Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

[Seanspeed]

I'm getting annoyed with digital foundary. They always seem to overlook the fact there is a glaring problem on one vendor but go ahead and test anyway. They did it with this and doom, some other game I can't remember but ran like crap on the 970 for some reason and another that ran sub 10fps on both the 390 and the 970. Seriously what's the point your just going to have to test it again.

They are just fishing for views Imo.

They are providing fresh information for consumers. If there are problems with certain things, then people should know about that and it's fantastic that DF do an analysis to uncover these issues, cuz most people would never know about them otherwise.

DF dont know if these issues are going to get fixed in the future. They're not psychics. They're just putting the info out there.

And when the issues do get fixed, DF are VERY good about going back and reevaluating the situation. As they did with Doom and many others.

I find it absolutely ridiculous to criticize such an invaluable consumer resource. And frankly, I find it super interesting, as somebody interested in all the technical details of these games and how they run.

 

[henson0115]

Could be an honest mistake. But they should take the video down.

They actually commented on the video to say they were looking into it, but it should definitely come down, how many people will use this as accurate without reading the comments...

 

[fs123]

What concerns me about going AMD again is the drivers. Saw a digital foundry video earlier showing a 970 vs. 390 in the new mirrors edge game, and the 390 performance is appalling. Much lower than it should be. I do want a new AMD GPU but the drivers are so wobbly.

Could be an honest mistake. But they should take the video down.

Judging by their past videos such as comparing an OC 970 with a stock 390 I suspect they did not make a mistake. They only got caught out because of the Gamernexus article and some viewers noticed the shadow differences.

If they were honest they would have taken the video down immediately.

 

[henson0115]

They are providing fresh information for consumers. If there are problems with certain things, then people should know about that and it's fantastic that DF do an analysis to uncover these issues, cuz most people would never know about them otherwise.

DF dont know if these issues are going to get fixed in the future. They're not psychics. They're just putting the info out there.

And when the issues do get fixed, DF are VERY good about going back and reevaluating the situation. As they did with Doom and many others.

I find it absolutely ridiculous to criticize such an invaluable consumer resource. And frankly, I find it super interesting, as somebody interested in all the technical details of these games and how they run.

It's not an issue with the cards or drivers, its an issue with the testing

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Apologies if posted, etc.

From Reddit...

*Vomits

Its an old transistor radio

 

[Lokken86]

no they dont, products shouldn't be released if not ready.

Well I disagree. Games are getting that complicated now there's always issues and they are usually resolved after a very short time. Cmon why review a game running at 7fps on a gtx970, obviously something is wrong but they take it like that is just how it runs and go "oh hey look theres a new fix lets test again" , 3 days later, even though it was obvious to us a 390 and 970 can do better than 10fps all along"

Rant over.

 

[Supernova]

DF is not using hyper settings on the 970 and are looking into it according to their youtube response. I bet they didn't think they would get caught until the gamernexus article was posted.

Oh dear DF! An easy mistake to leave it on I guess, but that's a big error to get through all the benching without realising it. I have faith in AMD

Edit: Just been having a browse of the AMD range on OCUK and found most 390X, Nano, Fury, and Fury X are out of stock

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Rumours on 480 performance put it anywhere from GTX970/R9 390 to R9390X/Nano performance. It is at the lower end of that scale then at ~£235 it is not any better in price/perf than last gen. It in essence becomes a pointless GPU because people could have that performance per price for a while now.

I laughed at 1070 prices but at least it offers better price/perf over similar priced last gen GPUs (980/Fury). An RX 480 that is the same price and perf as an R9 390 is a total failure IMHO.

So it absolutely MUST beat 390 performance by a significant amount and I don't mean 390X performance for a whopping saving of ~£50.

TPU said 20% to 30% slower than a GTX1070 which is R9 390X to Fury level.

The GTX1070 has screwed over price/performance for this generation,so please don't try and make the price look "better" as it isn't - at £365 for the cheapest card,it is 50% to 55% more expensive than the GTX970 for 60% more performance:

https://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1070/images/perfrel_2560_1440.png

However,look at it compared to the R9 390 - 50% more for 50% to 55% more cost.

