Vega 56 worth it at around £200?

SkeeterUK · 7 Jul 2019 at 15:32

Dunno as i havent got the 56 yet and besides i think 250 is my max for warrant of buying a new card, any more is too much money and not worth it for me personally when all it would give is maybe 5 or 10 more fps which i probably wont need if the new 56 i got will get me about 75fps to match my monitors 75hz refresh rate at high to max settings for 1440p as i heard it can do 1440p really good as thats why i bought it.

Darujhistan · 7 Jul 2019 at 15:34

SkeeterUK said:
Dunno as i havent got the 56 yet and besides i think 250 is my max for warrant of buying a new card, any more is too much money and not worth it for me personally when all it would give is maybe 5 or 10 more fps which i probably wont need if the new 56 i got will get me about 75fps to match my monitors 75hz refresh rate at high to max settings for 1440p as i heard it can do 1440p really good as thats why i bought it.

It's perfect for 1440p and good value.

SkeeterUK · 7 Jul 2019 at 15:42

Plus the vega cards have that expensive hbm which i thought would be better than navi gddr6. I dunno the real tech between em but i think hbm is better than gddr isnt it?

Mr Krugga · 7 Jul 2019 at 15:49

muon said:
I think at £200 you should be happy. At £250 for Vega 56 it is just about okay. The £329 5700 convincingly beats the Vega 64.

The £329 is a reference card with a blower cooler. I doubt you'll be able to get a 5700 with a decent cooler for less than £360. That's almost a 40-50% extra cost for a ~15% performance improvement at 1440p.

muon · 7 Jul 2019 at 15:50

SkeeterUK said:
Dunno as i havent got the 56 yet and besides i think 250 is my max for warrant of buying a new card, any more is too much money and not worth it for me personally when all it would give is maybe 5 or 10 more fps which i probably wont need if the new 56 i got will get me about 75fps to match my monitors 75hz refresh rate at high to max settings for 1440p as i heard it can do 1440p really good as thats why i bought it.

Naturally if you have a target performance in mind, then there is no need to buy anything more expensive than you need. Nothing wrong with that.

Mr Krugga said:
The £329 is a reference card with a blower cooler. I doubt you'll be able to get a 5700 with a decent cooler for less than £360. That's almost a 40-50% extra cost for a ~15% performance improvement at 1440p.

Base AIB cards tend to sell at MSRP. Even ones with decent coolers do after a couple of months.

I'm not sure where you plucked £360 from. I would bet good money that there will be a decent AIB card for far below £360.

Hades · 7 Jul 2019 at 15:53

SkeeterUK said:
Plus the vega cards have that expensive hbm which i thought would be better than navi gddr6. I dunno the real tech between em but i think hbm is better than gddr isnt it?

Yes it is. The bandwidth is much higher with HBM. But to the end consumer all that should matter is the actual performance for price, regardless of the the tech used to get there. I still think the V56 is a great card for the money.

Meridiusuk · 7 Jul 2019 at 16:39

Happy i got the vega 56 as it saved me £100 over the 5700, That £100 saved will go towards the rest of my new system build.

I can not see them dropping the vega 56 (paid £220 for the sapphire version) at all now as its still cheaper than the 5700 as its priced now, The 5700 are blower cards to, so when the custom cooler versions come out they prob be even higher priced which could be £50 more to the blower version so getting the vega 56 could be a potential £150 saving when the 5700 custom coolers come out. should keep me going for 1440p gaming as its my first gaming pc as i have always used my pc for productivity

not very often i get a good deal, lol

What next for my new build

FoxEye · 7 Jul 2019 at 22:10

Well £250 was right on the limit of what I wanted to spend, and the AIB 5700 will be north of £300, probably £350 or so.

The V56 with an undervolt and overclock should be pretty close to the 5700.

I think one thing is sure. If AMD do release a £250 5600 card, it will be well below the perf of the V56.

Hades · 7 Jul 2019 at 22:11

FoxEye said:
Well £250 was right on the limit of what I wanted to spend, and the AIB 5700 will be north of £300, probably £350 or so.

The V56 with an undervolt and overclock should be pretty close to the 5700.

I think one thing is sure. If AMD do release a £250 5600 card, it will be well below the perf of the V56.

You can also flash the V56 BIOS with the V64 one, which gets it a bit closer to V64 speeds.

Meridiusuk · 7 Jul 2019 at 22:50

Hades said:
You can also flash the V56 BIOS with the V64 one, which gets it a bit closer to V64 speeds.

would that not void the warrenty ? also do you still undervolt it when flashed to vega 64. would undervolting the card with 56 firmware be just as good as firmware flash to v64 without undervolting or do you still have to undervolt it when flashed to v64 ?

was looking at this video which has the V56 the same as the V64 and getting the same frame rates not sure if its been flashed to a v64 or just undervolted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWoEhyS-Jc

thanks.

got my email for the free 3 months gamespass can you sell this on and would i need to make sure the buyer has a amd card ? as i have 3 years of game pass anyway which includs pc gamming.

FoxEye · 7 Jul 2019 at 22:53

Meridiusuk said:
would that not void the warrenty ? also do you still undervolt it when flashed to vega 64. would undervolting the card with 56 firmware be just as good as firmware flash to v64 without undervolting or do you still have to undervolt it when flashed to v64 ?

thanks.

got my email for the free 3 months gamespass can you sell this on and would i need to make sure the buyer has a amd card ? as i have 3 years of game pass anyway which includs pc gamming.

When did you order? I haven't had any game pass email.

