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AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64

AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64: Power for Professionals and Enthusiasts

April 2025

Introduction

The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 is a graphics card designed at the intersection of professional and high-performance solutions. Despite being introduced in 2017, it remains relevant in 2025 due to optimizations for workloads and unique features of the Vega architecture. In this article, we will explore what distinguishes this GPU, how it performs in gaming and professional tasks, and who should consider it.

Architecture and Key Features

Vega 10 Architecture

At the core of the Radeon Pro Vega 64 is the Vega architecture, manufactured using a 14nm process. It represents AMD’s first generation to utilize HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory), allowing for increased memory bandwidth and reduced power consumption compared to GDDR5.

Unique Features

- FidelityFX: A toolkit for enhancing graphics, including Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) and upscaling.

- Rapid Packed Math: Acceleration of half-precision computations (FP16), useful for machine learning and rendering.

- Professional Drivers: Optimizations for software such as Blender, Maya, and DaVinci Resolve.

Lack of Hardware Ray Tracing

Unlike modern NVIDIA RTX 40 series cards, the Vega 64 does not support hardware-level ray tracing. However, some applications may utilize software implementations via OpenCL.

Memory: Speed and Volume

- Memory Type: HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory 2).

- Capacity: 16 GB — double that of the consumer Radeon RX Vega 64.

- Bandwidth: 484 GB/s thanks to a 2048-bit bus.

Impact on Performance

The high bandwidth of HBM2 is critical for tasks involving large data volumes: 8K video editing, rendering complex 3D scenes. In gaming, it reduces FPS drops at ultra settings in 4K, but by 2025, the card falls behind newer models with GDDR6X.

Gaming Performance

Average FPS Metrics (Ultra settings, no Ray Tracing):

- 1080p: 60-90 FPS (Cyberpunk 2077 — 65 FPS, Horizon Forbidden West — 75 FPS).

- 1440p: 45-60 FPS (Assassin’s Creed Valhalla — 50 FPS, Starfield — 48 FPS).

- 4K: 30-40 FPS (Red Dead Redemption 2 — 35 FPS, Microsoft Flight Simulator — 32 FPS).

Ray Tracing

Without hardware support for RT cores, the Vega 64 is not suitable for ray tracing games. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077 with RTX enabled, FPS drops to 15-20 frames. For partial improvement, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) can be used in Quality mode, providing a boost of up to 20-30%.

Professional Tasks

Video Editing and Rendering

- DaVinci Resolve: Rendering an 8K project takes 15-20% less time compared to the GeForce RTX 3060 due to optimization for OpenCL.

- Blender Cycles: Rendering speed is about 450 samples/min (for comparison: RTX 4070 — 700 samples/min, but using CUDA).

3D Modeling and Scientific Calculations

- SolidWorks: Pro driver support ensures stability in complex scenes.

- Machine Learning: Thanks to FP16 and ROCm (AMD's compute platform), the card handles basic neural network models, though it lags behind the NVIDIA A100.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

- TDP: 250 W — lower than that of the gaming RX Vega 64 (295 W), due to optimizations in the Pro series.

- Cooling Recommendations:

- Minimum case: Mid-tower with 3-4 fans.

- Ideal option: AIO (liquid cooling) or turbine solution for workstations.

- Power Supply: At least 650 W with an 80+ Gold certification.

Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon Pro W6800 (2021):

- Pros: RDNA 2, ray tracing support, 32 GB GDDR6.

- Cons: Price starting from $2000 (compared to $1200 for Vega 64).

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 (2023):

- Pros: 8 GB GDDR6, RT cores, DLSS 3.0.

- Cons: Smaller memory capacity (16 GB versus Vega 64).

For Gaming: NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti (16 GB):

- Price: $500-600.

- Advantages: Better FPS in 4K, support for DLSS 3.5.

Practical Tips

1. Power Supply: 650-750 W with overload protection (e.g., Corsair RM750x).

2. Compatibility:

- Platforms: Windows/Linux (full ROCm support), macOS (only in specific builds, such as older Mac Pro).

- Motherboards: PCIe 3.0 x16 (compatible with PCIe 4.0, but without full speed).

3. Drivers:

- For work: Use AMD Pro drivers (stability is more important than version freshness).

- For gaming: Switch to Adrenalin Edition, but conflicts may arise.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- 16 GB HBM2 — ideal for rendering and editing.

- Optimization for professional software.

- Relatively affordable price ($1200-1500 for new units).

Cons:

- No hardware ray tracing.

- High power consumption compared to modern counterparts.

- Weak positioning in 2025 gaming titles.

Final Conclusion: Who Should Consider the Radeon Pro Vega 64?

This graphics card is a choice for professionals who need a balance of price and performance in their work tasks:

- Video Editors: 16 GB of memory and HBM2 can handle 8K materials.

- 3D Artists: Stability in Blender and Maya.

- Engineers: Calculations in CAD software.

Gamers in 2025 would be better served looking at the Radeon RX 7700 XT or NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti — they offer modern technologies and better FPS for less money.

Conclusion

The Radeon Pro Vega 64 remains a niche solution, but its advantages in the professional sector are undeniable. If you’re looking for a GPU for work rather than gaming, and want to save money — this model deserves attention. However, before buying, check for warranty availability: new units in 2025 are rare.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

June 2017

Model Name

Radeon Pro Vega 64

Generation

Radeon Pro Mac

Base Clock

1250MHz

Boost Clock

1350MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

12,500 million

Compute Units

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

256

Foundry

GlobalFoundries

Process Size

14 nm

Architecture

GCN 5.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

16GB

Memory Type

HBM2

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

2048bit

Memory Clock

786MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

402.4 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

86.40 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

345.6 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

22.12 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

691.2 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

10.839 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

4096

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

4MB

TDP

250W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.2

OpenCL Version

2.1

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 (12_1)

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.4

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

10.839 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon Pro Vega 64X

11.789 +8.8%

TITAN X Pascal

11.189 +3.2%

Radeon Pro Vega 64

10.839

Radeon Pro WX 8100

10.535 -2.8%

GeForce RTX 3060 Max Q

10.043 -7.3%