Radeon RX Vega 56

The Radeon RX Vega 56 is AMD's mid-range entry in the Vega architecture lineup, launched in 2017 as a direct competitor to NVIDIA's GTX 1070. Built on AMD's 14nm Vega GPU, it sits below the flagship RX Vega 64 and represents the last generation of AMD consumer graphics cards to use the older GCN-derived compute architecture before the RDNA transition.

The RX Vega 56 carries 8GB of HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory 2), a technology more commonly found in workstation and compute accelerators. HBM2 offers exceptional memory bandwidth — over 400 GB/s — which compensates for the relatively modest compute unit count. The card does not feature hardware ray tracing or AMD's newer FidelityFX Super Resolution; those arrived with RDNA-generation hardware. With a TDP of around 210W and an MSRP of $399, it launched as an efficient value proposition at its tier, though power consumption runs higher than equivalent NVIDIA options.

The RX Vega 56 targets 1080p and 1440p gaming at high to ultra settings. It suits buyers picking up used hardware at a discount who want solid rasterization performance and benefit from HBM2's bandwidth in memory-intensive workloads. It is best paired with a quality power supply and adequate case airflow given its thermal and power demands.