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00:00Hey, how's it going, Dave2D here.
00:05So this is the second AMD rig I've ever built in my life.
00:08The first one was in like the year 2000, it was an AMD Athlon Thunderbird or something
00:12like this.
00:1315, 16 years later, no, 17 years later, I have this, the AMD Ryzen 7.
00:19So we're running a Ryzen 7 1700X and a liquid cooled Vega 64.
00:25And I put it all into this ITX case because I'm all about smaller cases, and the liquid
00:29cooled Vega 64 actually fit inside this thing.
00:33The case is a shift from Phanteks, it has a volume of around 20 liters, so it's not
00:37like the smallest ITX case ever, but I think it looks really nice, and I wanted something
00:41that looked stealth but could cool an 8 core CPU with a powerful GPU.
00:45In terms of the other components, it's running 32 gigs of RAM from Corsair, it's running
00:49at a stock 2133, and a 600 watt power supply, a Samsung 950 Pro NVMe, and I'll drop links
00:56for all this stuff down below, but none of this stuff is overclocked, it's all running
00:59at stock right now, and I'm still tweaking things, so don't laugh at my award winning
01:03cable management, but yeah, I built a fully AMD rig, just wanted to share some thoughts
01:07with you.
01:08So first let's start with the GPU, the water cooled Vega 64.
01:12It's a silver casing, red accents, AMD sent this thing out for me to take a look at earlier,
01:16so I'm still running beta drivers, but the performance is good, it's a stronger performer
01:21than a reference GTX 1080, so right out of the box, without any kind of overclocking,
01:26it benchmarks better, and it performs better in most games.
01:29It's a very powerful GPU, I had mine connected to a 1440p, 144hz Freesync panel, and the
01:35gaming experience is phenomenal, super buttery visuals with graphics quality cranked up,
01:40I did have hiccups in a couple of games, but I'm just gonna chalk it up to immature drivers
01:44that will get resolved.
01:45I ran some benchmarks for crypto mining, and I don't know, these numbers felt really low,
01:49it could be a driver issue, or maybe it's just a mining client issue, I'm not sure,
01:53but these are some numbers in case you're curious.
01:55I want to talk about power consumption for a bit, the liquid cooled Vega 64 uses a lot
02:00of juice, more than a 1080, more than even a 1080ti.
02:03You can reduce the power consumption through the Catalyst software, and there's even a
02:07physical switch on the card for low power mode, but performance is reduced if you do
02:11that.
02:12It's got a 20% drop in performance to go to power saver mode, and it's only a little bit
02:16of an increase in performance to go up to turbo mode, but it uses quite a bit more energy,
02:20so balance mode is probably the sweet spot.
02:22Now the liquid cooled Vega 64 is clocked a bit faster, and the RAD fits perfectly into
02:26this ITX case, so I gave it a shot.
02:28Now I tried all three of these cards, the GTX 1080, the 1080ti, and the liquid cooled
02:33Vega 64, the 1080ti is a little bit of a tight squeeze, but all three of them fit.
02:38In terms of performance, the liquid cooled Vega 64 sits right in the middle, the 1080ti
02:42is quite a bit faster.
02:43Now this rig was built for video editing, and looking at Premiere, the lead that Vega
02:4764 normally has over the reference 1080 disappears.
02:51It might be something with the drivers, or maybe Adobe needs to optimize Premiere to
02:54work with Vega, but the 1080 is slightly faster, and as usual, the 1080ti is in the lead.
03:00The Vega 64 is nice and all, but really the heart of this rig is the Ryzen 7 1700X.
03:06So this thing is awesome, after years of building pricier Intel systems, having access to an
03:118 core CPU at this price point is so weird, the performance is really good for the money.
03:16The fan noise of the liquid cooled Vega 64 never gets super loud or anything, even when
03:19you're playing games, and the temperatures stay comfortable as well, they do a really
03:23good job with thermal management.
03:25The pricing for the liquid Vega 64 starts at $599, the air cooled version goes for $499,
03:31and at this pricing, the dollar to performance ratio is not bad, I mean it's not a door crashing
03:35deal, it's fair, but if crypto miners want these cards again, it's going to screw with
03:39the pricing, and I think these cards will not be appropriately priced for gamers to
03:44purchase, if crypto miners get their hands on these things.
03:47Overall, I think it's a solid card, it has the same GPU tachometer as the Fury X, performance
03:52is strong, and as long as AMD continues to improve on their software, I think Vega is
03:56a good option for a lot of people.
03:58As for me personally, for this particular build, I feel like the Vega GPU is a little
04:02bit too hot, and a little bit too high power consumption for this particular case size.
04:07300 watts is pushing this case size and the power supply.
04:11600 watt power supply, a lot of that is taken by the video card, and I just think that I
04:16should go for a lower TDP for this system.
04:18Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video, thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it, see
04:21you guys next time.