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AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooling

AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooling: A Classic for Enthusiasts in 2025

Review of a graphics card that still has its fans

Introduction

Despite the release of new generations of GPUs, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooling remains an iconic model for hardware enthusiasts. Released back in 2017, this liquid-cooled card still attracts attention thanks to its unique architecture and affordable price in the used market (new units are rarely found and cost around $350–400). Let’s explore who might find it useful in 2025.

Architecture and Key Features

Vega Architecture (5th Generation GCN)

The RX Vega 64 is built on the Vega microarchitecture, which is an evolution of Graphics Core Next (GCN). The manufacturing process is 14 nm FinFET from GlobalFoundries. The card supports DirectX 12, Vulkan, and OpenGL 4.6, but lacks hardware ray tracing — this feature only appeared in RDNA 2.

Unique Technologies

- FidelityFX: AMD's set of tools for enhancing graphics, including Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS). In 2025, many games still support these features.

- Radeon Chill: Reduces power consumption by dynamically limiting FPS.

- FreeSync 2: Compatibility with monitors supporting HDR and adaptive synchronization.

Memory: HBM2 and Its Potential

8 GB HBM2 is the main highlight of the Vega 64. This high-speed memory with a 2048-bit memory bus provides a bandwidth of 483.8 GB/s — higher than many modern cards with GDDR6.

- Pros: Ideal for rendering and tasks with large textures.

- Cons: The limited volume (8 GB) may become an issue in 4K or when working with neural networks.

Gaming Performance

In 2025, the Vega 64 Liquid Cooling handles most titles at 1440p (QHD), but it lacks the power for 4K. Examples of FPS (Ultra settings, no ray tracing):

- Cyberpunk 2077 (2023): 45–55 FPS (1440p), 25–30 FPS (4K).

- Elden Ring: 60 FPS (1440p, with frame rate cap).

- Apex Legends: 100–120 FPS (1440p).

- Starfield: 35–45 FPS (1440p, FSR 3.0 Quality).

Ray tracing is a weak point. Without hardware RT cores, FPS drops to 15–20 even at FHD. Using FSR 3.0 helps, but image quality suffers.

Professional Tasks

The Vega 64 is still in demand for niche scenarios:

- 3D Modeling (Blender): Rendering on OpenCL shows 70–80% performance of NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti.

- Video Editing: Speeds up rendering in DaVinci Resolve but lags behind NVIDIA in CUDA-optimized applications.

- Scientific Calculations: Support for OpenCL and ROCm allows the card to be used for machine learning, but the limited memory constrains its application range.

Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

TDP — 345 W is one of the main drawbacks. Liquid cooling reduces the temperature to 60–65°C under load (compared to 75–80°C for the air-cooled version), but requires:

- Power Supply: At least 750 W (an 850 W unit with 80+ Gold certification is recommended).

- Case: Good ventilation for the radiator (240 mm) and distance from other components.

Comparison with Competitors

- NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti: Similar gaming performance, but Vega 64 performs better in Vulkan and OpenCL.

- AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT: Newer (2019), more energy-efficient (+15% FPS in DX12), but lacks HBM2.

- NVIDIA RTX 3060: Four years younger, supports ray tracing, consumes 170 W. In games with RTX, Vega 64 falls behind, but in regular scenarios, performance is comparable.

Practical Tips

1. Power Supply: 750–850 W with surge protection (e.g., Corsair RM850x).

2. Compatibility: PCIe 3.0 x16, requires 2x8-pin connectors. Suitable for AMD AM4 and Intel LGA 1700 platforms.

3. Drivers: Use Adrenalin 2025 Edition — they optimize performance with modern APIs and FSR 3.0.

4. Overclocking: Liquid cooling allows GPU clock speeds to reach 1650–1700 MHz (+5–10% performance).

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- High memory bandwidth.

- Unique design with liquid cooling.

- Good support for OpenCL.

- Affordable price for its level.

Cons:

- High power consumption.

- No hardware Ray Tracing.

- Limited support for new technologies (e.g., DirectStorage).

Final Conclusion

Who is the Vega 64 Liquid Cooling suitable for in 2025?

- Enthusiasts: For building retro-style PCs or upgrading older systems.

- Budget Gamers: If the goal is comfortable gaming at 1440p without ultra settings.

- Professionals: For tasks where memory bandwidth is critical (rendering, simulations).

Why not NVIDIA? If you don't need ray tracing and prioritize the balance of price and performance in Vulkan/OpenCL, the Vega 64 is still relevant. However, for future upgrades, it’s better to consider RDNA 3 or the RTX 40 series.

Conclusion

The RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooling remains a legend, reminding us of the times when HBM was just starting to conquer the market. By 2025, it may no longer be the king, but it remains an excellent choice for certain tasks. The key is to realistically assess its limitations and not overpay for a new box.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

August 2017

Model Name

Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooling

Generation

Vega

Base Clock

1406MHz

Boost Clock

1677MHz

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

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

945MHz

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.

483.8 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.

107.3 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.

429.3 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.

27.48 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.

858.6 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.

13.465 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

345W

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

2x 8-pin

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.

Suggested PSU

700W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

13.465 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce RTX 3060 3840SP

14.504 +7.7%

Tesla PG500 216

13.847 +2.8%

Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooling

13.465

Radeon RX 6750 XT

13.044 -3.1%

RTX 2000 Embedded Ada Generation

12.73 -5.5%