"Future proofing" and the RX 480

[nashathedog]

Memory is relevant and having plenty will cover that side of things for some time to come, Core performance is next and while not having loads a 480 does have enough, The problem is AMD's card stumble with there DX11 performance, I'm guessing some DX11 games will still be being made 3 and 4 years down the line and if there demands continue to increase there will be titles that will need plenty of tweaking to run comfortably. A 480 is a 1080p card nothing more. It'll still manage 4 or 5 years down the line in the same way a 7850 manages today. If you truly want to future proof you need to be looking at the top end cards, The reason I haven't moved to one of Nvidia's high end cards this gen is because I'm not convinced that Pascal has the relevant tech capabilities to maintain it's market position over the long haul, They currently use brute force and as I also want to buy a card to last I'm hoping that Vega will offer that. But if not I'll trudge on with my Fury or buy one of the cheaper 1070's to play with while I wait for the next gen cards which I'd hope will fully support whats needed on Nvidia's side.

 

[chilipeppersc]

I think it's the same as most others mid range cards of there time... The 1070 will so be OK in 2-3 years but will probably need an upgrade for maxing out, however the 480 will be medium settings King if affordability, at least are 720p. I'm sure by then 4k will be more mainstream and higher resolutions demanded by most.

 

[danlightbulb]

If these cards can run ultra settings at 1080p just fine now, then why won't they do it in 5 years? There comes a point where there is no visual benefit to increasing detail at 1080p. Aren't we at that point now?

 

[DarrenM343]

If these cards can run ultra settings at 1080p just fine now, then why won't they do it in 5 years? There comes a point where there is no visual benefit to increasing detail at 1080p. Aren't we at that point now?

No .
I've yet to see a screenshot or some gameplay that is like looking at a high definition photograph, or as real as some high definition video. There's always more things to do to take up processing power.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Rule to live by - Buy the best you can afford when you need it. Future proofing dosnt work in this game so worry about now and ho from there

If I had bought an R9 380 Instead of a GTX960 I would have had better performance over time though. AMD midrange and lower high-end cards of the last few years seemed to have decent longevity.

 

[SiDeards73]

Nvidia cards generally do not age as well as AMD cards, AMD drivers are tuned for their GCN architecture which spans across most of their cards, Nvidia do not have the same setup so tune for card generations individually pretty much.

If an AMD driver brings a 10% boost in performance its pretty much across the board for all GCN based cards, if Nvidia bring a 10% performance its generally to specific architectures, and ontop of this Nvidia pretty much stops optimising for hardware once they phase it out.

That is why AMD cards get better year after year and Nvidia cards lose ground on them, you only need to look back at recent cards to see where xx Nvidia card had a lead its fallen behind AMD cards it was beating.

If i was looking at a card to keep for 4+ years on a budget i wouldnt even consider Nvidia an option.

 

[LMT50]

Thanks for the replies. Seem to have some conflicting views here.

Here's a question: if you had to buy a card right now, that would be best value for money both with cost and longevity, which would you pick?

Also,
As my brains said, couldn't you add another card down the line?
Say you got a 480, rather than upgrading to a new card later, couldn't you just get a second 480 for use in crossfire?

That would keep the cost down, considering the 480 will be less expensive by then, but you'd be getting around 1080 performance?

I know it's always better to have a single card, but wouldn't that be an option?

 

[SiDeards73]

Thanks for the replies. Seem to have some conflicting views here.

Here's a question: if you had to buy a card right now, that would be best value for money both with cost and longevity, which would you pick?

Also,
As my brains said, couldn't you add another card down the line?
Say you got a 480, rather than upgrading to a new card later, couldn't you just get a second 480 for use in crossfire?

That would keep the cost down, considering the 480 will be less expensive by then, but you'd be getting around 1080 performance?

I know it's always better to have a single card, but wouldn't that be an option?

Pretty much exactly what your saying tbh, Xfire 480 is roughly in the ballpark of a 1080 right now when it works, this is only going to increase in performance as DX12 MGPU is adopted, then again Nvidia will see a lift from this as well.

