Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

humbug · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:05

drunkenmaster said:
More likely that the samples have numbers/specific design on them to identify them more easily and he doesn't want to show a picture of the card with said identifying cooler on it.

They guy may have got his hands on what was supposed to be a demo sample of the board and pcb, without a cooler at all.... and thus he nabbed it and ran some benchmarks with a cooler he had available. As someone who has been to AMD events, they are frequently shown off sans cooler so people can see the PCB and core.

That makes a lot more sense.

A bit cheeky to retrofit a cooler on a PCB tech sample.

Mauller · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:06

1 hours 50 minutes left!

http://videocardz.com/61015/watch-amd-pc-gaming-show-here

humbug · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:09

Mauller said:
1 hours 50 minutes left!

Hopefully they will reveal enough tonight to put this to bed, i don't know if i can take another two weeks of speculating

D.P. · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:10

meldarthx said:
yes and no; if he's trying to not get hit by the nda - then switching the cooler out would be best way to do it if you're going to show off pictures.

No - because pretty close still getting caught and getting blacklisted for breaking nda or worse...

Regardless of the cooler he is still breaking the NDA. Maybe he wasn't under NDA, but then why not show the actual product.

Alternatively he is showing some hacked together video card but benchmark a different cards like FuryX.

1 of these options seems much more likely than the other iMO. Replacing a cooler will not go down well in court as a mans of defense.

drunkenmaster · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:12

Mauller said:
could be that Engineering samples had gimped bios to help with early leaks or to even catch out people who were leaking.

This without question happens, send out cores with slightly different clock speeds, when benches show up with such a clock speed you know which source either leaked the benches or gave the card to someone who did.

However clock speeds for AIB/OEM/devs who get early access to hardware often get a lower clock speed. When the first production cards come back and you bin them heavily, maybe they exceed or fail to match clock speeds you hoped. Now if you send out samples to devs with 1266Mhz clock speeds but to get the yield of fastest and salvaged parts you need to reduce clock speed to 1150Mhz or up voltage which raise power then they aren't as good as the samples.

The way to never have this problem is you send out downclocked samples so that you (except due to a huge mistake) never reduce performance from samples to final product but almost always improve them. Also works if leaks come out, if people leak say 80fps in Doom at whatever settings but the final cards produce 70fps everyone is disappointed, if everyone thinks it's 70fps then is pleasantly surprised by 80fps, woo.

Seanspeed · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:15

drunkenmaster said:
More likely that the samples have numbers/specific design on them to identify them more easily and he doesn't want to show a picture of the card with said identifying cooler on it.

They guy may have got his hands on what was supposed to be a demo sample of the board and pcb, without a cooler at all.... and thus he nabbed it and ran some benchmarks with a cooler he had available. As someone who has been to AMD events, they are frequently shown off sans cooler so people can see the PCB and core.

In the video of him running the benchmark, you can see the guy's face in the reflection of the monitor. Identifying him probably wouldn't be that difficult anyways, it's not like they were posted from some anonymous source.

Also, why would he even need to swap the cooler out? Obviously he's not showing the proper card in the first place, so why not just stick it in the PC and only film the benchmark taking place? As if some swapped cooler video is somehow 'proof' of anything?

I'd love to believe all this, and frankly, being just a tad faster than a 390X is exactly what I was expecting anyways, but this whole thing still raises tons of warning flags.

GFX-Kid · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:28

drunkenmaster said:
Not really, if the RX480 is the top Polaris 10 and RX 490 is Vega... I'll buy both, why?

If RX480 was priced in the same way Nvidia did 1080, like price it at $400-500 because it's premium and new, then when Vega launches the price drops to $239, it's intended final market position. If I bought 1-2 RX480's then when Vega launches I can only sell them for maybe $150, having spent $400+ on each of them and it becomes incredibly expensive with a huge loss, i the same way 980ti second hand prices just tanked...HARD.

