"Future proofing" and the RX 480

[pandem0nium]

For longevity it's always best to get the higher vram versions of the cards even though it seems like overkill at the time.

The 8 gb 290Xs will be relevant for years to come.

The 6gb 7970s if anyone bought any would still be good up to 4k if you had two or three.

 

[DarrenM343]

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

Maybe, but then paying good money for a product I'd expect it to be well optimised from day 1, running games the best it can. AMD cards are usually cheaper so I suppose that is factored in. But if I bought a Fury X to play the latest games, I don't really want it better optimised some x months later when I've bought something to use from day one.

 

[nashathedog]

I would not be buying cards (plural) in the hope that mgpu is suddenly going to get better support, The rumour that the Neo or Scorpio will be mgpu is just that, A rumour, with no concrete information for it to be based on, The low level api's put the emphasis on the games developers to do the work towards mgpu support so I'm betting it won't get any better, people say it will all the time, Usually when AMD release a card like the 7990 or 295x2 etc that's the claim yet every time we end up with disgruntled enthusiasts who more often than not have to turn the second gpu/chip off. Xfire has been plagued with problems such as texture flickering for ages, Individual game support through drivers is often late by months just look at big releases like Dying light and Fallout 4. Then there's those that never get it like Arkham Knight.
Anyone researching for a gpu purchase needs to ignore internet users claiming things will be different and that the future of mgpu is bright and instead look at the hard data to see what the experience is actually like. If it does finally get better great buy 2 gpu's next time once we've seen it get better not now, Odd's on you'll end up getting burnt.

 

[Final8y]

Maybe, but then paying good money for a product I'd expect it to be well optimised from day 1, running games the best it can. AMD cards are usually cheaper so I suppose that is factored in. But if I bought a Fury X to play the latest games, I don't really want it better optimised some x months later.

That's fine hence why its about what matters most to the individual and not about what matters most to you should matter the most for others.

 

[melmac]

Maybe, but then paying good money for a product I'd expect it to be well optimised from day 1, running games the best it can. AMD cards are usually cheaper so I suppose that is factored in. But if I bought a Fury X to play the latest games, I don't really want it better optimised some x months later when I've bought something to use from day one.

I don't get this statement at all. Cards are released, you look at benchmarks etc and decide if the price is worth it or not, if the performance is good enough or not. If it's not good enough, you buy an alternative or wait.

This not optimised drivers from AMD is only BS anyway. I guarantee you if it was Nvidia who was increasing performance over time with their cards, they would getting praised for how good their driver team is at getting more performance.

 

[h4rm0ny]

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

I don't think that's true. Features vary in how important they are over time so what is a better buy today may not be tomorrow. Examples with the 480 include better DX12 support, HDR, h.265 video encoding and a few other bits and pieces. You could buy a 980 today for around the same price as a 480 8GB version and it might edge out the 480 a little in most games. But I would prefer the 480 because we're already seeing those older Nvidia cards falling behind relative to where they were and it's only going to get worse.

Your post is simplistic. You CAN future-proof to an extent with computer hardware by paying attention to what features are likely to be capitalized on. For example, I could buy a Skylake CPU now but Kabylake (which requires a different chipset even though it's the same socket, apparently), is going to support Xpoint which the Skylake does not. So even though performance difference is going to be minimal, it's worth holding off a few months. I think the 480 is a really good example of future-proofing yourself, imo.

 

[h4rm0ny]

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?

That really depends on your budget. I mean if you're going to go price-performance you obviously are going to lean towards a 480 over a 1080. Does that mean that you'd be better off getting a 480? No, because maybe you have a lot of spare money and you really want high-end performance. You can only meaningfully compare cards of similar price. If you have tonnes of money to throw at this, then it's got to be a 1080 (though better advice would be to wait a little longer still for a 1080Ti to appear). If you're in the <£300 market then I would favour a 480 8GB over a 1060. You've got the RAM, you've got better DX12 performance. Sips a bit more power but generally people in this market don't care about an extra £5 on their electric bill at the end of the year. But 1060 or 480, I certainly wouldn't be investing in last-generation cards like a 980 at this point. Not if I expect it to last.

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?

You could. Crossfire / SLi haven't historically been that consistent. Often it's fine but you keep coming across games that don't take advantage and that can annoy some people. However, I'm pretty certain mGPU is going to see a lot wider and better support over the next few years. (Caveat: some on this forum disagree with me.) Upgrading via a second 480 would be a very good upgrade path if this pans out. Main cost is it uses more power. But again, most people don't care.

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

Around that level. Though 1080 might have "degraded" by then. Obviously the hardware you buy doesn't literally degrade, but Nvidia make up a chunk of their performance lead by putting a lot of work into game-specific tweaks. Which means the cards look good for as long as Nvidia do that, but start to look worse as Nvidia stop bothering in favour of their new cards. It's a double win for Nvidia you see - less resource they have to put into software and makes newer cards look better in the reviews against their old cards.

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

It is. I think we'll see a lot of people shift their upgrade path from being get rid of old card and buy a whole new one, to supplement their existing card with a second.