The GTX1070 is nowhere better in price performance and look at the name "70". The GTX1070 is the successor to the GTX970.

The sad thing is at R9 390X to Fury level performance,that Nitro RX480 is 10% cheaper than the R9 390 for 10% to 20% extra performance,ie, around 20% to 30% better price/performance than an R9 390 and by extension a GTX1070.

The GTX1070 price is so high,it means the AMD AIB partners need minimal adjustments in price and still an increase over the R9 380X to still make the GTX1070 look worse price/performance.

This is the issue,due to the £130 price difference,AMD AIB partners will feel no pressure to reduce prices until the GTX1060/GTX1060TI is released as the RX480 is still the fastest sub £250 and sub £300 card until then by default.

If people want to spend upto £250,until Nvidia releases the GTX1060/GTX1060TI I find it highly unlikely they will suddenly spend £130+ on a more expensive cards. This is what the AIB partners and retailers have figured and jacked the price up another £20 to £30.

The GTX1070 pricing is the issue here,and remember the UK VAT,exchange rates,retailer premium,etc applies to both cards.

I told you all this would happen,earlier in the day.

This whole new generation is fast becoming a joke.

I think for all of us,we won't get decent price/performance increases until BOTH Vega and the GP102 are released.

 

[HeX]

You mean under 150w.

It has 150W of max power draw, 75W from PCI-E slot, and 75W from the 6pin. That doesn't mean it uses all that, in fact GPU's are usually overspec'd for power draw.

It's been calculated based on the performance/watt figures AMD are quoting that it should come in very close to 100W.

 

[h4rm0ny]

R9 390 8GB can be purchased for the same price as this GPU and if 480 does not beat that by a significant amount then AMD are taking the ****. New node, better features and more power efficient or not, you do not bring out a GPU that matches performance and price of an existing GPU.

If your strategy is to release mid-range cards first and the high-end later, how could you NOT bring out a new GPU that matches the performance and price of an existing GPU? Obviously if you release the mainstream first then there's going to be an existing high-end that probably matches it on performance. And if that existing card matches it on performance, why the Hell would anyone continue to sell it at substantially more than the new card that it is no more powerful than?

Logically if a company releases mainstream first then what you end up with is a down-pricing of the existing high-end cards alongside new cards that can be matched by the old but are more efficient, have new features, etc., and a void at the high end waiting to be filled by the new generation high-end. And the previous generation vanish as stocks deplete.

You're asking for something that doesn't make logical sense if a company releases mainstream first.

Amd has basically given nvidia free reign over everything other than the low-end market and are basically going to be delivering the same kind of performance most of us have enjoyed for many years already. That's not really great for us as consumers.

Not "most". Just the minority enthusiast segment that makes up places like the OCUK forums. If it delivers that performance at this price, what it will be doing is turning high-end graphics into the mainstream.

 

[D.P.]

It has 150W of max power draw, 75W from PCI-E slot, and 75W from the 6pin. That doesn't mean it uses all that, in fact GPU's are usually overspec'd for power draw.

It's been calculated based on the performance/watt figures AMD are quoting that it should come in very close to 100W.

Firstly, 150w is actually. Min "max" power form 6pin and pcie, you can actually typically draw far more than that, not that I think the card does.

Secondly, form AMDs official figures and the estimated performance it will be closer to 150w. They claims twice the performance per watt, so 390x performance at half the power. 275/2 >> 100 w. 130w is more realistic.

 

[Seanspeed]

It's not an issue with the cards or drivers, its an issue with the testing

No, it's not. They are running the game in a 'normal' configuration as a consumer might.

If there's some issues, then it's not on DF to work around. I would bet money that if issues are found and corrected, DF will revisit the situation and do a re-test, as they have plenty of other times.

Do not blame Digital Foundry if there are issues with software/drivers, though. That is not their fault and they are not wrong to report on how performance fares for the time being.

