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The RX Vega 64 Owners Thread

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interesting, curious what this hot spot turns out to be; seems like it's VRM related with the crazy temps you can get with air coolers!

VRM for GPU/HBM have temp limit in PowerPlay posted here and OCN. On Fiji when either reached GPU is throttled.

Fiji didn't have a HBM IC temp limit in PowerPlay but VEGA does.

The temp points for HBM general performance lowering based on temp are not in JEDDC PDF. There are several 'trip points' that can be set, so best is to cool as much as you can for max performance gain always.
 
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Soldato
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Updated drivers to 17.8.2 this afternoon and overclocking ability seems to have reduced again. On the previous drivers I had a stable 1802/1045 but can't get through Timespy with those clocks anymore. I could get it to run at turbo clocks with the memory at 1045 but I've noticed now that in Turbo my clock is no longer boosting to 1750 - it is maxing out at 1724. Any other AOI owners noticed this also?

Edit: Just ran the Rise of The Tomb Raider benchmark and the GPU clock topped out at 1672 - the temp is only 59 and the graph is fairly solid so it's not throttling. Again, on the previous drivers the clock was boosted to 1750 on this benchmark???
 
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Updated drivers to 17.8.2 this afternoon and overclocking ability seems to have reduced again. On the previous drivers I had a stable 1802/1045 but can't get through Timespy with those clocks anymore. I could get it to run at turbo clocks with the memory at 1045 but I've noticed now that in Turbo my clock is no longer boosting to 1750 - it is maxing out at 1724. Any other AOI owners noticed this also?
Yes. 17.8.2 behaves strangely. The card doesn't clock as high and doesn't sustain the clock but seems to score better in synthetic benchmarks. Could be that it wasn't reading correctly with the old drivers.

Here are some comparison benches I ran several days ago:

Time Spy - stock clock, +50%, HBM 1075
17.8.1 - max clock 1750 - 8137, GS 8017 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21741838
17.8.2 - max clock 1741 - 8171, GS 8042 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21762526

Time Spy - stock clock, +50%, HBM 1000
17.8.1 - max clock 1750 - 8037, GS 7888 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21741734
17.8.2 - max clock 1741 - 8043, GS 7902 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21762230

Firestrike Extreme - stock clock, +50%, HBM 1075
17.8.1 - max clock 1750 - 11071, GS 12026, https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21741925
17.8.2 - max clock 1734 - 11083, GS 12074, https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21762466
 

TNA

TNA

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Well guys, Vega64 is now under water with my EK goodies. Spent the day today taking the old loop apart, draining etc. Redid all the PETG tubing, was only able to keep just the one pipe from the existing custom loop, but nice to put in new anyway. Been leak testing for about 5 hours downstairs, just brought it upstairs were I'm happy to say it all seems to be working excellent, temps are amazing :) :)

Took some pics of the PCB, Vega die, the waterblocks and some pics of the build for curiosity if anyone wants to know what it looks like under the hood, and the almost finished article. Just need to put the back cover on the case, and do some small colour coding, but fairly happy with it. Was going to put all 6 Vardars in push/pull but think i'll only need 4. I've a spare one in the base of the case that I can always move to the rad to pull air through if I need more cooling. At 21c idle on desktop and 37c running benchmarks, I don't think it will be needed though.

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Very nice mate :)

How much performance improvement have you got and how much power does the card pull now?
 
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Yes. 17.8.2 behaves strangely. The card doesn't clock as high and doesn't sustain the clock but seems to score better in synthetic benchmarks. Could be that it wasn't reading correctly with the old drivers.

Here are some comparison benches I ran several days ago:

Time Spy - stock clock, +50%, HBM 1075
17.8.1 - max clock 1750 - 8137, GS 8017 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21741838
17.8.2 - max clock 1741 - 8171, GS 8042 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21762526

Time Spy - stock clock, +50%, HBM 1000
17.8.1 - max clock 1750 - 8037, GS 7888 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21741734
17.8.2 - max clock 1741 - 8043, GS 7902 - https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21762230

Firestrike Extreme - stock clock, +50%, HBM 1075
17.8.1 - max clock 1750 - 11071, GS 12026, https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21741925
17.8.2 - max clock 1734 - 11083, GS 12074, https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21762466

Thanks for that. Yes, I too have seen a slight improvement in Time Spy scores between the 3 available drivers available so far so it's fair to point out that I don't seem to be actually losing any actual performance but the fact that it's no longer boosting to 1750 is niggling at me a bit - why is it no longer boosting and am I losing potential performance? It also felt quite satisfying when I was under the impression my card was capable of overclocking to 1.9 GHz but now I can't get a stable 1.8. I guess it we'll find out over the coming months after a few more drivers updates what these cards are truly capable of...
 
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this is what I was saying the other day. I don't believe the older drivers, even 17.8.1 recorded accurate clock speeds, so the guys that were saying they got 1980mhz, 1850mhz, 1800mhz+ etc might not have been there. It's interesting seeing LTmatt post up his gameplay videos, he's still using 17.8.1 drivers in those so there must be a reason he's not jumped to 17.8.2 when they are meant to be much better....ie voltage and clocks apply correctly and various performance increases. I think we all got fooled in the early days, and we still might be to a certain degree. I was easily running 1749/1050 with 1020mv on previous drivers, yet I can't get near that on 17.8.2 unless I throw 1100mv at the core.

