Vega Thread

[SteelCrysis]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-...28-11.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-...28-12.html

Unless the sensors are lying to us, the GPU’s maximum temperature is 84°C (85°C peak), while the HBM2 gets up to 95°C (96°C peak). That latter figure seems fairly high, but it does end up close to the ceiling for GDDR5X. We'll keep an eye on both temperatures as we get our hands on Radeon RX Vega 64; it's important to ensure the sensor data is 100% accurate.

What jumps out to us is that the board just below the GPU reads ~5°C cooler than the inside of Vega 10! The obvious question is why, and we already gave the answer earlier in our review. The Radeon Vega FE’s GPU and HBM2 sit on an interposer attached to a package substrate positioned on top of the PCB. Furthermore, the interposer doesn’t seem to make full contact with this substrate, causing a so-called underfill issue. Air between the layers acts almost like insulation.
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Let’s not beat around the bush: this is the best reference cooler we've seen from AMD since its Radeon HD 2900. A much-improved radial fan supplied by Delta allows the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition to compete on even footing with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. According to our measurements, the card’s maximum noise level is 44 dB(A), which almost completely drowns out the coil whine present at very high frame rates. Our video demonstrates this well, especially towards the end:

The frequency analysis doesn’t reveal any low-frequency growling that would be a sign of bad bearings or cheap motors. Meanwhile, the coil whine can be spotted around 8 kHz on the following graph:

Most of the noise is generated by the fan, but it's certainly acceptable. An Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, with its ~250W of waste heat, isn’t significantly quieter, even though it's a lower-power card. If you push the 1080 Ti to a more comparable 270W by increasing its power target, noise rises to the same level as AMD's Radeon Vega FE.

This particular competition ends in a draw, with both manufacturers probably hitting the physical limits of what can be achieved. Moving to more expensive cooling solutions would only yield diminishing returns.
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It’s hard to reach a conclusion. We just can’t speak to what might or might not be right around the corner. Either way, a fast workstation graphics card that can also be used for gaming does have a certain charm. The Radeon Vega FE’s price point helps a lot as well. We wouldn’t recommend it for the well-off gamer, but those who find themselves in the prosumer space may want to consider it as an alternative to pricier pro boards.

If your workstation-class application works well with AMD's Radeon Vega FE, then this card becomes a steal for the performance you get. That's full driver support in high-end titles for a fraction of the competition's asking price.