The only people that are going to get upset over this are platform warriors who are upset at their favored brand not being represented in the best light.

 

[Mauller]

No, it's not. They are running the game in a 'normal' configuration as a consumer might.

If there's some issues, then it's not on DF to work around. I would bet money that if issues are found and corrected, DF will revisit the situation and do a re-test, as they have plenty of other times.

Do not blame Digital Foundry if there are issues with software/drivers, though. That is not their fault and they are not wrong to report on how performance fares for the time being.

The only people that are going to get upset over this are platform warriors who are upset at their favored brand not being represented in the best light.

The issue was their testing method, they did not disable the option that dynamically alters the graphical quality based on ram usage. Therefore the 970 was not running all settings at hyper while the 390 with its 8GB of ram was constantly running hyper settings.

Other sites have tested with this option disabled and cards with only 6-8GB of ram can run Hyper. Cards with less ram won't run at all with hyper enabled.

 

[SimBy]

No, it's not. They are running the game in a 'normal' configuration as a consumer might.

If there's some issues, then it's not on DF to work around. I would bet money that if issues are found and corrected, DF will revisit the situation and do a re-test, as they have plenty of other times.

Do not blame Digital Foundry if there are issues with software/drivers, though. That is not their fault and they are not wrong to report on how performance fares for the time being.

The only people that are going to get upset over this are platform warriors who are upset at their favored brand not being represented in the best light.

The only issue here is with testing methodology. If they actually used the same settings 970 would fail to run at all.

 

[HeX]

Firstly, 150w is actually. Min "max" power form 6pin and pcie, you can actually typically draw far more than that, not that I think the card does.

Secondly, form AMDs official figures and the estimated performance it will be closer to 150w. They claims twice the performance per watt, so 390x performance at half the power. 275/2 >> 100 w. 130w is more realistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#Power

150W from PCI-E + 6pin is the maximum power consumption.

They don't claim twice performance per watt, they claim 2.8x.

 

[Mauller]

Firstly, 150w is actually. Min "max" power form 6pin and pcie, you can actually typically draw far more than that, not that I think the card does.

Secondly, form AMDs official figures and the estimated performance it will be closer to 150w. They claims twice the performance per watt, so 390x performance at half the power. 275/2 >> 100 w. 130w is more realistic.

You also have to consider that the RX480 has half the number of Memory Packages compared to the 390X and a smaller bus, therefore there will be extra power saved from that alone. it might end up around 90 - 110 watt for power usage.

you can see how fewer ram packages will have a big impact on power usage since the Fury Nano uses far less power than the 390x and has greater performance. (although it is using HBM, it just shows how the memory system uses a lot of power.)

 

[henson0115]

No, it's not. They are running the game in a 'normal' configuration as a consumer might.

If there's some issues, then it's not on DF to work around. I would bet money that if issues are found and corrected, DF will revisit the situation and do a re-test, as they have plenty of other times.

Do not blame Digital Foundry if there are issues with software/drivers, though. That is not their fault and they are not wrong to report on how performance fares for the time being.

The only people that are going to get upset over this are platform warriors who are upset at their favored brand not being represented in the best light.

You might want to read up on the actual issue

 

[Lokken86]

The only issue here is with testing methodology. If they actually used the same settings 970 would fail to run at all.

They did the same with with quantum break, even though the 970 was still performing horribly, they could have crippled it completely with lighting or shaders but decided to keep it just half crippled. So obviously they weren't trying to expose an issue there.

 

[Legend]

Do we know anything about the top end 480 (X is it?) at all, or is it mostly speculation at this stage? I've been a bit blind to AMD lately, but this 1070 pricing fiasco now has me seeing RED!

 

[karik666]

Do we know anything about the top end 480 (X is it?) at all, or is it mostly speculation at this stage? I've been a bit blind to AMD lately, but this 1070 pricing fiasco now has me seeing RED!

Its all speculation for the $300 card,no one knows apart from Amd.