Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

[MrMarvelous]

Any benchmarks yet?

 

[Jono8]

Any benchmarks yet?

Only the frankly odd crossfire comparison with a 1080....on what game? Yup, you guessed it....Ashes of the Singularity.

Why they cant just say how fast it is going to be i dont know.

Not a fan of these smoke and mirrors type performance comparisons.

 

[kaku]

The stock cooler looks good - I like it!

My guess is the price will translate to a straight £199 over here; but it could still be a decent mid-range card. Show me the benchmarks!

 

[danlightbulb]

A 970 is currently around £250 and a 980 around £390. If the new card retails at £200 and equals the 970 i think that hasnt quite gone far enough. Id like to see it closer to 980 performance to be a real value for money buy.

 

[TwsT]

Only the frankly odd crossfire comparison with a 1080....on what game? Yup, you guessed it....Ashes of the Singularity.

Why they cant just say how fast it is going to be i dont know.

Not a fan of these smoke and mirrors type performance comparisons.

wasn't xfire it was just dx12 explicit gpu thingy

 

[Marine-RX179]

They just need to market it right. Which I hope they will... I remember the cringe videos AMD did a few years ago about green cards overheating... no more of that please .

I think AMD is actually pulling a very sensible move with the RX480.

AMD including hardware support for Async meaning it cost them more than Nvidia does, so even IF they shift the same volume of cards as Nvidia at the same price range at the £500 level, they still lose.

I'm guessing they are trying to build up a younger customer base targeting the relatively new comers to PC gaming, and let them try their products themselves first hand, to see they are "getting more for the money" like buying an Android phone instead of an iphone. With time these young people will have more disposable income as they get higher pay job as they get older, and they will know that they do not really have spend more money buying Nvidia that offering only similar performance, but cut corner on hardware aspect for their cards to cut cost.

 

[ToastedChip]

Hahahahahhahaha

As they say "fools and their money are easily parted" this person right here is a prime example of that.

Priceless post, please share more of your wisdom with us!

I especially like the bit about "Rebadged Fury" lmao

While you have a point about more electric and heat, the electric bit is irrelevant for most PC gamers, these cards are also much lower TDP than the previous gen, and its been proven that the added cost of electric is almost negligible.

Heat you have a point, we have no idea of Thermals, however Watercooling is a solution for many people.

You have a point with XFire as well, traditionally its been pretty horrendous for new titles, however i expect DX12 MGPU to pickup some slack where the AMD / Nvidia drivers dont, and between the Dev's and AMD / Nvidia multi GPU Support going forward should be in a better place, especially with VR in mind, as it was stated a good while ago that AMD looks at having 2 GPU as the perfect solution to VR, if they are going to market and endorse that they better well support it (yeah i know they dont support their current x2 gPu's either, but hopefully that may well change).

Anyhow, please give us more of your wisdom

Surely ive no need? You yourself just agreed with everything i said, apart from the rebadged fury .. lets face it :
$700 / £500/600 for a 1080
Or
$500 / £400 for 2 amd 400's

Rather spend the extra 100-150 and have a single card solution than hope they update their drivers and the game supports xfire.

Going on past crossfail support and driver support, i made a wise decision dx12.. amd, remember mantle? lol they say what they need to sell cards, driver support is pretty much crap.

 

[chef-borjan]

My point is for a decent experience you don't need more power. Can you get a better experience, the answer is off course yes. If these have similar tech to what the 1080 has, in some games they will give out double the fps of your 970.

The problem is that there is a very real threshold that cards must hit for VR experiences to be pleasant, rather than actually uncomfortable.

Unlike regular monitors, dipping even just a little bit below 90FPS causes actual discomfort. So its not so much a question of 'better' as a question of 'this is what is actually acceptable', even if the graphics are turned down low. I personally feel that I just man up and tolerate dropped frames on my 970, but it shouldn't be like this.

And this VR boost tech I believe has to be coded in, as with all other optimisations.

 

[Final8y]

And nowhere has this been said. It has all been rumours so far.

Spoiler

 

[SiDeards73]

Spoiler

LOL Owned

 

[shaf]

The 480 looks very interesting. If the performance is good as well as the temperature/power at the stated price then I'll upgrade to it.

