Official OcUK RX480 4GB and 8GB review thread

D.P. · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:38

Gerard said:
Yet again, so that's you 1 for 500.

I think you will find pretty much everything I say is correct or nearly correct.

Pascal not being 6 months behind Polaris. Check
Pascal using GDDR5X: Check
480 not competing with the 1070 at all: Check
Polaris still being considering behind Pascal in power efficiency. Check
Polaris never getting the clock speed of Pascal. Check
AMD's 2.8X efficiency claims being bogus. Check.

Where I am wrong it has mostly been Polaris performing worse than expected. I thought the 480 would be more like 390X performance not, 390. I thought it would be more like 140W, not more.

Freddie1980 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:39

Ok I’ve think I’ve come with one stat that puts the RX 480.

The RX 480 is 37% faster than the R9 380 at the £170-£190 price point whereas the GTX 1070 is the same performance as a GTX980Ti at the £400 price point.

D.P. · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:39

FoxEye said:
Hmm, GCN4 is basically identical to GCN1.2?

What have they been doing with their time? Has AMD just run out of money for R&D?

I fear for Zen. AMD cannot deliver more mediocrity and survive.

AMD might have been pouring all their R&D effort into Zen. Zen is far more important than Polaris. If Zen does well AMD will do well regardless of Polaris. If Zen fails then AMD will fail regardless of Polaris.

I'm going to stay optimistic for Zen, would love to go back to AMD CPUs.

Rannoch · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:41

D.P has been pretty spot on in the run up to this card.

AllBodies · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:42

D.P. said:
AMD might have been pouring all their R&D effort into Zen. Zen is far more important than Polaris. If Zen does well AMD will do well regardless of Polaris. If Zen fails then AMD will fail regardless of Polaris.

I'm going to stay optimistic for Zen, would love to go back to AMD CPUs.

Also they've implied Vega is different to Polaris in some way. Maybe Vega will fare better.

Although it may just end up being a doubled-up Polaris with HBM2.

humbug · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:43

Kyle_Bennett
HardOCP Chef Editor

voklskier4452 said: ↑

I think I will wait to see what custom cards can do at this point. I really would like to replace the power hungry and hot monster that is my R9 290X but my ultrawide is really wanting a 1070 at this point. Stupid nvidia not supporting freesync.

AIBs are telling me this morning that with high end custom cooling they are seeing 1490MHz to 1600MHz overclocks, but it is a "lottery draw" with which GPUs will do even that.

Freddie1980 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:43

D.P. said:
Where I am wrong it has mostly been Polaris performing worse than expected. I thought the 480 would be more like 390X performance not, 390. I thought it would be more like 140W, not more.

I think the more concerning issue is what Toms Hardware discovered about the amount of juice this greedy porker is drinking through the PCI-E connection. They claim it could potentially damage audio on cheaper motherboard which is used the type of PC user who this card is aimed at.

LoadsaMoney · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:43

Lokken86 said:
The 480 will wreck the 970 in dx 12 games

Yeah, when those games appear, pity we'll all have moved on by then though, and they'll be well old.

FoxEye · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:45

AllBodies said:
Also they've implied Vega is different to Polaris in some way. Maybe Vega will fare better.

Although it may just end up being a doubled-up Polaris with HBM2.

No, you're right.

"Two new GPUs for 2016".

Two different codenames, Polaris and Vega.

Perhaps Vega is totally different to Polaris.

I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but Polaris delivering below my expectations does not mean Vega might not be impressive.

Can only hope. I don't dislike AMD, but I won't buy their stuff purely to keep them in business. Has to deliver.

Bobmunkhouse · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:47

Well my 390 8Gb seems to hold out well and got that for similar price so I'm not crying....I guess price will go down on this and make it a good deal in the end maybe...

Orangey · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:47

FoxEye said:
Hmm, GCN4 is basically identical to GCN1.2?

What have they been doing with their time? Has AMD just run out of money for R&D?

I fear for Zen. AMD cannot deliver more mediocrity and survive.

People keep saying this... by AMD's own numbers Zen is best-case only around Sandy-Ivy levels. So once again they're competing on MOAR COARS and price, which they've been relentlessly mocked for going on half a decade now.

Pretty clear they don't have the cash to play with Intel/NV anymore but keep putt-putting along on fumes relying on their drones & cringey marketing campaigns to build hype.

Marine-RX179 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:47

Freddie1980 said:
Ok I’ve think I’ve come with one stat that puts the RX 480.

