AMD RX 480 Fails PCI-E Specification

[David Bisset]

OK - I have checked and YES it has exceeded it. It's what AMD have said on their advertised card. How much more official can it be? It's taking it much further than advertised.

? TDP isn't a limit it's closer to an average under normal use (Thermal Design Power is poorly-specified at best, but is how much heat the card's cooler will need to dissipate under expected standard use). No card has ever not gone over it's TDP.

 

[D.P.]

Is it tho (a minimum).

From the Reddit thread (quoting whole post):

The maximum a 16xPCI-E card should draw is 75w, the minimum a motherboard must provide is 75.


Both should have tolerances and both refer to average draw over a certain time period.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

The maximum a 16xPCI-E card should draw is 75w, the minimum a motherboard must provide is 75.


Both should have tolerances and both refer to average draw over a certain time period.

Exactly, as it was already shown the GTX 750Ti happily spikes to 141W at stock speeds, and can easily run over 75W when stressed. That card draws all its power from the PCIe slot.

 

[D.P.]

OK - I have checked and YES it has exceeded it. It's what AMD have said on their advertised card. How much more official can it be? It's taking it much further than advertised.

Whiel hoping to avoid a long debate about average power, heat, TDP and TBP, yes, the 480X exceeds the power figures AMD's advertise.

AMD state a typical board power of 150W but in gaming it is more like 160-170w. AMD have done similar things with the FuryX, 390X, 290 cards. Previous models actually tended to use less than what AMD stated. And that is hr magic of how AMD can claim Polaris is 2.8X as efficient- smoke and mirrors.

 

[harney]

 

[sand_dune]

OK - I have checked and YES it has exceeded it. It's what AMD have said on their advertised card. How much more official can it be? It's taking it much further than advertised.

Never in a history of humanity this was a noteworthy article. It's unbelievable what Nvidia fans come up with to argue about a card that works just fine.

Unlike 970 that worked fine, but lacked 0.5Gb of workable Vram.

As someone said above TDP is not what you think it is.

 

[sand_dune]

And that is hr magic of how AMD can claim Polaris is 2.8X as efficient- smoke and mirrors.

That must relate to tasks that are not yet popular. There must be synthetic benchmarks where the statement is truth. You cannot use the likes of 2011 3D mark (which many people still use) to test current hardware.

 

[fs123]

Never in a history of humanity this was a noteworthy article. It's unbelievable what Nvidia fans come up with to argue about a card that works just fine.

Unlike 970 that worked fine, but lacked 0.5Gb of workable Vram.

As someone said above TDP is not what you think it is.

The problem with Nvidia drones is that they still fail to realize that trying to kill competition is detrimental to themselves in the long run. Look at the extortionate pricing of the 1080/70 series as an example of what is to become the norm without AMD. If they are 'complaining' about the 380 replacement matching a 970/390 then what will they do when the 1060 is around the same?

 

[sand_dune]

The problem with Nvidia drones is that they still fail to realize that trying to kill competition is detrimental to themselves in the long run. Look at the extortionate pricing of the 1080/70 series as an example of what is to become the norm without AMD. If they are 'complaining' about the 380 replacement matching a 970/390 then what will they do when the 1060 is around the same?

Their main characteristic is pack mentality. Everything else is secondary to them. All they want is to have this pack, kind of a gang and run around insulting minorities. Another way to call them is keyboard warriors.

This is why their favourite games are those where you punch people and behave like a little rude rebel.

I think it has to do something with primitive male behaviour, they try to dominate other males to look good in front of ladies. Except almost everyone is a dude here, no ladies - adds to their frustration.

 

[smogsy]

Question. why is it such a bad thing for the RX 480 to briefly draw 80 Watts through the 75 Watt PCIe but ok for the 750TI to briefly draw 140 Watts through the PCIe?

In fact acording to this chart the 750TI is drawring about 100 Watts through the PCIe almost as much as it is 60 Watts.

750Ti also has an pci 6pin connector & it does not say anywhere on that graph thats PCI-E only. got a source suggesting it is?

not defending nvidia here, just wanting to make sure the both cards are the same

 

[harney]

I quote

From PC Perspective:

The easy fix to this whole ordeal is for AMD to have used an 8-pin power connector on the RX 480. The PCI Express spec allows an 8-pin connection to draw 150 watts on its own, leaving the power from the PCI Express connection on the motherboard for overhead. This is how NVIDIA designed the GTX 970 (two 6-pin connections) and how AMD designed the R9 380 (one 8-pin connection): both cards have 150+ watt TDPs with power supply overhead available to them. The new GeForce GTX 1070 has an identical TDP to the RX 480 (150 watts) but uses an 8-pin power connection to relieve any concerns at stock performance or while overclocking.

