set at 1632mhz @ 1050mV and it would boost between 1600mhz and 1625mhz depending on the game but with 17.10 it would spike to 1675mhz and crash.

megatron · 16 Oct 2017 at 19:40

Vince said:
You know what I didn't even notice that but I should point out that if you have cocks in state 5 it is without a doubt recommended to leave them well alone unless of course you are that way inclined State 5 is clearly up there with nursing a semi.

One thing you should be aware of is (as above) clocks on HBM jumping around down to 800 - If this happens one of two things is going wrong, not enough voltage or too much heat. I tuned specifically for what my card is capable over many many hours of poking about. You may need more or less voltage to hit the same clocks

Core or memory voltage? I don't have a heat problem, I have a G10 bracket fitted.

Vince · 16 Oct 2017 at 19:55

megatron said:
Core or memory voltage? I don't have a heat problem, I have a G10 bracket fitted.

I found i needed to add like 10mv on each when it was dropping to 800 every 20 seconds or so to ensure that it was staying up at the boost clocks.

Illuminist · 17 Oct 2017 at 09:23

T.Kay said:
What Cpu do you have I can only get 45 fps on Ultra in the Wildlands benchmark.

i5 6600k Oc'd to 4ghz, you are right though it must have been 1080p not 1440 apologies for that.

Illuminist · 17 Oct 2017 at 09:27

Vince said:
You know what I didn't even notice that but I should point out that if you have cocks in state 5 it is without a doubt recommended to leave them well alone unless of course you are that way inclined State 5 is clearly up there with nursing a semi.

One thing you should be aware of is (as above) clocks on HBM jumping around down to 800 - If this happens one of two things is going wrong, not enough voltage or too much heat. I tuned specifically for what my card is capable over many many hours of poking about. You may need more or less voltage to hit the same clocks

The other thing it was doing for me, was that the temp thingy in wattman stopped working, as in, when the temps hit 75 instead of the fan ramping up to full to bring it down the temps would just increase to 80+ until i quit the game to stop it exploding.
Paired with this the fan would only reach 4700rpm on the 64 bios, back on the 56 now it hits 4900 like it should.

I wish i could sort this out, i want to be running the 64 bios properly so the watercooling can do its job when i get one.
Did yours turn up yet vince?

The joys of overcocking

silversurfer · 17 Oct 2017 at 12:49

What driver version do you use btw ? Not sure if I read they restrict the bios swap in later versions. I dont like that the stock profiles have kept the temperature target too high, the card physically doesnt want core temp above 60's imo. I guess AMD knows it'll be ok but it wont perform as well

Illuminist · 17 Oct 2017 at 13:01

silversurfer said:
What driver version do you use btw ? Not sure if I read they restrict the bios swap in later versions. I dont like that the stock profiles have kept the temperature target too high, the card physically doesnt want core temp above 60's imo. I guess AMD knows it'll be ok but it wont perform as well

I tried 17.1 17.2 17.3 and 17.10.1 with the 64 bios installed, each of them had some kinda problem when oc'ing.
Am i right in thinking the 56 and 64 cards are identical, in cooling and everything, its just the chip is different, because when on the 64 bios i was getting to 75.c in a matter of seconds, im sure the 64 (real one) wouldn't do that or everyone would be deaf.

I'm going to DDU the drivers and use the 64 bios again tonight following Vince's and the other kind people heres advice.
I will post the weirdness i find.
I can overclock the 56 bios like a beast so i dont know why it wont work on the 64.....

This card is like a beautiful new girlfriend, i can't stop playing with it and making it do awesome things until it gets too hot and noisy .
LMAO

Vince · 17 Oct 2017 at 13:08

Illuminist said:
The other thing it was doing for me, was that the temp thingy in wattman stopped working, as in, when the temps hit 75 instead of the fan ramping up to full to bring it down the temps would just increase to 80+ until i quit the game to stop it exploding.
Paired with this the fan would only reach 4700rpm on the 64 bios, back on the 56 now it hits 4900 like it should.

I wish i could sort this out, i want to be running the 64 bios properly so the watercooling can do its job when i get one.
Did yours turn up yet vince?

The joys of overcocking

I robbed the bios for mine (a sapphire card) off of a mates Air 64 (Also sapphire) Happy to swing that your way but not entirely sure it will make a difference.

Illuminist said:
I tried 17.1 17.2 17.3 and 17.10.1 with the 64 bios installed, each of them had some kinda problem when oc'ing.
Am i right in thinking the 56 and 64 cards are identical, in cooling and everything, its just the chip is different, because when on the 64 bios i was getting to 75.c in a matter of seconds, im sure the 64 (real one) wouldn't do that or everyone would be deaf.

