Question about buying Vega

[BenR31415]

Hey guys, I'm looking at upgrading my GPU to a new Vega card, as I have a freesync monitor that I'd like to take advantage of and my 280X is on its last legs (not powerful enough, one fan dead, loud, hot etc).

My current build has an R7 1700, 32GB Ram, Crosshair VI hero, RM750i, rest in my bio.

My original plan was to wait for a Strix Vega 56 to come out (and not be a stupid price), however it is taking forever due to AMD's limited supply.

I was looking at some used listings, and I found some used Vega FE listings that I can most likely nab for not unreasonable prices (similar to that of a 64 I think). I have a couple of questions about going this route though:

I'm still at school, and am using the PC for gaming and occasionally very light CAD. When I study engineering in a couple of years time and need to run simulations etc, will I receive any benefit by going for a more workstasion-esque card?

Will I notice any degradation in my gaming experience compared to an RX card? All the benchmarks for FE are on quite early drivers

Is the noise level for the air cooled card horribly bad?

If I could get a liquid cooled variant for around $100 more, would it be worth the extra (also considering that it'll clash with my system)?

Thanks,

Ben

[Jurrunio]

Asus Strix Vega 56 is out, but probably not available in Australia yet. Dont get FE, they run a bit hot and loud and since they only have one fan, if that stops working you are in trouble.

 

For simulations, you should check whether apps favour Nvidia cards or not. It might not run properly with AMD's cards.

 

Currently Vega 56 is the best deal. Vega 64, no matter it's air cooled or liquid cooled, just doesnt perform that much better but do cost noticeable more.

[SquintyG33Rs]

CAD software doesn't take much power to run. when you get indepth into the simulations it's all CPU and i5 and equivalent is really what you "need". so no getting a specific pro GPU won't change jack.

 

for the rest of buying vega do what ever you feel is right. cause you're the one that's going to have to live with it and your wallet. it'll all be the same in the end

[Princess Luna]

Vega is shit being honest, a GTX 1070 Ti would be a much superior pick, don't mind freesync that much it really isn't that much of a big deal, just play games with nVidia FastSync and you're good.

[BenR31415]

9 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Asus Strix Vega 56 is out, but probably not available in Australia yet. Dont get FE, they run a bit hot and loud and since they only have one fan, if that stops working you are in trouble.

 

For simulations, you should check whether apps favour Nvidia cards or not. It might not run properly with AMD's cards.

 

Currently Vega 56 is the best deal. Vega 64, no matter it's air cooled or liquid cooled, just doesnt perform that much better but do cost noticeable more.

Ooh, did they release it already? I'm happy to import it, do you have a link?

The price landscape is a bit different here. A 64 here costs $100 more than the 56, and a liquid edition costs $300 more which is obviously a ripoff.

A 1070ti costs the same as the 64. At these prices, is the 64 really that much more bad of a deal than the 56? All the content I've seen assumes that it costs 50% more, whereas here it only costs around 15% more.

10 hours ago, SquintyG33Rs said:

snip

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind

9 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

Vega is shit being honest, a GTX 1070 Ti would be a much superior pick, don't mind freesync that much it really isn't that much of a big deal, just play games with nVidia FastSync and you're good.

Here the 1070 ti costs the same as the Vega 64, and the 56 is $100 cheaper. The impression that I got from most of the benchmarks was that the AMD cards are slightly faster than the 1070 ti. At these prices would you still go for a 1070 ti instead?

Also I'm unaware of FastSync, does it perform the same anti tearing functions? Will it add input lag similarly to V-Sync?

[Jurrunio]

54 minutes ago, BenR31415 said:

Ooh, did they release it already? I'm happy to import it, do you have a link?

The price landscape is a bit different here. A 64 here costs $100 more than the 56, and a liquid edition costs $300 more which is obviously a ripoff.

A 1070ti costs the same as the 64. At these prices, is the 64 really that much more bad of a deal than the 56? All the content I've seen assumes that it costs 50% more, whereas here it only costs around 15% more.

