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AMD Radeon Vega 8 Embedded

AMD Radeon Vega 8 Embedded: Compact Graphics for Basic Tasks and Budget Systems

April 2025

Introduction

Embedded graphics solutions remain popular for office PCs, compact systems, and budget laptops. The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Embedded, despite the age of its architecture, continues to find its niche in 2025. In this article, we will explore who this GPU is suitable for, how it handles modern tasks, and how it differs from competitors.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Vega Architecture: A Time-Tested Foundation

The Radeon Vega 8 Embedded is based on the Vega architecture, which was released back in 2017. In 2025, it has been upgraded to a 7nm manufacturing process (originally 14nm), allowing for reduced power consumption and increased clock speeds. The GPU features 8 compute units (512 stream processors) and supports DirectX 12, Vulkan, and OpenGL 4.6.

Unique Features

- AMD FidelityFX: A set of technologies for enhancing graphics, including Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) and upscaling (FSR 1.0).

- No Hardware Ray Tracing: Ray tracing is not supported, nor are AI algorithms like NVIDIA's DLSS.

- FreeSync: Compatibility with monitors that support adaptive sync.

2. Memory: Modest System RAM Capabilities

Type and Volume

Vega 8 Embedded is an integrated solution and therefore utilizes system RAM (DDR4 or DDR5 depending on the platform). The amount of allocated VRAM can be adjusted in the BIOS (up to 2GB by default).

Bandwidth

Memory access speed depends on the type of RAM:

- DDR4-3200: up to 51.2 GB/s;

- DDR5-4800: up to 76.8 GB/s.

Impact on Performance

Limited bandwidth is the main bottleneck for Vega 8. In games, this leads to a drop in FPS at high texture settings and resolutions above 1080p.

3. Gaming Performance: Modest, but Sufficient for Basic Needs

Average FPS in Popular Titles (1080p, Low Settings):

- CS2: 60–75 FPS;

- Fortnite (Performance mode): 45–55 FPS;

- GTA V: 40–50 FPS;

- Valheim: 30–35 FPS;

- Cyberpunk 2077 (FSR Performance): 25–30 FPS.

Resolutions Above 1080p

For 1440p and 4K, Vega 8 is not recommended—FPS rarely exceeds 20–25 frames, even with FSR.

Ray Tracing

Not supported. Attempts to run RT games (e.g., Minecraft RTX) result in FPS dropping below 10 frames.

4. Professional Tasks: Only Basic Scenarios

- Video Editing: Handles 1080p rendering in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro, but will take significant time for 4K.

- 3D Modeling: Suitable for simple projects in Blender (OpenCL), but complex scenes will cause slowdowns.

- Scientific Calculations: Limited OpenCL support, with CUDA unavailable.

Recommendation: For professional tasks, it is better to choose a discrete card with dedicated VRAM (e.g., Radeon RX 6500 or NVIDIA RTX A2000).

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

- TDP: 15–25 Watts (depending on system configuration).

- Cooling: Passive heatsink or compact cooler.

- Case Recommendations: Suitable for mini-PCs and thin clients with good ventilation (e.g., ASRock DeskMini).

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon 780M (RDNA 3):

- +50% gaming performance, support for FSR 3.0 and AV1 decoding.

- System prices based on 780M: starting from $600 (laptops) vs. $400–500 for PCs with Vega 8.

Intel Iris Xe (96 EU):

- Comparable gaming performance but better optimization for creative tasks.

NVIDIA GeForce MX550:

- +20–30% FPS in games, but requires more power and is more expensive.

Conclusion: Vega 8 Embedded is relevant only in the budget segment (systems under $500).

7. Practical Tips

- Power Supply: A standard 300–400W is sufficient (for PCs with processors up to 65W).

- Compatibility: Integrated into AMD Ryzen 5 5500U/5700U processors and similar APU for AM4/AM5 platforms.

- Drivers: Regularly update Adrenalin Edition—this will improve stability in games.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Low cost of systems based on Vega 8 (PCs from $350, laptops from $450).

- Energy efficiency.

- Support for modern APIs and FSR.

Cons:

- Weak gaming performance after 2022.

- Dependence on system memory speed.

- No hardware Ray Tracing.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is Vega 8 Embedded Suitable For?

This GPU is worth considering for:

1. Office PCs — working with documents, browsing, video calls.

2. Media Centers — playing 4K videos (with HDMI 2.1 support).

3. Budget Gaming Systems — running older and less demanding games (e.g., Dota 2 or Among Us).

Alternative: If your budget allows spending $100–150 more, consider systems with Radeon 780M or Intel Arc A350M—they will provide a significantly better experience.

Conclusion

The AMD Radeon Vega 8 Embedded in 2025 is a choice for those who value minimalism and low cost. It may not be a graphical marvel, but it is a reliable option for everyday tasks within a limited budget.

Basic

Label Name

AMD

Platform

Integrated

Launch Date

February 2018

Model Name

Radeon Vega 8 Embedded

Generation

Great Horned Owl

Base Clock

300MHz

Boost Clock

1100MHz

Bus Interface

IGP

Transistors

4,940 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.

Foundry

GlobalFoundries

Process Size

14 nm

Architecture

GCN 5.0

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

System Shared

Memory Type

System Shared

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.

System Shared

Memory Clock

SystemShared

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.

System Dependent

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.

8.800 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.

35.20 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.

2.253 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.

70.40 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.

1.103 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.

512

TDP

15W

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

1.103 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

Radeon R9 M365X

1.16 +5.2%

GeForce GTX 750

1.133 +2.7%

Radeon Vega 8 Embedded

1.103

Iris Pro Graphics 580

1.072 -2.8%

GeForce GTX 760M

1.029 -6.7%