Radeon Vega: FE Vcore Behemoth - VRM & PCB Analysis

By Published July 03, 2017 at 2:37 am
Radeon Vega: FE Vcore Behemoth - VRM & PCB Analysis
Hardware Guides

Following our AMD Radeon Vega: Frontier Edition review and preceding tear-down, Buildzoid has now returned to analyze the AMD Vega: Frontier Edition PCB & VRM. This is a 12-phase design (doubled-up 6) that ultimately resembles something similar to a 290X Lightning, making it the hands-down best VRM we've seen on a reference card. Given that Vega: FE is $1000, that sort of makes sense -- but Buildzoid does pose some questions as to what's necessary and how much current is really going through the card.

Keep in mind that Vega: FE runs HBM2, which uses two stacked memory dies atop an interposer, adjacent to the GPU die. This layout means that VRAM's usual occupancy on the board is eliminated, leaving more room to move the VRM closer to the GPU. That's where the "L-shaped" VRM comes from, on this one, with the usual VRM spot being dedicated instead to the Delta fan.

Learn more in the PCB & VRM analysis below.

We still have more Vega: FE content coming this week, and will eventually return to some X299 follow-up coverage and liquid cooling reviews.

VRM Analyst: "Buildzoid"
Final Edits: Andrew Coleman

Last modified on July 03, 2017 at 2:37 am
Steve Burke

Steve started GamersNexus back when it was just a cool name, and now it's grown into an expansive website with an overwhelming amount of features. He recalls his first difficult decision with GN's direction: "I didn't know whether or not I wanted 'Gamers' to have a possessive apostrophe -- I mean, grammatically it should, but I didn't like it in the name. It was ugly. I also had people who were typing apostrophes into the address bar - sigh. It made sense to just leave it as 'Gamers.'"

First world problems, Steve. First world problems.

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