Radeon RX 480 "Polaris" Launched at $199

[D.P.]

Anything know if anything higher than 480 could be in the works soon? I'm guessing this wont compete with the 1070, & from what I've read it isnt really worth upgrading to 1070 from the r9 290 I have atm, especially looking at the division benchmarks, which is pretty much all I play atm.

Pretty much no rumours at all ppoht to anything significantly faster soon. There could be a 480X type card that has 40 instead of the 36 compute units enabled. A 10% theoretical boost, maybe a slight clock bump as well. That won't make it close to 1070 performance but would make that card more appealing if the price is right.

The problem is the timing. One would have expected them to announce the 480x with the 480. When will they release the 480X if it exists? To combat the nvidia 1060?

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Nice, at those prices, if it translates well to some efficiency improvements, and higher clocks/more memory, I may be tempted to grab one of these for myself, and give my R9 290 to my wife to upgrade her GTX 670 which is getting a little long in the tooth

Hopefully these turn out to be AMD's new 4870!

 

[HeX]

What this does do is effectively kill the second hand price for a 970/980!

Nice, at those prices, if it translates well to some efficiency improvements, and higher clocks/more memory, I may be tempted to grab one of these for myself, and give my R9 290 to my wife to upgrade her GTX 670 which is getting a little long in the tooth

Hopefully these turn out to be AMD's new 4870!

Exactly my plan. Mrs can have my 290, I'll grab a 480 8GB, and the 7850 can be shuffled on/kept as a spare

 

[TimAhKin]

Releases in the US for $199, in the UK that means we get it for £299 and £399 when online shops feel like ripping customers off to get the card a week early

True story. I got my 390x from OcUK for £320 and I got lucky. In US the price was similar but in $.
Also like one week later, the price was changed to £360.

I think the RX480 card will cost around £250 in UK, maybe even more for the 8gb model.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I own a couple 290Xs and a couple Fury Xs, should I be getting as angry at this for devaluing my cards as 980Ti owners were at the 1080?

I won't be getting one as they're not really high end parts but they are encouraging for what we might see from the Fury/Fury X replacements. I'm guessing 490/490X probably won't be overly exciting either, maybe 1080-ish performance?

 

[Sargatanas2511]

True story. I got my 390x from OcUK for £320 and I got lucky. In US the price was similar but in $.
Also like one week later, the price was changed to £360.

I think the RX480 card will cost around £250 in UK, maybe even more for the 8gb model.

I must have gotten really lucky. My Sapphire 390X Nitro was £300 and I am very happy with it for that.

 

[thenewoc]

Anyone from the greens got buyers remorse yet?

 

[pmc25]

As is always the case we will get screwed over here and it will be at least £250, probably closer to £300.

If retailers here collude and price gouge, everyone can just order them from the continent then. There's no way in hell the 4GB version will not be well below £200 in the big EU markets.

I suspect AMD are going to have big volume of this card (why else price it so low), so price gouging wouldn't really work anyway.

Retailers here will WANT to price the 4GB at £200, but I think pricing on the continent and pressure from AMD will tell (together with plentiful supply), and for once WE WON'T GET BENT OVER AND SHAFTED.

Anyone from the greens got buyers remorse yet?

Probably all of them, if they're going to be playing DX12 and Vulkan games. 2 x RX 480 outperforming a 1080 in AotS DX12 by 10%, for more than $200 lower MSRP, whilst at only ~50% core utilisation vs 98% for the 1080 tells you all you need to know. Once that's optimised, it's going to crucify Pascal. No wonder a couple of devs said the new Polaris architecture was vastly faster in DX12 & VR than anything on the market.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

If retailers here collude and price gouge, everyone can just order them from the continent then. There's no way in hell the 4GB version will not be well below £200 in the big EU markets.

I suspect AMD are going to have big volume of this card (why else price it so low), so price gouging wouldn't really work anyway.

Retailers here will WANT to price the 4GB at £200, but I think pricing on the continent and pressure from AMD will tell (together with plentiful supply), and for once WE WON'T GET BENT OVER AND SHAFTED.



Probably all of them, if they're going to be playing DX12 and Vulkan games. 2 x RX 480 outperforming a 1080 in AotS DX12 by 10%, for more than $200 lower MSRP, whilst at only ~50% core utilisation vs 98% for the 1080 tells you all you need to know. Once that's optimised, it's going to crucify Pascal. No wonder a couple of devs said the new Polaris architecture was vastly faster in DX12 & VR than anything on the market.

Is this the generation that we finally get Crossfire support in games?

 

[TimAhKin]

I do hope so. I really want AMD to sell the hell out of this card. In the long run it will be very good for us, the consumers.

Probably I will upgrade my GPU on the next announcement. For now I'm happy with my 390x.

I'm curious now how this card will perform. Are we really have to wait till the end of the month to actually see some benchmarks?

 

[thenewoc]

^good point, hadn't even considered the crossfire angle.

 

[pmc25]

Is this the generation that we finally get Crossfire support in games?

Split Frame Rendering was always flawed. First Mantle, then Vulkan, DX12 and LiquidVR (Mantle 2.0) allow Alternate Frame Rendering.

SFR potentially has latency, synch (tearing) and various other quality of life issues, along with being a pain in the arse to program and needing to be worked on a per game (game code and drivers) basis.

AFR has none of those issues, and it shouldn't be nearly as specific as SFR needs to be in driver and game code optimisation. Once it's in an engine, that should be it, and with very little driver support and CF / SLI profiles being a thing of the past.

Also, theoretically it scales much better than SFR beyond 2 cards.

In most DX12 and Vulkan titles (and all VR titles with LiquidVR) you should see 2 x RX 480 absolutely monstering a heavily OC'd 1080, using AFR once it's optimised.

 

[beany_bot]

I always seem to alternate between AMD and Nvidia, last moved from a 7870 to a 970. I think it's partly because every so often AMD do like to throw in a bargain of a card, Nvidia don't usually do that.

Me too. By coincidence seem to always alternate brands. Having said that though. Performance aside I do always kick myself a little when I buy nvidia... really don't care for them as a company very much at all. AMD just seem much more honest and likeable. I would rather support AMD. But at the end of the day it's frames and pounds that get my vote.

 

[Gregster]

I am curious as to why a pair of 480s were only seeing 50% GPU utilization in AMD's poster child AoTS? I would have thought it would have been better to show a single card or have I missed something?

 

[tommybhoy]

Even with **** utilization we are faster than one of them for 400 bucks???

 

[Gerard]

I am curious as to why a pair of 480s were only seeing 50% GPU utilization in AMD's poster child AoTS? I would have thought it would have been better to show a single card or have I missed something?

Just showing that for a chunk less than a 1080 you can buy a setup that has a lot of headroom to spare over the 1080 (in ideal crossfire situations at least).

 

[humbug]

I am curious as to why a pair of 480s were only seeing 50% GPU utilization in AMD's poster child AoTS? I would have thought it would have been better to show a single card or have I missed something?

Vodo marketing?

It implies more than twice the performance of 1080 so by the same token one should be faster than a 1080. the logical assessment.

Yet the reality is one isn't and the scaling while correct is using vodo maths.

Don't apply logic.

 

[siriq111]

I feel like , 970-980Ti owners will have a hard time on selling price . The AMD baby is going to be a market killer. Blood all over , Doom is a bedtime story compare to this .

 

[This never ends well]

I got a feeling vega is going to release a 2weeks befores battlefield 1 is out and bundle it with the game.

 

[Gabbatek]

tasty