1

It's released to reviewers, but not available for sale yet. At least it's the first custom board of Vega to come out

What build will you fit the card into?

1070ti seems to be expensive at first, but when compared to the 1080 it's priced nicely. Just wait for some time till the market cools down a bit.

Ah, Vega 64 is about 15% faster than 56. Just like 56 though you cant buy any custom board cards yet

[BenR31415]

25 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

It's released to reviewers, but not available for sale yet. At least it's the first custom board of Vega to come out

What build will you fit the card into?

1070ti seems to be expensive at first, but when compared to the 1080 it's priced nicely. Just wait for some time till the market cools down a bit.

Ah, Vega 64 is about 15% faster than 56. Just like 56 though you cant buy any custom board cards yet

I wouldn't exactly say it's out yet then, but I see what you mean 

It'll be with an R7 1700 OC'd to 3.8-3.9, 32GB 3200MHZ, S340 Elite, RM750i.

 

The 1070ti here goes for $720 to $760, whereas the 1080 goes from $700 to $800. I hope the strix varients aren't too expensive, but who am I kidding we know that they will be, being the only custom card.

[Jon Jon]

On 11/10/2017 at 8:12 AM, Princess Cadence said:

Vega is shit being honest, a GTX 1070 Ti would be a much superior pick, don't mind freesync that much it really isn't that much of a big deal, just play games with nVidia FastSync and you're good.

It honestly really depresses me, as from a GPU perspective, it has made me lose faith in AMD.

 

It makes me feel so locked into freesync too, since I love my freesync monitor.

 

Thankfully, my monitor freesync range is 40Hz-70Hz, so it's really extended the life of my R9 380.

[Princess Luna]

6 minutes ago, Jon Jon said:

.

I'm fine with Ryzen, my brother has it and all we have nothing bad to speak of it, however truth be told the entire AMD Radeon line up is pretty much pointless to any one outside mining and a few very specific computing workloads, nVidia is still king...

 

About FreeSync I really don't feel it's needed at all... FastSync is here already, a lot of slower paced games can go on V-Sync triple buffered just fine too... I have tried G-Sync before and I still can't see all that appeal of it

[Jon Jon]

2 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

I'm fine with Ryzen, my brother has it and all we have nothing bad to speak of it, however truth be told the entire AMD Radeon line up is pretty much pointless to any one outside mining and a few very specific computing workloads, nVidia is still king...

 

About FreeSync I really don't feel it's needed at all... FastSync is here already, a lot of slower paced games can go on V-Sync triple buffered just fine too... I have tried G-Sync before and I still can't see all that appeal of it

I would need to see it for myself.

 

Sadly, the only place I could really see it is at Micro Center, but the ones by me don't cable up to these monitors right and some are locked down.

 

Honestly, I game at 2560x1080 @ 75hz. A GTX 1070 would basically be perfect for me as I would be able to hit that in any game at high/ultra settings.

 

The Freesync piece holds me back for sure.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, Jon Jon said:

I game at 2560x1080 @ 75hz.

What monitor? I have a LG 29UM68-P at 2560x1080p80hz, the only game I let the GPU go free is in CS:GO with no sync', pretty much every thing else (single player games), like Prey, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Bioshock Infinite and any other first person shooter I active V-Sync Triple Buffered to lock on the 80fps and it runs butter smooth...

 

Quite Frankly I love 21:9 aspect ratio I think these LG 29 inches ultrawides are the best cost-to-benefice displays in existence right now.

[Jon Jon]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

What monitor? I have a LG 29UM68-P at 2560x1080p80hz, the only game I let the GPU go free is in CS:GO with no sync', pretty much every thing else (single player games), like Prey, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Bioshock Infinite and any other first person shooter I active V-Sync Triple Buffered to lock on the 80fps and it runs butter smooth...

 

Quite Frankly I love 21:9 aspect ratio I think these LG 29 inches ultrawides are the best cost-to-benefice displays in existence right now.

