The AMD vs Nvidia GPU battle is one of the longest standing PC gaming debates. For years, Nvidia has generally stood proudly in front in terms of performance to price ratio. However, in mid-2017, AMD released the RX 580, a new GPU that put up more than a fair fight against the GTX 1060 6GB, and even won according to some. We have been aware of AMD working on some top end GPUs behind the scenes for some months now, and at CES 2019, they’re ready to present to the world. The new Radeon VII – or Radeon 7 – aims to directly compete with Nvidia’s RTX 2080, and on paper, it just might.
The Radeon VII is not only high in performance to price ratio. At $799 (around €690) this card makes way for a new architecture of GPU – the 7nm graphics chips. These chips boast a performance increase between 25%-40% over the previous generation RX Vega 64 GPU. This makes the second-gen Vega architecture, again, on paper, capable of running AAA titles at ultra settings, 4K resolution, and at a more than comfortable framerate.
Features
A key feature of this new GPU is its massive dedication to memory. It boasts 16GB of HBM2 video memory. This is unrivalled, even by Nvidia’s RTX 2080 TI, which caps at 11GB of GDDR6 memory. The card also benches a 1TB per second bandwidth, beating out the 616GB per second of the 2080 TI. In a live demonstration of the upcoming title, Devil May Cry 5, the Radeon VII broke 100 fps at ultra settings and 4k resolution. Featured below are some head-to-heads of the RTX 2080 and the Radeon VII.
Another fact of relevance to the Radeon VII is its power consumption. Although there is an incredible increase in performance, AMD claims to have kept the power usage in the same range as their previous GPUs. This is impressive, given that the Vega cores on this card can run up to 1800MHz, 300MHz faster than the Vega 64. It is also worth noting that this new architecture is not the much anticipated Navi architecture that many gamers have been waiting for. Although the Navi architecture was mentioned during AMD’s showcase, we may not see it for a while yet.
Release
The AMD Radeon VII is set for release on February 7th 2019 in the US. Worldwide release is not yet confirmed, but shouldn’t take long to follow. Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2 and The Division 2 all come with your purchase. This, again, clashes head to head with Nvidia’s promise of Anthem and Battlefield V with an RTX 2080 purchase. Really, the detail that’s gone into this card is phenomenal. Even the name, the Radeon VII is a pun. VII implies the number 7, for this card is the first 7nm graphics chip gaming card. VII also implies Vega 2 (V-II), as this is the follow on from the previous debut generation of Vega architecture. We will keep our eyes and ears open for what AMD has up their sleeves for the rest CES 2019.
