Jump to content

We got the GPU AMD wouldn’t sell…

AMD’s Vega wasn’t the most powerful GPU in the world, but they had some plans for it that never saw the light of day. Now that we’ve got one of the axed cards, was it for the best?

 

 

Buy AMD Vega GPUs
On Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/8t9GPya
On Newegg (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/wn05
On B&H (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/AWqVGu

Emily @ LINUS MEDIA GROUP                                  

congratulations on breaking absolutely zero stereotypes - @cs_deathmatch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

 

I was half expecting you guys to finally review the $7000 Radeon SSG, how come you guys never messed with it? It was built for 8K video editing.

I edit my posts a lot, Twitter is @LordStreetguru just don't ask PC questions there mostly...
 

Spoiler

 

What is your budget/country for your new PC?

 

what monitor resolution/refresh rate?

 

What games or other software do you need to run?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Why does it have one of those Zalman flower coolers,didn't they go out of production?

Reminds me of 2010

A PC Enthusiast since 2011
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X@4.65GHz | GIGABYTE GTX 1660 GAMING OC @ Core 2085MHz Memory 5000MHz
Cinebench R23: 15669cb | Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme: 3566
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Why does it have one of those Zalman flower coolers,didn't they go out of production?

Reminds me of 2010

That's what makes it good ;)

PC: Motherboard: ASUS B550M TUF-Plus, CPU: Ryzen 3 3100, CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34, GPU: GIGABYTE WindForce GTX1650S, RAM: HyperX Fury RGB 2x8GB 3200 CL16, Case, CoolerMaster MB311L ARGB, Boot Drive: 250GB MX500, Game Drive: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD.

 

Peripherals: GK61 (Optical Gateron Red) with Mistel White/Orange keycaps, Logitech G102 (Purple), BitWit Ensemble Grey Deskpad. 

 

Audio: Logitech G432, Moondrop Starfield, Mic: Razer Siren Mini (White).

 

Phone: Pixel 3a (Purple-ish).

 

Build Log: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Damn, that's really cool. I wonder if they scrapped it because of cooling issues? gotta love that Inteltm cooler lel

 

"Intel stock coolers, good enough for AMD. Don't delay, buy today~"

average fl studio fan vs average cubase enjoyer

 

rubber dome apologist

 

if you are reading this you are contracted the gae

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Isn't this the prototype/test card for the Radeon Pro Vega 16 (and 20) used in the 2018/2019 Macbook Pro's?

Quick google search: Radeon Pro Vega 16 - 16 CU- 75w TDP, 815 MHz base clock, 1190 MHz boost clock and 4 GB HBM2 with 307,2 GB/s of bandwidth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, MkaiL said:

Isn't this the prototype/test card for the Radeon Pro Vega 16 (and 20) used in the 2018/2019 Macbook Pro's?

Quick google search: Radeon Pro Vega 16 - 16 CU- 75w TDP, 815 MHz base clock, 1190 MHz boost clock and 4 GB HBM2 with 307,2 GB/s of bandwidth.

a quick google search suggests so 

but this is the first one that is non soldered and runs on a desktop 

PC: Motherboard: ASUS B550M TUF-Plus, CPU: Ryzen 3 3100, CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34, GPU: GIGABYTE WindForce GTX1650S, RAM: HyperX Fury RGB 2x8GB 3200 CL16, Case, CoolerMaster MB311L ARGB, Boot Drive: 250GB MX500, Game Drive: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD.

 

Peripherals: GK61 (Optical Gateron Red) with Mistel White/Orange keycaps, Logitech G102 (Purple), BitWit Ensemble Grey Deskpad. 

 

Audio: Logitech G432, Moondrop Starfield, Mic: Razer Siren Mini (White).

 

Phone: Pixel 3a (Purple-ish).

 

Build Log: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

a quick google search suggests so 

but this is the first one that is non soldered and runs on a desktop 

Yes I get that, but they almost make it sound like this was a scrapped project (never saw the daylight) and don't mention that it was further developed and used by apple.

 

I wonder if this card would be recognized by a hackintosh and be able to get drivers for it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, MkaiL said:

I wonder if this card would be recognized by a hackintosh and be able to get drivers for it?

its firmware was vega 12 for both windows and linux if i recall correctly 

its probably a scarped idea as it only was a thing in laptops 

two different things 

PC: Motherboard: ASUS B550M TUF-Plus, CPU: Ryzen 3 3100, CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34, GPU: GIGABYTE WindForce GTX1650S, RAM: HyperX Fury RGB 2x8GB 3200 CL16, Case, CoolerMaster MB311L ARGB, Boot Drive: 250GB MX500, Game Drive: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD.

 

Peripherals: GK61 (Optical Gateron Red) with Mistel White/Orange keycaps, Logitech G102 (Purple), BitWit Ensemble Grey Deskpad. 

 

Audio: Logitech G432, Moondrop Starfield, Mic: Razer Siren Mini (White).

 

Phone: Pixel 3a (Purple-ish).

 

Build Log: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Where would someone even get a card like that? Do they just get is from some random eBay seller? Are they that random eBay seller? Would they just find it in an AMD research building's dumpster?

