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AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile

AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile: A Hybrid of Power and Versatility in 2025

Introduction

In the world of mobile GPUs, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile remains an intriguing option for those seeking a balance between gaming performance and support for professional tasks. Despite the emergence of newer architectures, this model continues to be relevant thanks to optimizations and an affordable price range (around $600-$700 for mid-range laptops). Let's explore what sets it apart in 2025.

Architecture and Key Features

Vega Architecture (GCN 5.0)

The RX Vega 56 Mobile is built on the Vega architecture, utilizing a 14nm manufacturing process. Although this process lags behind modern 6nm and 5nm chips, AMD has compensated for this with effective optimization.

Unique Features

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR 3.0): This upscaling technology enhances FPS in games, supporting both Quality and Performance modes. In 2025, FSR 3.0 is available in over 90 games, including Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield.

- Radeon Image Sharpening: This feature increases image clarity without putting a load on the GPU.

- No Hardware Ray Tracing: Unlike NVIDIA RTX, ray tracing is executed through shader calculations, which can lower performance.

Conclusion: Vega 56 Mobile is aimed at those who value proven architecture and are willing to cope without dedicated RTX.

Memory: Speed vs. Capacity

Type and Capacity

The graphics card is equipped with 8GB HBM2 — high-bandwidth memory (up to 512GB/s). HBM2 saves board space, which is critical for laptops, but it falls short in scalability compared to GDDR6X.

Impact on Performance

- In games with high texture loads (Horizon Forbidden West, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024), 8GB is sufficient for 1440p, but may experience stuttering at 4K.

- For professional tasks (rendering in Blender), the memory capacity is adequate for most projects.

Gaming Performance: Numbers and Realities

1080p (Full HD)

- Apex Legends: 110–120 FPS (high settings).

- Elden Ring: 60 FPS (max settings, without RT).

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V: 90 FPS (FSR 3.0 in Quality mode).

1440p (QHD)

- Cyberpunk 2077: 45-50 FPS (medium settings + FSR 3.0).

- Starfield: 55 FPS (high settings).

4K (Ultra HD)

Only for less demanding projects: CS2 — 60 FPS, Fortnite — 40-50 FPS (with FSR).

Ray Tracing

When RT is enabled, performance drops by 40-60%. For instance, Control delivers 25-30 FPS at 1080p.

Professional Tasks: Not Just Gaming

Video Editing

- In DaVinci Resolve, rendering a 4K clip takes 15% longer than on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 Mobile (due to CUDA optimization).

- Support for OpenCL allows for effective work in Blender: rendering a BMW scene takes about 12 minutes compared to around 9 minutes on the RTX 3060.

Scientific Calculations

- In machine learning tasks (TensorFlow), Vega 56 Mobile lags behind NVIDIA due to the lack of specialized cores.

Conclusion: The card is suitable for editing and 3D modeling, but not for AI tasks.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP and Cooling

- The TDP is 120–130W, necessitating an advanced cooling system.

- Laptops with 3-4 heat pipes and improved aerodynamics (e.g., ASUS ROG Zephyrus or Lenovo Legion 7) are recommended.

Operating Tips

- Use cooling pads to reduce temperatures by 5-7°C.

- Avoid prolonged loads at temperatures above 85°C — this accelerates chip wear.

Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile

- Pros of NVIDIA: DLSS 3.5, hardware Ray Tracing, lower TDP (95W).

- Cons: 6GB GDDR6, limiting performance at 1440p.

AMD Radeon RX 6600M

- Pros: 7nm manufacturing process, better energy efficiency.

- Cons: 8GB GDDR6 with 256GB/s bandwidth — half of that of Vega 56.

Conclusion: Vega 56 Mobile excels in tasks requiring high memory bandwidth but falls behind in energy efficiency.

Practical Tips

Power Supply

- A minimum of 180W is required for a laptop with Vega 56 Mobile. Look for models that support USB-C PD 100W + a separate connector.

Compatibility

- The card works with AMD Ryzen 5000/7000 and Intel Core 12th-14th generation processors.

- For external monitors, use DisplayPort 1.4 or HDMI 2.1.

Drivers

- Regularly update Adrenalin Edition: in 2025, AMD actively optimizes FSR 3.0 for older GPUs.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- High memory bandwidth.

- Support for FidelityFX 3.0.

- Affordable price in its segment.

Cons:

- Lack of hardware Ray Tracing.

- Heat generation under peak loads.

- Outdated 14nm manufacturing process.

Final Conclusion: Who Is Vega 56 Mobile For?

This graphics card is a choice for:

1. Gamers playing at 1080p/1440p without RT enabled.

2. Professionals using OpenCL-compatible applications.

3. Enthusiasts looking for a balance between price and performance.

If you're willing to deal with heat and don't require ray tracing, Vega 56 Mobile remains a solid option in 2025. However, for AI tasks or 4K gaming with RT, it's better to consider the new generations of RDNA 3 or RTX 40 series.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

June 2018

Model Name

Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile

Generation

Mobility Radeon

Base Clock

1138MHz

Boost Clock

1301MHz

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.

224

Foundry

GlobalFoundries

Process Size

14 nm

Architecture

GCN 5.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

8GB

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

800MHz

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.

409.6 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.

83.26 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.

291.4 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.

18.65 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.

582.8 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.

9.513 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.

3584

L1 Cache

16 KB (per CU)

L2 Cache

4MB

TDP

120W

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

9.513 TFLOPS

Blender

Score

620

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon Pro W6600M

10.608 +11.5%

A30 PCIe

10.114 +6.3%

Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile

9.513

RTX 2000 Max-Q Ada Generation

9.119 -4.1%

Radeon 780M

8.731 -8.2%

Blender

Arc A770

2149 +246.6%

RTX A1000 Mobile 6 GB

1257 +102.7%

Radeon RX Vega 56 Mobile

620

GeForce GTX 1060 Max Q

341 -45%

Quadro P620

128 -79.4%