Very nice mate :)

How much performance improvement have you got and how much power does the card pull now?

Thanks TNA. Got a nice bump in perf at half the temps, no throttling etc. I'm not one for maths and figures, no idea as a percentage, but graphics scores went from 22k Firestrike to just a few points off 25k and 7200 to 7600 in Timespy.

Ill put the power meter plug in later and have a goosey, just been enjoying gaming again after the build and wanted to have some fun.
 
Soldato
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this is what I was saying the other day. I don't believe the older drivers, even 17.8.1 recorded accurate clock speeds, so the guys that were saying they got 1980mhz, 1850mhz, 1800mhz+ etc might not have been there. It's interesting seeing LTmatt post up his gameplay videos, he's still using 17.8.1 drivers in those so there must be a reason he's not jumped to 17.8.2 when they are meant to be much better....ie voltage and clocks apply correctly and various performance increases. I think we all got fooled in the early days, and we still might be to a certain degree. I was easily running 1749/1050 with 1020mv on previous drivers, yet I can't get near that on 17.8.2 unless I throw 1100mv at the core.



Thanks TNA. Got a nice bump in perf at half the temps, no throttling etc. I'm not one for maths and figures, no idea as a percentage, but graphics scores went from 22k Firestrike to just a few points off 25k and 7200 to 7600 in Timespy.

Ill put the power meter plug in later and have a goosey, just been enjoying gaming again after the build and wanted to have some fun.
I haven't touched the voltage on mine although the default voltage on my AOI is 1150 and 1200 on states 6 & 7. I haven't heard of anyone going past this level, have you? I know those with the stock blowers need to try and undervolt to keep the temps down and for those like yourself with a custom loop can go up the way but my understanding was with an AOI card there was no real need/benefit of tweaking voltages?

Would be good to get AMD Matt's thoughts on all this with the latest drivers as you say...
 
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I haven't touched the voltage on mine although the default voltage on my AOI is 1150 and 1200 on states 6 & 7. I haven't heard of anyone going past this level, have you? I know those with the stock blowers need to try and undervolt to keep the temps down and for those like yourself with a custom loop can go up the way but my understanding was with an AOI card there was no real need/benefit of tweaking voltages?

Would be good to get AMD Matt's thoughts on all this with the latest drivers as you say...

Blimey, no way. I'm not going any higher than that, I'm at 1100mv for 1700mhz and happy right there, and bump it to 1150mv for 1750mhz. I'm still not sure on things reporting correctly. especially the voltage. When I set 1100mv in Wattman, hwInfo64 shows it fluctuation way lower, like 1.050 so for some reason either the reported voltage is wrong or the delivery of voltage isn't accurate yet, its a bit all over the place the voltage reading.

 
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If it peaks every so often when card come of load/low usage it may normal PowerTune/Load Line swing.

Does MSI AB show GPU VCORE in graph? why I ask is the HML Log then is easy to share for another to view as graph.

On Hawaii/Fiji GPU-Z render test was the only test case that gives nice flat GPU VCORE for me. Both gens of cards also for differing apps gave differing GPU VCORE, even if card in same DPM state/clocks.
 
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Thanks for that. Yes, I too have seen a slight improvement in Time Spy scores between the 3 available drivers available so far so it's fair to point out that I don't seem to be actually losing any actual performance but the fact that it's no longer boosting to 1750 is niggling at me a bit - why is it no longer boosting and am I losing potential performance? It also felt quite satisfying when I was under the impression my card was capable of overclocking to 1.9 GHz but now I can't get a stable 1.8. I guess it we'll find out over the coming months after a few more drivers updates what these cards are truly capable of...

The clock management is much more complex now, those previous clocks were rubbish!
 
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Yeah I had gathered that. I still can't understand why I'm no longer boosting up to 1750 in turbo mode when there is no evidence of throttling though...
Schneed answered this. He's saying he believes the clocks you saw on other drivers were incorrect. IMO the clocks are irrelevant. Use performance metrics to compare. Why doesn't it matter if the clock is slower if the card performs better?
 
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QqlAGml.jpg
Apologies, I forgot to put my name in the pic because I snapped it quick for a reddit post lol
Had this actually day 1 but been away, the DK04X from Lian Li, the mouse and the mousemat are new too ;)
Sexy? Even sexier when I watercool it!
 
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The clock management is much more complex now, those previous clocks were rubbish!

It's a placebo effect, it makes people feel better when they see 1750 clocks when in reality it's around 1650. When I first saw my clocks were not as high as with 17.8.1 my first reaction was these drivers a crap. Though logically I decided to test performance and I got similar or even better than previous drivers.
 
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Schneed answered this. He's saying he believes the clocks you saw on other drivers were incorrect. IMO the clocks are irrelevant. Use performance metrics to compare. Why doesn't it matter of the clock is slower if the card performs better?
No he didn't fully I don't think. Yes I know it seems the clocks reported in earlier drivers were incorrect and I accept this was likely the case for custom clocks applied over the stock profiles but the AOI cards have a default clock of 1750 when using the stock turbo profile, I don't believe that this was being reported that incorrectly in the previous drivers so do not understand why I am no longer being boosted to the default 1750 clock speed. Of course actual performance trumps clock speeds but we're all enthusiasts here and we enjoy experimenting and seeing what we can push from our cards - it's all about the numbers in that respect so of course, in that context, the reported clock speeds matter quite a bit.
 
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