Back in May AMD teased new graphic cards meant to challenge NVIDIA’s stranglehold on the high-end PC graphics market. The AMD Vega series mirrors NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 and 1070. We finally have some release details on the Vega series, and it seems AMD is coming out swinging.
Both AMD Vega cards will be released on August 14th. The Radeon RX Vega 64 for $499 and the Radeon RX Vega 56 for $399. These prices match up with the NVIDIA line, although due to crypto-mining those prices have fluctuated on an almost daily basis.
RX Vega 64
The RX Vega 64’s specs include a base clock of 1,247MHz and boost clock of 1,547MHz, with 8GB of HBM2 memory. The HBM2 memory is a new GPU memory technology that spots 484GB of bandwidth. This may sound like a lot of techno-babble to some people but with all of this power it technically means it could easily push a 5K display via a single cable. Yes, a 5K display!
With all the bells and whistles you can guarantee the power consumption will be high. The RX Vega 64 needs 295W of power, which is significant compared to the 180W required for the GTX 1080. AMD seems to be trusting that with higher resolution monitors, and more graphically challenging games will justify the higher power consumption.
RX Vega 56
The AMD Vega 56 runs similarly to the GTX 1070, which is slight step down of performance for $100 less. It features 8GB of memory but has a slower clock speed of 1,471MHz.
AMD Vega is an admittedly impressive return for the company into high end graphic cards. For gamers, competition is always good as it drives better technology. With plenty of time before the end of the year it will be interesting to see how NVIDIA responds, whether it is updated specs to their GTX line, or a new GPU altogether.
Are you planning on switching from NVIDIA to AMD? Let us know in the comments below, or if you are sticking with NVIDIA, let us know why.
