At first, we would like to thank AMD for sending out the ASUS ROG Strix RX Vega 64 OC Edition 8GB Video Card in order to check out its performance and features.

 

 

About AMD:

 

“Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, United States, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While initially it manufactured its own processors, the company became fabless after GlobalFoundries was spun off in 2009. AMD's main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers, workstations and personal computers, and embedded systems applications.

 

AMD is the second-largest supplier and only significant rival to Intel in the market for x86-based microprocessors. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have dominated the discrete Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) market.”

 

Test Setup

 

CPU: Intel I5 4690K Retail @ 4.6GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX

Motherboard: BIOSTAR Z97X Gaming

RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 4x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)

Video: Currently reviewed card

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB + OCZ Vertex 460

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

With the help of the GPU-Z utility, we could extract lots of information regarding the video card clocks,memory type, pixel and texture fill rate and so on:

 

 

To receive more in-depth information regarding the GPU, we have used the AIDA64 utility:

 

 

 

 

Temperature tests:

For finding out the temperatures in both IDLE and Full Load with the fan set on Auto, we left the computer IDLE for about 25 minutes and then started monitoring with HWINFO64 and logged the values obtained while running Heaven 4.0 at the 4K resolution for an additional 11 minutes, with details at Maximum and Tesselation set to Extreme. During this time, the ambient temperature was held steady at 25.6 degrees Celsius:

 

 

 

Noise measurements

Before measuring out the noise the video card was producing, we have first measured the noise inside the room the tests took place and we found out it was 28.8 dBA (with everything turned off).

At all times, the sound meter was placed 20cm near the video card.

The GPU fan was controlled by the latest version of the ASUS ROG GPU Tweak II utility:

 

 

 

GPU Tweak II

 

ASUS is allowing tweakers to access the hardware parameters via the GPU Tweak II utility; the software presents itself with a skinned GUI and three preset profiles: OC Mode, Gaming Mode, Silent mode:

 

 

 

By pressing the Monitor button from the bottom left corner, we do have access to the live monitoring graphs:

 

 

My Profile is the place to go in order to fine-tune the RX Vega 64 Strix performance:

 

 

 

The software does also integrate a GPU-Z module, for taking a look at the current hardware information; here we will be also able to access Live Update, so the software will check for the latest versions of the utilities that we use:

 

 

 

Other software are available for download and access via the Tools tab:

 

-XSplit Gamecaster for streaming purposes

-ASUS Aura for customizing the LED lighting system on the board

-ROG Furmark for stability testing after overclocking

 

 

 

The Professional mode is the way to go for in-depth parameter modification:

 

-GPU Clock

-GPU Voltage

-Memory Clock

-Memory Voltage

-Fan Speed

-Power Target

-GPU Temp Target

 

 

 

 

ASUS Aura

 

With the help of Aura software, we can customize the LED lighting system from our RX Vega 64 Strix; we do have a variety of preset effects we can choose from:

 

-Static (we can choose the desired color)

-Breathing (was set by default, we can also choose the desired color)

-Strobing (we can choose the color of our choice)

-Color Cycle

 

 

 

Besides the mentioned standard effects, can also choose to enable the so-called “Special Effects”, one which enables the lighting depending on the rhythm of the music, but we can also set the lighting to adapt depending on the GPU temperature (the most useful, in our book):

 

 

 

3DMark 11

 

3DMark 11 is a DirectX 11 video card benchmark test for measuring your PC's gaming performance. 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of DirectX 11 features including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 consistently and reliably tests your PC's DirectX 11 performance under game-like loads.

 

 

3DMark 2013

 

3DMark includes everything you need to benchmark your hardware in one app. Whether you're gaming on a smart phone, tablet, notebook, laptop, desktop, or a high performance gaming PC, 3DMark includes a benchmark designed specifically for your type of device. And it's not just for Windows. You can compare your scores with Android and iOS devices too. It's the best 3DMark we've ever created.

 

 

Unigine Heaven 4.0

 

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

 

 

Hitman Absolution

 

Hitman: Absolution is a stealth video game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix. It is the fifth installment in the Hitman game series, and runs on IO Interactive's proprietary Glacier 2 game engine.

 

 

DIRT: Rally

 

Dirt Rally is a racing video game developed and published by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows. An early access version of the game was released on 27 April 2015, via digital distribution service Steam.

 

 

Sleeping Dogs

 

Sleeping Dogs is a 2012 open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games and Square Enix London. It was published by Square Enix and Bandai Namco Games for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

 

 

Tomb Raider

 

Tomb Raider is a media franchise that began as a video game series and includes comic books, novels, theme park rides, and movies, centering around the adventures of the British archaeologist Lara Croft.

 

 

Sniper Elite III

 

Sniper Elite III is a tactical shooter video game developed by Rebellion Developments and published by 505 Games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

 

 

Metro Last Light

 

Metro: Last Light is a single-player post-apocalyptic-themed first-person shooter video game with stealth and survival horror elements, developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver.

 

 

Bioshock Infinite

 

BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games.

 

 

Crysis 2

 

Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek, published by Electronic Arts and released in North America, Australia and Europe in March 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

 

 

Batman Arhkam Origins

 

Batman: Arkham Origins is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal and released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 video game consoles.

 

 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an open world action-adventure video game set within Tolkien's legendarium, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

 

 

Alien: Isolation

 

Alien: Isolation is a first-person survival horror stealth video game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega.

