The Radeon VII is AMD's latest GPU offer aimed at gamers, only what you may not realize is that Radeon 7 is based on an existing compute product that's been re-purposed for gaming and content creation. Based on the Radeon Instinct MI50, the Radeon Seven is essentially only gimped Vega xx silicon, though it'southward not gimped in a way that's meaningful to gamers.

So what's been modified so? Double-precision floating-indicate (FP64) has been disabled, reducing performance from 6.7 TFLOPS down to just 1.7 TFLOPS, but this has no impact on gaming. AMD has also disabled PCIe 4.0, limiting the Radeon 7 to the more unremarkably used PCIe 3.0 interface, which is not an issue either.

When Radeon 7 was announced at CES a month agone, it wasn't met with a lot of fanfare. Everyone was hoping for AMD'due south new GPU architecture Navi. So a repurposed compute production wasn't exactly what anybody was clambering up the walls for, and certainly non for $700.

Aye, this is a new 7nm graphics bill of fare, just it'south based on 5th-gen GCN architecture, the same used by Vega 56 and Vega 64. The move from GlobalFoundries' 14nm process to TSMC's 7nm FinFET process has immune AMD to shrink the die size past 32% while also packing in 6% more transistors. Technically Radeon Vii should be called Vega threescore or something like given the specs. What we have hither is sixty compute units for a total of 3840 stream processors, or six% fewer cores than Vega 64 fifty-fifty though you can expect it to exist faster.

The cores are clocked at least 13% higher and we take some serious memory upgrades and I'one thousand not just talking nearly the insanely unnecessary (at least for gaming) 16GB VRAM chapters. In add-on to having as much memory as your entire system, the Radeon VII also gets a massive 4096-scrap wide memory omnibus, assuasive for an insane 1TB/southward memory bandwidth, double that of Vega 64.

CEO Lisa Su has stated that the Radeon 7 performs competitively with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 and as such will be available at the same $700 asking price. It's believed AMD'southward not turning a profit on these things, even at this toll, so we approximate we're non going to run into them on sale anytime presently.

Our test organization for this review was comprised of an Intel Core i9-9900K clocked at 5 GHz with 32GB of DDR4-3400 retentivity. While testing the Radeon Seven, nosotros ran into numerous stability issues with the early on drivers supplied by AMD and as we pieced this content together, a ready had however to be issued.

Instead of testing 30+ games we're sticking with a dozen titles that accurately stand for how the Radeon VII performs beyond a wide range of titles. Once a stable commuter has been provided a mega benchmark session will follow with 2 or 3 dozen games tested.

Benchmarks

Start up we have Fortnite and I have to say this is not a skilful start for Radeon VII as it trails the RTX 2080 by 20%. Thankfully, this isn't the norm as you're about to come across. Merely we do have a good mix of games that I believe paints a pretty accurate moving-picture show of the overall performance.

Fortnite is certainly a worst case scenario as the new Radeon GPU was but able to lucifer the RTX 2070, and it was only 22% faster than Vega 64. It's also a far cry from the now 2 year erstwhile GTX 1080 Ti.

That's a chip brutal then let's motility onto some far more promising results.

Battlefield V looks much better. The Radeon VII slayed in BF5 using the DirectX 11 API, pumping out an impressive 122 fps on boilerplate. The 1% low operation was a little lower than expected but nosotros do see a similar thing with Vega 64 and 56. When compared to Vega 64 we do run across a 31% boost to the average frame rate so that's quite nice.

Here nosotros have some other championship where the Radeon Seven is unable to keep up. I hateful, 156 fps in Globe of Tanks is ample performance… only it also meant the new Radeon GPU was 17% slower than the RTX 2080 and merely slightly faster than the RTX 2070. So a poor result overall, though Vega never did well in this title then the result isn't entirely surprising. Vega 64 just but beats the GTX 1070 after all.

A title where the Radeon GPUs shred is Strange Brigade, though similar Battlefield V nosotros exercise see slightly weaker than expected one% low performance. It's not horrible and in that location was no sign of stuttering only the one% lows are still low relative to the GeForce GPUs. Still when comparing the average frame rate the Radeon VII was 10% faster than the RTX 2080.

Are y'all starting to find what we've done here…?

We're giving y'all bad news followed by some skillful news, just trying to let you lot guys down gently is all, I really do care. That said it's time for some bad news, Monster Hunter: Globe sees the Radeon Vii fall well behind the RTX 2080, here it's 16% slower and just 7% faster than the RTX 2070, and then allow'south move along.

The Radeon VII's back on track for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Though if you were expecting or at to the lowest degree hoping for an RTX 2080-killer then these results won't exactly send tingles through your spine. It'south a few frames faster on average while a few frames downward for the one% low outcome, and then basically information technology's on par with the RTX 2080 in one of 2022's best looking titles.

Nvidia Turing architecture is well suited to Rainbow Six Siege and where the Radeon GPUs once enjoyed a strong performance advantage in this title, that'south no more. Here the Radeon Seven struggled to continue pace with the RTX 2080 and in fact was just a whisker ahead of the RTX 2070.

Far Cry v is a well optimized title and it also happens to be sponsored by AMD. I would say this is a fairly fifty-fifty playing field and as such the Radeon 7 and GeForce RTX 2080 are basically neck and neck.

Forza Horizon 4 is some other well optimized title and while Vega gives the Pascal based GeForce 10 series GPUs a pounding, the new RTX models don't suffer from the same weakness and the RTX 2080 was only able to outpace the new Radeon VII.

Resident Evil 2 is still another well optimized title that scales well beyond a wide range of hardware. Here the RTX 2080 and Radeon VII are very evenly matched along with the 2 year former GTX 1080 Ti, some other $700 function.

We seriously want to driblet ARMA 3 from the testing. I've put my human foot downwardly and deleted GTA Five and how I run across it ARMA 3'south days are as well numbered. It's basically a dual-core CPU benchmark, so it's going to skew the results somewhat due to the CPU bottleneck, but given some games are CPU limited it'due south not exactly unrealistic either.

The performance in Hitman is even between the GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2080 and Radeon 7, though this is a title that's somewhat CPU limited at 1440p.

Power Consumption

Nosotros all know AMD's at to the lowest degree a generation behind Nvidia when information technology comes to efficiency. The Radeon VII is slightly slower than the GTX 1080 Ti, and hither we encounter information technology consumes a whisker more than power that that GPU. Given we're comparison a two twelvemonth old production using TSMC's 16nm process to a brand new product using TSMC's 7nm procedure, that'due south pretty depressing.

Granted the GTX 1080 Ti is a purpose-congenital gaming graphics card, only at the end of the mean solar day gamers don't intendance about that. The RTX 2080 is 65% larger and packs roughly the same amount of transistors, yet reduced full arrangement consumption by 15%, for full organization consumption that's a significant number.

Moving on to operating temperatures, the temperatures alone are okay, comparable to that of the RTX 2080 Founders Edition. The upshot is the fan speed required to permit these temperatures...

It's worth mentioning that we replaced the Hitachi HM-03 carbon cobweb pads with Arctic's MX-four thermal paste after violent the card down in our unboxing a few days ago.

Out of the box with an ambience room temp of 21 degrees the Radeon Vii hit 74 degrees. However when we went back and re-tested using the thermal paste that temperature under the same atmospheric condition dropped to just 69 degrees and the fan speed went unchanged.

In other words, the Radeon VII is encarmine loud, fifty-fifty when running at just shy of 70 degrees. Every bit soon equally the card was placed nether any kind of load, the 3 fans spun up to a vacuum cleaner similar 2900 RPM. Information technology was at this indicate that I realized, yeah this is an AMD reference bill of fare, that makes sense. I mean the card looks cute, just boy is information technology difficult on the ears. Nvidia Founder Edition cards aren't exactly quiet, but the fans only spin at 2000 RPM and they are significantly quieter.

Performance Summary

Before we move on, please note we haven't tested with more than games on our day-ane review as nosotros're not fully confident in the drivers AMD'due south provided. As mentioned before, nosotros are finding them unstable and we've confirmed this with other boyfriend publications. The performance is accurate nonetheless, but earlier we go crazy on testing dozens of games, we rather wait for a more stable commuter.

AMD had hinted the Radeon VII is on par with the RTX 2080 and we guess that statement could be true if you lot reddish picked the games and settings to become them within a percent of 1 another. However across our fairly random option of games -- our whitman's sampler if you lot volition -- the Radeon Seven was 4% slower on average. That's withal fairly decent, continuing out only in Battlefield V and Strange Brigade.

Performance was similar in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5, Resident Evil two, Hitman 2 and ARMA 3. Then we saw the Radeon Vii fall behind in Forza Horizon four and and then well behind in Rainbow Half dozen Siege, Monster Hunter World, World of Tanks and Fortnite. Given the Radeon VII arrives at the aforementioned $700 MSRP as the RTX 2080, we'd say this is a disappointing result.

Moreover, if you were disappointed that the GeForce RTX 2080 was only slightly faster than the two year old GTX 1080 Ti, so you lot're no doubt disappointed that the Radeon Seven is slightly slower. Too, as we saw power consumption isn't improved. In fact, it'due south slightly worse, so I'm not sure what more we can say at this betoken...

At least the Radeon 7 is a full 31% faster than the RTX 2060. Yous just have to close your optics and ignore the fact that it costs 100% more. Or perchance relatively before long nosotros'll see Radeon VII selling on the street for something closer to $600 where it's better value and makes somewhat better sense.

Vega 64 comes at a $500 MSRP, making the Radeon Seven xl% more expensive merely it'southward only 23% faster. That's fifty-fifty worse than RTX boards. The only saving grace here is that AMD hasn't tried to sell us on a technology that won't deliver, while effectively scamming customers with a month long pre-order period… gotta look on the bright side guys.

Cost per Frame and Closing Thoughts

We're non even going to effort and carbohydrate glaze it -- not that we ever do -- I approximate I'm but getting over disappointing GPU releases. Looking at cost per frame data, naturally it'south worse value than the RTX 2080 and despite being faster than Vega 56 and 64, it's manner worse value.

Frankly nosotros would rather decline a few quality settings and enjoy the almost 25% comeback in value with Vega 56, or just get an RTX 2060 given information technology's slightly faster and slightly cheaper, then I'd simply smile as Radeon 7 owners tell me 6GB of VRAM isn't enough.

At this point you might be wondering where the overclocking performance is, but unfortunately we have naught for you correct now. AMD's WattMan is broken and information technology simply fabricated my already unstable card even more unstable. So this is something we'll have to revisit later on. Update: AMD released new Radeon VII drivers that accost all stability bug on release day one. Performance is the same, but at to the lowest degree anyone who bought this bill of fare should savour a flawless feel. We've updated our review score as a result.

In that location'due south also that massive 16GB frame buffer and insane 1TB/due south retentivity bandwidth which could be beneficial for content creators and other GPU accelerated applications.

Another issue for Radeon VII will be availability. The retailers we've spoken to take said availability's much worse than what nosotros saw with the RTX 2080 Ti upon release. So while nosotros suspect need for this new Radeon GPU will be low, production might be even lower. Every bit such we're not sure if or when we'll see custom AIB models. AMD has told the states AIBs are free to develop their own models, but nosotros suspect few will. We saw this happen with Vega, at that place just wasn't plenty volume and demand to warrant the investment from board partners.

It's worth mentioning that AMD is offering an bonny game bundle with free copies of the Resident Evil 2 remake, The Sectionalization 2, and Devil May Cry 5 shipping with every Radeon VII card. Though it's difficult to compare with other bundles since these change all the time, it'southward a adept one AMD is offer at launch.

Lesser line, Radeon VII looks to be nothing more than a stop gap to the now heavily delayed Navi. It'due south a way for AMD to stick their paw up one-half way and say we're still here guys, don't forget about united states of america. The only hope for the Radeon VII now is that product costs will come downwardly over the coming months and they can start to border down to $600. Information technology's a big ask, and even in that location it would become just slightly better value than Vega 64 and the RTX 2080.

This is not great news for gamers wanting good value on high-end GPUs. AMD also needs a phenomenon with Navi. A lot's riding on that one, merely given what they've achieved with Ryzen, we strongly believe annihilation is possible.

Shopping Shortcuts:
  • GeForce RTX 2060 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce RTX 2070 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce RTX 2080 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce RTX 2080 Ti on Amazon, Newegg
  • Radeon RX Vega 56 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Radeon RX Vega 64 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Radeon RX 570 on Amazon, Newegg
  • Radeon RX 580 on Amazon, Newegg

Pros: Faster Radeon graphics, yay! AMD fans get a faster GPU but you're going to take to pay for it and it's not better than the contest. Massive 16GB frame buffer and insane 1TB/s retentiveness bandwidth must be good for something.

Cons: Radeon Seven runs hot and loud. Value is worse than RTX cards, and you don't even get the benefit of the doubt of DLSS or ray tracing for the extra coin. Early drivers could mean more than performance downwards the line. If not, AMD volition have to cut pricing past at least $100.