 

[Gregster]

Anything that requires settings to be dropped today (1060/480) will certainly be struggling in 4 years time. Neither of those cards have the longevity you are looking for OP.

 

[ishoeyi]

i'm 4k gaming with my 7950

its only world of Warcraft but i'm getting 60 fps with low medium settings

if you dial down the candy it can last a while

 

[akarypid]

The 480 should last you a good 2 years at least with a decent resale value. You should be able to pass it on to someone else and get some cash, then use that to upgrade to a better card.

I cannot say the same for the 1060, so between these two I went for the 480. I don't want to be stuck with a 1060 two years down the road, when DX12/Vulkan are the norm.

On the other hand a 1070, or even a 980ti simply have the raw power to outperform the 480 even in DX12/Vulkan. So it's all relative...

In the same manner, even a 390X will stay relevant and outperform the 480 for sure...

So it's all relative. If you want a new card with HDR, new hardware codec support, etc, then the 480 is probably the best buy.

If you just want good frame rates and don't care about such things a 390X nowadays is better value (and usually bundled with some nice game).

+1 for the above if you have a FreeSync monitor.

-1 if you have a G-Sync monitor, in which case a 980ti is very good value. In this case, if you can afford a 1070 you're golden... It'd beat the 480 even in DX13 or DX14 years from now base on raw power

The only card I can't justify buying is the 1060... Too ephemeral for my standards...

 

[NirK]

It is not really fast enough to be future proof, if it was a fast as a 1080 or TX then I would say it is good for a few years. Should be ok for 1080p 60hz for a few years if you can lower some settings.

 

[MyBrainz]

Im just trying to hold on a bit longer for Vega.. the 480 is about 35% better perf than my 7950.. i really want a card thats at least 50% faster than my 7950 to be happy about it lasting a good few years, though if i do buy a 480 i wont have it for long and resell it for Vega, at least that way i wont lose much when reselling.

I have the top gaming CPU and top notch RAM, i just want a damn good GPU now and i dont see the 480 being that GPU, even though its still a good card.

 

[oldestgregg]

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.

I thought dual GPU's shared VRAM not stacked it?

Regardless though, you never had to compromise settings 3 or 4 years into ownership of those? Sure you did and thats what I mean. You can make something last you 4 years,as can anyone, but with 4k becoming the norm buying a mid range card to last 4 years is a huge ask and isnt "future proofing"

You bought the very best available at the time and that will last you better than mid range but will still perform worse and worse as the new games keep coming out

 

[Kaapstad]

Future Proofing (not) but doing the best you can.

1. Set yourself a budget for new card(s).

2. Get fastest card for budget.

3. Ensure card has plenty of VRAM.




Doing the above you will have to accept in a couple of years time that

1. You must be prepared to run the latest games with reduced settings.

2. You will most likely be looking to use mGPU to maintain reasonable performance.

 

[Final8y]

I thought dual GPU's shared VRAM not stacked it?

Regardless though, you never had to compromise settings 3 or 4 years into ownership of those? Sure you did and thats what I mean. You can make something last you 4 years,as can anyone, but with 4k becoming the norm buying a mid range card to last 4 years is a huge ask and isnt "future proofing"

You bought the very best available at the time and that will last you better than mid range but will still perform worse and worse as the new games keep coming out

No they do not share Vram and neither do they stack.
No i did not have to compromise settings but if i took the versions with less Vram i would have had too.

To many times in the past i have had to compromise settings and 99% of the time it was because of the Vram the 5970s is the only time where i didn't.

4k is not becoming the norm any time soon.
And in regards to the 480, its not about maxing out settings, if maxing out settings is what mattered to the OP then 480 would not be in the topic in the first place.

Having to drop setting because of GPU grunt over time is the norm and to be expected but having to drop the Settings because of Vram is fail.

 

[andicole0]

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

OK so IMHO once you've seen high fps and high quality images you won't 'happily' go downgrading, for long anyway
Andi.

 

[Final8y]

OK so IMHO once you've seen high fps and high quality images you won't 'happily' go downgrading, for long anyway
Andi.

I have been on a minimum of 30" 2560x1600 since 2006.

Don't think for a second that the reason there are so many happy console users is because they have never seen higher quality gaming.

 

[andicole0]

I have been on a minimum of 30" 2560x1600 since 2006.

Don't think for a second that the reason there are so many happy console users is because they have never seen higher quality gaming.

Console players don't have the luxury of doing anything about it though. What about all the furor when some console games got fps limited to keep 'quality' up.

If you're happy with lo fi then don't waste money on brand new tech at rip off prices just to keep it longer. Buy older kit more often.
Andi.

 

[Final8y]

Console players don't have the luxury of doing anything about it though.

What are you talking about, What if you have a console you cant own or buy a PC

 

[motiv]

The 480 4gb is looking good for gaming at 1080p for a good while, the 8gb more so. Not sure about the 1060 as there seems to be issues with dx12/vulkan.
It may be fixed in the future but who know.

Just buy the best card for your budget.