However it appears right now DX12 gives AMD a decent boost, and Vulcan as well gives AMD hardware massive gains, Vulcan is also getting MGPU type support shortly.

They also just annoucned DX12 and Vulcan support for the Cryengine in the past day or so, pretty much most of the current game engines have added DX12 and many are adding Vulcan support.

So as long as your PSU will take the additional card and your motherboard has the space, yes you can add another 480 later and reap the benefits.

I am currently considering an Xfire 480 setup to replace my 3yr old AMD 290 Tri-X to tide me over til big Vega comes, and im tempted to buy 2 of the big Vega cards depending on how they are priced and perform, as i see them as a good buy for atleast 4yrs of high end gaming.

 

[brawl3r]

Pretty much exactly what your saying tbh, Xfire 480 is roughly in the ballpark of a 1080 right now when it works, this is only going to increase in performance as DX12 MGPU is adopted, then again Nvidia will see a lift from this as well.

However it appears right now DX12 gives AMD a decent boost, and Vulcan as well gives AMD hardware massive gains, Vulcan is also getting MGPU type support shortly.

They also just annoucned DX12 and Vulcan support for the Cryengine in the past day or so, pretty much most of the current game engines have added DX12 and many are adding Vulcan support.

So as long as your PSU will take the additional card and your motherboard has the space, yes you can add another 480 later and reap the benefits.

I am currently considering an Xfire 480 setup to replace my 3yr old AMD 290 Tri-X to tide me over til big Vega comes, and im tempted to buy 2 of the big Vega cards depending on how they are priced and perform, as i see them as a good buy for atleast 4yrs of high end gaming.

I have not upgraded my 290x yet, as I am also waiting for Vega.
But between a 480 and a 1060, If mGPU is going to start kicking off again under dx12, and with the 2 new consoles, (apparently going to be mGPU)
1060 has no sli support, so future proofing does not work now days, but who knows, next year it could be fully supported and 2x 480 might be sweet spot for 1400p gaming.

 

[Telecaster]

Future proofing does work, i could have bought quad fire 5970 2GB versions 1GB per GPU, but i wanted to use them as long as i can without having to worry about the Vram becoming an issue before the GPU grunt, i bought the 4GB versions, 2GB per GPU, i didn't need 2GB per GPU at the time but i would need it in the future and indeed my prediction was right, with other users ditching there 5970 2GB because they said the vram is not enough anymore while i carried on to nearly 4 years with the cards.

VRAM doesn't stack though, so you still only effectively had 2GB, which isn't much future proofing, even if some pov cards still come with 2GB.

 

[Brazo]

Well the 480 won't run all current games at 1080/60 ultra settings and of course that's only set to worsen when more demanding games out.

Lots of people say the 1060 is evenly matched. You can check the benchmarks yourself, the 1060 is a good 10-20% better in dx11 and on average the two cards match in dx12. Actually the 1060 is fractionally better when averaged out across all dx12 titles.

The 480 achieves this through overheating and crashing. You pays your money.. Buy a 1080!

 

[andicole0]

Rule to live by - Buy the best you can afford when you need it. Future proofing dosnt work in this game so worry about now and ho from there

+1 definitely.

Well I'd be happy knocking the settings down as time goes on, I just didn't want it to be way, way out of date.

No you won't as soon as fps drops and/or image quality reduces you will be thinking of an upgrade.

You won't beat technology development, even console manufacturers are talking upgradeable boxes.
Andi.

 

[Final8y]

+1 definitely.



No you won't as soon as fps drops and/or image quality reduces you will be thinking of an upgrade.

You won't beat technology development, even console manufacturers are talking upgradeable boxes.
Andi.

He said he would be happy to knock settings down, so you are in no position to tell him otherwise.

 

[Final8y]

Also future proofing has nothing to do it being the best there is for as long as possible or not being superseded, future proofing is about a product's usefulness for as long as possible based on the individual's criteria .