Hades · 7 Jul 2019 at 22:58

Meridiusuk said:
would that not void the warrenty ? also do you still undervolt it when flashed to vega 64. would undervolting the card with 56 firmware be just as good as firmware flash to v64 without undervolting or do you still have to undervolt it when flashed to v64 ?

was looking at this video which has the V56 the same as the V64 and getting the same frame rates not sure if its been flashed to a v64 or just undervoltedbut what i dont understand that its close to radeon VII in frame rates ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWoEhyS-Jc

thanks.

got my email for the free 3 months gamespass can you sell this on and would i need to make sure the buyer has a amd card ? as i have 3 years of game pass anyway which includs pc gamming.

I haven't done it myself as I don't own a V56. But yes it would void your warranty. If you're overclocking and flashing to a V64 then you don't undervolt it. The point of the flashed BIOS is to raise the voltage limit in line with the V64.

I just watched the start of that video and he explains that the V56 has a power limit of 210w while the V64 has a limit of 295w. Flashing it raises the limit on the V56 to the same as the V64's 220w. This would allow higher overclocking speeds. The V56 in that video isn't flashed. Also he explains that the VII is deliberately underclocked in that comparison because he wanted to run it at the same clockspeed as the V64 so that he can compare the relative efficiency of the Vega 20 chipset (in the VII) to the Vega 10 chipset (in the V56 and V64).

Meridiusuk · 7 Jul 2019 at 23:02

FoxEye said:
When did you order? I haven't had any game pass email.

got the link for it today but i did not redem it yet as i bought it from another place.

email says

To redeem your promotional code for these games please follow the steps below:
1. Install the eligible product into the computer from which the redemption is being made.
2. Create an account or login with your existing account to AMDRewards.com
3. Once logged in, enter your coupon code and follow the prompts on the screen to claim your reward.

says games but it will be gamepass and the email has the code

the retailer has to be part of it, are overclcokers doing the code ?

Meridiusuk · 7 Jul 2019 at 23:04

Hades said:
I haven't done it myself as I don't own a V56. But yes it would void your warranty. If you're overclocking and flashing to a V64 then I you don't undervolt it. The point of the flashed BIOS is to raise the voltage limit in line with the V64.

so would undervolting it be safer ? and would i get much more out of it going with a firmware flash to v64, would it damage the card using the 64 flash while using it once flashed would it push the card to much and burn it out as i am not to sure what the differences are between the vega 56 and 64 are in build quality.

Hades · 7 Jul 2019 at 23:18

Meridiusuk said:
so would undervolting it be safer ? and would i get much more out of it going with a firmware flash to v64, would it damage the card using the 64 flash while using it once flashed would it push the card to much and burn it out as i am not to sure what the differences are between the vega 56 and 64 are in build quality.

I also edited my earlier reply with more info but I thin you replied before I did that. So I explained a bit more about why people flash them. There is always a slight risk of causing a problem if you allow the voltage to go above spec. But the V56 is simply a 'cut down' V64. You can see the differences here:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-and-56-review

The V64 has a higher maximum voltage whcih allows the base and memory clocks to be increased. But the V64 also has more stream processors and texture units. The V56 can never get those back by a simply BIOS flash because they are parts of the actual hardware. But in theory raising the voltage limit would allow it to increase its boost speeds in line with the V64. So it will get closer to V64 speeds but not completely match them (because it is missing some stream processors and texture units).

As I said... doing this would void your warranty and there is a (small) chance of causing a problem. I would only recommend it to people who know what they are doing. I haven't tried it myself as I already have a Vega 64 (and a Vega VII sitting in a box).

The Vega VII adds more voltage, more clock speed, more texture units and shaders which is why it is much faster when not underclocked in that video.

FoxEye · 7 Jul 2019 at 23:40

Meridiusuk said:
so would undervolting it be safer ? and would i get much more out of it going with a firmware flash to v64, would it damage the card using the 64 flash while using it once flashed would it push the card to much and burn it out as i am not to sure what the differences are between the vega 56 and 64 are in build quality.

Not planning on flashing mine. Just the undervolt and OC. Want a nice quiet card and I'm only atm pushing 1080p/60 anyhow, which I'm sure the V56 will have no trouble with at all

greatash · 8 Jul 2019 at 04:55

Flashing is mainly so you can get the HBM memory to 1000+. The core clocks wont change, 1550-1600 is nice on a 56 with 950 memory (basically stock 64 performance).

Hades · 8 Jul 2019 at 07:12

greatash said:
Flashing is mainly so you can get the HBM memory to 1000+. The core clocks wont change, 1550-1600 is nice on a 56 with 950 memory (basically stock 64 performance).

Ah. Thanks

ANDREW GREEN · 8 Jul 2019 at 11:36

Well I think you guys did well getting your £250 Sapphire cards. I was waiting for Navi performance and from what I can gather the 5700 is locked from overclocking, meaning you get little out of an OC. Meanwhile Vega 56 which is 15% slower overclocks to give 15% boost in performance. So Vega 56 = 5700 and it's annoying for me that Vega has jumped in price.

Darujhistan · 8 Jul 2019 at 12:24

ANDREW GREEN said:
Well I think you guys did well getting your £250 Sapphire cards. I was waiting for Navi performance and from what I can gather the 5700 is locked from overclocking, meaning you get little out of an OC. Meanwhile Vega 56 which is 15% slower overclocks to give 15% boost in performance. So Vega 56 = 5700 and it's annoying for me that Vega has jumped in price.

Don't buy the blower card, either snap a Vega up or wait for AIB Navi cards. Why anyone buys these reference blower cards is beyond me. Why knowingly buy a gauranteed inferior built product knowing that improved versions are coming? The early Vega cards were crap, the later ones people have now are fantastic. Navi will go exactly the same way.