• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

The RX Vega 64 Owners Thread

I bought a Vega 64 Strix from Clovis but this thing heats up like a mofo. Hotspot was hitting 105 before shutting down during Superposition Benchmark

I need to reset the thermal pads and put new paste on too. What size is the best for the thermal pad replacement? 3mm thick? Is there a bundle deal with new paste and pads that will do the job?

Also anyone with the Strix 64 that can show me your wattman undervolting stats?
 
How is folks doing with the new drivers.. im on the 19.12.2 and for the second time now after a delay from installing, issues are starting to show. Gonna go to 19.12.3 and see if there is a difference. Getting a bit tired of it.
 
Can't stand the new interface (HBSS or whatever it is takes some finding!) but I guess I need to get familiar with it.

My main gripe is periodic blackouts- screen goes black for 15-20 seconds, then recovers. Doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing.
Driver is crashing and resetting- any changes I make get wiped back to Balanced mode.

No problems up til now!
 
Drivers are flawless (for me) except for missing P-state locks, but if you have an old config file then it still works when you load the profile (and if you don't, it's easy enough to revert to older drivers, make profile, save, then reinstall newer drivers).
 
Last edited:
DoneADougalOnSofa said:
Can't stand the new interface (HBSS or whatever it is takes some finding!) but I guess I need to get familiar with it.

My main gripe is periodic blackouts- screen goes black for 15-20 seconds, then recovers. Doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing.
Driver is crashing and resetting- any changes I make get wiped back to Balanced mode.

No problems up til now!
Click to expand...

I'm getting that. Screen suddenly goes black, like it's resetting, then comes back on again after about 20 seconds or less. Almost the same routine if you lost the signal to the monitor briefly. Reconnects, shows the monitor is getting a signal and ten everything is fine again.

Also not enamoured with the new settings GUI. Prefer the older version as it's easier to find stuff. New one looks good but hard to get stuff like wattman without having to google how to find it (to change P states etc)
 
subbytna said:
I'm getting that. Screen suddenly goes black, like it's resetting, then comes back on again after about 20 seconds or less. Almost the same routine if you lost the signal to the monitor briefly. Reconnects, shows the monitor is getting a signal and ten everything is fine again.

Also not enamoured with the new settings GUI. Prefer the older version as it's easier to find stuff. New one looks good but hard to get stuff like wattman without having to google how to find it (to change P states etc)
Click to expand...

Ahh, not just me then. Must be a specific issue with Vega64 cards then. We'll probably get a new beta very soon I would think...
 
I experience it only when the card is UV or OC'd whilst watching Video's in fullscreen. (The blackouts) I think it resets to default but doesn't give a notification like it did before. If i watch movies with Card set to default it's fine and no blackouts. OC/UV still working in games thus far.
 
Ok so I took 20-30 mins to replace the thermalpad and paste on the Strix 64 that I bought.

Before hand I ran Superposition benchmark to get the card nice and heated up for a temperature reading. Scored 4422 on the 1080 Extreme setting benchmark. Card was on stock settings with no power limit increase.

This was the hot spot temp BEFORE the change....110 degrees!!! :o:(
temps-before.jpg




Ok so here's the stuff I needed - Thermal Grizzly 3mm pad and some thermal paste, again from Thermal Grizzly. Here are the 6 screws that I need to remove to get at the chip and pad. 4 pressure mounted screws and 2 screws tot he side that hold the backplate on
step-1-tools-needed-and-card.jpg




Removing the pressure screws took a REALLY small screwdriver but I had one to hand. Here is the pressure plate off
step-2-bracket-off-pic.jpg




All that was left was to take the 2 side screws off and I could get started
step-3-pcb-with-bracket-off.jpg




I didn't even have to take the cables out, the cooler came off very easily and was able to sit it down beside the PCB. Very simple to remove the cooler.
step-4-cooler-off-no-split.jpg





You can see the REALLY poor contact on the flimsy yellow pad. This was really bad. Hardly ANY contact at all, plus a fairly poor amount of thermal paste on the cooler plate.
step-5-vrm-mark-on-pad.jpg







Here's the amount of TIM left on the CPU. Sparse. You can see parts of the right hand side of the chip are clean, showing there was little if any contact with the thermal paste.
step-6-cpu-chip-paste.jpg




A quick clean with a few ear buds and some iso alcohol and it's shiney shiney :D
step-7-clean-cooler-plate.jpg




CPU cleaned and ready to go too
step-8-clean-cpu-chip.jpg




The Grizzly paste comes with a black spreader, a bit like one of the ice cream "spoons" you get from the ice cream van. Spatula...that was the word I was looking for.
step-9-cpu-with-new-paste.jpg




I peeled the old thermal pad off. It was flimsy and tore easily. On with the new 3mm thick one. Much better
step-10-new-3mm-pad-on.jpg




With the thermal pad on and the new thermal paste applied, it was a simple reversal of the screws and 60 seconds later everything was back in place. You can see the thermal pad through the side of the cooler. I let a little hang off so that if I need to replace it again, it'll peel off easily.
step-11-cooler-back-on-with-side-pic-of-pad.jpg




Ran the same benchmark again with the new paste and pad. Scored 4654 - Although I did increase the power limit slider fully to the 50% to give the card more juice if it wanted. The main thing is that the hot spot reduced by 25 degrees....TWENTY FIVE :eek::D Other temps were slightly higher due to the card running much faster with the additional power the 50% limit gave it.
temps-dropped-25-degrees.jpg



Took about 30 mins all in, if that.
 
My hotspot temp on my nitro+ is around 95-100c. Not very impressive and this is undervolted to 1025mv from 1200mv. Still have about a year of warranty on it so i'm not gonna bother for now with a new paste job but it seems like it could use it though.
 
I messed up watercooling my Powercolor Red Devil, needs a reseat... Flipping hotspot!
Luckily I can still game, just have to use frame-limiters to keep the heat down.

I'll sort it out one day- or just keep it how it is until I eventually upgrade!
 
From running a few other benchmarks since the "surgery" Replacing the thermal pad and paste has resulted in the card running about 9-10% faster. The fans don't ramp up as much and the fan profile can be less aggressive now, even with the power slider up to the 50% slot too. I've a 1080p Freesync monitor so I don't have to push the card too hard to get a solid 60FPS+ in all games now. Means the card is quiet and runs so well.
 
subbytna said:
From running a few other benchmarks since the "surgery" Replacing the thermal pad and paste has resulted in the card running about 9-10% faster. The fans don't ramp up as much and the fan profile can be less aggressive now, even with the power slider up to the 50% slot too. I've a 1080p Freesync monitor so I don't have to push the card too hard to get a solid 60FPS+ in all games now. Means the card is quiet and runs so well.
Click to expand...

I 2 run a 1080p monitor but a 240hz and in the games where i want to use all 240hz like CS or Overwatch I get all them frames and more. Just had a look on a few different reviews of Vega 64 and I saw several claiming it pulls close to 300watts and is roughly 10+ fps lower in games like Gears 5 vs the 5700 non XT.. Thing is, after a small downclock from stock 1630 to 1600 and an UV from 1200 to 1025mv while bumping the HBM to 1025mv and 1025mhz as well i had no issue getting just slightly better score than the 5700 non xt while "only" drawing 210ish watts.. Not to bad for this old dog of mine. This is when paired with a Ryzen 3600 non x and not the 9900k that they always use in reviews these days.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom