The wait is over. The rumors are behind us. After following a rigid advertising strategy (which was frustrating on several occasions), AMD introduced the three members of the new Radeon RX Vega series of graphics cards. With the adoption of HBM2 memory and a 2,048-bit bus, Sunnyvale's plan is to begin its assault on the high-end market, completely dominated by Nvidia right now…
While its processor division goes through a very positive stage, AMD's graphics card section has some details to resolve. Although the economic aspect remains firm thanks to the new Ether fever and the shortage of models in the market, we can't deny that gamers feel somewhat irritated by all this situation. The result is a greater number of computers assembled with Ryzen processors... and some variant of the GeForce 10 series that Nvidia offers. The 1050-1050Ti-1060-1070-1080-1080Ti sextet is extremely popular, and that shouldn't change in the short term, unless AMD's new offering meets the most critical expectation, which is a good price-performance balance.
The three Radeon RX Vega models
That is the great goal of the new Radeon RX Vega. After what was a fairly modest "soft launch" for the Frontier Edition, now we find the Radeon RX Vega 56, the Radeon RX Vega 64, and the Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid. The three models present a 2,048-bit bus, 8 GB of HBM2 memory, and 12.5 billion transistors. The Vega 56 brings 3,585 stream processors, 224 texture units, a 1,156 MHz base frequency, and a 1,471 MHz Boost mode. The only differences between the Vega 64 and its liquid-cooled variant manifest through their frequencies and the TDP. The standard version comes configured at 1,247-1,546 MHz, while Liquid pushes those numbers to 1,406-1,677 MHz. The number of stream processors is identical (4,096), as are the texture units (256). The TDPs of these three cards are not very friendly, let's say: in the case of the RX Vega 56 it rises to 210 watts, and the two RX Vega 64 variants reach 295 and 345 watts respectively.
Price, release date and bundles
I'm afraid there are still no benchmarks available, and everything seems to indicate that the specialized press will have to wait until the launch date is a bit closer, which, by the way, is next August 14. As for the pricing scheme... I can safely say that AMD complicated our lives. If you want an RX Vega 56 or a standard RX Vega 64, that's easy: they cost 399 and 499 dollars. Now, if the plan is to get the liquid-cooled version, the user is forced to buy it in a "bundle" that delivers two games, and discounts for a Ryzen 7 processor, a motherboard, and a Samsung monitor compatible with FreeSync. Cutting to the chase, the Vega 64 with watercooling is worth 699 dollars. Why does AMD follow this path? There are two hypotheses: The first suggests that Sunnyvale wants to offer the Ryzen-Vega-FreeSync combo as a complete experience, and what it seeks is to facilitate access. The second is that the "bundles" serve as an obstacle for miners. We'll know after the 14th, but with those TDPs, Vega might not be a good option in Ethereum.