 

[Catanonia]

LOL Owned

LOL yup Fair play.

As I said, it looks good and a great price. I hope it is not all hype.

 

[Smrtka]

I'll be keeping an eye on the benches for this...may get this to wait for 1080Ti

 

[SiDeards73]

Surely ive no need? You yourself just agreed with everything i said, apart from the rebadged fury .. lets face it :
$700 / £500/600 for a 1080
Or
$500 / £400 for 2 amd 400's

Rather spend the extra 100-150 and have a single card solution than hope they update their drivers and the game supports xfire.

Going on past crossfail support and driver support, i made a wise decision dx12.. amd, remember mantle? lol they say what they need to sell cards, driver support is pretty much crap.

Basically your whole argument hinges around poor Xfire support.... and as i and others have pointed out, DX12 Mgpu support is a real thing, you cannot get away from the fact that for roughly a 3rd less than you paid for your 1080 FE you can buy 2 x 480 and have higher performance, infact for roughly the same you could buy Tri-Xfire.

Yep a lot is dependant on drivers and coding etc, but going forward you are going to see a lot better support for Mgpu i bet.

Anyhow enjoy your 1080 FE lol

 

[Legend]

AMD are doing this because Nvidia pursued a different strategy and left themselves vulnerable.

"...shares of the visual computing giant [Nvidia] skyrocketed nearly 8% as investors were shocked that the company beat both earnings and revenue estimates. Nvidia reported earnings of 35 cents per share. Revenue came in at $1.4 billion."

Yeah, I feel sorry for them, poor vulnerable Nvidia LOL! I think it's a bit naive to suggest Nvidia aren't fully aware what they are doing here. There is a reason AMD have made big financial losses (although they were up a lot recently), while Nvidia have only continued to grow in strength. They both have their strengths, but Nvidia have CHOSEN not to focus on the same market as AMD, it's not like they suddenly realised they forgot to do so... they have deliberately not spread themselves too thin. AMD are doing what they are doing because they HAVE to. They cannot compete with Nvidia at the same level, so quite wisely they are not even trying. I agree the mid-level market is much bigger, but the margins tighter. Nvidia will clean up with the 1080 because they have brand power and people crave their product and are willing to pay through the nose for it.

I don't necessarily know this is a good thing however. A strong AMD is good for everyone, including Nvidia die-hards, but if they are not producing a product that challenges Nvidia's offerings, it really doesn't help that much... they'll just both continue to exist in their own separate market space, appealing to different users. I'd much rather prefer they were both in the mix with each other, trading blows across the low/mid/high/super enthusiast range of products. If they are both happy to set up camp far away from each other, it only really helps them, not us.

 

[TheRealDeal]

The problem is that there is a very real threshold that cards must hit for VR experiences to be pleasant, rather than actually uncomfortable.

Unlike regular monitors, dipping even just a little bit below 90FPS causes actual discomfort. So its not so much a question of 'better' as a question of 'this is what is actually acceptable', even if the graphics are turned down low. I personally feel that I just man up and tolerate dropped frames on my 970, but it shouldn't be like this.

And this VR boost tech I believe has to be coded in, as with all other optimisations.

Like i say i was playing on a 290x last night on a VIVE and at no point was it uncomfortable for me or my mate. We didn't monitor FPS so can't tell you what they were. We played from 7pm until 2am and at no time did any of us think we needed to lower settings. It might be that we are not effected and others might be but from my experience so far 290x level of performance gives a good experience.

 

[Seanspeed]

Current generation of VR is only 1080 x 1200 per eye max so eq of a single screen of 2160 x 1200

All the big players state you only need a 970/290 or greater to run them.

So really any gfx card capable of running at 1440p is more than enough for this generation VR.

While your last sentence is true if we're talking 1440p/40fps+ in the latest most demanding games, the actual resolution requirements for the Rift and Vive are actually more like 2600x1600. They use supersampling when dealing with the barrel distortion. And of course it needs to run at 90fps. Stereoscopically. But graphics in the vast majority of VR titles are not exactly the latest and greatest either. Deliberately.

