The gauge-based precipitation data from the National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administ-ration (CMA), Asian Precipitation-Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation (APHRODITE), Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Network-Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), High Asia Refined analysis (HAR) are compared with each other and evaluated by the precipitation data from 16 national meteorological stations during 1980-2016 in the Yarlung Zangbo River and its sub-basins. The potential utilities of these multiple precipitation datasets are then systematically evaluated as inputs for the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) macroscale land surface hydrologic model. The results show that: 1) PERSIANN-CDR and GLDAS contain the largest precipitation estimates among the six datasets with mean annual precipitation of 770-790 mm, followed by the HAR and GPM (650-660 mm), while CMA and APHRODITE contain the lowest precipitation estimates with mean annual precipitation of 460-500 mm. All the products can detect the large-scale monsoon-dominated precipitation regime in the Yarlung Zangbo River and its sub-basins with 70%-90% of annual total precipitation occurring in June-September except the GPM. 2) The general spatial pattern of the annual mean precipitation fields is roughly in agreement among the six datasets, with a decreasing trend from the southeast to the northwest in the Yarlung Zangbo River Basin except the PERSIANN-CDR and GLDAS. 3) Relative to the data from the national meteorological stations, APHRODITE, GPM, and HAR generally underestimate precipitation by 10%-30%, while PERSIANN-CDR and GLDAS overestimate precipitation from stations in upstream sub-basins by 28%-60% and underestimate precipitation from stations in downstream sub-basins by 11%-21%. 4) The six precipitation datasets cannot satisfy the needs of hydrological simulation in term of accuracy or period in the basin. 5) HAR precipitation data—output of regional climate model—show more reasonable amount and seasonal pattern among the six datasets in the upper Brahmaputra according to the inverse evaluation by VIC hydrological model.