High-end performance graphics cards are admittedly far and few for AMD, which is why the announcement of its Radeon VII graphics card at CES 2019
High-end performance graphics cards are admittedly far and few for AMD, which is why the announcement of its Radeon VII graphics card at CES 2019 genuinely took me by surprise. Prior to this, the semiconductor maker’s last high-end performance graphics cards were the Radeon RX Vega 56 and Vega 64 back in 2017.
Thanks to AMD generosity, I was actually able to spend a little bit of quality time with the Radeon VII and to see if the CPU and GPU maker’s new powerhouse graphics card was worth all the attention.
One of the key points of the Radeon VII that stands out to me is the card’s overall design and aesthetics, and it’s not for the reasons you think. Instead of a fresh, new look or a more aggressive design, AMD has played it safe and reused the same dusted aluminium motif and theme. A theme which, by the way, actually dates back to the brand’s dual GPU Radeon R9 295X2 graphics card that first released back in 2014.
I will say this about the Radeon VII; I appreciate how AMD has chosen to forego the blower-style cooling solution it previously used for the majority of its major graphics card. Opting instead of plaster not one, but three 90mm high performance fans on top of the heatsink. If nothing else, the cooler shroud design does make it stand out from its predecessors.
As far as backplates go, the one on the Radeon VII seems to err more towards the conservative side. Sporting nothing more than a few thin, elongated holes in random spaces, plus a major cutout hole right where the GPU is located on the PCB. It’s also the usual tell-tale design that this is truly an AMD graphics card.
It’s design out of the way, let’s get down to what really makes the card tick – its hardware. For those of you who still don’t know, the Radeon VII is still based on AMD’s Vega GPU architecture. Unlike its predecessors, this particular Vega GPU is structured around a thinner and more (supposedly) more efficient 7nm die lithography. In addition to the new fabrication, AMD also saw fit to give the card a whopping 16GB of HBM2 graphics memory.
The Radeon VII also houses 13.
