There’s not long to wait for the launch of AMD’s Radeon VII graphics card, the first gaming GPU of its kind on the 7nm process node. However, even before the embargo’s up and performance figures are let loose on the globe, some avid benchmarkers’ results have been scooped right off the interwebs for us to lay our prying eyes on.
AMD’s high-end gaming GPU has been spotted across the UL 3DMark benchmarking suite, that means we have access to early results for Firestrike, Firestrike Extreme, Firestrike Ultra, and Time Spy. Plenty to be tucking into. But not to ruin your Margarita with an over enthusiastic salting, it’s worth noting that, while there are evidently Radeon VII samples out in the wild, all drivers are pre-release and therefore performance is not necessarily final.
As for those sweet, all-important performance index numbers, fresh leaks from the underbelly of the internet (thanks, TUM_APISAK) would have us believe the Radeon VII in 3DMark Time Spy, with a score of 8,700 timepoints or what have you, is outperformed by our results for the Nvidia RTX 2080, holding its own at 9,645.
And the story continues in Firestrike, where AMD’s Radeon VII – via KOMACHI_ENSAKA – only just loses out to Nvidia’s RTX 2080 by 27,587 to 27,853, respectively. To all intents and purposes that’s pretty much level-pegging. It does topple the GTX 1080 Ti, which scores 25,472, and AMD’s Vega 64 with 22,703.
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AMD’s 7nm protégé finally tops the RTX 2080, GTX 1080 Ti, and RX Vega 64 in Firestrike Extreme, however, with a score of 13,316. Even in Firestrike Ultra, where the gap between the RTX 2080 and GTX 1080 Ti all but entirely closes, the Radeon VII manages to pull ahead with a score of 6,800. Maybe that 16GB HBM2 comes in handy after all…
PCGamesN Test Rig: Intel i9 9900K, Asus ROG Strix Z370-F Gaming, 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR4, Corsair HX1200i, Philips BDM3275
The numbers for the other Nvidia and AMD cards have come from our own testing results, with the Radeon VII benchmark numbers coming from the various leaks appearing today. It’s worth noting that our benchmarks were carried out on a similar, but not entirely comparable, rig. So maybe see this as more what you’d call performance ‘guidelines’ than actual rock-solid performance figures.
Also residing in the flurry of Radeon VII activity today – how suspicious – was Final Fantasy XV benchmark results. This run is basically everything a benchmark shouldn’t be: inconsistent and unstable. But, for the record, at 1440p standard quality, the Radeon VII manages to sit right under the GTX 1080 Ti, while at high it only just tops a GTX 980 Ti. See what I mean? It’s truly useless.
AMD’s Radeon VII will launch on February 7, 2019, and you can delve much deeper into our AMD Radeon VII review for full, independent benchmarks once that day comes around.