What is actually supposed to go here? Some people put their specs, others put random comments or remarks about themselves or others, and there are a few who put cryptic statements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Computernaut said:

Where would someone even get a card like that? Do they just get is from some random eBay seller? Are they that random eBay seller? Would they just find it in an AMD research building's dumpster?

" Well you can buy or sell... Pretty much everything on eBay " is a true statement

PC: Motherboard: ASUS B550M TUF-Plus, CPU: Ryzen 3 3100, CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34, GPU: GIGABYTE WindForce GTX1650S, RAM: HyperX Fury RGB 2x8GB 3200 CL16, Case, CoolerMaster MB311L ARGB, Boot Drive: 250GB MX500, Game Drive: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD.

 

Peripherals: GK61 (Optical Gateron Red) with Mistel White/Orange keycaps, Logitech G102 (Purple), BitWit Ensemble Grey Deskpad. 

 

Audio: Logitech G432, Moondrop Starfield, Mic: Razer Siren Mini (White).

 

Phone: Pixel 3a (Purple-ish).

 

Build Log: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

" Well you can buy or sell... Pretty much everything on eBay " is a true statement

The person who sells the thing has to get it from somewhere though, right?

What is actually supposed to go here? Some people put their specs, others put random comments or remarks about themselves or others, and there are a few who put cryptic statements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Computernaut said:

The person who sells the thing has to get it from somewhere though, right?

That detail isn't important ;)

PC: Motherboard: ASUS B550M TUF-Plus, CPU: Ryzen 3 3100, CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 34, GPU: GIGABYTE WindForce GTX1650S, RAM: HyperX Fury RGB 2x8GB 3200 CL16, Case, CoolerMaster MB311L ARGB, Boot Drive: 250GB MX500, Game Drive: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD.

 

Peripherals: GK61 (Optical Gateron Red) with Mistel White/Orange keycaps, Logitech G102 (Purple), BitWit Ensemble Grey Deskpad. 

 

Audio: Logitech G432, Moondrop Starfield, Mic: Razer Siren Mini (White).

 

Phone: Pixel 3a (Purple-ish).

 

Build Log: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

the quad displayports make me think a mac laptop or maybe at one point an early mac pro refresh

thunderbolt uses displayport and apple uses pairs of them to drive 5k screens.

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

NightHawk 3.0: R7 5700x @, B550A vision D, H105, 2x32gb Oloy 3600, Sapphire RX 6700XT  Nitro+, Corsair RM750X, 500 gb 850 evo, 2tb rocket and 5tb Toshiba x300, 2x 6TB WD Black W10 all in a 750D airflow.
GF PC: (nighthawk 2.0): R7 2700x, B450m vision D, 4x8gb Geli 2933, Strix GTX970, CX650M RGB, Obsidian 350D

Skunkworks: R5 3500U, 16gb, 500gb Adata XPG 6000 lite, Vega 8. HP probook G455R G6 Ubuntu 20. LTS

Condor (MC server): 6600K, z170m plus, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, samsung 750 evo, EVGA BR 450.

Spirt  (NAS) ASUS Z9PR-D12, 2x E5 2620V2, 8x4gb, 24 3tb HDD. F80 800gb cache, trueNAS, 2x12disk raid Z3 stripped

PSU Tier List      Motherboard Tier List     SSD Tier List     How to get PC parts cheap    HP probook 445R G6 review

 

"Stupidity is like trying to find a limit of a constant. You are never truly smart in something, just less stupid."

Camera Gear: X-S10, 16-80 F4, 60D, 24-105 F4, 50mm F1.4, Helios44-m, 2 Cos-11D lavs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Benji said:

@GDRRiley That seems to be a plausible scenario, to avoid Thunderbolt 3 licencing cost during development or something like that. Because that's apparently how Apple manages to drive 2 5K LG UltraFine displays off one single MacBook, simply by using some software trickery to use 2x DisplayPort signals over a single cable even though that's not supposed to work/off-spec.

it is a custom usb-c controller. thunderbolt already carries 2 displayport apple just does special stuff to make them work together to drive a single display so you could drive 2 4k monitors+data+power

Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between 9 to 3 PST

NightHawk 3.0: R7 5700x @, B550A vision D, H105, 2x32gb Oloy 3600, Sapphire RX 6700XT  Nitro+, Corsair RM750X, 500 gb 850 evo, 2tb rocket and 5tb Toshiba x300, 2x 6TB WD Black W10 all in a 750D airflow.
GF PC: (nighthawk 2.0): R7 2700x, B450m vision D, 4x8gb Geli 2933, Strix GTX970, CX650M RGB, Obsidian 350D

Skunkworks: R5 3500U, 16gb, 500gb Adata XPG 6000 lite, Vega 8. HP probook G455R G6 Ubuntu 20. LTS

Condor (MC server): 6600K, z170m plus, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, samsung 750 evo, EVGA BR 450.