I basically have the same panel I believe. Mine is the 29UM60-P, but I am pretty sure the only variances in models are the PIP and port features. I have no PIP and only have one display port and one HDMI port, but I also got it on sale during the Summer for a little over $200 at Best Buy.

 

You are implying I can overclock the panel  with that 80hz, that is possible?

 

I agree with you on the LGs. The picture is great and I LOVE playing Dead By Daylight in Ultra Wide!

 

Also, I work from home a lot, and this panel is a huge boon in productivity for me.

 

I actually have the other senior engineers looking into them for their WFH setups as well.

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Jon Jon said:

You are implying I can overclock the panel  with that 80hz, that is possible?

Mine got to 80hz using Display Port, sadly any thing above would break... if this could reach 100hz it would honestly render 1920x1080p144hz pointless in my view as there's a lot more difference going from 60 to 100 than 100 to 144...

 

2 minutes ago, Jon Jon said:

I agree with you on the LGs. The picture is great and I LOVE playing Dead By Daylight in Ultra Wide!

 Yes we get the luxury of one of the best IPS panels for a dirt cheap price, in fact my 29UM68-P has less blacklight bleed than the super duper expensive Asus ROG PG348Q what is quite insane to think about.

 

3 minutes ago, Jon Jon said:

Also, I work from home a lot, and this panel is a huge boon in productivity for me.

Its productivity gain really is noticeable as I stated once you go 21:9 it becomes impossible to return to 16:9.

 

To resume every thing I really assure you that this monitor is absolutely perfect even to pair with nVidia graphics card, losing FastSync is meaningless to the level of quality the display can already offer and the superior performance of nVidia cards is well welcome, for instance my 1080 Ti even maxing out these games thanks to the 80fps cap it usually stays below 70% usage regardless the game, sometimes as high as 45%~55% like in Prey max out, the card's dead silent and cool even been a FE... feels good

 

Don't think I'm exaggerating on the GPU though I play third person games like The Witcher 3, Assassin's Creed, Life is Strange and so on in a 4k60hz Television with the gamepad.

[Jon Jon]

8 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Mine got to 80hz using Display Port, sadly any thing above would break... if this could reach 100hz it would honestly render 1920x1080p144hz pointless in my view as there's a lot more difference going from 60 to 100 than 100 to 144...

I agree.

 

I nearly bought an Acer 1080P 144Hz Freesync panel instead of this ultra wide.

 

After using it at my Micro Center (and having to actually configure it for 144hz), I wasn't really that blown away.

 

I certainly noticed the difference on the LG at 75hz coming from my 10 year old Acer 1680x1050 DVI 60Hz panel (hey, it still works!).

 

I also game a bit on my 60inch Plasma when I want to park my butt on my couch, but lately due to my neck, I prefer to sit in my OPSEAT at my computer desk with the neck support.

 

8 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Don't think I'm exaggerating on the GPU though I play third person games like The Witcher 3, Assassin's Creed, Life is Strange and so on in a 4k60hz Television with the gamepad.

It's a 1080ti. I am actually surprised it goes above 50-60% at 1080P at all.

 

As for 4K, luckily I don't need to worry about that yet.

 

Now with Sony in the OLED game, I am hoping to nab an OLED 4K set for $1000 or less in the upcoming years.

 

I refuse to go to LED from a last generation Plasma.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, Jon Jon said:

It's a 1080ti. I am actually surprised it goes above 50-60% at 1080P at all.

Hehehe well cranking every single thing all the way up can be very demanding I could actually run the game here for a bit to see what really happens... Either ways I was utmost pleased with the GPU upgrade facing my old TITAN X Maxwell

 

Not that it was any bad, it is a 1070 after all like you said a good pairing for the display:

 

I want to reinstall Deus Ex (wasn't a huge fan of the game) just to try it out and compare now that I got 16gb of ram and the 1080 Ti but that by all means cool performance already.

[Jon Jon]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

-snip-

That does look great!

 

Maybe I should just continue to hold out for next gen before pulling the trigger.

 

I am still paying off this Ryzen build after all!

 

I chose to focus on CPU, cooling, I/O and drive performance over GPU for now.