 

 

GRID Autosport

 

Grid Autosport is a racing video game released by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 24 June 2014 in North America and 27 June 2014 in Europe.

 

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider

 

Rise of the Tomb Raider was officially announced in June 2014. The game's storyline follows Lara Croft as she ventures into Siberia in search of the legendary city of Kitezh, whilst battling a paramilitary organization that intends on beating her to the city's promise of immortality. Presented from a third-person perspective, the game primarily focuses on survival and combat, while the player may also explore its landscape and various optional tombs.

 

 

 

Hitman

 

Hitman is an episodic action-adventure stealth video game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is the sixth entry in the Hitman series. While the game's prologue acts as a prequel to the series, the main game takes place 7 years after the events of Hitman: Absolution.

 

 

 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing stealth video game developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. Set two years after Human Revolution, Mankind Divided features the return of Adam Jensen from the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with new technology and body augmentations.

 

 

 

Gears of War 4

 

Gears of War 4 is a third-person shooter video game developed by The Coalition and published by Microsoft Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. It is the fourth main installment in the Gears of War series, and the first entry not to be developed by Epic Games.

 

 

 

The Division

 

Tom Clancy’s The Division is an online action-RPG set in an immersive & realistic urban open world.

 

Everything starts on Black Friday, when a devastating pandemic sweeps through New York City, and society starts to collapse into chaos. You are humanity’s last hope: a member of The Division, a unit of sleeper agents activated to save what remains.

 

 

3DMark: Time Spy

 

Time Spy is a new DirectX 12 benchmark test, coming soon to all Windows editions of 3DMark. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support new features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is an ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.

 

Developed with input from AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the other members of the Futuremark Benchmark Development Program, Time Spy shows the exciting potential of low-level, low-overhead APIs like DirectX 12.

 

 

 

Unigine Superposition

 

Superposition Benchmark continues the line of GPU benchmarks by UNIGINE used by tens of millions people around the world. Superposition is a new-generation benchmark tailored for testing reliability and performance of the latest GPUs. Top-notch visuals, support for VR-devices and an interactive mode with mini-games — the list of features built into Superposition could go on and on.

 

 

 

 

 

When taking into account overclocking for the Vega cards, you must keep in mind that there is a power limit set (220W limit for the Balanced WattMan profile), but also a temperature limit. When either of these are reached, the frequency set in GPU Tweak II utility will be automatically lowered and will keep modifying on-the-fly depending on the benchmarks or games we do run. We did really like the Unigine Superposition benchmark in particular, because of its ability to show the live GPU/memory frequency but also the GPU temperature. With this utility, we have also seen the highest top clocks and with the default (Balanced) Wattman profile we have succeeded to obtain a 14441 score while running with the 1080P Medium preset.

Increasing the stock clock while using the default 1200mV for the core seemed to hit the power wall so the direction we have chosen to go was to decrease the core voltage to 1100mV (the minimum value allowed by GPU Tweak II). Besides the fact that the card has proven fully stable at the new voltage, we could also increase the GPU clock from 1630 to 1650MHz; for this particular setup, we have got a score of 14638:

 

 

 

The next experiment was to leave the stock clock, but also decrease the GPU voltage at 1100mV and at the same time set the fan speed to maximum; with this setting, we have seen the highest Boost jump (1553Mhz) and we have got a maximum score of 14942 in Unigine Superposition. The downside is clear -> leaving the card at maximum RPM is not the way to go because of the high noise levels:

 

 

 

The third experiment was to leave the stock frequency as-is, the stock voltage at 1100mV for the GPU, but at the same time increase the memory clock from 1900Mhz to 2100Mhz; with the increased memory clock, we did not experience instability in games or Unigine Superposition and the score has been raised to 14773:

 

 

 

RX Vega 64 is able to offer near GTX 1080 performance in most DirectX 11 titles, but performs exceptionally in newer, DirectX 12 games where it is able to exceed the performance levels of the Nvidia card. The Strix version coming from ASUS does feature a factory overclock, but the speed it will actually run at really depends on multiple factors such as power limits (for the GPU, HBM2 memory) but also temperature. When trying to overclock the card, we could not increase the clock much further, which is telling us that the Strix is pretty much running already at max capacity.

 

With this particular card, we have found an interesting fact: by dropping the stock GPU Vcore, we managed to obtain higher running frequencies (more near the set clock), mainly due to the decreased power consumption. This fact is to be taken into account, because the card will also function at lower temperatures by performing this small modification.

 

ASUS does implement 0dB fan mode with this card, meaning that while running office apps or watching movies, the card will be practically inaudible (fans will start only after the GPU does reach 55 degrees Celsius). If we will, however step on Vega 64’s tail by running games at high resolutions with maxed-out details, the fans will ramp-up and in some cases they will become audible. AMD has worked quite a bit to optimize power consumption while running games, so we can take advantage from features such as Radeon Chill, WattMan Power Saver profile and so on.

 

The RX Vega 64 Strix card is a strong competitor on the market for 1440p display owners and a must-have for the ones that already own a FreeSync/FreeSync 2 display due to the added features.

 

The Strix card does come with dual HDMI ports for VR friendliness and we could also remind of the IP5X dust resistance for the used fans.

 

The card, as reviewed is now available online for about 763 Euros; we do expect it to drop further due to more stock and the mining phenomenon slowly wearing out.

ASUS ROG Strix RX Vega 64 OC Edition 8GB Video Card is Recommended for:

 

 

 

We would like to thank AMD for making this review possible!