The RX 480 is 37% faster than the R9 380 at the £170-£190 price point whereas the GTX 1070 is the same performance as a GTX980Ti at the £400 price point.

In the chart the 100% is relative to the RX480 performance not relative to the 380.

The 380 at 63% means if the performance was compared relative to the 380 at 100%, so it would be like 380 100%, RX480 being 159%, which is 59% faster than the 380.

Like £1.50 is 50% more than £1, not £1.50 is 100% therefore £1.50 is only 33.3% more than £1.

Freddie1980 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:48

AllBodies said:
Also they've implied Vega is different to Polaris in some way. Maybe Vega will fare better.

Although it may just end up being a doubled-up Polaris with HBM2.

And hopefully by then AMD will have ironed out the issues with 14nm Finfet. I can’t help but feel that Global Foundries are to blame here for the power issues with them using a process node that’s needs some more work.

This is the first product AMD have launched since returning to Global Foundries and they give us this. Somethings just never change with time.

dits · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:49

pacegod said:
OCUK have just read it has 4gb disabled by bios and will milk that cow.

Can it be unlocked?

AllBodies · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:50

FoxEye said:
No, you're right.

"Two new GPUs for 2016".

Two different codenames, Polaris and Vega.

Perhaps Vega is totally different to Polaris.

I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but Polaris delivering below my expectations does not mean Vega might not be impressive.

Can only hope. I don't dislike AMD, but I won't buy their stuff purely to keep them in business. Has to deliver.

Also there is still some mild hope for Polaris.

When the forum was speculating about 1080/1070 overclocks past 2.1 GHz with custom cards, it was assumed power was an issue on the founder cards but it wasn't.

This time though it's very clear the reference 480 is right on it's power limit (in face exceeding it according to some reviews).

So perhaps with two 6-pins, or a 6+8, and better board design, the custom ones will reach 1500 Mhz and touch the Fury Pro. MAYBE.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:51

Freddie1980 said:
And hopefully by then AMD will have ironed out the issues with 14nm Finfet. I can’t help but feel that Global Foundries are to blame here for the power issues with them using a process node that’s needs some more work.

This is the first product AMD have launched since returning to Global Foundries and they give us this. Somethings just never change with time.

They better get upto speed quickly - they only have six months to get Vega and Zen working OK on the same process!

Freddie1980 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:53

Marine-RX179 said:
In the chart the 100% is relative to the RX480 performance not relative to the 380.

The 380 at 63% means if the performance was compared relative to the 380 at 100%, so it would be like 380 100%, RX480 being 159%, which is 59% faster than the 380.

Like £1.50 is 50% more than £1, not £1.50 is 100% therefore £1.50 is 33.3% more than £1.

Of course your correct I just got my words mixed up but the point I was making was AMD are offering extra value over the last generation cards whereas Nvidia is more or less the same.

FoxEye · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:54

AllBodies said:
Also there is still some mild hope for Polaris.

When the forum was speculating about 1080/1070 overclocks past 2.1 GHz with custom cards, it was assumed power was an issue on the founder cards but it wasn't.

This time though it's very clear the reference 480 is right on it's power limit (in face exceeding it according to some reviews).

So perhaps with two 6-pins, or a 6+8, and better board design, the custom ones will reach 1500 Mhz and touch the Fury Pro. MAYBE.

But they will be much more expensive, all the way up to £300 by AMD's own words.

And very, very, very unlikely to make up much of the +70% the 1070 has on the 480.

So you do wonder what the point of expensive AIB versions of this card will be.

Freddie1980 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:55

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
They better get upto speed quickly - they only have six months to get Vega and Zen working OK on the same process!

I get the feeling after looking at the RX480 Zen might get pushed back to Q1 2017 (end of) or spill in Q2 2017. AMD can afford a poor launch for a video card but the CPU has to be spot on. If AMD delivers on what there claiming Zen will be perform similarly to Broadwell/Haswell which is all well and good but given there track record I'm not hopeful (RX 480 just serves as a reminder of just how underwhelming AMD product launches have been over the last 4 years)

AllBodies · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:56

FoxEye said:
But they will be much more expensive, all the way up to £300 by AMD's own words.

And very, very, very unlikely to make up much of the +70% the 1070 has on the 480.

So you do wonder what the point of expensive AIB versions of this card will be.

If they could manage faster than a GTX 980 for 10% less money, that would be ok. Probably attract a lot of people looking in the ~£250 range.

But it couldn't be £300, that would be far too much.