But with RX 480 at $239, I can buy 1-2, then when Vega comes out, RX480 prices won't tank because they are already where they are supposed to be, I can sell them for $150 a piece and then buy 1-2 Vega's, having spent $70-80 per card for maybe 6 months usage, maybe more or less. I'm happy to buy a RX480, then upgrade to a Vega... without feeling ripped off by doing so.

Well said. This is the way I think too.

Nvidia have annoyed me with their greed. I will just get a single RX 480, then sell it on in ~6 months time and get a Vega, making very little loss and having two new toys in the process.

If I am to guess, this upgrade route will cost less than spending ~£600 on a 1080 and it is pretty much certain Vega will spank the 1080 with ease. Which will then tank the 1080 second hand price and leave 1080 owners in awe and out of pocket

Edit: Oh and I liked the marketing materiel that was recently released, not sure what there is to cringe about. My guess is it would make people who are nvidia fans and those who overthink this stuff cringe.

Not like it cost much to do. It's funny how a banner from AMD is cringeworthy to some, but nvidia's piscuit taking pricing is not. Lol.

finalcloud · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:30

Let the rumours be truuuue, my 7950 needs an upgrade

CapitalOne · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:32

I'm really looking forward to this - I am one of the idiots who can't resist new hardware. My 2 main PC's were Intel/Nvidia AMD/AMD for a bit of fun. The 8320 has now gone replaced by a 4790K which is bedding in nicely (and faster - YEMV) and the 8gb 290X (yes it was me that bought that) is still full of life, but I'd love to stick in a 490 or 480X or whatever if it means I can cap the FPS at 75 and really use that titchy Freesync range.

It's good to play the field.

five8five · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:32

humbug said:
Hopefully they will reveal enough tonight to put this to bed, i don't know if i can take another two weeks of speculating

I doubt it. We'll probably end up more confused

Steampunk · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:33

h4rm0ny said:
I have very strong doubts that swapping a cooler would get you out of an NDA. I suppose the wording in the NDA could contain some overlooked loophole that could be exploited like this, but would you really want to chance it?

Even if AMD didn't sue, you would get blacklisted for the future, so no more test cards or invites to launch parties. Even if you've found some loophole, you'll be breaking the spirit of the agreement.

drunkenmaster · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:42

Seanspeed said:
In the video of him running the benchmark, you can see the guy's face in the reflection of the monitor. Identifying him probably wouldn't be that difficult anyways, it's not like they were posted from some anonymous source.

Also, why would he even need to swap the cooler out? Obviously he's not showing the proper card in the first place, so why not just stick it in the PC and only film the benchmark taking place? As if some swapped cooler video is somehow 'proof' of anything?

I'd love to believe all this, and frankly, being just a tad faster than a 390X is exactly what I was expecting anyways, but this whole thing still raises tons of warning flags.

That assumes the guy in the video signed an NDA, what often happens is guys like him(if he's legit, but there are legit guys like him all over) who have a friend at an AIB like Sapphire and 'get access'. He might have absolutely zero connection to AMD, have not signed an NDA and have no issue showing who he is, but the card may be identifiable to the person he got the card from.

Another possibility is that this is a sample from 5 months ago that had a completely terrible testing cooler and nothing like a final sample cooler for it in the first place, that the test cooler was designed for low clocks/voltage and he put on something bigger to have an idea how it could perform with less throttling/bigger cooler. Could be the original cooler's fan broke, he may have whipped it out of a bin at work because the cooler died and the AIB testing it chucked it without trying to repair it as they were done with it at that point.

karik666 · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:51

The pcgamingshow isnt just about Amd,there are 20 other games companies on that show,so i dont think we will get any new info regarding polaris cards.

Hope im wrong.

Seanspeed · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:53

drunkenmaster said:
That assumes the guy in the video signed an NDA, what often happens is guys like him(if he's legit, but there are legit guys like him all over) who have a friend at an AIB like Sapphire and 'get access'. He might have absolutely zero connection to AMD, have not signed an NDA and have no issue showing who he is, but the card may be identifiable to the person he got the card from.