I'm going to DDU the drivers and use the 64 bios again tonight following Vince's and the other kind people heres advice.
I will post the weirdness i find.
I can overclock the 56 bios like a beast so i dont know why it wont work on the 64.....

This card is like a beautiful new girlfriend, i can't stop playing with it and making it do awesome things until it gets too hot and noisy .
LMAO

Eiswolf should be here today so I'll update you

Illuminist · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:02

Vince said:
Eiswolf should be here today so I'll update you

If you could fling that bios my way i would be very grateful, and look forward to your Eiswolf opinion.

Vince · 17 Oct 2017 at 16:52

Illuminist said:
If you could fling that bios my way i would be very grateful, and look forward to your Eiswolf opinion.

Well it arrived: My opinion hasn't changed, damn its ugly! This cat didn't think much of it either:

Think I will fit it up, see the performance and then mod it later on. My paint still hasn't arrived and I am impatient and want to see if it is actually any good. Think I will set up a push pull on the rad and give it a go! Will report back!

Also here is a link to that bios file on my skydrive thingy: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AIbVfWTPaYC0ggU

henson0115 · 17 Oct 2017 at 19:45

nice so it finally arrived, to be fair i would have been to busy isntalling that thing rather than posting a pic. not very patient

Illuminist · 18 Oct 2017 at 08:03

Vince said:
Well it arrived: My opinion hasn't changed, damn its ugly! This cat didn't think much of it either:

Think I will fit it up, see the performance and then mod it later on. My paint still hasn't arrived and I am impatient and want to see if it is actually any good. Think I will set up a push pull on the rad and give it a go! Will report back!

Also here is a link to that bios file on my skydrive thingy: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AIbVfWTPaYC0ggU

HAhahah the cat is so funny
Does this come with fans or just the radiator? How was it Vince I'm excited don't keep me hanging

Vince · 18 Oct 2017 at 08:34

Illuminist said:
HAhahah the cat is so funny
Does this come with fans or just the radiator? How was it Vince I'm excited don't keep me hanging

So far mate the news is not great, I re-seated it perhaps 3 times last night and could not get sensible temps at all. Granted it was almost 3am when I gave up and perhaps I was tired but it didn't seem to matter what I did temps were out of control. I can only assume I messed it up 3 times and hopefully I haven't damaged my card in the process. I am going to have another go at more sensible times tonight and see what happens. I have some great die shots of the vega though so if it all goes wrong then at least we have that and ill just have to buy another one

Illuminist · 18 Oct 2017 at 08:58

Vince said:
So far mate the news is not great, I re-seated it perhaps 3 times last night and could not get sensible temps at all. Granted it was almost 3am when I gave up and perhaps I was tired but it didn't seem to matter what I did temps were out of control. I can only assume I messed it up 3 times and hopefully I haven't damaged my card in the process. I am going to have another go at more sensible times tonight and see what happens. I have some great die shots of the vega though so if it all goes wrong then at least we have that and ill just have to buy another one

Fingers crossed bud, that does not sound promising.
I did read a post on a different thread about this cooler some guy could not get the hotspot cooled with this AIO, he was recommended to just make sure it was tight, but im sure you are more than capable of sorting this. Good Luck !

Vince · 18 Oct 2017 at 09:31

Illuminist said:
Fingers crossed bud, that does not sound promising.
I did read a post on a different thread about this cooler some guy could not get the hotspot cooled with this AIO, he was recommended to just make sure it was tight, but im sure you are more than capable of sorting this. Good Luck !

I'll get it under control and if I don't then full custom hardline loop may well be in order. Watch this space later this evening for updates.

subbytna · 18 Oct 2017 at 09:54

Any 56 owners getting the atikmdag.sys error message at all? A build I did for a customer is giving this error message a lot (games crashing). I'm thinking it's the GPU and not the rest of his system. Anyone?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 18 Oct 2017 at 11:16

Vince said:
Well it arrived: My opinion hasn't changed, damn its ugly! This cat didn't think much of it either:

Think I will fit it up, see the performance and then mod it later on. My paint still hasn't arrived and I am impatient and want to see if it is actually any good. Think I will set up a push pull on the rad and give it a go! Will report back!

Also here is a link to that bios file on my skydrive thingy: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AIbVfWTPaYC0ggU

That's a first - a computer building cat!!