Spirt  (NAS) ASUS Z9PR-D12, 2x E5 2620V2, 8x4gb, 24 3tb HDD. F80 800gb cache, trueNAS, 2x12disk raid Z3 stripped

PSU Tier List      Motherboard Tier List     SSD Tier List     How to get PC parts cheap    HP probook 445R G6 review

 

"Stupidity is like trying to find a limit of a constant. You are never truly smart in something, just less stupid."

Camera Gear: X-S10, 16-80 F4, 60D, 24-105 F4, 50mm F1.4, Helios44-m, 2 Cos-11D lavs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Vishera said:

Why does it have one of those Zalman flower coolers,didn't they go out of production?

Reminds me of 2010

Earlier than that even! :) Had one in 2004.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just like how Intel's Gen12 Xe-LP validation card is being used to develop and optimize drivers for Tiger Lake iGPUs, AMD likely did the same with the Vega 16 card you featured for Radeon Pro Vega 16 and 20 GPUs integrated into Apple MacBook Pros back in late-2018/early-2019.

 

According to TechPowerUp, both the Pro Vega 16 and 20 had 4GB if HBM2 video memory with the Pro Vega 16 (16 compute units) clocking at 1190Mhz and the Pro Vega 20 (20 compute units) clocking at 1243Mhz.

 

Performance wise, the Pro Vega 16 sits somewhere between an RX 550 and GTX 750TI while the Pro Vega 20 behaves in the ballpark of a RX 560 or GTX 1050.

 

More specifications and comparisons to Vega M GL/GH:

 

I would also like to believe that "Vega 12" has nothing to do with the number of compute units, but is instead the die model on which specific SKUs are based on and tailored into finalized products ~ kinda like the Ampere cards Nvidia is releasing this year based on GA100-GA102-GA104-GA106-GA108 and so forth.

 

In essence, it seems that the Pro Vega 16 and 20 are the "for Apple" counterparts of the Polaris-based Vega M GL and GH GPUs paired with Intel CPUs 2 years ago (hence maybe the sticker on the secondary cooling fan?).

 

And for those wondering what the Pro Vega 48 is, it was essentially a custom, more power-efficient RX 590 equivalent for Apple's 2019 refresh of the iMac Pro.

 

I hope this helped further demystify the Vega 16 validation card ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

You forgot the one important step to get this card working on Windows! I have a Vega M GL card, which doesn't support the "optional" drivers and wanted the CEMU async shaders on my laptop.

 

"I did find a bypass that will let me install the optional drivers on my card though.

 

I looked through the INF files of both drivers and noticed the March drivers have this line

AMD694E.1 = "Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics"
AMD694E.2 = "Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics"

(as well as some other lines relating to this)

whereas the April Driver is missing these lines. However, editing the INF files means that the security certificate becomes invalidated.

 

Currently the best bypass to install the unapproved "optional" drivers is to first start the installation of the "Optional" Drivers until you hit the error screen, then go to Device Manager>Display Adapters>Radeon RX Vega M GL>(right click)>Update Driver>Browse my computer...>Let me pick from a list...>Have Disk>Browse...

 

Then browse to This PC (left side)>Local Disk (C:)>AMD>Win10-Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-2020-Edition-20.4.2-Apr23>Packages>Drivers>Display>WT6A_INF>C0354308.inf

 

Then hit OK, then find "Radeon RX Vega". It will say "Installing this device driver is not recommended...", just hit yes. 

 

Now the GPU identifies as "Radeon RX Vega" instead of "Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics", but everything else seems to work fine. And now I have Vulkan 1.2 support."

 

Try this and I think you have about a 70% chance of getting it working on Windows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

i'm not sure if Apple have a generalised whitelist on AMD GPUs

Apple drivers even have entries for things they call `unkown vega` GPUs

 

AMDRadeonX5000GLDriver

image.thumb.png.16239ec04b4e2139e18d88b7d280e87d.png



What is even more interesting is how macOS's drivers for the Vega16 are internaly labeled as Vega12... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

oh wow this is actually confusing, now that you've mentioned it o_o

 

so is this a Vega 12 CU card, a Vega 16 CU card, or a GPU with a Vega 12 architecture with 20 CUs?

 

Just like Nvidia where the "full die" with space designed for a theoretical 8192 CUDA Cores is GA100 and all silicon dies designated under it in the same architecture (in this case Ampere) is a smaller derivative of it hence GA102/GA106/GA108/etc.

 

Same goes for Vega:

 

And RDNA 1.0 (Gen1 Navi):

 

And RDNA 2.0 (Gen2 Navi):

 

There also seems to a TechPowerUp forum thread with images of what the Vega 12 (16/20 CUs) validation cards look like under the cooling fans and heatsinks: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/vega-12-engineering-board-picures.256892/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

shouldn't have called it the Vega 64 and Vega 56 in the first place then

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited by Results45
Still better than Intel product names. At least it makes sense to both techies (Vega + variant #) AND consumers (Vega + # of CUs).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

The chip is called the Vega 12, and it has either 16 or 20CU's.

 

Factory boost clocks appear also to be in the 1100mhz range, which is probably why it crashed at 1300mhz.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×