I asked around our friends in the motherboard business for some feedback on this issue - is it something that users should be concerned about or are modern day motherboards built to handle this type of variance? One vendor told me directly that while spikes as high as 95 watts of power draw through the PCIE connection are tolerated without issue, sustained power draw at that kind of level would likely cause damage. The pins and connectors are the most likely failure points - he didn’t seem concerned about the traces on the board as they had enough copper in the power plane to withstand the current.

AMD probably didn’t want to include a second 6-pin or upgrade to an 8-pin connection because of the impression it would give for a mainstream gaming card. Having two power connectors or an 8-pin might tell uninformed buyers that the RX 480 isn’t power efficient enough, that it might not work with an underpowered system and power supply, etc. My hope is that AMD’s partners paid attention to this data and are over building their power delivery to alleviate any concerns. We will know very soon.

 

[harney]

750Ti also has an pci 6pin connector & it does not say anywhere on that graph thats PCI-E only. got a source suggesting it is?

not defending nvidia here, just wanting to make sure the both cards are the same

I am sure i had a 750ti with no power connector let me check

Yep here

https://www.zotac.com/nl/product/graphics_card/gtx-750-ti-2gb-0

The card he has tested re that graph was the reference 750ti no power connector

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-750-ti-review,review-32889.html

What i do not understand why is there such an uproar regarding the RX 480 using what 10 15w above spec when clearly the 750 ti was above 60w does not make any sense

 

[FoxEye]

@sand_dune, @fs123

LOL. Might I remind you there was a guy in one of the threads earlier saying, "If you want AMD to stay around let's all hope the 1060 is a really terrible card."

How does AMD performing badly enhance competition? How is that working on the CPU side? A string of **** CPUs from AMD is really helping, yes?

If your idea of a competitive market comprises both companies releasing sub-par products, then that's just sad.

It would be better for all if AMD were bought out, or somehow managed to hire a competent management team.

 

[smogsy]

I am sure i had a 750ti with no power connector let me check

Yep here

https://www.zotac.com/nl/product/graphics_card/gtx-750-ti-2gb-0

Sure, but

1. AIB is totally different to a Reference board. Zotac killing your motherboard is different to the manufacturer of the Chip itself killing it.

2. Also is this not LP edition? or am i thinking of the 750? not the ti?

3. fair enough with your statement seem NV & AMD have gone over 75W at least once

 

[harney]

Sure, but

1. AIB is totally different to a Reference board. Zotac killing your motherboard is different to the manufacturer of the Chip itself killing it.

2. Also is this not LP edition? or am i thinking of the 750? not the ti?

3. fair enough with your statement

Yes i added more re read sry was busy doing some thing

 

[Hotwired]

750Ti also has an pci 6pin connector & it does not say anywhere on that graph thats PCI-E only. got a source suggesting it is?

not defending nvidia here, just wanting to make sure the both cards are the same

I have a 750Ti in my small computer entirely powered from the pcie slot.

 

[Meaker]

? TDP isn't a limit it's closer to an average under normal use (Thermal Design Power is poorly-specified at best, but is how much heat the card's cooler will need to dissipate under expected standard use). No card has ever not gone over it's TDP.

Just like intel mobile cpus.

47w tdp with 57w 30 second turbo window.

 

[hyperseven]

think ttl explains this issue about halfway in this vid

 

[Kaapstad]

250-300w yes, few people know it as it seems. I didn't know. But I made just a little research that anyone can do and I see that that is the truth.

I managed to power a couple of GTX 980s entirely from the PCI-E slots by accident once.

The system they were in was powered by two PSUs, unfortunately the one powering the cards failed which left the other PSU to power the cards through the motherboard. The remaining PSU was quite taxed I think as it has a total of 4 GTX 980s and a 5960X to power, fortunately when I realized what had happened I turned the system off.

 

[JanM]

Just can't believe how inefficient this thing is (power to performance wise). Is the 14nm node AMD using not as good as the 16nm node Nvidia is using or is this inefficiency due to design?