The New Custom Designs for The Radeon Rx Vega 56

The new custom designs for the Radeon RX Vega 56, employing an RX Vega 64 video card, have been subtly introduced by XFX in recent days. The custom Double Edition of Radeon RX Vega graphics adapter under the XFX brand are not subject to overclocking in the factory, but boast a cooling system of much higher quality than previous model, with two fans that enable greater overclocking potential in comparison with other boards based on the Vega GPU under the AMD brand that use air cooling systems.

When the seminal Radeon RX Vega 64 and Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics cards were released in the early days of this year, tech reviewers and aficionados were taken aback by the long PCBs of the products, much longer than those of previous products, such as the Radeon R9 fury X products, having large amounts of empty space. The conclusion is that the boards from the RX Vega series require not only efficient cooling, but also a sizable heatsink.The result of this is AMD’s decision to opt for a long PCB, having half of an empty space, to render simpler the management of the PCIe power cable, an auxiliary. AMD’s reference cards are equipped with a 6+1-phase VRM, operating on the IR35217 controller. Moreover, the internal power circuitry of the GPU is loaded with 6 IR3598 phase doublers, which leads to significant growth in overall efficiency.

From the design perspective, XFX modified the general ideology of its custom products from the Radeon RX Vega line as compared to reference cards provided by AMD. The RX-VEGALDFF6 and the RX-VEGATDFF6 Double Edition graphic cards operate with a 153mm-long PCB, significantly shorter in length to any other, also boasting a much bigger cooling system in comparison the reference cards by AMD.Their VRM is identical to that of the Vega 64 and 56, but there is no information regarding the existence of any phase doublers. The auxiliary PCIes on the Double Editions are 2 in number, equipped with 8 pins, placed on the PCB in the right-hand corner, at the top. Considering the dimensions of the cooler, power connectors will be situated centrally on the card, making cable management much more of an issue than before.The Vega-based products that FXF offers are generally equipped with coolers similar to those in the Radeon RX 500 series. Containing two aluminum heatsinks of reasonable size, loaded with dozens of thin fins, a specially-designed plate made out of copper that covers the GPU, along with the HBM2 package and the VRM itself, over five heat pipes that redirect heat from the other parts, and two fans. The cooling system is covered by a shroud made of plastic, while the card’s other section is concealed by a backplate.

The Double Edition video cards that XFX provides is specced with a 75%-larger heatsink in surface area than the reference established by AMD, according to the company itself. Nonetheless, considering that the discussed item’s cooling system is open-air, it entails the already infamous exchanges as opposed to its blower-designed counterpart: the potential of more effective cooling and less bothersome noise is increased by the presence of two fans, but this brings about the added risk of the bulk of the heat of the card being sent straight into the casing itself.Considering that the Vega 56 and 64 Double Editions are loaded with coolers of their own, XFX is evidently interested in making their noise generation and potential for overclocking to shadow those of the rest of the Vega-series. The overclocking potential will most certainly be an integral part of the initial marketing tactic, seeing how the first batch of Vega-sourced boards that XFX will provide will be sold with reference clocks only.No MSRPs for the 56 and 64 Double Editions have been released, but statements suggest that they will be very similar to those of AMD’s similar products.

The itching matter of the release date for the highly-coveted graphics cards has not been decisively addressed yet, although XFX has provided a narrower frame than before in a statement expressing hope to have the items available for sale before the holiday season.At the time of writing, the items appear in the online company catalogue, which entails that they could be made ready for sale at any moment in the near future. On the matter of actual price tags, considering the rise in mining of cryptocurrencies in recent days and the upcoming Christmas shopping spree, every single graphics card is being sold for sums surpassing the MSRPs; therefore, it would be nothing but sheer speculation to make any anticipative statement at this time.It is not also too certain if the video game bundle-sale campaign of Wolfenstein 2 and Prey will be covered by the XFX-branded Radeon RX Vega adapters.