 

[DarrenM343]

Nvidia cards generally do not age as well as AMD cards, AMD drivers are tuned for their GCN architecture which spans across most of their cards, Nvidia do not have the same setup so tune for card generations individually pretty much.p

I don't agree with that, that's an opinion probably by someone who prefers AMD cards. I think AMD cards are poorly optimised on release hence they appear to "age" better than Nvidia cards which have much better optimised drivers when they're released so there's not as much performance to be extracted later. Like your opinion, this is just my opinion, one made by someone who prefers Nvidia cards but have owner cards from both companies .

Also future proofing has nothing to do it being the best there is for as long as possible or not being superseded, future proofing is about a product's usefulness for as long as possible based on the individual's criteria .

True, but people don't always know the exact criteria and nobody really likes turning down the settings (nice in theory) - to remove features from a game we have paid to have. Paying x amount for a game, we owe it to ourselves to get the best experience/enjoyment we can from it.
Without clear criteria, the most future proof card is likely to be the most expensive card available when someone is in the market to buy. If that's too expensive then the obvious choice is to buy the best one you can afford/justify paying for.

 

[Final8y]

I don't agree with that, that's a comment probably by someone who prefers AMD cards. I think AMD cards are poorly optimised on release hence they appear to "age" better than Nvidia cards which have much better optimised drivers when they're released so there's not as much performance to be extracted later. Like your opinion though, this is just my opinion

But the point is if the performance is good enough at release for the individual and then it can only get better.

 

[melmac]

I don't agree with that, that's an opinion probably by someone who prefers AMD cards. I think AMD cards are poorly optimised on release hence they appear to "age" better than Nvidia cards because which have much better optimised drivers when they're released so there's not as much performance to be extracted later. Like your opinion, this is just my opinion .

So you have just made his point, the 480 will get better as time goes on, the 1060 is as good as it's going to be.

 

[Final8y]

True, but people don't always know the exact criteria and nobody really likes turning down the settings - remove features from a game we have paid to have.
Without clear criteria, the most future proof card is likely to be the most expensive card available when someone is in the market to buy.

The absolutes do not matter, he said what he said and that's what you have to go on, the majority of gamers turn settings down whether they like it or not.

And as history has shown the more expensive has not always been the most future proof.

 

[melmac]

I thought it'd be interesting to talk about the concept of future proofing.

While researching the RX 480, the term has come up quite a bit in its discussion; some deeming it a great card for the future, and others essentially saying that within a couple of years it'll be junk.

Is this too much of a tall order with the 480? Or will I be set for around the time frame of 4 years?

Well, the people saying it will be junk are probably Nvidia fans,the people saying it will be great are probably AMD fans.

What the AMD fans are saying is right, if you base it on previous cards. For whatever reason AMD cards seem to perform better as time goes on.

What Nvidia fans are saying is also right, in 4 years, games(hopefully) will have moved on a lot. So the 480 will only able to be play these games at much reduced settings. But then again, that applies to the 1060 too.

The other thing to look at too is Dx12 and Vulkan. Both run better on the 480. Going forward these will be the API's of choice. Dx11 will still be around, but I would imagine in 2 years time Dx12 or Vulkan will be used in the majority of games.

But, I would still say if you are thinking about buying a new card now, pick a budget and stick to it. Look at the cards within your budget and see how they perform in the games you play the most. Think about the future, but, don't let it be the most important thing in your decision making. If you are undecided between two cards then consider the future proofing aspect at that stage.

Saying all that, I wouldn't buy a card for the long term now. First generation cards after a die shrink always are a little flaky. The second generation cards tend to be much better as they get to grips with the new node.

 

[Final8y]

VRAM doesn't stack though, so you still only effectively had 2GB, which isn't much future proofing, even if some pov cards still come with 2GB.

Hench why i said 4GB ,2GB per GPU which is double the Vram of the 2GB ,1GB per GPU, the 5970 is a dual GPU card and seeing as the 2GB per GPU meant i could use the cards for nearly 2 years more than i would have otherwise it was great future proofing and back then 2GB perGPU was considered overkill with many comments saying that you i will never use it but in fact they were wrong and as i have said other users with the 1GB per GPU had to get rid of there cards because the 1GB per GPU was not enough for the grunt of the card.