Over the past few months, we have seen two makers of video cards laying the groundwork for Mini-ITX graphics adapters based on the Radeon RX Vega GPU. This week PowerColor confirmed that its small form-factor Radeon RX Vega is incoming and will be showcased next month at Computex.

PowerColor’s RX Vega 56 Nano Edition will be based on a PCB that resembles the one used for the Red Dragon RX 56 card introduced in late March. The new graphics adapter will feature four display outputs: three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0b. As for power connectors, it will have one 8-pin and one 6-pin header.

The board will be outfitted with a dual-slot cooler featuring one large fan and heat pipes. Keeping in mind that the main draw of AMD’s original Radeon R9 Nano was its compact size as well as lower TDP, we certainly expect PowerColor's Mini-ITX RX Vega 56 to go the same direction. AMD's reference Vega 56 has a 210 W TDP, so PowerColor would need only to turn the card down to 175W to match AMD's previous card and similarly keep heat dissipation in line with what AMD's cooler could do.

The biggest differences/unknowns right now are that whereas AMD's Radeon R9 Nano used a fully-enabled Fiji GPU - fully embracing the idea of going wide and slow - PowerColor is using a cut-down Radeon RX 56-class Vega GPU. So it will be interesting to see what actual performance is like; PowerColor faces a smaller need for power savings, and there are numerous signs that AMD pushed the reference Vega voltages a bit hard to hith higher clockspeeds, so PowerColor may only need to back off clockspeeds slightly to hit their goals.

Production of AMD’s Radeon RX Vega GPU is in full swing, so expect PowerColor to start sales of the product shortly after its first demonstration at Computex. Pricing of the RX Vega 56 Nano Edition adapter is unknown and given the market situation, it is not a good business to make predictions here.

Specifications of PowerColor and Reference Radeon RX Vega Cards
  PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX Vega 64
 
PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX Vega 56 PowerColor
Red Dragon Radeon RX
Vega 56
PowerColor
Radeon RX
Vega 56
Nano Edition
AMD
Radeon RX Vega 64
AMD
Radeon RX Vega 56
Stream Processors 4096 3584 ? 4096 3584
Base Clock 1417 MHz 1308 MHz 1177 MHz ? 1406 MHz (LCS) 1156 MHz
1247 MHz (Air)
Boost Clock 1607 MHz 1526 MHz 1478 MHz ? 1677 MHz 
(LCS)
1471 MHz
1546 MHz (Air)
VRAM Transfer Rate 1.89 GT/s 1.6 GT/s ? 1.89 GT/s 1.6 GT/s
Capacity 8 GB
Bus Width 2048-bit
Type HBM2
Board Power unknown Lowered 345W (LCS)
295W (Air)
210W
Dimensions 316 × 150 × 55 mm 316×150×40 mm 152×112×40 mm 272×112×40 mm
Power Connectors 2 × 8-pin 1 × 6-pin
1 × 8-pin
1 × 6-pin
1 × 8-pin
2 × 8-pin
Outputs 2 x HDMI 2.0
2 x DP 1.4
1 x HDMI 2.0
3 x DP 1.4
1 x HDMI 2.0
3 x DP 1.4
Launch Price unknown unknown $699 (LCS)
$499 (Air)
$399

 

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Source: PowerColor

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  • jtd871 - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link

    Anton, is it possible that these are being produced on an optimized process node (maybe with logic optimization/tweaks) to help with thermals?
  • The Hardcard - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link

    Doubtful that. Maybe firmware and/or driver improvements, to the extent there is an actual difference. Among other reasons, it is unlikely that they would do that much work and get noticeably better results without a full-throated blowing of the PR trumpets.
  • DanNeely - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link

    They might be binned parts that're faster at lower power levels; but otherwise I'd assume they're standard parts all around. A tweaked process would trigger top/bottom refreshes of the entire product line.
  • Dragonstongue - Friday, May 18, 2018 - link

    from launch price to greed priced 0 to 60 in .0001 seconds wait for it!

    Still have yet to see any Radeon/Geforce anything close to MSRP for the last ~9 months or so
    (Geforce are "closer" to maintaining around MSRP values, but knowing Nv they made a hell of a chunk of extra coin in this time frame from over pricing, because they are KNOWN to do all kinds of whack BS to inflate their bottom line afterall)

    usually in the range of 25-150% over MSRP asking price, could just be the resellers being fk putzes about it, could be the AIB (Asus etc) could even be the makers (AMD/Ngreedia) either way, no matter the cost they "claim" it will be, seems that this price disappears quicker than water in a hot desert O.o
  • StevoLincolnite - Monday, May 21, 2018 - link

    So glad I got my RX 580 when I did before crap got silly on the pricing front.
  • sing_electric - Monday, May 21, 2018 - link

    For what its worth, I've seen some 1070s/1080s for MSRP in a couple places lately: Massdrop had one, Amazon did as part of a Gold Box, etc. Yes, this is partly because the Nvidia's next GPU release is impending, but it's still refreshing to see.

    Having said that, the Vegas are still insanely expensive, and I think scarce HBM2 supplies are REALLY limiting the number of cards in the wild. (Something that's probably getting worse, not better, because the Kaby Lake-G chips have 4GB of HBM2 with them.)
  • zodiacfml - Saturday, May 19, 2018 - link

    I do not want to see a price premium. It should be cheaper than any Vega 56 due to lower performance
  • artk2219 - Monday, May 21, 2018 - link

    You would think that, but it also comes in a much smaller foot print, and they wont sell as many of these. You pay extra for that ITX form factor.
  • lmcd - Monday, May 21, 2018 - link

    That really depends. Back last fall I got my 1070 ITX for less than standard cards were retailing for, $400 while most 1070s I saw had lower clocks and slightly higher price tags.
  • lmcd - Monday, May 21, 2018 - link

    Pretty sad for me that this card comes out now rather than last fall. Went for a 1070 over a Vega 56 completely off the back of the ITX form factor (I have a Silverstone SG09 and a PSU with inflexible cables, so the ITX form factor was a huge boon for airflow). However, AMD support for Linux is far superior to date, particularly on the rolling distros I lean toward. Can't have everything I guess.

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