A gamer wanted to build a budget PC for gaming and spent no more than 400 US dollars (370 euros). Inside is a Radeon Vega 56, which belongs to AMD’s controversial graphics cards.
The player used almost exclusively new components for his new computer (via reddit.com). In fact, he only bought the graphics card used; all other components are new or refurbished. The graphics card is the Radeon Vega 56, which you can only find used on the market today.
- Intel I3 – 10105f
- Radeon Vega 56
- Asus Tuf B460-Plus
- Teamgroup 512gb SSD
- Teamgroup Vulcan 16gb DDR4 3200
- Aresgame AGW600 80+ Bronze PSU
Update 21.02: A few price alternatives added in the section below.
The Radeon Vega 56 was AMD’s controversial attempt to return to the high-end market
The installed graphics card is the Radeon Vega 56 from AMD. This GPU was controversial among gamers and testers. After all, it was a graphics card with which AMD wanted to compete with Nvidia’s high-end offerings after a long time.
After the Radeon R9 Fury X, AMD had not released a new high-end GPU for 2 years. In 2017, the two Vega graphics cards (Vega 56 and Vega 64) were released. These GPUs were intended to compete with the GeForce GTX 1080. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, Nvidia’s then top model, securely held the number one spot.
For the graphics card, they also did not rely on GDDR memory but rather on High Bandwidth Cache (HBM2 memory).
However, the Vega series was accompanied by all the concerns that AMD was known for back then: faulty software for the graphics card and an efficiency that lagged significantly behind Nvidia’s graphics cards. This is reported by colleagues from Computerbase. For many, this was a reason to rather opt for Nvidia’s GTX 1080 or to optimize themselves.
Indeed, from today’s perspective, the Vega 56 still offers a decent graphics card that can easily run modern titles in Full HD and WQHD (via notebookcheck.com).
With a Vega 56, you can still easily game in 2023, but there are better alternatives
How well can you still game with it today? You can still fluidly play modern games with a Vega 56.
- CoD: Vanguard runs at about 130 FPS on medium settings in Full HD.
- Cyberpunk 2077 runs at around 80 FPS on medium details in Full HD.
- The popular shooter Apex: Legends runs at high settings with 120 FPS as well.
The performance can keep up easily with modern graphics cards, but the power consumption (efficiency) of the card is much too high. However, with undervolting, you can counteract this, or you can directly opt for a recommended AMD graphics card with better efficiency.
Currently, you can get the card used for 150 euros; we would rather advise you to go for a GPU from the RX 6000 series or Nvidia’s GTX 1650, which is currently considered the best graphics card under 200 euros. You can also get a used GeForce GTX 1060 on eBay for around 150 euros.
If you have a larger budget of up to 300 euros, you can get a RX 6600, which offers significantly better efficiency. The controversial RX 6500XT we would only recommend conditionally, only if the budget is tight.
The video from the YouTuber Iceberg Tech has been embedded here; you can see how well the games run with the graphics card:
Alternatively, you can also opt for a Nvidia graphics card. Where exactly the differences between AMD and Nvidia lie and what features you have to forgo with which manufacturer, you can read in the following article here on MeinMMO:
How important is it when buying a graphics card whether I choose AMD or Nvidia?