Anyways, I still think while this will obviously help a lot more users become 'VR Ready', I also dont think the people willing to throw out $600-800 for a VR setup are the same people who dont want to spend more than $250 for a GPU. Generally speaking. What I'm hoping happens is that as VR gets more and more great content, those even with these 480's and whatnot will at least see VR as a compelling option, whereas if they still had some lesser GPU, they'd brush it off saying, "Well I couldn't even run it anyways" and dismiss it outright.

And now I wonder when Nvidia are going to roll out GP106. I think if its still a few months out, they should just go ahead and knock $100 off the 970 for the time being. I dont know how retailers sitting on stock will feel about that, but it should help them push the cards out the door at least. And then Nvidia can phase the 970 out once GP106 is out. This really seems like their only 'counter' for the 480 Nvidia can do right now. And it'd be a great move anyways. I think a 480 would still be a better option, but a 970 is hardly a bad card and those who pick one up would enjoy really good 1080p performance still.

This is good stuff from AMD. Though I'd like to see the 480X come in at less than $299.

 

[SiDeards73]

"...shares of the visual computing giant [Nvidia] skyrocketed nearly 8% as investors were shocked that the company beat both earnings and revenue estimates. Nvidia reported earnings of 35 cents per share. Revenue came in at $1.4 billion."

Yeah, I feel sorry for them, poor vulnerable Nvidia LOL! I think it's a bit naive to suggest Nvidia aren't fully aware what they are doing here. There is a reason AMD have made big financial losses (although they were up a lot recently), while Nvidia have only grown in strength. They both have their strengths, but Nvidia have CHOSEN not to focus on the same market as AMD, it's not like they suddenly realised they forgot to do so, and they have deliberately not spread themselves too thin. AMD are doing what they are doing because they HAVE to. They cannot compete with Nvidia at the same level, so quite wisely they are not even trying. I agree the mid-level market is much bigger, but the margins tighter. Nvidia will clean up with the 1080 because they have brand power and people crave their product and are willing to pay through the nose for it.

I don't necessarily know this is a good thing. A strong AMD is good for everyone, including Nvidia die-hards, but if they are not producing a product that challenges Nvidia's offerings, it really doesn't help that much... they'll just both continue to exist in their own separate market space, appealing to different users. I'd much rather prefer they were both in the mix with each other, trading blows across the low/mid/high/super enthusiast range of products. If they are both happy to set up camp far away from each other, it only really helps them, not us.

While were on the subject of stock prices, i read a day or so ago someone bought 4.4 Million $ worth of AMD Stock in the past 2 days. Someone knows something we dont

 

[tommybhoy]

And nowhere has this been said. It has all been rumours so far.

It's called Affinity mgpu, 1/2 gpu's per eye, it isn't running 'vanilla' CrossFire as we know it.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

"...shares of the visual computing giant [Nvidia] skyrocketed nearly 8% as investors were shocked that the company beat both earnings and revenue estimates. Nvidia reported earnings of 35 cents per share. Revenue came in at $1.4 billion."

Yeah, I feel sorry for them, poor vulnerable Nvidia LOL! I think it's a bit naive to suggest Nvidia aren't fully aware what they are doing here. There is a reason AMD have made big financial losses (although they were up a lot recently), while Nvidia have only continued to grow in strength. They both have their strengths, but Nvidia have CHOSEN not to focus on the same market as AMD, it's not like they suddenly realised they forgot to do so... they have deliberately not spread themselves too thin. AMD are doing what they are doing because they HAVE to. They cannot compete with Nvidia at the same level, so quite wisely they are not even trying. I agree the mid-level market is much bigger, but the margins tighter. Nvidia will clean up with the 1080 because they have brand power and people crave their product and are willing to pay through the nose for it.

I don't necessarily know this is a good thing. A strong AMD is good for everyone, including Nvidia die-hards, but if they are not producing a product that challenges Nvidia's offerings, it really doesn't help that much... they'll just both continue to exist in their own separate market space, appealing to different users. I'd much rather prefer they were both in the mix with each other, trading blows across the low/mid/high/super enthusiast range of products. If they are both happy to set up camp far away from each other, it only really helps them, not us.

AMD is competing - it is called Vega and I suspect it is delayed due to the usage of HBM2 which will be the limiting factor for volume.