AMD recently unveiled its
Radeon VII graphics card, which for the first time introduces a 7-nanometer GPU processor to the consumer gaming market (as opposed to the 7nm
Radeon Instinct MI60, which is a workstation accelerator for deep learning workloads). We are all eager to find out how the card performs, and some leaked
3DMark benchmarks may provide a glimpse.
Before we get to the scores, let's recap the card's specs. The Radeon VII features a 7nm
Vega GPU underneath the hood with 60 compute units (CUs) and 3,840 stream processors, and is clocked up to 1.8GHz. It also boasts a whopping 16GB of second-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM2)—that's twice as much as the
Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56.
The amount of memory on the Radeon VII gives the card some appeal beyond gaming, though outwardly, AMD is taking aim squarely at gamers. To that end, notorious leaker and Twitter user @TUM_APISAK posted some 3DMark scores of the Radeon VII that he apparently dug up from UL Benchmarks' database. Here's a look:
- 3DMark Fire Strike: 27,000 (Graphics)
- 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme: 13,400 (Graphics)
- 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra: 6,800 (Graphics)
- 3DMark Time Spy: 8,700 (Graphics)
Those are all Graphics scores, which in theory focuses on the GPU and separates the rest of the test bed from the equation. To put the performance into perspective, here is how the *leaked* Fire Strike Ultra score compares with our own collection of scores from other cards:
- GeForce RTX 2080 Ti: 7,952
- Titan Xp: 7,274
- Leaked Radeon VII: 6,800 (Graphics)
- GeForce GTX 1080 Ti: 6,661 (Graphics)
- GeForce RTX 2080: 6,279 (Graphics)
- Radeon RX Vega 64: 5,429 (Graphics)
- GeForce GTX 1080: 5,009 (Graphics)
- GeForce RTX 1070: 4,202 (Graphics)
AMD claims the Radeon VII is competitive with the
GeForce RTX 2080. To back that claim, AMD shared some of its own
internal benchmarks, which showed the Radeon VII running neck-and-neck with the GeForce RTX 2080, and even surpassing it in some cases (such as games that use Vulkan). The leaked 3DMark score further backs up AMD's claim, though obviously we can't attest to its legitimacy.
As for the Time Spy score, here's how the leaked score compares with our collection of benchmarks:
-
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti: 13,507
- GeForce RTX 2080: 10,775
- Titan Xp: 10,018
- GeForce GTX 1080 Ti: 9,415
- Leaked Radeon VII: 8,700
- Radeon RX Vega 64: 7,288
- GeForce GTX 1080: 7,051
- GeForce GTX 1070: 5,779
Interestingly, the leaked Radeon VII score shows the card slipping well behind the GeForce RTX 2080, and even falling below the
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.
As always, take all this with a grain of salt. We hope to have our own review and benchmarks to share at a later date. Either way, all will be made clear soon enough—the Radeon VII launches to retail on February 7, starting at $699.