Another possibility is that this is a sample from 5 months ago that had a completely terrible testing cooler and nothing like a final sample cooler for it in the first place, that the test cooler was designed for low clocks/voltage and he put on something bigger to have an idea how it could perform with less throttling/bigger cooler. Could be the original cooler's fan broke, he may have whipped it out of a bin at work because the cooler died and the AIB testing it chucked it without trying to repair it as they were done with it at that point.

I'm not saying there aren't *possibilities* this is legit. I'm saying it still has plenty of warning signs for me to not treat it with anything but extreme caution.

sprite- · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:53

karik666 said:
The pcgamingshow isnt just about Amd,there are 20 other games companies on that show,so i dont think we will get any new info regarding polaris cards.

Hope im wrong.

I think what is suggesting that we may get some info is the leaks, it's an unusually long NDA when benches are leaking and rumours of AMD distributing the card.

D.P. · 13 Jun 2016 at 17:54

drunkenmaster said:
That assumes the guy in the video signed an NDA, what often happens is guys like him(if he's legit, but there are legit guys like him all over) who have a friend at an AIB like Sapphire and 'get access'. He might have absolutely zero connection to AMD, have not signed an NDA and have no issue showing who he is, but the card may be identifiable to the person he got the card from.

Another possibility is that this is a sample from 5 months ago that had a completely terrible testing cooler and nothing like a final sample cooler for it in the first place, that the test cooler was designed for low clocks/voltage and he put on something bigger to have an idea how it could perform with less throttling/bigger cooler. Could be the original cooler's fan broke, he may have whipped it out of a bin at work because the cooler died and the AIB testing it chucked it without trying to repair it as they were done with it at that point.

So then why would he lie about changing the cooler to avoid an NDA than he didn't sign.

SimBy · 13 Jun 2016 at 18:07

sprite- said:
Has this been posted?

I'm treating with a MOOOOSIVE amount of speculation on the OC figure - but geez....

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/52553...eon-rx-480-beating-geforce-gtx-980/index.html

FAKE! The OC score I mean.

d_brennen · 13 Jun 2016 at 18:11

Would this be a first if AMD had two cores in the same series number? They've always been cut/down clocked. I can't see RX490 being a whole new core, rather a full fat Polaris 10, Vega being Fury to 300 huge hundred series

drunkenmaster · 13 Jun 2016 at 18:25

D.P. said:
So then why would he lie about changing the cooler to avoid an NDA than he didn't sign.

If your mate works for an AIB, and the card leads directly back to him and he gave you the card.... you're still avoiding NDA issues by hiding the source of the card, just for his mate. You may have heard of people protecting sources before, there is a reason people do that.

drunkenmaster · 13 Jun 2016 at 18:30

d_brennen said:
Would this be a first if AMD had two cores in the same series number? They've always been cut/down clocked. I can't see RX490 being a whole new core, rather a full fat Polaris 10, Vega being Fury to 300 huge hundred series

Fury was just later than the 300 series, there was already a 390x so fitting Fury into the existing naming scheme wasn't going to happen.

I'm not sure what you mean otherwise, the 390/380 are different cores and in the same series, 5870, 5970, 5770, 5670, etc. It's usual for AMD to have all the names of usually 3 or 4 different cores within the same series. It's mostly been the prolonged 28nm that meant a few extra cores were added to the series of which not all fit into the naming scheme perfectly.

In any other series naming AMD have done a RX 490 would absolutely be a different core to a RX480, and a RX470 and a RX 460.

The same core would in previous naming schemes be RX 480, RX 480x, if they had to fit in an additional cut down part they either add it later and like a RX475(ie above the lower cores, below the higher cores), or the RX480 is the lowest salvaged part and they add a RX 480 XTX or something above it.