AMD RX Vega 64 Sapphire Nitro Pictured & Tested – Features 3 8-Pin Connectors, 3 Fans & LED Lighting Everywhere
It appears the wait for custom versions of AMD's high-end Vega graphics cards is nearing its end as more and more leaks surface of what potentially could be on-shelves in time for the holidays from the company's add-in-board partners.
A couple of weeks ago we saw XFX tease its own custom RX Vega, today we get a glimpse at what Sapphire is working on, and it's quite the beast.
The AMD Radeon RX Vega Sapphire Nitro Is A Beast
So first things first, let's talk about the exterior design of Sapphire's new Nitro series for the Vega family. The new Vega Nitro is two and a half slot, triple fan, triple 8-pin affair with a massive heatsink. The heatsink itself appears to be a modified version of what Sapphire used in its R9 Fury Nitro designs. The fan array has also been improved, it now features two 95mm fans and one 85mm fan, in contrast to the previous triple 90mm fan design. To keep all of that heft in check, the Sapphire includes a PCIe support bracket with these cards to prevent sag and/or damage to the PCIe slot due to the sheer weight of the card.
Sapphire has maintained the classic black, white and silver aesthetic of the Nitro series with a sleek looking detailed backplate. Nearly all sides of the card have some sort of LED lighting, including the top, the back and the side. In terms of I/O the card is slightly unique, featuring two DisplayPorts and two HDMI ports, instead of the standard three and one I/O of the reference Vega design.
The card that HWBattle got their hands on features the default RX Vega 64 clock speeds, a factory overclocked version of the Nitro is expected as well. Although, we don't know what the clock speeds on that version will look like at the moment. With that being said, even at stock clocks the RX Vega 64 Nitro is able to boost to higher clock speeds than usual thanks to the significantly improved cooling.
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and Vega 56 Graphics Card Lineup:
Graphics Card | AMD Radeon R9 Fury X | AMD Radeon RX Vega Nano | AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Reference | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Reference | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Limited | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
GPU | Fiji XT | Vega 10 | Vega 10 | Vega 10 | Vega 10 | Vega 10 |
Process Node | 28nm | 14nm FinFET | 14nm FinFET | 14nm FinFET | 14nm FinFET | 14nm FinFET |
Compute Units | 64 | TBD | 56 | 64 | 64 | 64 |
Stream Processors | 4096 | TBD | 3584 | 4096 | 4096 | 4096 |
Raster Operators | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 64 |
Texture Mapping Units | 256 | TBD | 224 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
Clock Speed (Base) | 1000 MHz | TBD | 1156 MHz | 1247 MHz | 1247 MHz | 1406 MHz |
Clock Speed (Max) | 1050 MHz | TBD | 1471 MHz | 1546 MHz | 1546 MHz | 1677 MHz |
FP32 Compute | 8.6 TFLOPs | TBD | 10.5 TFLOPs | 12.6 TFLOPs | 12.6 TFLOPs | 13.7 TFLOPs |
FP16 Compute | 8.6 TFLOPs | TBD | 21.0 TFLOPs | 25.2 TFLOPs | 25.2 TFLOPs | 27.4 TFLOPs |
Memory (VRAM) | 4 GB HBM1 | 8 GB HBM2 | 8 GB HBM2 | 8 GB HBM2 | 8 GB HBM2 | 8 GB HBM2 |
Memory Bus | 4096 bit | 2048 bit | 2048 bit | 2048 bit | 2048 bit | 2048 bit |
Bandwidth | 512 GB/s | TBD | 410 GB/s | 484 GB/s | 484 GB/s | 484 GB/s |
TDP | 275W | 150W | 210W | 295W | 295W | 350W |
Price | $649 | TBD | $399 ($499 US Actual) | $499 ($599 US Actual) | $599 | $699 |
Launch | 2015 | 2018 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 |
Custom Vega cards from Gigabyte, Asus & XFX
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